The country with two governments nationalized/robbed its banks

What do you do when international sanctions create a major cash flow crisis in the country and the banks refuse to give out salaries to your government employees? Simple, just send some men with guns to take over the banks and claim them nationalized. At least that’s what Ivory Coast president dictator Laurent Gbagbo has done. 

#5 Côte d'Ivoire has too many governments

Cote D'Ivoire is a country with two presidents. In November 2010 the country went to elections that were originally meant to be held in 2005 but were repeatedly postponed due to the Ivorian Civil War. The elections were won by the opposition, but the sitting President Laurent Gbagbo was not too keen to give up his post (unlike Mr. Nepal). So he simply decided not to hand the power over to the new government. Not to be outclassed, Alassane Ouattara, the winning candidate set up his own rival government. Both guys took the presidential oath and named cabinets.

Currently, Gbagbo holds on to the Presidential Palace while Ouattara is holed up in a hotel nearby. Ouattara has held Cabinet meetings in a tent on the hotel's lawn and is using the fax machine in the hotel manager's office to communicate with foreign embassies. Both governments keep issuing orders to the civil and military servants outside their offices and absolutely no one has any idea which ones to follow.

At least you know where both the presidents are unlike…

(Click here for the complete list)

#4 Nigerian President takes off, forgets to tell anyone

During the end of 2009, the Nigerian President Umara Yar’Adua left Nigeria to get treatment for his heart in Saudi Arabia. No big deal. Only he forgot to tell anyone or hand over the executive powers to his deputy. It was only after more than six weeks passed by without anyone hearing from him, that people started suspecting something was wrong. Six weeks? The guy must have a lot of cats.

Once his absence was realized, the country went into a constitutional crisis trying to figure out legal procedures for dealing with the power vacuum created by his absence. Then after three months of leave without permission, he showed up again in February 2010, only to hole up in his palace and refusing to meet anyone. Shortly afterwards, he died, giving way to the new President Goodluck Jonathan who is such a badass that he banned Nigerian football team from participating in international events after it failed to go beyond group stage in the FIFA World Cup. Boo yeah!

We suck!

However, this whole episode compares nothing to the comedy that went on in Afghanistan…

(Click here for the complete list)

Do we know anything about the two future bosses of the world?

So, the Chinese politburo has chosen its next leader. And we know nothing about him. Xi Jinping at 57 has been announced (in characteristically sneaky way) as the leader of China to succeed Hu Jintao in 2012. This man is going to be the emperor of China, and the way China is going, one of the two most powerful people in the world, along with the American President. Immediately after the announcement Time Magazine, The Economist, Foreign Policy and all the other major new organizations in the world quickly published his profile. And they all had the same thing to say - we know nothing about this guy. 

All we know about this enigmatic personality is that he oversaw the Olympics preparation in Beijing, at one time used to run Shanghai, has married a very popular Chinese singer and is son of a communist who was denounced during the Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1966. That's it. That's all we know about the man who in two years time might be in charge of the biggest economic and military powerhouse in the world! Lovely.

On the other hand, we may not know anything about the Yin to this Yang as well - the American President of 2012. From what is now becoming apparent, Obama is not going to survive till the next term. And the Democrats don't seem to have anyone better. So most likely the Republicans are coming back into White House in the 2012 Presidential Elections. According to the current polls, two favorites of Republicans are Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. I feel that Romney is a little faint-hearted, always worrying about what if he loses. Therefore, it is likely that he might drop out of the election race if he feels that he can not win even before the campaigning. Palin on the other hand, is gonna run and gonna run big. Moreover, the new Tea Party movement has garnered her a lot of support and she might actually end up running the United States.

Now with Sarah Palin the problem is not what we know about her - we know way too much with her family popping up on TV all the time - but what she knows about herself. She is a blank slate. So what she will do once she is the President is anyone's guess including her own. 

This is the scary situation. We do not know anything about the two most powerful people our world may have in 2012. May be the Mayans were right.

Images: Xi Jinping, Sarah Palin

Image Credit: Time Magazine, Shank bone

Problems with the law?How about printing your own constitution

In a hilarious attempt to survive the expiration of his tenure, the
Nicaraguan President has come up with an out-of-the-box solution-
printing his own version of the constitution. The Christian Science Monitor reports how the government printed new copies of the constitution with its own edits to overcome the constitutional limit to their tenure.In recent years, many presidents have found solutions to the constitutional limit to their tenure including Russian President Vladimir Putin  and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa  . But the Nicraguan way is definitely the funniest.
Image: A historical Time magazine cover featuring Daniel Ortega. Credit: Google Images