Tag Archives: president

In Africa, the Death of a Big Man Is Reminder of Continent’s Worst Excesses

As Gabon begins a month of mourning and condolences pour in for President Omar Bongo, the world’s longest serving President, who died on Monday at 73 in his 42nd year in power, it’s worth remembering that Bongo was precisely the kind of leader Gabon, and Africa, could have done without. Gabon has a tiny population and vast oil reserves, and after four decades of exporting hundreds of billions of dollars of crude, the biggest testament to the corruption and ineptitude of Bongo’s rule is that he somehow contrived not to turn his country into an African Kuwait. A third of all Gabonese still live on less than $2 a day, and as the oil fields begin to dry up, Bongo’s subjects are facing up to the reality that he sacrificed the country’s future to fund his own fantastically opulent lifestyle.

Hizballah After Lebanon’s Election: Down But Hardly Out

The temptation to make too much of Hizballah’s failure to unseat Lebanon’s Western-backed government in Sunday’s election is obvious. For past three years, the Shi’ite Islamist movement has been on a roll, withstanding an Israeli invasion, then paralyzing the U.S.-backed government, eventually humiliating its militias in a street confrontation, in the process winning veto power over cabinet decisions. Many had feared that the election would see the Iran-backed movement lead an opposition coalition to victory.

Visiting Gadhafi stokes protests in Rome

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi arrived in Rome Wednesday for a historic — and controversial — first visit to the capital of Italy, Libya’s former colonial master. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi greeted the former pariah at Rome’s Ciampino airport, with tight security in the city. Gadhafi met President Giorgio Napolitano Wednesday, afterwards declaring: “Today’s Italy is not the same one of the past.

Most dangerous search terms on the Internet

If you like to search for "music lyrics" or "free" things, you are engaging in risky cyber behavior. And "free music downloads" puts 20 percent of Web surfers in harm’s way of malicious software, known as "malware." A new research report by U.S.-based antivirus software company McAfee has identified the most dangerous Internet search words that places users on pages with a higher likelihood of malware. The study examined 2,600 popular keywords on five major search engines — Google, Yahoo, Live, AOL and Ask — and analyzed 413,000 Web pages.

Obama proposes making ‘pay-as-you-go’ the law

President Obama on Tuesday proposed making "pay-as-you-go" rules for federal spending into law. The so-called PAYGO proposal requires Congress to balance any increased spending by equal savings elsewhere, Obama said in announcing the measure that now goes to Congress. A previous PAYGO mandate helped erase federal budget deficits in the 1990s, and subsequent ineffective rules contributed to the current budget deficits, Obama said

Palin center of attention at big GOP dinner

Newt Gingrich was the keynote speaker at Monday night’s fundraising dinner for the Senate and House Republican campaign committees, but it was Sarah Palin who stole the show. The Alaska governor’s last-minute appearance at the GOP’s biggest fundraiser of the year ended 24 hours of speculation that the she might skip the event. A late attempt to have her speak at the dinner fell through when organizers feared she might upstage Gingrich, the onetime House speaker.

High court rejects lawsuit over gays in military law

A former Army captain who was dismissed under a federal law dealing with gays and lesbians in the military lost his appeal Monday at the U.S. Supreme Court. James Pietrangelo and 11 other veterans had sued the government over the “don’t ask/ don’t tell” law passed in 1993