Monthly archive : "July, 2020"

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: The celebrated anti-colonial nationalist and leader of the independence movement of India Mahatma Gandhi is credited with the famous quote “our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization.” Diversity is cherished as a universal value, and a wealth of academic studies have been carried out substantiating this conviction that proselytizing multiculturalism and inclusion yield astounding results in different political, social, cultural and economic endeavors. United Kingdom is a nation that has historically benefited from its demographic diversity, getting strength from the cultures and races that go to make up the modern Britain. In 2018, around 13.8 percent of...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been raging for over seven decades, and the prospects for peace have never seemed more distant than today. The two-state solution, which was once the most widely-accepted remedy for the impasse, has lost traction, and efforts by the United Nations and other intermediaries to resolve the dispute have got nowhere. In 2018, a survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research and the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research at Tel Aviv University found that only 43% of Palestinians and Israeli Jews support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. This was down from 52% of Palestinians and 47% of Israeli Jews who favored a...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Islamophobia in the US has increased ever since the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Discrimination and hate crimes against American Muslims skyrocketed immediately after the deadliest assault on US soil took place. Despite sporadic efforts by former President Barack Obama to bridge the religious and racial divides, anti-Muslim prejudice was further heightened after the election of Donald Trump in 2016, leading to what the Council on American-Islamic Relations described as a “sharp rise” in a campaign against “innocent Muslims, innocent immigrants and mosques.” Robert McKenzie, a senior fellow at New America, a Washington-based think tank, said in 2018 that “political rhetoric from national leaders...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Our world is getting warmer, and it is almost entirely triggered by human activity. It is not a hoax, myth or a conspiracy theory, as some politicians tend to suggest. The atmospheric gases known as “greenhouse gases” are largely responsible for the greenhouse effect, which is one of the chief drivers of global warming. Global greenhouse gas emissions have soared at a rate of roughly 2 percent annually since 1970. In 2015, 195 countries and the European Union subscribed to a comprehensive agreement aiming to keep the global warming levels at well below 2°C, and ideally above 1.5°C. The agreement is believed to be the first genuine global commitment to address the climate dilemma. Climate change disrupts...