Ramush Haradinaj

Ramush Haradinaj (born 3 July 1968) is a Kosovo-Albanian politician, a former officer and leader of the paramilitary organization, the Kosovo Liberation Army (UÇK), and the former prime minister of the disputed Kosovo (2005). He leads the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) party. 

 

Following the dissolution of Yugoslavia and internal warfare, Haradinaj was among former UÇK officers charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) with war crimes and crimes against humanity against Serbs, Roma and Albanians before and during the 1999 Kosovo War. He was acquitted of all charges on 3 April 2008. The prosecution appeal in 2010, based on intimidation of many witnesses, led to a partial retrial in The Hague, Netherlands. Throughout the full trial and appeal process, 19 potential witnesses died in mysterious circumstances. The international court found that many of the crimes described by the prosecution had taken place, but concluded that the prosecution had not provided sufficient "direct evidence" to prove Haradinaj′s participation.[6] On 29 November 2012, Haradinaj and his co-defendant were acquitted again on all charges, on lack of evidence.

From: www.wikipedia.org

Borut Pahor

Borut Pahor (born 2 November 1963) is a Slovenian politician who was Prime Minister of Slovenia from 2008 to 2012. He was elected as President of Slovenia in December 2012. 

A longtime president of the Social Democrats party, Pahor served several terms as a member of the National Assembly and was its chairman from 2000 to 2004. In 2004, Pahor was elected as member of the European Parliament. Following the victory of the Social Democrats in the 2008 parliamentary election, Pahor was appointed as Prime Minister.

 

In September 2011, Pahor's government lost a confidence vote amidst an economic crisis and political tensions. He continued to serve as the pro tempore Prime Minister until he was replaced by Janez Janša in February 2012. In June 2012, he announced he would run for the largely ceremonial office of President of Slovenia. He won the election and defeated President Danilo Türk in a second round of voting, held on 2 December 2012; he received roughly two-thirds of the vote 

Early Years

Pahor was born in Postojna, SR Slovenia (in the former Yugoslavia) and spent his childhood in the town of Nova Gorica on the border with Italy, before moving to the nearby town of Šempeter pri Gorici. He attended Nova Gorica Grammar School, and in 1983 he enrolled to the University of Ljubljana, where he studied public policy and political science at the Faculty of Sociology, Political Science and Journalism (FSPN, now known as Faculty for Social Sciences, FDV). He graduated in 1987 with a thesis on peace negotiations between members of the Non-Aligned Movement. His B.A. thesis was awarded the Student Prešeren Award, the highest academic award for students in Slovenia. According to the Slovenian press, Pahor worked as a male model to pay for his university studies.

 

From: www.wikipedia.org

 

Enrique Peña Nieto

Enrique Peña Nieto (born 20 July 1966) is the 57th and current President of Mexico. He is a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the former governor of the State of Mexico from 2005 to 2011. Peña Nieto was declared President-elect after the Mexican general election was declared valid by the Federal Electoral Tribunal. He assumed the office on 1 December 2012, succeeding Felipe Calderón as President of Mexico, thereby marking the return to power of the party that ruled Mexican politics for 71 consecutive years.

 

Peña Nieto had announced his presidential candidacy in September 2011, four days after leaving office as governor, formally registering in November of the same year. With only 38% of the votes and without a legislative majority, Peña Nieto marked the return of the PRI after a twelve-year hiatus on 2 July 2012, a party that had governed Mexico uninterrupted for 71 years until it was defeated by the National Action Party (PAN) in the year 2000.

The return of the PRI was not welcomed by everyone. Marches against Peña Nieto drew thousands of people across Mexico, particularly from the Yo Soy 132 student movement, who protested supposed voting irregularities and alleged media bias. Others protested that during its time in power, the PRI became a symbol of corruption, repression, economic mismanagement, and electoral fraud, and many Mexicans and urban dwellers are worried that its return may signify a return to Mexico's past. Nonetheless, Peña Nieto has denied such accusations, and promised that his government will be much more democratic, modern, and open to criticism. He also pledged that he will continue to fight organized crime and that there will be no pacts with the criminals. 

The rule of the PAN, which was unable to pass reforms because it lacked a congressional majority, along with the idea that the PRI "knows how to govern" and how to manage the drug cartels, was compelling enough for many voters to cast their vote for Peña Nieto. Throughout the election, he maintained a wide lead in the polls. Peña Nieto proposed that he will reinvigorate Mexico's economy, permit the national oil company, Pemex, to compete in the private sector, and reduce drug violence that has left more than 55,000 dead in six years.

From: www.wikipedia.org

Ahmad Mouaz Al-Khatib

Ahmad Mouaz Al-Khatib Al-Hasani (Arabic: أحمد معاذ الخطيب‎, born 1960) is the President of the National Coalition for Opposition Forces and the Syrian Revolution. He is a former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.
 

Al-Khatib originally studied applied geophysics and worked as an engineer for six years. He is a member of the Syrian Geological Society and the Syrian Society for Psychological Science. He was previously President and remains Honorary President of the Islamic Society of Urbanization.

Early Life and Career

Born in 1960, Khatib comes from a well-known Sunni Muslim Damascene family. His father, Sheikh Mohammed Abu al-Faraj al-Khatib, was a prominent Islamic scholar and preacher.
 

Khatib originally studied geophysics. He spent six years working as an engineer. He is also a member of the Syrian Geological Society and the Syrian Society for Psychological Science, and was president of the Islamic Society of Urbanization. His status as the former imam makes him a key figure in Syria's religious establishment.

He later became prominent as an Islamic preacher, and became the preacher of the Umayyad Mosque in the early 1990s. After he was banned from preaching during the rule of Mr Assad's father, the late Hafez al-Assad, Khatib began to teach Islam secretly.

Khatib also established the Islamic Civilization Society, and taught Sharia (Islamic Law) at the Sheikh Badr al-Din al-Husni Institute in Damascus, and Daawa (Call to Islam) at the Tahzib Institute for Sharia Sciences. He traveled internationally to teach including Bosnia-Hercegovina, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Turkey, the UK and the USA. 
 

The Syrian journalist and writer Rana Kabbani, a long time friend of Khatib, said "Over the years, we have had a very intense political conversation about what needed to be done in Syria, long discussions about what was wrong with the society and what could be done about it. He was my window into Syria at a time when I couldn't physically go there." Kabbani continued to say"He comes from an area in the old city of Damascus, a part of the city that was noted for its advocacy against French colonialists, producing freedom fighters. It was a traditional Damascene Muslim scene, a devout Sunni area with a long history of resistance. "He cared very deeply about the victims of the 1982 massacre [in the Syrian city of Hama]. He was always seeking for ways to house or educate those [survivors] that the state wanted killed or banished."

From: www.wikipedia.org

Mladen Markač

Mladen Markač (born 8 May 1955) is a Croatian retired general. He was a Commander of Croatian Special Police during Operation Storm during the Croatian War of Independence (1991–1995), and afterwards held the rank of Colonel General. Later, he was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes committed during Operation Storm by Croatian forces against the Serbs from Croatia. In April 2011, the ICTY found him guilty and sentenced him to 18 years. On 16 November 2012, he was found not guilty on all charges by the appeals panel at the ICTY, and immediately set free. A government plane flew him home, where he received a hero's welcome across all of Croatia.

Early Life and Career

Mladen Markač was born in 1955 in Đurđevac, in the Republic of Croatia, then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). In 1981, he graduated from the University of Zagreb, and in 1982, he completed his compulsory military service. He then joined the police force of the SFRY Ministry of the Interior.

In 1990, Markač and others established a police unit for special tasks in the Ministry of the Interior. He was appointed Deputy Commander and in late 1990, this unit became the Lučko Anti-Terrorist Unit. In 1991, Mladen Markač was appointed the head of the Lučko Anti-Terrorist Unit. In 1992, he was promoted to the rank of Colonel General (reserve).

From: www,wikipedia.org

Ante Gotovina

Ante Gotovina (born 12 October 1955) is a Croatian retired lieutenant general and former French senior corporal who served in the Croatian War for Independence. In 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicted him on a number of war crimes and crimes against humanity charges for crimes committed in 1995 during and in the aftermath of Operation Storm. After spending four years in hiding, he was captured in the Canary Islands in December 2005. In April 2011, Gotovina was found guilty on eight of the nine counts of the indictment and sentenced to 24 years of imprisonment. On 16 November 2012, he was found not guilty on all charges by the appeals panel at the ICTY, and immediately set free. A Croatian government plane flew the general home, where he received a hero's welcome across all of Croatia.

Early Life

Ante Gotovina was born in Tkon on the island of Pašman. His father Milan tried to move with his mother to Italy, but was caught by the Yugoslav border police. His mother was released while his father spent time in prison. When Gotovina was nearly four his mother was killed saving him from an explosion from a construction site. After that his father went to work in Zagreb, while Gotovina and his siblings went to his maternal grandfather Šime in Pakoštane. Around Easter of 1971, Gotovina and his friend Srećko tried to escape by sailing away. Soon they returned to Pakoštane after a storm caused troubles at sea. Gotovina hid his attempt to escape from his family and continued to attend school for electrical engineering in Zadar.

From: www.wikipedia.org

Ivo Sanader

Ivo Sanader (born Ivica Sanader; 8 June 1953) is a Croatian politician who served as the Prime Minister of Croatia from 2003 to 2009.

Sanader obtained his education in comparative literature in Austria, where he also worked as a journalist, in marketing, publishing and also as a private entrepreneur. In the 1990s, he was briefly in charge of the theatre in Split before becoming the Minister of Science and Technology as a member of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). Soon thereafter, he moved to diplomacy, and served two terms as the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.

He was elected leader of the HDZ party in 2000 and 2002, and with them won the 2003 election, becoming the Prime Minister. He was also reelected in the 2007 parliamentary elections. In June 2009, Sanader abruptly resigned his post, leaving scarce explanation for his actions, and rumours of involvement in various criminal cases circulated. In January 2010, he tried to stage a political comeback inside HDZ, but was ejected from party membership.

In December 2010, the Croatian authorities charged him in two high-profile corruption indictments, but he fled the country and was arrested in Austria, being extradited to Croatia in July 2011. In November 2012 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a first instance verdict.

Early Life

Ivo Sanader was born in Split, into a religious, poor working family with four siblings. Since his family was financially unable to educate all five children, his mother asked the rector of Archbishopric Classical Gymnasium to accept Ivo as their student. After completing his high school education, Sanader moved to Rome to pursue higher education in philosophy. He soon realized that he did not like the academic environment there very much. Following his return from Rome he met his future spouse, Mirjana Šarić, whom he married in 1978.

After their wedding, Ivo and Mirjana left Split for Innsbruck. His wife studied archaeology, while Ivo studied comparative literature and Romance languages at the University of Innsbruck. The young couple was accompanied, while studying in Innsbruck, by Ivo’s younger brother Miro who also lived and studied in Innsbruck. During that time, Sanader also reported for the Zagreb sport newspaper Sportske novosti.

In 1982, Sanader graduated, and returned to Croatia (then Yugoslavia) with his wife. He found a job in the marketing department of Dalmacijaturist, however he did not stay long. He found his next job at the publishing house Logos in 1983 where he was employed as a program editor. In 1988, he became a chief editor and at one time he was working on the organization of the magazine Mogućnost. His career at the publishing house was later terminated suddenly. At that time, his wife also received a notice of termination from her workplace.

Sanader then decided to return to Austria with his family. There he co-founded two private businesses, one in 1989 which was liquidated by a court in 1992, while the other existed between 1986 and 2001. Sanader obtained a B.A. in Romance languages and comparative literature from Innsbruck University in Austria.

Apart from his native Croatian, he is fluent in English, German, French, and Italian.

From: www.wikipedia.org