Slovakia's new leader

Slovakia's the newest country to be led by a woman, following yesterday's swearing-in of Iveta Radičová (left) as Prime Minister. Radičová's the 1st woman to hold that position in Slovakia, which joined the United Nations in 1993 following an amicable split with the Czech Republic.

Radičová, born 53 years ago in Bratislava, served as Minister for Labor, Social Affairs and Family from 2005 to 2006. She leads a 4-party center-right coalition, which takes over from the previous center-left government.

She seizes the mantle of newest woman leader from Julia Gillard, who, as posted, became Australia's PM last month.

On this day

On March 25, ...
... 1988 (20 years ago today), the 1st mass protest of the decade against the Soviet-backed regime in Czechoslovakia -- a protest known as the Candle Demonstration -- was held in Bratislava, today the capital city of the independent nation-state of Slovakia.
... 1998 (10 years ago today), at the airport in Kigali, Rwanda, U.S. President Bill Clinton spoke to survivors of the massacre that killed hundreds of thousands of Rwandans over a 90-day period in 1994 during which no other country intervened. Clinton said, in part:

The international community, together with nations in Africa, must bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy, as well. We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We should not have allowed the refugee camps to become safe haven for the killers. We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide. ...
We owe to those who died and to those who survived who loved them, our every effort to increase our vigilance and strengthen our stand against those who would commit such atrocities in the future -- here or elsewhere.

On December 31, ...

... 1992 (15 years ago today), at midnight, a country that had been designated a "Soviet Socialist Republic" for decades ceased to exist. Succeeding Czechoslovakia were 2 independents states, Slovakia and the Czech Republic (flags at left).

... 2000, then-President Bill Clinton ordered the United States' signature added to the International Criminal Court treaty. The action was taken just hours before the signature period closed; Israel followed suit in this last window of time. Little more than a year later, the administration of new U.S. President George W. Bush repudiated the country's signature; again, Israel followed suit. I've written about these developments here and here.

On November 21, ...

... 2002 (5 years ago today), the 19 members states then comprising the North Atlantic Treaty Organization voted to invite 7 former Soviet Socialist Republics to join the collective security entity. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania were slated for full admission to NATO in 2004.
... 1967 (40 years ago today), at a press conference, Gen. William Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Vietnam, assured the public regarding an intervention that had begun 2 years earlier:

I am absolutely certain that whereas in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing.

"[M]ost Americans" thus "were stunned when the communists launched a massive offensive," during which they "actually penetrated the ground floor of the U.S. Embassy," during the Tet holiday the following January. The United States eventually withdrew in April 1975.

... 1964, U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) was born in Brooklyn, New York.