When Obama comes to London...
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Japan = Taro Aso. Age 68.
Conservative. Latest in a rapidly rotating line-up of ineffectual leaders he has single-digit approval ratings and is effectively just a caretaker until the coming elections. He is the wealthy scion of a family that owns a concrete conglomerate (at the centre of a current ww2 forced labour controversy) and grand-son of a previous prime minister. Well-travelled, western-educated, fluent in English and Portugese, known for dapper suits, a boisterous charm and a love of manga comic books he is a former Olympic skeet shooter. However he is also an outspoken nationalist and gaffe-prone including calling China a "considerable threat". Of course as Japan is the second largest holder of U.S. Treasury bonds after China and home to 50,000 U.S. military personnel none of this actually matters at all.
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
No, there was never a rumour of this type, no siree...
Shippou-Sensei
4:1:2.5
Japan = Taro Aso. Age 68.
Conservative. Latest in a rapidly rotating line-up of ineffectual leaders he has single-digit approval ratings and is effectively just a caretaker until the coming elections. He is the wealthy scion of a family that owns a concrete conglomerate (at the centre of a current ww2 forced labour controversy) and grand-son of a previous prime minister. Well-travelled, western-educated, fluent in English and Portugese, known for dapper suits, a boisterous charm and a love of manga comic books he is a former Olympic skeet shooter. However he is also an outspoken nationalist and gaffe-prone including calling China a "considerable threat". Of course as Japan is the second largest holder of U.S. Treasury bonds after China and home to 50,000 U.S. military personnel none of this actually matters at all.
any man who reads pach-pit is ok in my books
Australia = Kevin Michael Rudd. aged 51
Centre left. A self-styled "kid from the country of no particular means and of no political pedigree" he grew up on a dairy farm where he developed his life-long love of horse riding and shooting clay targets. He is a committed christian, former diplomatic-service in Sweden and China, then civil servant and 'china consultant', proficient in Mandarin.
You can catch him on myspace, flickr and youtube where he proves he actually is "normal" person:
In office he signed Australia up to Kyoto finally, made a national apology to Indigenous Australians, gave more same-sex relationship rights (but is opposed to same-sex marriage) and some softening of immigration laws, but has disappointed many progressives.
Quote: "...the great neo-liberal experiment of the past 30 years has failed ... ironically, it now falls to social democracy to prevent liberal capitalism from cannibalising itself."... he then called for a new era of "social capitalism" from social democrats such as himself and President Obama.
in favour of Australia's military presence in Afghanistan with about 1000 troops there
make sure he gets some of that toad-in-the-hole shit
Karamazov#1
Good, Bad and Ugly
I'll be in Germany. Though i wouldn't bother turning up anyway done my share of wandering around in a circle with some SWP twunt trying to tell me which way to walk. That lot are worse than the coppers.
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
There was none I can tell you, certainly none involving a well known TV star as a possible host...
Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa. age 54.
Conservative. Son of an aristocratic Hungarian immigrant father (who left the family when he was 4) and French-Greek-Sephardic-Jewish mother, he grew up in one of the wealthiest parts of Paris. Of small stature (5'5"), not an exceptional student (law and business) or well-off compared to his peer group, he was determined to prove himself. Briefly a lawyer then 20 years as mayor of the wealthy Neuilly-sur-Seine - he created his image as a populist hardline Minister of the Interior, with a "tough on crime" zero-tolerance image. In 2005 Sarkozy was accused of having provoked civil unrest by calling young delinquents from housing projects "rabble" ("racaille") and "trash" and suggested cleaning out the banlieues with a Kärcher (a well-known brand of high pressure water cleaners). He is known as a charismatic and skilled orator, having extensive links with businesses, being pro-U.S and in favour of economic neo-liberalism.
In the other hand he has advocated same-sex civil unions and legal rights (although opposed to same-sex marriage), appointed 4 ministers from the left and 7 women to the cabinet and as EU president took the initiative on tougher carbon targets. More recently he is quoted as declaring that "laissez-faire capitalism is over" and denouncing the "dictatorship of the market ... Have I become socialist? Perhaps.", pledging to create 100,000 state-subsidised jobs.
“President Bling-Bling” is reported as text-messaging while in an audience with the pope and to have a taste for Lionel Ritchie and Celine Dion. With three kids from previous marriages, in 2007 he met Italian model-turned-singer Carla Bruni and soon married.
On sale now:
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
Jerry Garcia.
I have the Grateful Dead on right now.
I have the Grateful Dead on right now.
smoking ban is lifted for G20 world leaders
...I will try and identify the smokers / non-smokers
so far:
Merkel: "former pack-a-day" *
Obama: "the occasional cigarette" *
Zapatero: "is reportedly partial to the harsh tobacco that Spaniards call "negro", of which Ducados is the best-known brand"... has got in trouble before about lighting up at work! *
"used to be quite a compulsive smoker in his University years but now he has lowered down to a few cigarettes a day" *
Balkenende: "wants to ban coffeeshops" * a "long term goal"*
I better put him, down as a non-smoker / don't know
...I will try and identify the smokers / non-smokers
so far:
Merkel: "former pack-a-day" *
Obama: "the occasional cigarette" *
Zapatero: "is reportedly partial to the harsh tobacco that Spaniards call "negro", of which Ducados is the best-known brand"... has got in trouble before about lighting up at work! *
"used to be quite a compulsive smoker in his University years but now he has lowered down to a few cigarettes a day" *
Balkenende: "wants to ban coffeeshops" * a "long term goal"*
I better put him, down as a non-smoker / don't know
Brazil = Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. age 63.
The burly, hirsute figure, deep voiced with a slight lisp, excitable, voluble and charismatic - 'the poor peasant lad who has made good and wants everyone to know it', was - like sarkozy - abandoned by his father at an early age. A Sao Paulo street vendor age 7, dry cleaner age 12 and factory metal worker aged 14 - where he got involved in trade union activism and lost the little finger of his left hand. He became so well known by his nickname 'Lula' (lit. squid) that he made it legally part of his name so as to be allowed to put it on voting forms. By his 30s he was a fiery labor-union leader becoming a national figure after organising major strikes in 1979 and 1980 in the face of repression by the military government. He then was a founder member of the left-wing/progressive Workers' Party, winning a seat in Congress on a platform of workers' rights and land redistribution. He was respected for his principles, organisational and negotiating skills, down to earth style and affable personality rather than oratory. Over the next 20 years, after several failed attempts at the Presidency his platform became more reformist/social democratic, finally winning in 2002. He has won praise for his progressive social programs aimed at the poorest combined with more conservative economic policies that have calmed market nerves about him and a pragmatic foreign policy acting as a negotiator between Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, the US and others.
Possibly the most popular of all the G20 leaders, with 84% approval ratings, he has managed to avoid the worst fall out from Workers' Party corruption scandals and the disaffection of some ersewhile socialist and environmentalist supporters and was reelected in 2006. His chief current concerns are a risk of a decrease in investment and lending going to Brazil, seeking a permanent place for Brazil on the UN Security Council and in trade talks, for the US to allow better access for Brazilian agricultural products including ethanol biofuel. Ever the pragmatist he sees continued growth as enabling the social programmes.
"The big revolts don't come from the hungry," Mr. da Silva said. "They come from the middle class, which has learned to live well, and doesn't want to lose it."
nb. a private smoker who has also spoken against a Brazilian 'enclosed public space' smoking ban.
14m. doc. 2002.
(next up: Silvio Berlusconi)
DownwardDog
Well-Known Member
Rogues gallery continued... (aka the invisible basketball game)
That's a decent set on the alte schachtel and must therefore be 'shopped.
Argentina = Cristina Fernández de Kirchner
"The President has a reputation for being late at international meetings. To name a few, her late arrival to the highly-prestigious G-20 summit in Washington in November 2008 caused the leaders to pose again for the official picture and was publicized thoroughly by the press. She was also late for the V Summit of Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union in Lima in May 2008 and during her last visit to Spain where Cristina got 40 minutes late to a dinner given by the King of Spain in her honour at the Zarzuela Palace. The president was also late for a meeting during a State Visit to Argentina of the Queen of the Netherlands and the Crown Princely couple and to the XXXVI Summit of the Mercosur at the Brazilian town of Costa do Sauípe. She “suffered” a “considerable” delay to a meeting with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet in Punta Arenas. At the II Summit of Arab-South American World Leaders celebrated in Qatar, Cristina decided not to pose for the picture and broke protocol rules for the 5th time in the year. This type of behaviour got a high incidence in the Argentinian media" wiki
indeed....i saw it on CNN
