Three Dictators & Three Lady Macbeths

The Guardian has an interesting article about the wives of dictators, such as Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's British-born wife (Asma) and the ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak's half-Welsh wife (Suzanne). http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/28/arab-first-ladies-of-oppression

Mubarak and wife Suzanne

The Sydney Morning Herald carries a similar piece about "Dictators' wives: how the west is wooed by the pretty faces of tyranny".  http://www.smh.com.au/world/dictators-wives-how-the-west-is-wooed-by-the-pretty-faces-of-tyranny-20120229-1u26z.html#ixzz1nnPRSg3d

"Their glamorous lives earn them fawning spreads in western fashion magazines like Vogue. But at home they inspire dread, with tales of confiscating people's homes and punishing servants with boiling water."

Asma al-Assad: Sydney Morning Herald 

And let's not forget Leila Trabelsi (photo above), the politically ambitious wife of Tunisia’s Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, who was a monstrous symbol of nepotism and corruption. "Her embezzlement of state wealth made Imelda Marcos’s nearly 3,000 pair of shoes seem trifling".