Afghanistan is an Islamic republic headed by
President Hamid Karzai
- He
emerged as a resistance leader under Taliban rule and worked to undermine
the regime.
- He
is well versed in several languages, including his native Peshto, Persian,
Hindi, French and English.
- Several times in
2001, Karzai warned the United States that the Taliban were connected with
al Qaeda and that there was a plot for an imminent attack on the United
States, but his warnings went unheeded.
Brazil is a federal
republic headed by President Dilma Rousseff
- She opposed Brazil’s military
dictatorship of the 1960s and ‘70s, and served three years in prison,
where she was repeatedly tortured.
- She
has been divorced twice.
- She
has a degree in economics, and now rules the country with the
eighth-biggest economy in the world.
- She underwent
chemotherapy for lymphoma in 2009, and is now in remission.
China is a communist state, ruled by President Xi Jinping
·
Xi Jinping is the son of revolutionary veteran Xi
Zhongxun, one of the Communist Party's founding fathers.
·
He married folk singer Peng Liyuan, who also holds
the rank of army general, in 1987. To many in China, Ms. Peng was the
better-known half of the couple before Xi Jinping became leader of the
Communist Party.
·
The couple have a daughter named Xi Mingze, who is
studying at Harvard University in the US.
France is a republic headed by Francois Hollande
- Hollande
has no previous experience in a national government position.
- The
mother of his four children is Ségolène Royal, with whom he shared a
30-year relationship.
- He
was born in 1954 in the city of Rouen to an extreme-right physician father
and progressive social worker mother.
Germany is a federal republic headed by
President Joachim Gauck
and Chancellor Angela Merkel
- Graduated from
University of Leipzig in 1978 with a degree in physics and physical
chemistry; earned a PhD in quantum chemistry from the German Academy of
Sciences in Berlin in 1986
- Has been Chancellor since November
2005
- Merkel
has earned the top spot on the FORBES list of Most Powerful Women In The
World for eight of the past 10 years.
India is a federal republic headed by
President Pranab
Mukherjee
- He taught Political Science at the
Vidiyanagar College, and worked as a journalist before entering politics.
- Mukherjee was
rated as one of the best finance ministers of the world in 1984 and was
adjudged the best parliamentarian in 1997.
- He had a conflict
with Rajiv Gandhi (who took over as Prime Minister from his mother Indira
after she was assassinated in 1984) and started his own party – Rashtriya
Samajwadi Congress.
Iran is a theocratic republic, ruled by Supreme
Leader Ali Hoseini-Khamenei, and President Hasan Fereidun Ruhani
- In
1963, took part in street protests against the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran.
After the uprising was quashed, Khamenei was exiled. Khamenei was
imprisoned multiple times and, in 1975, was internally exiled to a remote
region in southeastern Iran.
- Was
elected President of Iran in 1981 and re-elected in 1985. Became
Iran’s Supreme Leader in 1989.
· Mr Rouhani has held several parliamentary posts, including deputy
speaker and has also served on the Supreme National Security Council.
·
· Was just elected President of Iran - June 2013
·
· He has been openly critical of the outgoing president, saying Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's "careless, uncalculated and unstudied remarks" have
cost the country dearly.
Israel is a parliamentary democracy,
headed by
President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
- Shimon
Peres was born in Belarus. To escape the persecution of Jews there, the
family fled to Palestine in 1934.
- When
Arab forces launched their attack on the new state of Israel in 1948,
Peres was given the chief responsibility for securing military equipment
for Israel from abroad.
- Later
he organized Israel's nuclear program and is regarded as the father of
Israel's atomic bomb.
- As Israel's
Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres was in charge of the Israeli
negotiations during peace talks with the Palestinians. In the autumn
of 1994 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with his own Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
·
As a child and youth he lived with his family in
the US in the years 1956-58 and again in 1963-67
·
After his brother Jonathan (Yonni) was killed, in
July 1976, in the course of the Entebbe Operation, of which he was one of the
commanders, Netanyahu returned to Israel and started to advocate international
cooperation in fighting terrorism.
·
Quote: "There are those who say that if the
Holocaust had not occurred, the State of Israel would never have been
established. But I say that if the State of Israel would have been established
earlier, the Holocaust would not have occurred."
Mexico is a federal republic
headed by President
Enrique Pena Nieto.
- He was the eldest
of four siblings in a middle-class family; his father, Gilberto Enrique
Peña del Mazo, was an engineer for the electric company and his mother,
María del Socorro Nieto, a schoolteacher.
- Reports
that he fathered two children in extramarital affairs while his wife
Monica raised the couple’s 3 children, plus the investigation into the
sudden death of his wife at home in 2007, have prompted many to call him
the Teflon candidate because trouble seems to slide off him.
- Two years later
he announced his engagement to soap opera actress Angelica Rivera.
Rivera became his wife in a star-studded wedding ceremony two years
ago and is now the first lady of Mexico.
Saudi
Arabia is a kingdom ruled by
Abdallah
bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud,
who is both King and Prime Minister.
· He has fathered 22 children, the youngest when he was 79.
·
He is worth approximately 21 billion dollars.
·
He was appointed commander of the Saudi Arabian
National Guard, a post he was still holding when he became king.
·
In November 2007, King Abdullah visited Pope Benedict in the Apostolic Palace. He is the first Saudi monarch to visit the
Pope. In March 2008, he called for a “brotherly
and sincere dialogue between believers from all religions.”
·
In 2011 he granted women the right to vote and
run in future municipal elections, the biggest change in a decade for women in
a puritanical kingdom that practices strict separation of the sexes, including
banning women from driving (the only country in the world with such a ban).
The
United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and Commonwealth realm,
ruled by
Prime Minister David Cameron and Queen Elizabeth II
- At
the age of seven, the young Cameron was packed off to Heatherdown, a
highly exclusive preparatory school, which counted Princes Edward and
Andrew among its pupils. Then, following in the family tradition, came
Eton, Britain’s top private school.
- His first child,
Ivan, who was born profoundly disabled and needed round the clock care,
died in February 2009.
- The experience of
caring for Ivan and witnessing at first hand the dedication of NHS
hospital staff, is said by friends to have broadened Mr Cameron's
horizons. He had, friends say, led an almost charmed life to that point.
- Cameron
is the youngest Prime Minister (43 when he took office) in over 200 years.
- Elizabeth became
queen on February 6, 1952, and was crowned on June 2, 1953. Her
reign has lasted 60 years - and counting.
Venezuela is a federal republic headed by President Nicolas Maduro
Moros
·
Nicolás Maduro Moros worked as a bus driver before
becoming politically active in the early 1990s.
·
Maduro was introduced to Hugo Chávez in 1992, after
Chávez and other disenchanted members of the military were imprisoned for an
attempted coup and Maduro began campaigning for Chávez's release. (Chávez
was released in 1994 and won election to the presidency four years later.)
- After
President Chávez won a third term in October 2012, he selected Maduro to
serve as vice president. Maduro worked alongside the outspoken president,
serving as one of his closest advisers as well as a loyal spokesman, until
Chávez's death at 58 on March 5, 2013, from cancer.
