Word: shying
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Iran, the hard truth is that ethnic Persians make up only 51% of the population. The rest of the country is a mishmash of ethnic minorities, various religions, Muslim sects and semi-nomadic tribes. None has been entirely happy living under the mullahs' Shi'ite theocracy, especially Iran's Sunni citizens, which make up 9% of the population and include most of the Baluch. Iran's minorities have been susceptible to outside influences, but rarely have they felt strong enough to take on Tehran - which fears that that could change with the chaos at its borders. If, for instance...
Tehran is obviously worried that it has a problem with or without a failure in Pakistan or Afghanistan. The five senior Revolutionary Guards officers killed on Sunday were on their way to a meeting with local tribal chiefs to talk about containing Shi'ite-Sunni violence in their province, and the agenda no doubt included what to do about Jundallah...
...Sunday's strike appeared to have been aimed, in keeping with Jundullah's agenda, at escalating hostilities between the government in Tehran, dominated by Shi'ite Persians, and the Baluchi minority. The attack involved a suicide bomber entering a mosque in the city of Pisheen during a meeting between local Sunni and Shi'ite leaders that was organized by the Revolutionary Guards to improve dialogue between the two communities. A second bomber struck a vehicle containing several Guards officers. The dead included the lieutenant commander of the Guards' ground forces in all of Iran as well as the Guards commander...
...Before the attack on the Sri Lankan team, Aqeel's group had already won a fearsome reputation as al-Qaeda's foot soldiers in Pakistan and pioneered the terrorist attacks that have now become depressingly common. An offshoot of the Pakistani anti-Shi'ite Sipah-e-Sahaba militant group, LeJ gained notoriety in 1998 after attempting to assassinate then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. After al-Qaeda leadership arrived along the Afghan border, LeJ underwent a transformation, says militancy expert Rana. "They developed a nexus with foreign militants there. In many major attacks, LeJ was involved, including the killing...
...leading jailers of journalists and bloggers, according to the press-freedom group Reporters Without Borders. It is not those limitations on the media that China's propaganda ministers are trying to modernize. Rather, it's the ability of the political party to have its message heard. An August Qiu Shi article complained about the dominance of the global media by a small number of conglomerates like Murdoch's News Corp. and Time Warner. But in China, oversight of CCTV and Xinhua is consolidated in the hands of the party. When Li Congjun, head of the Xinhua News Agency and chief...