But even Najaf and Karbala only receive a moderate rating for security.In all, six of the 18 provinces are described as stable from a security perspective, local government is said to be working in five and economic development is taking place in three.The conflict’s key players* GEORGE BUSH:Once a president with 80 per cent approval ratings after responding to the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US with wars in Afghanistan and later Iraq. Now in his second term, Bush’s latest ratings (36 per cent) look more like Nixon at his nadir.TONY BLAIR:Buoyed by the successful Kosovo intervention and keen to cement his place in history, Blair chose to join America’s invasion of Iraq. His uncompromising support of US foreign policy has seen him lose the trust of close allies.GRAND AYATOLLAH ALI SISTANI:Supreme leader of Iraq’s Shia majority, Ali Sistani encouraged the separation of religion and politics until the war and its aftermath made him one of Iraq’s most important political and religious figures.MUQTADA AL SADR:A middle-ranking Shia cleric before the war, Muqtada al-Sadr is now one of Iraq’s most powerful figures as the commander of the Mehdi Army militia and the de facto leader of Baghdad’s Shia slum Sadr city.ABU MUSAB AL ZARQAWI:Once a relatively low-level Islamist militant wanted by Jordan on terror charges, Zarqawi slipped into Iraq on the eve of war to direct Arab fighters and become one of the world’s most wanted terrorists. Washington has a $25m (£14m) bounty on his head.SADDAM HUSSEIN:The former president of Iraq seems a different person since he was dragged from his hiding place in December 2003. Far from beaten, Saddam has maintained a formidable presence throughout his trial. Genocide charges have now been laid.DONALD RUMSFELD:The neocon and most prominent public advocate of the Bush administration’s ”war on terror” has found even some of his most hawkish allies criticising the way the Pentagon has handled the war in Iraq.
Despite increasing calls for his resignation, Rumsfeld’s closeness to the Bush family means it is unlikely the Secretary of Defence will step down.. Police in Nepal opened fire on protesters demonstrating against the rule of the king, killing at least three. Thousands of Nepalis had defied a curfew in Kathmandu and other cities and took to the streets to demand King Gyanendra give up the absolute powers he seized last year. Anyone breaking the curfew would be shot on sight on sight, police had warned Opposition parties announced a one-day general strike and said protest rallies against the King would continue indefinitely.
For the first time, the protests are being openly supported by the Maoist rebels who have fought a 19-year civil war with the government, and control large areas of the country.”We are not afraid of bullets,” one of the protesters, Prajwal Sharma, said “We have to get democracy at any cost and we will get it. People are taking over district towns and we will take over Kathmandu.”In the tourist resort town of Pokhara, thousands of protesters tried to storm a hospital where the body of a man killed when police opened fire on demonstrators was being held.In the southern town of Bharatpur, 2,000 protesters attacked police with stones after a woman shot earlier died from her wounds.
but he became a much better cook.”Veronica Lario has also chosen to create a life for herself and her three children, an oasis of calm and of slightly fusty alternative ideas, light years away from the frenetic yet conventional world of her husband.Ms Lario has never opened her doors to Hello! but telling details have seeped out. I wanted to continue living in Bologna when Romano worked in Rome and Brussels.. It was a sacrifice, but our family life remained intact.. In Brussels Romano often complained about my absence… Flavia Franzoni, wife of Romano Prodi, will remain as discreet and invisible as Berlusconi’s wife Veronica Lario has been during her husband’s five years in power. Partly that is the southern European way: the Anglo-American habit of parading the wife and children strikes people in the south as a bit naff, and insulting to the woman, dangled as a prestigious, grinning appendage.
But it is also a reflection of the nature of the two women whose men are (if the opinion polls can be believed) about to change places.On the surface, they could not be more different, these two wives: Veronica, the former star of horror films, the voluptuous blonde with the bee-stung lips whose bared breasts in a play called The Magnificent Cuckold prompted the budding tycoon to go backstage and plight his troth and, shortly afterwards, move her into a flat next to his office (he was already married with two children); and Flavia Franzoni, the brunette with large, droll eyes and imperious eyebrows, the woman who has known Prodi since childhood, an economics expert like him, and described as his closest political adviser.Yet they also have a surprising number of things in common. If Romano Prodi replaces Silvio Berlusconi as prime minister of Italy this week, one thing will not change: the Italian premier will be a man on his own.
Wife, children, grandchildren will remain not merely in the background but hundreds of miles away. Slagin Parakatil, a senior researcher at Mercer said: “The standard of living in many eastern European cities is gradually improving as the countries that most recently joined the EU attract greater investment.” Not surprisingly, Baghdad was deemed the worst place to live in, closely followed by Brazzaville in the Republic of the Congo, a city scarred by years of civil war where many houses are in ruins and electricity and water supplies are erratic. Researchers also found a rise in living standards in the capitals of those eastern European states that recently joined the EU with Ljubljana, Vilnius and Tallinn all improving. Germany and Switzerland dominate the table with three contenders each in the top 10. Zurich, Geneva, Bern, Frankfurt, D?ldorf and Munich accounted for six of the top 10 entries alone.