Website of Kourosh Ziabari, award-winning journalist and reporter

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...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: The imposition of new sanctions against Iran by the United States after the de-certification of the Iran nuclear deal by the U.S. President Donald Trump is being widely debated these days. These sanctions are mostly controversial because of the highly detrimental impact they leave on the lives of the ordinary citizens in Iran while they don't have the endorsement of the United Nations Security Council and the European Union. The critics of the sanctions argue that they make it impossible for Iran to import food, medicine and other humanitarian goods, lead to the impoverishment of average citizens by debilitating Iran's currency rial, reduce the purchasing power of the Iranians and at the same time violate the...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: On October 27, a gunman entered the Tree of Life synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and opened fire on worshippers attending the Shabbat morning services. Although police were called to the scene and SWAT forces intervened, the shooter killed 11 people and injured seven others. It is believed that Robert Bowers, the alleged gunman, is behind the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the United States. The 46-year-old expressed a hatred for Jews on social media and told the police while in custody that he wanted “all Jews to die.” He has since appeared in a courtroom and prosecutors have demanded the death penalty. The shooting in...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Being a journalist is not an easy job. It has never been seen as an effortless and unproblematic profession. Journalists go to extreme lengths to report on sensitive and controversial issues in the public interest. They may find themselves personally engaged with the stories they cover and even risk their own wellbeing being affected by the amount of stress and anxiety. According to CareerCast, a job search engine, the role of a newspaper reporter is the sixth most stressful job in the world. So far this year, at least 45 journalists have been killed in line of duty, as reported by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Hundreds of broadcast, print and online media organizations are run by people...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: It has been more than six months since US President Donald Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal. The JCPOA was the outcome of months of talks between Iran, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany and the European Union to find a viable solution to Tehran’s nuclear dilemma. Leading up to the agreement in 2015, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and then-US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to each other more than any other top diplomats in the world. This demonstrated that Iran and the United States, despite being rivals, can sit together respectfully and solve their differences through...

Kourosh Ziabari - ODVV: Iran is on the headlines once again. The United States has imposed the second round of sanctions against the Middle East nation after withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal. This time, the sanctions target Iran's oil and banking sectors and are expected to have an onerous effect on its economy. This is while the International Court of Justice had ruled following a complaint lodged by Iran to this court that the U.S. sanctions are illegal due to their detrimental impacts on the life of ordinary citizens and should be suspended. The United States ignored the ruling. A prominent human rights activist told the Organization for Defending Victims of...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal, was one of US President Donald Trump’s main campaign promises. He fulfilled this promise on May 8 and sent shockwaves across the world. This is an agreement that was upheld through the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which the United States itself had voted in favor of under the Obama administration. Now, Iran-US relations are at a record low. The Trump administration has imposed grueling sanctions against Iran that have started to erode the country’s economy and already devastated its currency, the rial. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has rejected any talks with the...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: History has been made in America. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar will be the first Muslim women to serve in the US Congress. The 2018 midterm elections saw a decisive victory for Tlaib in Michigan’s 13th congressional district, while Omar won in Minnesota’s fifth congressional district to replace the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, Keith Ellison. Tlaib, 42, was born in Detroit, Michigan, to working-class Palestinian immigrants. Omar, 37, is a Somali-American who was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2016. Omar and her family immigrated to the United States when she was 14 to flee the civil war in Somalia. The landmark achievement for Tlaib and Omar — both Democrats...