Monthly archive : "December, 2018"

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: On Friday, Iranian families will mark the winter solstice, the longest, darkest night of the year. Yalda festivities are usually a time to recite poems and feast on cured meats and fresh fruit, especially the pomegranate. But this year sanctions have kept the precious fruit on vendors’ shelves – its price is out of reach for many grappling with the flailing economy. In the northern Iranian city of Rasht, fruit vendor Farshid says families are unable to afford a decent quality of life or to spend money on recreation, manifested in their reluctance to buy fruit for the solstice. “Yalda night is a time of the year we sell more, but this time, it seems that there’s no trace of increased sales. The...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Whether it takes the form of vandalizing mosques, assaulting women wearing hijab walking down the streets, painting graffiti with hateful messages on the walls of a Muslim teacher's house or bullying the Syrian child at school, Islamophobia is raising its ugly head across the world and seems to be more powerful than ever. The coming to power of Donald Trump in the United States, Brexit in the United Kingdom and the inability of the international community to address the global refugee crisis have only exacerbated anti-Muslim prejudice and paved the way for more hate crimes to happen here and there. More than before, the world is in need of inter-faith dialogue and people need education to be able to...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: While more countries across the world gear up to recognize the historic city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears to be as insoluble and intractable as ever. After the United States moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, countries such as Australia, Czech Republic, Honduras, Romania and Paraguay also signaled their willingness to follow the U.S. example. Guatemala has already opened its new embassy in Jerusalem in May. The relations between Israel and the United States warmed up significantly under President Trump and there's no trace of sporadic skirmishes between the two governments that would come to surface from time to time when Barack Obama was in...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Bordered by the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, India is the second most populous country and, arguably, the biggest democracy in the world. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund recognize India as the sixth largest economy on the planet. Despite significant economic growth in recent decades, India faces its own set of challenges. Poverty in India is still a serious concern, even though the country is no longer home to the largest number of poor people in the world; that country is Nigeria. However, figures show two-thirds of people in India live in poverty. India’s dynamic foreign policy and the willingness of countries to forge a close partnership with New...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: A landlocked country, Hungary is the 11th most popular tourist destination in Europe, according to the UN World Tourism Organization. Aside from being a well-liked tourism hub, Hungary is one of the main arrival points of migrants and refugees fleeing conflicts. Although Hungary functions as a transit, source and destination country of global migration, the government has made it clear to asylum-seekers: they are not welcome. The migration policies of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s far-right government have been so hard-hitting that they are widely criticized even by Hungary’s close allies in the European Union. Orbán’s Fidesz party currently maintains a two-thirds majority in parliament...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Croatia is a nation of about 4.1 million people. Situated at the crossroads of central and southeastern Europe, it is the newest member of the European Union and one of the youngest countries on the continent. It declared independence in 1991 and has been on a path to economic, social and political development since then. Figures by the International Monetary Fund show that Croatia is the world’s 79th country in terms of gross domestic product. The 2018 edition of Global Peace Index ranked Croatia 27th in its snapshot of the global state of peace. Tourism accounts for some 20% of Croatia’s GDP, and agriculture, forestry, mining and shipbuilding are the major drivers of its economic...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Invisible Women of the Middle East: True Stories is a 2018 book by Moroccan author Sana Afouaiz, exploring the deepest layers of women’s lives across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region under the shadow of patriarchal culture. The book, which narrates true stories based on the life of several women in different MENA countries whom the author interviewed during her trips to these nations, illustrates how women grapple with misogyny and discrimination in various forms, and how gender realities are shaped across the region. Afouaiz is a gender expert and public speaker on women issues in the Middle East and North Africa, who touches upon a number of themes in her book and depicts the...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: The Nobel Prize is arguably the most prestigious award a scientist can win. Established in memory of the late Swedish chemist, engineer and philanthropist Alfred Nobel in 1895, the prizes were first awarded in 1901 in five categories: chemistry, physics, medicine, peace and literature. In 1968, Sweden’s central bank established the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, which came to be known informally as the Nobel Prize in Economics. Nobel Prize laureates are selected through a rigorous process that starts in September each year, when the Nobel Committee sends out confidential nomination forms to persons who are qualified to nominate individuals or organizations...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: US foreign policy is a hot topic of discussion in the media. Since his inauguration in 2017, President Donald Trump has been embroiled in controversy with world leaders: from hanging up on then-Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to being scoffed by French President Emmanuel Macron over his use of Twitter. The peculiarity of Trump’s foreign policy is not only because he has been involved in so many spats with his counterparts and high-ranking politicians around the world. The unilateralism of the Trump administration and the president’s disregard for accords and treaties are unprecedented in the history of the United States, giving rise to concerns that America is isolating itself...