Interviews

Kourosh Ziabari - Anthony DiMaggio is a university professor, writer, political commentator and media expert. He is the author of numerous books, including Mass Media, Mass Propaganda (2008), When Media Goes to War (2010), and Crashing the Tea Party (2011). He has taught U.S. and Global Politics at Illinois State University, and published articles and commentaries in a number of publications, including Z Magazine, Counterpunch, Truthout, Common Dreams, Alternet, Monthly Review, and Black Agenda Report. Together with Paul Street, he co-edits the “Media-ocracy”, an online journal which describes itself as “committed to combating the entrenched media system.” Media-ocracy “caters to progressive intellectuals and activists, and is...

  Kourosh Ziabari - Brian Cloughley is an Australian of British origin author, journalist and political commentator. Cloughley specializes in South Asian affairs. He mostly writes on military and political affairs and his articles are published on different newsletters and websites such as CounterPunch, Antiwar.com and Pakistani papers such as the Nation, Daily Times and Dawn. Cloughley is opposed to the U.S. militarism and its military expeditions around the world. With regards to Iran, he says that Israel is forcefully persuading the United States to launch a military strike against Iran, while the people at the White House know that Iran doesn't have any intention of producing nuclear weapons. He believes that Israel has...

  Kourosh Ziabari - Alan Hart is an indispensable name in journalism. Unquestionably, he has been one of the most influential British journalists with an expertise in the Middle East affairs. A former BBC Panorama presenter, Hart was a close friend of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. Hart has interviewed several prominent leaders including Saudi Arabia's King Faisal, Jordan's King Hussein and Egyptian Presidents Nasser and Sadat. He was a media correspondent for the Independent Television Network and has covered the Vietnam War and Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well. He is a vocal critic of Israel and its expansionistic policies and has repeatedly reprimanded the Arab leaders...

Kourosh Ziabari - Mark Vorpahl is an American social justice activist, union steward and anti-war writer. He mostly writes for the Workers Compass but his writings have also appeared on a number of international journals and news websites such as Common Dreams, Global Research, CounterPunch and Counter Currents. He is opposed to U.S. military expeditions around the world and believes that the United States is not in a position to tell Iran to abandon its nuclear program. With regards to the emergence of the Occupy Wall Street movement he opines, “The Occupy Wall Street Movement was a damning critique of the policies of President Obama. It would not have come into existence if it weren’t for his continuation of the same policies...

Kourosh Ziabari - Prof. Gilbert Achcar is a renowned Lebanese academician, writer, socialist and anti-war activist. He left Lebanon in 1983 and taught international relations and politics at the University of Paris VII for several years. Since 2007, Achcar has been Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. He is a frequent contributor to Le Monde Diplomatique, Dissident Voice, Fronpage Magazine, Jadaliyya and ZNet. Some of his prominent books include "The Clash of Barbarisms: The Making of the New World Disorder" and "The 33-Day War: Israel’s War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and its Consequences." Prof. Achcar joined me in an interview to discuss...

Kourosh Ziabari - Noam Chomsky needs no introductory note. He is inarguably the most significant sociopolitical analyst and lecturer of the contemporary era and “ranks with Marx, Shakespeare, and the Bible as one of the ten most quoted sources in the humanities, and is the only writer among them still alive” as said by the Guardian. On Chomsky’s “Hegemony or Survival”, the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, speaking at the United Nations, “I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it.” Answering to a 2006 interview question by the New Statesman’s correspondent Andrew Stephen on what would he had done if he were the U.S. president, Chomsky proposed: “I would set...

Kourosh Ziabari - You would certainly know Yvonne Ridley or at least heard of her name if you have been a regular follower of Press TV, especially in Britain, albeit before the state-run media regulator Ofcom took the news network off the Sky platform, depriving millions of Britons of the opportunity to watch a TV channel which has always tried to shed a light on the obscured, concealed aspects of the events and tell the truth about what's happening around the world. Ridley is a renowned British journalist, war correspondent and TV host. She made the headlines on September 28, 2001 when she was arrested by the Taliban members in Afghanistan while working for the Sunday Express. She converted to Islam after she was released by Taliban on...

Kourosh Ziabari - Middle East is witness to continuous developments these days. Iran's active diplomacy to convince the indispensable 118-member bloc of non-aligned countries to support its nuclear program, the growing isolation of Israel in the European countries and within the academic circles of the U.S., Arabs' fear of losing the power game in the Persian Gulf region, the expansion of illegal settlements of Israel in the West Bank and its unremitting disobedience to UNSC resolutions have turned Middle East into the center of international attentions. Iran as the Persian Gulf region's only non-Arab nation, Israel as the world's sole Jewish state and a host of fragile Arab countries who are being immersed in the waves of West's economic...

  Kourosh Ziabari - Danny Schechter is an American journalist, filmmaker, media critic and author. He has the experience of working with global television networks such as CNN, ABC News, Press TV, Russia Today and Al Jazeera. He has visited 65 countries as a journalist and has traveled to Iran twice. As a media critique, he believes that the mainstream media sometimes fail to give fair and balanced coverage to the important international developments. "I know how the mainstream media frames issues and excludes critical perspectives. As an independent filmmaker, and occasional trouble maker, I also know how difficult it is to offer counter-narratives or critique of policy, especially in build ups to war in many media...

Kourosh Ziabari - Peter Singer is a world-renowned Australian philosopher and bio-ethicist. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. Singer specializes in applied ethics and is known for his secular and preference utilitarian viewpoints. In 2004, he was recognized as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies. Peter Singer holds controversial and widely contested viewpoints regarding abortion, infanticide and euthanasia and has written several articles and books on these subjects. His 1975 book "Animal Liberation" is considered to be the hallmark of animal...

Kourosh Ziabari - Canada-based British journalist and media correspondent Joshua Blakeney believes that recent hawkish statements made by the Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird against Iran are "fanciful." "I think Mr. Baird would be wise to recognize the sophistication of Persian culture, history and civilization. It also behooves him to read the history of imperialist intervention in Iran which might make him understand the significance of the Iranian Revolution," said Blakeney. "Canada has historically been ruled largely by political actors from Montreal and Toronto. But things have changed; the Harper government has its base of support in the oil-patch city of Calgary, Alberta. There has been a tectonic shift in Canadian politics...

Kourosh Ziabari - Mark Dankof is a prolific American author, Christian pastor, radio host and political commentator. He has been interviewed by Press TV and Russia Today as an expert on international developments. His articles have appeared on Veterans Today, and he runs a weekly program on Mark Glenn's the Ugly Truth radio show. Almost two weeks have passed since the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and scholars, journalists and authors are still trying to figure out the hidden realities behind the "most hideous terrorist attacks ever perpetrated in American soil," as described by Victor Argothy of the University of Delware's Disaster Research Center. Israel's involvement in the 9/11 attacks and the possibility that it might...