Monthly archive : "June, 2020"

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran has been rocked over the past week by the shocking death of a fugitive judge, raising the stakes in a high-profile corruption trial that has put the top echelons of the Islamic Republic under the microscope. The former judge, Gholamreza Mansouri, was found dead on June 19 after falling from a window of the Duke Hotel in Bucharest, Romania, taking with him potentially explosive information in the trial of the influential Akbar Tabari. Tabari, the former deputy head of administrative affairs at Iran’s judiciary, is being indicted along with 21 associates for creating a “criminal group” within his office. Prosecutors allege Tabari obstructed justice and received massive bribes in the form...

Kourosh Ziabari - Responsible Statecraft: Four decades after the Islamic Revolution was birthed, more Iranians are emerging critical of the state’s stringent, uncompromising anti-American rhetoric and tend to be skeptical of the rationale behind the authorities’ insistence on continuously fanning the flames of hostility with the United States. Critics have pointed to the high costs of this unwarranted ideological brinkmanship for the Islamic Republic while underlining its waning traction among the younger, middle-class Iranians for whom the definition of national interest takes on pragmatic overtones spurred by a genuine desire to be integrated with the international community and redeem their country from an entrenched...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Ultraconservatives in Iran have seized upon the wave of protests against police brutality and racism in the United States to highlight the failings of their longtime adversary and to herald its “collapsing regime.” In recent days, the front pages of hardline newspapers and news agencies have been flooded with pictures of protests in various US cities. Headlines describe how law enforcement authorities, instructed by President Donald Trump, have cracked down on demonstrators. Apocalyptic projections about the imminent downfall of the United States and “imperialism” are ubiquitous. “Washington Collapsed!” proclaimed the right-wing Mashregh News agency, which published a video of...

Kourosh Ziabari - The New Arab: Protests over the continued scarcity of water in the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan have once again thrown into relief the economic and social woes of a region credited with being the beating heart of Iran's petroleum industry. The region routinely provides a boost to the national economy, while it simultaneously stagnates in poverty and underdevelopment. Gheyzanieh province boasts a population of 25,000 and is located 40 kilometres east of Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan Province. It hosts the largest petroleum companies of Iran, and produces 2 million barrels of crude oil per day. The district sits on upwards of 600 oil wells. The majority of Gheyzanieh residents are farmers or have...

Kourosh Ziabari - openDemocracy: Six months after the Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 catastrophe, families of the 176 victims and the governments involved, are still waiting for accountability. On the morning of 8 January, the Kiev-bound UIA flight PS752 crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran’s international airport, killing all passengers and crew members on board. Iran’s aviation authorities initially attributed the deadly incident to technical error in the aircraft. However, intelligence agencies of a number of countries sounded the alarm that the jetliner was targeted by missiles most probably fired from a close range and that technical error was out of the question. After three days of denial, the...