Nations of the World

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1. Mexico:

Type of Government: Federal Republic

Leader: President Enrique Pena Nieto

Birth date: July 20, 1966

Birth place: Atlacomulco, Mexico

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• He was the eldest of four siblings in a middle-class family; his father, Gilberto Enrique Peña del Mazo, was an engineer for the electric company and his mother, María del Socorro Nieto, a schoolteacher.

• • Reports that he fathered two children in extramarital affairs while his wife Monica raised the couple’s 3 children, plus the investigation into the sudden death of his wife at home in 2007, have prompted many to call him the Teflon candidate because trouble seems to slide off him.

2. China:

Type of Government: Communist State

Leader: President Xi Jinping

Birth date: June 1953

Birth place: Fuping County, Shaanxi Province, China (some sources say Beijing)

• Xi Jinping is the son of revolutionary veteran Xi Zhongxun, one of the Communist Party's founding fathers.

• He married folk singer Peng Liyuan, who also holds the rank of army general, in 1987. To many in China, Ms. Peng was the better-known half of the couple before Xi Jinping became leader of the Communist Party.

3. India: 

Type of Government: Federal Republic

Leader: President Pranab Mukherjee

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• He taught Political Science at the Vidiyanagar College, and worked as a journalist before entering politics.

• Mukherjee was rated as one of the best finance ministers of the world in 1984 and was adjudged the best parliamentarian in 1997.

Birthday	December 11, 1935
Birthplace	India

4. Afghanistan:

Type of Government: Islamic Republic

Leader: President Hamid Karzai

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• He emerged as a resistance leader under Taliban rule and worked to undermine the regime. 

• He is well versed in several languages, including his native Peshto, Persian, Hindi, French and English.

Birthday	December 11, 1935
Birthplace	India

5. Germany:

Type of Government: Federal Republic

Leader: Chancellor Angela Merkel

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• Graduated from University of Leipzig in 1978 with a degree in physics and physical chemistry; earned a PhD in quantum chemistry from the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin in 1986

• Has been Chancellor since November 2005

6. United Kingdom:

Type of Government: Constitutional Monarchy and Commonwealth Realm

Leader: Prime Minister David Cameron

Birth date: October 9, 1966

Birth place: London, England

• At the age of seven, the young Cameron was packed off to Heatherdown, a highly exclusive preparatory school, which counted Princes Edward and Andrew among its pupils. Then, following in the family tradition, came Eton, Britain’s top private school.

• His first child, Ivan, who was born profoundly disabled and needed round the clock care, died in February 2009.

7. France:

Type of Government: Republic

Leader: President François Hollande

Birth date: August 12, 1954

Birthplace: Rouen, Normandy, France

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• Hollande has no previous experience in a national government position.

• The mother of his four children is Ségolène Royal, with whom he shared a 30-year relationship.

8. Brazil
Type of Government: Federal Republic
Leader: President Dilma Rousseff

Birth date: December 14, 1947

Birth place: Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil

She opposed Brazil’s military dictatorship of the 1960s and ‘70s, and served three years in prison, where she was repeatedly tortured.

She has been divorced twice.

She has a degree in economics, and now rules the country with the eighth-biggest economy in the world.

9. Venezuela:
Type of Government: Federal Republic 
Leader:  President Nicolás Maduro

Birth date: November 23, 1962

Birth place: Caracas, Venezuela

• Nicolás Maduro Moros worked as a bus driver before becoming politically active in the early 1990s.

Maduro was introduced to Hugo Chavez in 1992, after Chávez and other disenchanted members of the military were imprisoned for an attempted coup and Maduro began campaigning for  Chávez's release. (Chávez was released in 1994 and won election to the presidency four years later.)

10. Saudi Arabia 
Type of Government: Monarchy 
Leader: King Abdullah

Birth date: August 01, 1924

Birth place: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

He has fathered 22 children, the youngest when he was 79.

He is worth approximately 21 billion dollars.

11. Iran:
Type of Government: Theocratic Republic 
Leader: President Hassan Rouhanni

Birth date: November 12, 1948

Birth place: Sorkheh, Iran

• In 1963, took part in street protests against the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran. After the uprising was quashed, Khamenei was exiled. Khamenei was imprisoned multiple times and, in 1975, was internally exiled to a remote region in southeastern Iran.

• Was elected President of Iran in 1981 and re-elected in 1985.  Became Iran’s Supreme Leader in 1989.

12. Israel: 
Type of Government: Parliamentary Democracy 
Leader: President Shimon Peres 

Birth date: August 15, 1923 (some sources say the 16th)

Birth place: Vishniev, Poland (now in Belarus)

• Shimon Peres was born in Belarus. To escape the persecution of Jews there, the family fled to Palestine in 1934. 

• When Arab forces launched their attack on the new state of Israel in 1948, Peres was given the chief responsibility for securing military equipment for Israel from abroad.