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.
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.
