In a November 16 speech in Tehran to senior clerics who had come from all over Iran to hear him, the new president said that the main mission of his government was to pave the path for the glorious reappearance of Imam Mahdi (May God Hasten His Reappearance).

If we were lucky and the reappearance of electricity coincided with the availability of water, we would start tackling the loads of laundry that had piled up.

Because the world associates these traits with the Soviet era, many people mistake their reappearance as a sign that Russian power is now approaching that of the USSR.

His reappearance comes just as the credit bubble fueled by the sub prime mortgage boom is about to burst, triggering the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression.

In response to the reappearance of polio in the Sudan in 2004, four mass polio vaccination campaigns were carried out in Darfur, reaching 100 per cent of the target under 15 population.

The mystical 12th Imam of Shia Islam disappeared as a child in 941 CE, and Shia Muslims have awaited his reappearance ever since, believing that when he returns, he will reign on earth for seven years, before bringing about the Last Judgment and the end of the world.