7 Hugo Chávez 7

end of 2007, Chávez lost a referendum on constitutional

changes, including one that would have allowed him to run

for reelection indefinitely. He took the narrow defeat (51 to

49 percent) in stride and continued to promote a socialist

agenda in Venezuela that included modifying the country’s

name, its coat of arms, and its flag, as well as creating a new

currency (the bolívar fuerte) and a new time zone for

Venezuela. In February 2009, Chávez went to the elector-

ate with another constitutional referendum. In a vote to

eliminate term limits for all elected officials, Chavez won,

as more than 54 percent of Venezuelans approved the elim-

ination of all term limits. Chávez characterized the vote as

a mandate for continued revolutionary change, while his

critics saw in it the threat of perpetual rule.

Osama bin Laden

(b. 1957, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)

O

sama bin Laden is the mastermind of numerous acts

of terrorism against the United States and other

Western powers, including the 1993 bombing of New York

City’s World Trade Center, the 2000 suicide bombing of

the U.S. warship Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden, and the

Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New

York City and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C.

Bin Laden was one of more than 50 children of one of

Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest families. He attended King

Abdul Aziz University, where he received a degree in civil

engineering. Shortly after the Soviet Union invaded

Afghanistan in 1979, bin Laden, like thousands of other

Muslims from throughout the world, joined the Afghan

resistance, viewing it as his Muslim duty to repel the occu-

pation. After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, bin Laden

returned home as a hero, but he was quickly disappointed

with what he perceived as the corruption of the Saudi