Saturday
Light Overtaken
--
Telegraph, September 22, 2011
Speed of light 'broken': life changing scientific discoveries
The science world has been left in shock after it was announced that CERN scientists had recorded subatomic particles travelling faster than the speed of light in a finding that could overturn fundamental law of physics.
Particles recorded moving faster than light - CERN
Reuters - Robert Evans, Tom Miles - Sep 22, 2011
GENEVA, Sept 22 (Reuters) - An international team of scientists has recorded neutrino particles travelling faster than the speed of light, a spokesman for the researchers said on Thursday.
The really, really fast show that has blown physics apart
The Independent - 23-9-2011
A 450-mile journey lasting less than 2.4 thousandths of a second has, we are told, disproved Einstein's theory of special relativity.
Einstein's theory in a spin as neutrinos pass speed of light
Sydney Morning Herald - Dennis Overbye.
International scientists make breakthrough discovery as sub-atomic particles are found to be quicker than the speed of light.
IBN - Scientists find particles faster than light
Telegraph - Scientists find particles that travel faster than light
AP - Physicist: Neutrino Faster Than Speed of Light
AFP - Will faster-than-light particles bypass Einstein?
BBC: 23 September 2011:
Physicist vows to 'eat shorts' over light speed claims
Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Surrey offers to "eat his shorts" live on TV if it is proven correct that subatomic particles called neutrinos have exceed the Universe's speed limit - the speed of light.
Susan Watts full report on the experiment results which are baffling scientists at Cern, home of the Large Hadron Collider.
Friday 23 September 2011 at 10.30pm on BBC Two.
Comment:
The Professor did not say at which speed will he eat his shorts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9598802.stm
--
Telegraph, September 22, 2011
Speed of light 'broken': life changing scientific discoveries
The science world has been left in shock after it was announced that CERN scientists had recorded subatomic particles travelling faster than the speed of light in a finding that could overturn fundamental law of physics.
Particles recorded moving faster than light - CERN
Reuters - Robert Evans, Tom Miles - Sep 22, 2011
GENEVA, Sept 22 (Reuters) - An international team of scientists has recorded neutrino particles travelling faster than the speed of light, a spokesman for the researchers said on Thursday.
The really, really fast show that has blown physics apart
The Independent - 23-9-2011
A 450-mile journey lasting less than 2.4 thousandths of a second has, we are told, disproved Einstein's theory of special relativity.
Einstein's theory in a spin as neutrinos pass speed of light
Sydney Morning Herald - Dennis Overbye.
International scientists make breakthrough discovery as sub-atomic particles are found to be quicker than the speed of light.
IBN - Scientists find particles faster than light
Telegraph - Scientists find particles that travel faster than light
AP - Physicist: Neutrino Faster Than Speed of Light
AFP - Will faster-than-light particles bypass Einstein?
BBC: 23 September 2011:
Physicist vows to 'eat shorts' over light speed claims
Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Surrey offers to "eat his shorts" live on TV if it is proven correct that subatomic particles called neutrinos have exceed the Universe's speed limit - the speed of light.
Susan Watts full report on the experiment results which are baffling scientists at Cern, home of the Large Hadron Collider.
Friday 23 September 2011 at 10.30pm on BBC Two.
Comment:
The Professor did not say at which speed will he eat his shorts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9598802.stm
--
Monday
Tottenham Anger
-
London Burns After Police Kill Black Man
Monday 7 August 2011
Black community in rage after police shoot dead a black man. Mark Duggan was killed on Thursday 4 August 2011. He was father of four children. His death occured at 6.15pm. He was shot dead during a covert police operation in Ferry Lane, Tottenham. On Saturday 5pm about 300 people gather peacefully outside Tottenham police station, saying they want “justice” for Mr Duggan and his family. Police refused to provide any answers. Tottenham errupted in anger. Riots spread to other parts of London. Over 40 police officers wwere wounded and taken to hospital. Policemen are also said to have beaten a young girl who was protesting. Youth were enflamed and burned shops in London. Police said rioters are criminals. Duggan's wife Semone Wilson said there was a cover up of his death by the poice which led to riots.
MP John McDonnell said rioters were copying bankers who steal money from poor people. "Reaping what has been sown over 3 decades of creating grotesquely unequal society, with alienated young copying ethos of looting bankers."
Former Mayor of London, Ken Livingston, also held the Conservatives as responsible for the riots. He blamed the Government policies, saying that young people need hope and opportunities, and that riots show anger and disaffection. He said no one cares for poor young people in London. he said the rioters need someone to care about them and speak for them.
Picture of Mark Duggan who was shot dead by London police.
London Burns After Police Kill Black Man
Monday 7 August 2011
Black community in rage after police shoot dead a black man. Mark Duggan was killed on Thursday 4 August 2011. He was father of four children. His death occured at 6.15pm. He was shot dead during a covert police operation in Ferry Lane, Tottenham. On Saturday 5pm about 300 people gather peacefully outside Tottenham police station, saying they want “justice” for Mr Duggan and his family. Police refused to provide any answers. Tottenham errupted in anger. Riots spread to other parts of London. Over 40 police officers wwere wounded and taken to hospital. Policemen are also said to have beaten a young girl who was protesting. Youth were enflamed and burned shops in London. Police said rioters are criminals. Duggan's wife Semone Wilson said there was a cover up of his death by the poice which led to riots.
MP John McDonnell said rioters were copying bankers who steal money from poor people. "Reaping what has been sown over 3 decades of creating grotesquely unequal society, with alienated young copying ethos of looting bankers."
Former Mayor of London, Ken Livingston, also held the Conservatives as responsible for the riots. He blamed the Government policies, saying that young people need hope and opportunities, and that riots show anger and disaffection. He said no one cares for poor young people in London. he said the rioters need someone to care about them and speak for them.
Picture of Mark Duggan who was shot dead by London police.
Mark Duggan
-
Tehran Rally for Mark Duggan
Mark Duggan was killed in London by British police on 4 August 2011.
Iranian students shouts slogans as they holds a mask with photo of Mark Duggan's face, who was shot dead by the police at Tottenham in north London.
During a protest, Iranians hold pictures of 29 year old Afro-Caribbean, Mark Duggan who died from a gunshot by armed police in London.
The Duggan Protest was held in front of the British embassy in central Tehran on 14 August 2011. Iranian students are also demonstrating against the treatment on the protesters by the London police.
-
-
Iranian students hold masks with photo of Mark Duggan's face, who was shot dead in a police raid in the Tottenham area of north London, during a protest in front of the British Embassy in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 14, 2011.
An Iranian woman holds a mask with photo of Mark Duggan's face, who was shot dead in a police raid in the Tottenham area of north London, during a protest in front of the British Embassy in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 14, 2011.
Tehran Rally for Mark Duggan
Mark Duggan was killed in London by British police on 4 August 2011.
Iranian students shouts slogans as they holds a mask with photo of Mark Duggan's face, who was shot dead by the police at Tottenham in north London.
During a protest, Iranians hold pictures of 29 year old Afro-Caribbean, Mark Duggan who died from a gunshot by armed police in London.
The Duggan Protest was held in front of the British embassy in central Tehran on 14 August 2011. Iranian students are also demonstrating against the treatment on the protesters by the London police.
-
-
Iranian students hold masks with photo of Mark Duggan's face, who was shot dead in a police raid in the Tottenham area of north London, during a protest in front of the British Embassy in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 14, 2011.
An Iranian woman holds a mask with photo of Mark Duggan's face, who was shot dead in a police raid in the Tottenham area of north London, during a protest in front of the British Embassy in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 14, 2011.
Esfandiar
-
9 June 2011
SAINT OR SATAN
Some of the most powerful hidden men in Iran have been exposed.
One such man with immense power is Esfandiar. He has been identified as man who cast a spell on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. It is reported that Esfandiar had used black magic to control the Iranian leader. An old sorcrer is used by government officials to bewitch the President. Seyyed Sadik, or Sadigh, claims that he has control of spirits from the world beyond.
Vatican may be also under the influence this estoric cult.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL - 10 June 2011
Rough Spell for Iranian Politics: President's Staff Accused of Sorcery
Fortune Teller to the Elite Fears Evil Plot
In a small leafy village outside of Isfahan, a 67-year-old sorcerer with thinning hair and deep wrinkles deploys his supernatural powers in service of Iran's government.
Seyed Sadigh, an alias he goes by, sits cross-legged on the floor dressed in loose gray pants and a long shirt. He recites Quranic verses in a low hypnotic voice and rubs his fingers together. He is summoning Jinn, invisible creatures who, according to Islamic teachings, live in a parallel world, can shift form, travel at the speed of light and know the unknowable. The Jinn who communicate with Mr. Sadigh are visible only to him.
Sorcerers, fortune tellers or Jinn catchers, as they are colloquially known, have existed for centuries in Muslim lore. Ordinary people in Iran and elsewhere flock to these men to get spells and prayers, and to communicate with Jinn in order to discover the whereabouts of a lost loved one or stolen property.
Government officials, on the other hand, aren't known to consult with sorcerers. Or are they?
Mr. Sadigh is considered the top sorcerer among Iran's ruling elite, according to associates, clients and government officials. He says dozens of officials call on him regularly and that he has met President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad twice, the last time two years ago, but has stayed in contact with the president through members of the administration.
"Officials seek me out because I can help untie some difficult knots," says Mr. Sadigh in an interview at his summer home. "We have had a long battle to infiltrate the Israeli Jinn and find out what they know."
Indeed, Mr. Sadigh says he doesn't waste Jinn powers on trivial matters such as love and money. Rather, he contacts Jinn who can help out on matters of national security and the regime's political stability.
His regular roll call includes Jinn who work for Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, and for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Occasionally, he says, he beckons Jinn who are in the service of Arab Gulf countries.
Some typical questions his visitors ask of the Jinn: What does Israel have on Iran's nuclear program? Is it planning to attack Iran? What is Washington's plan for a soft war on Tehran? Are Arabs polluting Iran's waters? What is Saudi Arabia's contingency plan for when Shiite Islam's 12th Imam, the Mahdi, re-appears from hiding to save the world?
Mr. Sadigh's work with government officials comes as his profession is at the center of a controversy that threatens to bring down Mr. Ahmadinejad's administration. Since late April, more than two dozen officials in the president's inner circle have been arrested on charges of practicing sorcery and black magic. The accusations are part of a larger struggle for power by conservative clerics and rival political factions.
Mr. Ahmadinejad's detractors have accused the president and his advisers, including the Presidential Palace's top imam, of belonging to a cult-like ring that promotes superstition and mystical fanaticism. Some have said that Mr. Ahmadinejad is under a spell cooked up by his chief of staff, Esfanidar Rahim Mashaie. Mr. Mashaie is already a controversial figure for promoting nationalism over religion, and for his alleged affinity for astrology and mysticism.
The president was acting "strange" and "irrational" during a recent dispute over dismissing a minister, said the Ayatollah Mohamad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi in a magazine interview. The former spiritual leader for Mr. Ahmadinejad said it appeared the president's "free will has been taken away."
Mr. Mashaie has denied the allegations, jokingly challenging the clerics to use their Islamic teachings to remove his spell on the president, according to the official Iranian news agency IRNA.
Mr. Ahmadinejad has also denied the allegations. "Those who have spoken in recent days about the influence of fortune tellers and Jinn on government were telling jokes and it made us laugh," Mr. Ahmadinejad said last month, according to Iranian media reports.
But the controversy hasn't gone away. Opposition websites and conservative newspapers continue to carry articles poking fun at the president's inner circle. One cartoon depicted Messrs. Ahmadinejad and Mashaie as two Jinn with horns and tails standing side-by-side.
Some of the most outlandish allegations have been against Abbas Ghaffari, a member of Mr. Ahmadinejad's office, recently arrested as a ring leader of sorcery in the government and deemed influential on the president. Javan Online, a news site linked to the Revolutionary Guards, accused him of hypnotizing and raping 360 women, as well as defiling the Quran to obtain demonic powers. Mr. Ghaffari is in prison and can't be reached for comment.
Iranians have had a mixed reaction. In interviews, some say they get a dark satisfaction from the smearing of Mr. Ahmadinejad after a disputed reelection and his administration's crackdowns on the opposition. Others are embarrassed, saying they wished the government would focus on resolving economic and social problems.
Still others think consulting Jinn is legitimate. "All countries have enemies, sometimes you have to use every option to stand in front of them," says a man who would only identify himself as Iraj, a taxi driver who has occasionally sought spells and prayers for his family disputes.
On a recent spring afternoon, a small group of clerics traveled from Isfahan to consult with Mr. Sadigh, the sorcerer. He received them in a garden dotted with tall cypress trees and jasmine on a wooden daybed covered in cushions next to a shallow blue pool.
Mr. Sadigh, who says he doesn't see walk-in clients or accept money for his work, read from an old Islamic manuscript and in neat Persian calligraphy wrote spells and prayers on a thin piece of paper.
He says he worries about Mr. Ahmadinejad, and thinks the president has surrounded himself with the wrong kind of sorcerers, specifically Mr. Ghaffari, who might do him more harm than Israeli or American Jinn ever could.
"I have information that Ahmadinejad is under a spell and they are now trying to cast one on [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali] Khamenei to obey them blindly," he says.
One way to ward off the evil Jinn is to wear a silver agate ring or to tuck one of Mr. Sadigh's special spells under a rug. He says he sends Mr. Khamenei prayers every month with a messenger, although he doesn't know if he uses them or not.
--
9 June 2011
SAINT OR SATAN
Some of the most powerful hidden men in Iran have been exposed.
One such man with immense power is Esfandiar. He has been identified as man who cast a spell on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. It is reported that Esfandiar had used black magic to control the Iranian leader. An old sorcrer is used by government officials to bewitch the President. Seyyed Sadik, or Sadigh, claims that he has control of spirits from the world beyond.
Vatican may be also under the influence this estoric cult.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL - 10 June 2011
Rough Spell for Iranian Politics: President's Staff Accused of Sorcery
Fortune Teller to the Elite Fears Evil Plot
In a small leafy village outside of Isfahan, a 67-year-old sorcerer with thinning hair and deep wrinkles deploys his supernatural powers in service of Iran's government.
Seyed Sadigh, an alias he goes by, sits cross-legged on the floor dressed in loose gray pants and a long shirt. He recites Quranic verses in a low hypnotic voice and rubs his fingers together. He is summoning Jinn, invisible creatures who, according to Islamic teachings, live in a parallel world, can shift form, travel at the speed of light and know the unknowable. The Jinn who communicate with Mr. Sadigh are visible only to him.
Sorcerers, fortune tellers or Jinn catchers, as they are colloquially known, have existed for centuries in Muslim lore. Ordinary people in Iran and elsewhere flock to these men to get spells and prayers, and to communicate with Jinn in order to discover the whereabouts of a lost loved one or stolen property.
Government officials, on the other hand, aren't known to consult with sorcerers. Or are they?
Mr. Sadigh is considered the top sorcerer among Iran's ruling elite, according to associates, clients and government officials. He says dozens of officials call on him regularly and that he has met President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad twice, the last time two years ago, but has stayed in contact with the president through members of the administration.
"Officials seek me out because I can help untie some difficult knots," says Mr. Sadigh in an interview at his summer home. "We have had a long battle to infiltrate the Israeli Jinn and find out what they know."
Indeed, Mr. Sadigh says he doesn't waste Jinn powers on trivial matters such as love and money. Rather, he contacts Jinn who can help out on matters of national security and the regime's political stability.
His regular roll call includes Jinn who work for Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, and for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Occasionally, he says, he beckons Jinn who are in the service of Arab Gulf countries.
Some typical questions his visitors ask of the Jinn: What does Israel have on Iran's nuclear program? Is it planning to attack Iran? What is Washington's plan for a soft war on Tehran? Are Arabs polluting Iran's waters? What is Saudi Arabia's contingency plan for when Shiite Islam's 12th Imam, the Mahdi, re-appears from hiding to save the world?
Mr. Sadigh's work with government officials comes as his profession is at the center of a controversy that threatens to bring down Mr. Ahmadinejad's administration. Since late April, more than two dozen officials in the president's inner circle have been arrested on charges of practicing sorcery and black magic. The accusations are part of a larger struggle for power by conservative clerics and rival political factions.
Mr. Ahmadinejad's detractors have accused the president and his advisers, including the Presidential Palace's top imam, of belonging to a cult-like ring that promotes superstition and mystical fanaticism. Some have said that Mr. Ahmadinejad is under a spell cooked up by his chief of staff, Esfanidar Rahim Mashaie. Mr. Mashaie is already a controversial figure for promoting nationalism over religion, and for his alleged affinity for astrology and mysticism.
The president was acting "strange" and "irrational" during a recent dispute over dismissing a minister, said the Ayatollah Mohamad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi in a magazine interview. The former spiritual leader for Mr. Ahmadinejad said it appeared the president's "free will has been taken away."
Mr. Mashaie has denied the allegations, jokingly challenging the clerics to use their Islamic teachings to remove his spell on the president, according to the official Iranian news agency IRNA.
Mr. Ahmadinejad has also denied the allegations. "Those who have spoken in recent days about the influence of fortune tellers and Jinn on government were telling jokes and it made us laugh," Mr. Ahmadinejad said last month, according to Iranian media reports.
But the controversy hasn't gone away. Opposition websites and conservative newspapers continue to carry articles poking fun at the president's inner circle. One cartoon depicted Messrs. Ahmadinejad and Mashaie as two Jinn with horns and tails standing side-by-side.
Some of the most outlandish allegations have been against Abbas Ghaffari, a member of Mr. Ahmadinejad's office, recently arrested as a ring leader of sorcery in the government and deemed influential on the president. Javan Online, a news site linked to the Revolutionary Guards, accused him of hypnotizing and raping 360 women, as well as defiling the Quran to obtain demonic powers. Mr. Ghaffari is in prison and can't be reached for comment.
Iranians have had a mixed reaction. In interviews, some say they get a dark satisfaction from the smearing of Mr. Ahmadinejad after a disputed reelection and his administration's crackdowns on the opposition. Others are embarrassed, saying they wished the government would focus on resolving economic and social problems.
Still others think consulting Jinn is legitimate. "All countries have enemies, sometimes you have to use every option to stand in front of them," says a man who would only identify himself as Iraj, a taxi driver who has occasionally sought spells and prayers for his family disputes.
On a recent spring afternoon, a small group of clerics traveled from Isfahan to consult with Mr. Sadigh, the sorcerer. He received them in a garden dotted with tall cypress trees and jasmine on a wooden daybed covered in cushions next to a shallow blue pool.
Mr. Sadigh, who says he doesn't see walk-in clients or accept money for his work, read from an old Islamic manuscript and in neat Persian calligraphy wrote spells and prayers on a thin piece of paper.
He says he worries about Mr. Ahmadinejad, and thinks the president has surrounded himself with the wrong kind of sorcerers, specifically Mr. Ghaffari, who might do him more harm than Israeli or American Jinn ever could.
"I have information that Ahmadinejad is under a spell and they are now trying to cast one on [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali] Khamenei to obey them blindly," he says.
One way to ward off the evil Jinn is to wear a silver agate ring or to tuck one of Mr. Sadigh's special spells under a rug. He says he sends Mr. Khamenei prayers every month with a messenger, although he doesn't know if he uses them or not.
--
Iran under Spell
-
Iran’s fascinating internal power struggle
TORONTO STAR - June 8, 2011
For decades Iran’s complex internal struggles have been a subject for scholarly specialists. But the recent string of charges against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his inner circle rival those of America’s most colourful conspiracy theorists.
Blasphemy, sorcery even perversion have been raised in the rhetorical battle between the abrasive, let-it-all-hang-out Ahmadinejad and the grey, uncharismatic spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his supporters.
Detested by Iran’s Green protest movement, Ahmadinejad is now equally reviled by the conservative cadre of clerics — who once backed him and helped him to win a second term.
“Ahmadinejad’s political life is over,” says Mehdi Khalaji of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “He’s tried to challenge the Supreme Leader’s authority but will end up marginalized.”
The struggle between Ahmadinejad’s iconoclasts and the powerful Khamenei-led clerics has burst from behind closed doors at an awkward time. Iran needs solidarity to achieve the new role it seeks in a Middle East that has been shaken by the cracking of old regimes.
Although the conflict hinges on power, it also takes in a broad sweep of political, economic, ideological and religious issues that divide the two conservative factions, with Ahmadinejad and his powerful chief of staff promoting a religious cult that believes in the second coming of Shiism’s “hidden imam,” who is meant to create peace from chaos upon his return, more or less the equivalent of Christianity’s apocalyptic fundamentalist sects.
By creating a new interpretation of religion in Iran, and claiming to be in touch with the hidden imam he and his supporters tried to fight free of the ruling clerical order.
“Ahmadinejad’s version is that the clerics are mere coupon-clippers,” says Anoush Ehteshami, a professor of international relations at Durham University. “If you’re expecting the 12th imam to return, why do you need representatives here on earth? It’s a profound fight for the direction of the Islamic state.”
And Ahmadinejad’s hinting that the clerical regime was obsolete was an unofficial declaration of war.
“The clerics have read Ahmadinejad the riot act,” says Mehrzad Boroujerdi, director of Middle East Studies at Syracuse University. “But he still craves his 15 minutes of fame. He won’t go quietly.”
In 2009, Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of a disputed election that sent hundreds of thousands of protesters to the streets and saw the birth of Iran’s Green Movement. Khamenei risked his own reputation to support him.
But signs of struggle surfaced swiftly.
Most recently, Khamenei allegedly ordered — or condoned — spying on Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff by the intelligence service. The president retaliated by firing the head of the service.
Khamenei overruled the move, and Ahmadinejad boycotted cabinet meetings in defiance. The ante was upped when Khamenei asked one of his supporters to create a “caretaker cabinet” that could take over if the president were ousted.
Ahmadinejad got the point, and returned to business as usual. But he struck back with a bid to take over the plum oil and gas ministry, and led a shakeup of the government that included the merger of eight ministries and the firing of three ministers without parliament’s consent. The backlash was threat of impeachment.
Ahmadinejad is aware that his time to reshape Iran could be short — the next parliamentary election is 2012, and his second term ends in 2013.
Iran’s presidents are barred from running for more than two consecutive terms. But Ahmadinejad’s ambitions appear to go farther.
“He’s made the same mistake that others made before him,” says Khalaji. “They thought they could use clerics as instruments for their own agenda. Ahmadinejad thought when he was famous, rich and popular enough he wouldn’t need them.”
But his ambitions have so far misfired. A dozen supporters have been arrested, and there have been public death threats against his chief of staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who is blamed for leading a “pervert culture” of religious rebellion. Meanwhile the president, uneasily, hangs on.
“Getting rid of Ahmadinejad would be embarrassing to Khamenei, because he has spent a lot of political capital supporting him,” says Boroujerdi.
“But in this system the Supreme Leader has the heaviest cannons to roll out. God is on the side of the biggest battalions.”
--
Iran’s fascinating internal power struggle
TORONTO STAR - June 8, 2011
For decades Iran’s complex internal struggles have been a subject for scholarly specialists. But the recent string of charges against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his inner circle rival those of America’s most colourful conspiracy theorists.
Blasphemy, sorcery even perversion have been raised in the rhetorical battle between the abrasive, let-it-all-hang-out Ahmadinejad and the grey, uncharismatic spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his supporters.
Detested by Iran’s Green protest movement, Ahmadinejad is now equally reviled by the conservative cadre of clerics — who once backed him and helped him to win a second term.
“Ahmadinejad’s political life is over,” says Mehdi Khalaji of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “He’s tried to challenge the Supreme Leader’s authority but will end up marginalized.”
The struggle between Ahmadinejad’s iconoclasts and the powerful Khamenei-led clerics has burst from behind closed doors at an awkward time. Iran needs solidarity to achieve the new role it seeks in a Middle East that has been shaken by the cracking of old regimes.
Although the conflict hinges on power, it also takes in a broad sweep of political, economic, ideological and religious issues that divide the two conservative factions, with Ahmadinejad and his powerful chief of staff promoting a religious cult that believes in the second coming of Shiism’s “hidden imam,” who is meant to create peace from chaos upon his return, more or less the equivalent of Christianity’s apocalyptic fundamentalist sects.
By creating a new interpretation of religion in Iran, and claiming to be in touch with the hidden imam he and his supporters tried to fight free of the ruling clerical order.
“Ahmadinejad’s version is that the clerics are mere coupon-clippers,” says Anoush Ehteshami, a professor of international relations at Durham University. “If you’re expecting the 12th imam to return, why do you need representatives here on earth? It’s a profound fight for the direction of the Islamic state.”
And Ahmadinejad’s hinting that the clerical regime was obsolete was an unofficial declaration of war.
“The clerics have read Ahmadinejad the riot act,” says Mehrzad Boroujerdi, director of Middle East Studies at Syracuse University. “But he still craves his 15 minutes of fame. He won’t go quietly.”
In 2009, Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of a disputed election that sent hundreds of thousands of protesters to the streets and saw the birth of Iran’s Green Movement. Khamenei risked his own reputation to support him.
But signs of struggle surfaced swiftly.
Most recently, Khamenei allegedly ordered — or condoned — spying on Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff by the intelligence service. The president retaliated by firing the head of the service.
Khamenei overruled the move, and Ahmadinejad boycotted cabinet meetings in defiance. The ante was upped when Khamenei asked one of his supporters to create a “caretaker cabinet” that could take over if the president were ousted.
Ahmadinejad got the point, and returned to business as usual. But he struck back with a bid to take over the plum oil and gas ministry, and led a shakeup of the government that included the merger of eight ministries and the firing of three ministers without parliament’s consent. The backlash was threat of impeachment.
Ahmadinejad is aware that his time to reshape Iran could be short — the next parliamentary election is 2012, and his second term ends in 2013.
Iran’s presidents are barred from running for more than two consecutive terms. But Ahmadinejad’s ambitions appear to go farther.
“He’s made the same mistake that others made before him,” says Khalaji. “They thought they could use clerics as instruments for their own agenda. Ahmadinejad thought when he was famous, rich and popular enough he wouldn’t need them.”
But his ambitions have so far misfired. A dozen supporters have been arrested, and there have been public death threats against his chief of staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who is blamed for leading a “pervert culture” of religious rebellion. Meanwhile the president, uneasily, hangs on.
“Getting rid of Ahmadinejad would be embarrassing to Khamenei, because he has spent a lot of political capital supporting him,” says Boroujerdi.
“But in this system the Supreme Leader has the heaviest cannons to roll out. God is on the side of the biggest battalions.”
--
Coverphobia
-
Iran Shia Woman Injured in London Racial Attack
14 April 2011
Mrs. Kazemi was beaten up in a racial attack by four young British girls when she was on her way to home in London.
They tried to pick her hijab, but she refused. When they faced with her refusal beaten her up in London Road, one of London’s main street, then ran away.
Mrs. Kazemi was seriously injured and blood was running down her face.
Hijab phobia has arisen in recent years. Scarf is feared across the E.U. France and other European countries now do not allow females to cover their nose. Some nations have banned women from wearing a heard covering.
Iran Shia Woman Injured in London Racial Attack
14 April 2011
Mrs. Kazemi was beaten up in a racial attack by four young British girls when she was on her way to home in London.
They tried to pick her hijab, but she refused. When they faced with her refusal beaten her up in London Road, one of London’s main street, then ran away.
Mrs. Kazemi was seriously injured and blood was running down her face.
Hijab phobia has arisen in recent years. Scarf is feared across the E.U. France and other European countries now do not allow females to cover their nose. Some nations have banned women from wearing a heard covering.
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