Word: jafari
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...aggressive strategy to unite its power base, the coalition of conservative clerics in Qum and the Tehran-based commanders of the country's sprawling security apparatus. The masterminds behind the trial - believed to be either Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei or the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, or both - probably realize the proceedings will convince few supporters of the opposition or the average Tehrani. But the confessions may galvanize the still substantial bloc of conservative voters, many of whom are older and rely on state media for news...
...particular, the gang of security chiefs, or the "New Right" - including just-ousted Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejehei, commander of the Basij paramilitary Hasan Taeb, and head of the Revolutionary Guards Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari - may seek to further militarize the already repressive regime. One fundamentalist group linked to the Basij paramilitary force has gone public with plans to wrestle power from Ahmadinejad by advancing its own "desired Cabinet lineup." The spokesman, Lotfali Bakhtiari, said in an interview published in the newspaper Khabar, "Our organization intends to become the government's think tank. We want to introduce...
...largest state, Uttar Pradesh, home to over 170 million people. It is here, say health workers, that a few ultraconservative Muslim clerics have spread a myth that the polio vaccine is part of an underhanded campaign to sterilize Muslim children and lower the Muslim birth rate. Dr Hamid Jafari, the regional advisor for the World Health Organization (WHO) on polio eradication, says that the majority of Uttar Pradesh's Muslims have got their children vaccinated, but, "in certain places, fatwas have been issued against the vaccine." In those places, Muslims have stopped state health workers from entering their houses...
...Jafari adds that paranoia is not the only reason for the hostility to the polio drops. Uttar Pradesh is notorious for being one of the worst-administered regions of India, and most of the state has appallingly bad hospitals and health services. Muslims, who are among the poorest of Indians, bear the brunt of this collapse in the state's health infrastructure. Dr Jafari says: "There's a sense of frustration among many Muslims: they tell the health workers, we've never seen anyone coming to take care of us, why are you coming just to give us polio drops...
...Even more disturbing are the global implications of such paranoia. Dr. Jafari says that genetic analysis shows that the strain of polio from Uttar Pradesh, in the past couple of years, has left India, and spread to at least three African countries that had made great strides against polio - Angola, Namibia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This year, he says, the Uttar Pradesh strain of the polio virus has leapt out of India and reinfected two polio-free neighboring countries: Bangladesh and Nepal. "This shows that the continuation of polio in one country is a threat...