Website of Kourosh Ziabari, award-winning journalist and reporter

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: After Iran shot down a $220-million US unmanned aerial vehicle over the Strait of Hormuz on June 20, President Donald Trump said the United States was “cocked and loaded” to retaliate. He apparently rescinded his decision only 10 minutes before the attack was to be carried out, after his military advisers told him 150 people may die in such a strike. President Trump is being censured by critics for not having a clear and robust Middle East strategy. He is said to only increase the likelihood of an unwanted, new military confrontation in an already volatile region, resulting from miscalculations that appear to be inevitable when tensions run high. In a recent op-ed, the former German Foreign...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Miniature painting is a genre in Persian and Indian art that has survived the passage of time. Indo-Persian miniature painting, a common heritage of the two nations, was originally an artwork adorning text that reached its climax of glory during the 15th and 16th centuries. Miniature paintings illustrate religious, mythological or literary themes and plots. In the 17th century, miniatures mostly depicted love scenes and, in the 18th century, shifted to portray flowers and birds. Ambreen Butt is a Pakistani-American miniaturist and painter born in 1969 in the historic city of Lahore. She has been called a “leader in revitalizing the centuries-old form of” miniature. Butt received her...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: People follow different paths to find meaning for their lives. For many, religion is a way of embracing spirituality. In a world plagued by loneliness, anxiety and conflict, religion can help people find peace of mind and inner calm. Since the beginning of time, humankind has resorted to a metaphysical power in which they can find refuge and look for answers to their questions. Worshipping a deity is seen as a way of expressing their desire for truth and peace when the world appears incapable of responding to their needs. Yet, at the same time, modern world history has been marred by wars and conflicts, some of which religious violence has played a role in. In 1975, only 2% of conflicts in the...

Kourosh Ziabari - Al-Monitor: Harsh verdicts issued against journalists and political activists show that the cost of advocacy for reform and civil liberties is still high in Iran despite pledges by moderate President Hassan Rouhani to change the status quo. Marzieh Amiri, a journalist with the Reformist Shargh, was sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison and 147 lashes last month. She was arrested while covering an International Workers Day rally in Tehran. According to Reporters Without Borders, she is now one of 10 female journalists behind bars in Iran. Another Iranian journalist recently handed a heavy sentence is Kioomars Marzban, a filmmaker and satirist who was convicted of security charges including...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: More than a year after the US pullout from the Iran nuclear deal, the ripple effects of President Donald Trump’s controversial decision continue to be felt across Iran and the Middle East. The Iran-US relations are cranked up to a point of unprecedented hostility and officials in both countries have been ramping up aggressive rhetoric towards the other side while a new military face-off in the region appears to be just around the corner. The Trump administration has been waging a campaign of “maximum pressure” against Iran in a bid to convince the Islamic Republic authorities to come to a new agreement with the United States addressing a broader range of issues than just Tehran’s nuclear activities....

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Malawi is one of the most impoverished nations on the planet. It is experiencing what officials describe as a “population explosion” in a society with inadequate resources. As of 2018, Malawi is the third poorest country in the world with a GDP per capita of only $342, according to the International Monetary Fund. Over 90,000 people in the landlocked African country live with HIV/AIDS, which accounts for one in 10 adults. HIV/AIDS is one of the main reasons why Malawian children become vulnerable or orphaned. The country is in dire need of advanced medical services and facilities and trained physicians, and there is only one doctor for every 50,000 individuals. Climate change and global...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Data and figures on anti-Muslim bigotry across the world, especially in North America, paint a disturbing picture of the status of Islamic communities. Council on American-Islamic Relations recorded over 500 anti-Muslim hate crimes across the United States from January to May this year. The actual number, however, appears to be way bigger. On April 29, a mosque was assaulted and several Qurans were destroyed in Queens, New York by a 37-year-old man, who is now being indicted and can spend the next three to 15 years behind the bars if convicted. Earlier this year, on May 15, a fire tore through the Diyanet Mosque in New Haven, Connecticut, which left significant damage to the property. The New Haven police...

Kourosh Ziabari - Al-Monitor: A prominent Iranian TV commentator's move to the United Kingdom to join an opposition station after a long career at Iran’s state TV has revived a longstanding debate over the public approval of IRIB, the sole national broadcaster holding a monopoly over domestic radio and television services in Iran. Mazdak Mirzaei is a 48-year-old soccer commentator and TV show host who has moved to the UK to work with Iran International, a London-based TV channel launched in May 2017, which is believed to be funded by a “secretive offshore entity and a company” whose director is a Saudi Arabian businessman with close ties to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Iran International regularly features guests...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Three months after flash floods submerged large swaths of Iran and nearly two years after a massive earthquake devastated its western Kermanshah Province, the suffering of crisis-stricken Iranians seems to have been consigned to oblivion.  Paralyzed by crushing US sanctions, the government of President Hassan Rouhani has performed poorly in delivering aid to people living in the affected areas, and construction efforts have been dismally sluggish as thousands of Iranians are still homeless and living in shelters and makeshift camps. No where is that suffering more obvious than Iran’s already neglected minority regions, which have born the brunt of climate change and snowballing natural...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Ever since the 1979 revolution, Iran has been at the center stage of controversy — from the embassy siege to the nuclear deal. Today, the US government considers the country to be the world’s “leading state sponsor of terrorism” due to funding networks and operational cells globally. So, it’s not surprising that coverage of Iran in Western media is far from positive. Yet many independent journalists and writers have traveled to the country to see the daily lives of Iranians firsthand. As they’ve discovered, life is dramatically different from what Hollywood and Fox News tell us. One of these journalists is Stephan Orth, a German author who wrote “Couchsurfing in Iran: Revealing a...

Lobelog - Kourosh Ziabari: If you’ve ever wondered how historical realities can be sacrificed and manipulated in the service of myopic political goals, there is a great example for you to follow in your daily roundup of international news offered by the mainstream media. While reading through coverage of current Middle Eastern affairs in international newspapers, magazines, and news websites, it’s very common for readers to come across the words “the Gulf.” Many people recognize what “the Gulf” signifies, but many others don’t know and get perplexed and still others ignore the vague reference while reading. Basically, the phrase is meant to denote the body of water separating Iran from the Arabian Peninsula. By...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: As the Iranian economy crumbles under US sanctions, scammers are exploiting the popularity of state-backed game shows to swindle the middle class. For Iman Fard, a 30-year-old computer engineer in the northern Caspian coastal city of Rasht, it all started with a phone call from an unknown number. “They called me around 9 PM, saying that they represented a radio station in Tehran. They said I was one of 14 people who were chosen by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology of Iran to receive a cash prize of 50 million rials ($455) for my reasonable and responsible use of my cell phone,” he told Asia Times. “They said the ministry wanted to award me because I don’t use my cell...