Ayatullah Ali Khamenei: Iran’s Supreme Leader

Observers with a working knowledge of Iranian politics have largely been able to shrug off President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s bluster and bullying, knowing the diminutive President must still answer to a far more powerful figure: Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei. Since 1989, the shadowy cleric — a former president himself — has sat at the apex of Iran’s complex hierarchy as the final word in all political and religious matters.

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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.

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Cambodia’s long road to justice

Norng Chan Phal ran through the notorious Khmer Rouge prison S-21 in the Cambodian capital as a 9-year-old boy, frantically looking for his mother after their torturers had fled from advancing Vietnamese troops in 1979. He didn’t find his mother, but what he did see made him hide under a pile of clothes with other children for days in the prison. “I was shocked when I saw the bodies — I was thinking maybe my mother was killed like this as well and I ran back to hide with the other kids,” he told CNN

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Thai anti-government protesters picket summit

Hundreds of anti-government protesters amassed outside a hotel hosting a major Asian summit as they continued their demand Friday for Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to step down. Some of the protesters and police engaged in shoving and shouting matches outside the Royal Cliff Beach Hotel in the beach resort city of Pattaya. But the demonstrations have been without incident otherwise.

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Cambodian war crimes court in corruption probe

A joint Cambodian-United Nations court, currently trying five former members of the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge group on war crimes charges, is itself facing allegations of corruption and bribery. Two employees of the court’s Office of Administration told CNN of an ongoing kickback scheme involving Cambodian staff. The staffers asked their identities be protected out of fear of retribution to themselves and their families.

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Suicide bomber kills 11 in Pakistan

A suicide blast in Pakistan’s violence-plagued tribal region killed 11 people Thursday, police said. The trial is the first for a former head of state in Taiwan. Chen has denied wrongdoing and has said the charges are politically motivated

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