Word: farsi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...military's first mosque at Norfolk Navy Base in Virginia. The Pentagon is eager for the language skills of Muslims, and has been awarding signing bonuses and expedited citizenship (for the two-thirds of enlistees who are legal aliens) since 2003 to recruits fluent in Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Kurdish and Pashto. (The Army's website, in its typically patriotic but omnisciently weird way, declares these 450 new soldiers - all sent to Afghanistan, Iraq or the Horn of Africa - "100% support the Global War on Terrorism.") During Ramadan, fast-breaking dinners are regularly held at the Pentagon and other military installations...
Khomeini's successor as Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, continued to show the guards love, ensuring they got the latest military hardware and best facilities. They even set up their own university. Now the guard - sepah in Farsi - has evolved into what a study by the Rand Corp.'s National Defense Research Institute describes as an "expansive socio-political-economic conglomerate whose influence extends into virtually every corner of Iranian political life and society." Its commercial interests run into the billions of dollars and range from massive infrastructure projects to laser eye surgery. And in addition to the Intelligence Ministry, guardsmen...
...Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), or Sepah for short in Farsi, is widely believed to have played a large role in orchestrating the crackdown on political dissidents and protesters following the disputed presidential election. Its political influence within the regime has always far exceeded the actual army's, and it has increased exponentially since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected to office in 2005. But the speculation among Iranian opposition sources is that, these days, the IRGC's powerful patron - whose second term officially began last week - has now become its puppet, falling under the influence of a gang of security...
While tourists do come by the walls to stare inside, the place is not open for sightseeing. The compound has a more important function for the Iranian government. The regime's shock troops, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, referred to as Sepah in Farsi, use the main building - which resembles a high school gym in shape and size - to train its members. For the past month, they have participated in the government's brutal response to mass demonstrations by beating protesters in the streets with truncheons and overseeing the notorious Basij militia, a paramilitary group that has been accused...
...bystander, became the embodiment of the leading role Iranian women have played in the protests. Early mourners scoured the Web and appropriated the image of the wrong woman--another Neda, who, it turned out, was very much alive. When the world learned that her name meant voice in Farsi, she became a symbolic victim of oppression, silenced by a brutal regime. As each detail of her life emerged, it was given import and meaning. The government, which quickly declared the video a fabrication, has won back control of the streets, but it has no power over mythmaking. Neda died...