Word: holiday
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...That's partly because Indonesia has done well fighting terrorism. Most Indonesians practice a syncretic, moderate form of Islam. Yet a small band of homegrown extremists is waging a bloody jihad. A string of bombing campaigns, striking everywhere from Jakarta to the holiday isle of Bali, has claimed hundreds of foreign and local lives over the past eight years. Just weeks before Obama was due in Indonesia, police shot dead at an Internet café outside Jakarta a man believed to have orchestrated the 2002 bombings of two Bali nightclubs. Indonesia's efforts to counter its terror threat...
Meanwhile, the conspiracy theories grow wilder by the day. In one, Queen Elizabeth is working through British conglomerates to regain control of the colonies -- witness the purchase of Burger King and Holiday Inn by British companies. There is also rumored to be a global conspiracy to implant newborn babies with microchips. Robert Brown, editor and publisher of Soldier of Fortune, a must-read for many gun advocates and survivalists, has tracked some of these wacky conspiracies and discounted them, including one much vaunted black helicopter sighting. But that hasn't quieted the patriot grapevine. "It's all bull. But they...
...Iran did erupt into flames. But the opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not organize it. Tuesday evening was the beginning of Nowrooz, the two-week-long traditional Iranian New Year celebration, which for more than three millenniums marked the beginning of spring in the Persian world. The popular holiday, celebrated with bonfires and, more recently, illegal fireworks, is so hoary it predates the three Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - a fact that the mullahs who rule Iran are quite sensitive about. One ayatullah, Nasser Makarem Shirazi, called the first day of Nowrooz a "superstitious act and baseless. Pious...
...holiday is so sensitive that the opposition doesn't want to be anywhere near accusations that it is fomenting unrest during its celebration. The so-called Green Movement leadership actually asked its followers not to target the day for protest, as has been done with Muslim holy days and the anniversaries of important dates in the Islamic revolution led by the late Ayatullah Khomeini. The blowback would be worse for opposition leaders like Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi if they were seen as promoting demonstrations during a festival from the days before Iran converted to Islam. No one wants...
Salaries for civil servants, including a 30% cut in holiday bonuses...