Though Bashar recaptured Aleppo, the last of the big cities, in 2016, he kept on dropping bombs: nearly half of Syria’s towns and cities have been reduced to rubble. But that was not enough: Elena wanted every chemical institute in the country to come under one central institute in Bucharest, with herself at the helm. Asma “thought the Syria Trust could save everything, but it was just stupid people speaking English to poor peasants. To change how business was done, Asma would have to go up against Rami Makhlouf, Bashar’s cousin through his mother’s aristocratic clan.

Banker, princess, warlord: the many lives of Asma Assad Banker, princess, warlord: the many lives of Asma Assad

I did anticipate liking this novel, the place and time in which it is staged is one that holds a lot of appeal to me, but what I didn’t expect was the compulsive addiction I formed to reading it. She was his ambassador to all the countries with whom he couldn’t mingle and mix,” says Abdel Nour, Bashar’s former adviser. use it once, there’d be an outcry, but not to the point of international intervention,” said the diplomat. She had toyed with charity work early in her marriage, and now sought to unify her projects within a single organisation, the Syria Trust for Development. Berry read about another striking example in the Middle East: Asma al-Assad, wife of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, now widely considered a war criminal.Her husband is the longest serving president in Africa, having taken power after the August 1979 military coup. Dictatorship defined the 20 th century, an era that was characterized by death and slaughter of unprecedented scale. Hafez was dead by the time Asma moved to Damascus at the end of 2000, but his legacy was ubiquitous, from the Soviet-style architecture to adulatory billboards bearing his face.

Velvet gloves to iron fists: how complicit are the wives of

The author of numerous scientific publications and the recipient of multiple honorary fellowships and degrees, Elena Ceausescu was one of the most respected scientists of her time. President’s Dos Santos rule has been marred with repression and torture of ethnic minorities, mass murders, and a 27-year long civil war.

Her husband, having stood trial on corruption allegations, was freed in March 2017, and sent back to his palatial home, which his wife was accused of acquiring illegally. The ability to add FRS after her name certainly appealed to her, considering her already lengthy list of titles.

Elena Ceausescu: Greatest Scientist Ever — except she was a Elena Ceausescu: Greatest Scientist Ever — except she was a

She is described as “a hypnotic blend of Joan of Arc and Imelda Marcos; both goddess and she-devil, princess and tyrant, martyr and uber-bitch”. A former French ambassador to Damascus reports that, around this time, Bashar was overheard saying: “My father was right. With Makhlouf hobbled and Bashar’s sister and mother gone, Asma has few substantial rivals within the inner circle. Throughout the Arab world the hopeful dreams of a decade ago have been crushed, but nowhere more bloodily than in Syria. Two months after Hariri’s assassination, in April 2005, Asma stood by her husband’s side at the funeral of Pope John Paul II.The author has created an imaginative Eastern European country, and has set the novel in the early 1990s, under the shadow of the fall of communism and the raising of the Iron Curtain. To add insult to injury, Tatyana’s husband’s reputation was not the best, with reports of ruthless repressions that subjected his people to poor living standards.