Posts tagged : "Iran"

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...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran is a country in which many aspects of public life: governance, education, foreign relations and even people’s lifestyles are peculiarly determined by ideology. The authorities ceaselessly preach to citizens about the importance of adherence to religious principles, and their resistance to anything that appears to be inspired by Western values has remained unbroken since the 1979 revolution. In a recent example of the government’s opposition to Western-inspired lifestyle habits, Tehran’s police announced that nightlife in the 8.7-million-strong capital will not be permitted, and businesses, shops and restaurants are not allowed to operate after 1 am. A member of the Tehran City Council said...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: US President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Sunday night to threaten Tehran: “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran.” The statement came two weeks after the US deployed an aircraft carrier to the region, and just over a month after the Trump administration blacklisted Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist entity. Despite a cooling of Persian Gulf tensions in recent days, the US president’s antagonism towards Iran has not dwindled and his administration seems to be determined to chip away at the Islamic Republic at any cost. In May 2018, President Trump ruffled feathers in Tehran by withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an agreement endorsed by the...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Nowruz is the ancient Iranian celebration of the new year. Although it is difficult to say with certainty when it was first marked, there are some accounts that suggest Nowruz may be 3,000 years old. Literally meaning “new day” in Persian, Nowruz is shared by several countries in West and Central Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, as well as the Iranian diaspora across the world. At the initiative of several countries celebrating this occasion, 21 March was declared International Nowruz Day by the United Nations in 2010, and since then the the Persian New Year has been marked at the organization’s headquarters in New York. In 2009, Nowruz was inscribed on the UNESCO’s...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran’s 1979 revolution was such an all-encompassing movement that it influenced almost all aspects of life. Shortly after the kingdom of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was toppled, revolutionary entities were established to take charge of emerging responsibilities in the new theocracy: revolutionary courts, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution. Iran’s movie industry was not impervious to the ripple effects of the revolution. Many actors and actresses who had appeared in shah-era films left the country, fearing persecution by the religious zealots. Censorship was rife and films produced in the early years of the revolution were heavily vetted to ensure the...

Kourosh Ziabari - Fair Observer: Iranian society is divided more than ever. Social fragmentation stems from a range of issues, including foreign policy failures, widespread corruption, a lack of transparency, restrictions on the media and the infringement of civil liberties. The US withdrawal from Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — aka the nuclear deal — has added to Iran‘s rifts by pitting a large group of people against the government and turning Iranians against each other. The result is that ordinary people are expressing themselves in ways that might sound irrational, such as fiercely clashing with fellow citizens on social media. For the people, there are not many reasons to be happy, and this public...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Instagram, widely used in Iran among small business owners, students, influencers and even senior officials, is the latest social media application to come under scrutiny and a potential ban.  On 3rd January, BBC Persian quoted the Vice-Attorney General of Iran Javad Javidnia saying that a decree has been issued for banning the Facebook-owned application, with the members of the High Council of Cyberspace unanimously determining that the platform should be “filtered.” The minister of information and communication technology, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, was seemingly taken by surprise by the announcement.  “Assuming that the statements of the Vice-Attorney General are correct and that he...

Kourosh Ziabari - Asia Times: Iran on Monday marked the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, when the Pahlavi dynasty collapsed, paving the way for the founding of the Islamic Republic. Around the world, pundits and academics are passionately debating the events of 1979 in think-tanks, universities, and media outlets. The US government will convene a conference this week attacking the Islamic Republic from Warsaw, Poland. And the Iranian government is marking the anniversary in its own way: bombarding citizens with programs on state television about the breakthroughs of the Islamic Republic, inaugurating roads, hospitals and schools across the country and organizing feasts and speeches in villages, towns and large cities...