Posts tagged : "Iran"

Kourosh Ziabari - The fate of longstanding conflict over Iran's nuclear dossier, the duplicitous stance of the West towards the Israel's atomic program, the prospect of Iran – EU relations and the role of Iran in the world's political equations are the topics which the international community is immensely interested in knowing about. Josef Havlas is the ambassador of the Czech Republic in the Islamic Republic of Iran. During his diplomatic career, he served as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Czech Republic to Japan (1995-2000) and Ireland (2003-2008), as well as Deputy Director of the Dept. for External Economic Relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2000-2003). He has been chairing the Czech embassy in...

Kourosh Ziabari - Some people say that it’s the 5774th time that Iranians across the world are celebrating the ancient Persian New Year festival, Nowruz. However, some history experts believe that Nowruz has been enshrined and observed for more than 15,000 years, even before the official establishment of the Persian Empire. Like Christmas, Nowruz is a pleasurable, elaborate and delicate festival which brings millions of people together, but it seems that there are certain elements in Nowruz which make it a distinctive, matchless and everlasting tradition, and one of these important elements is its historicity. Cyrus the Great, the first king of the Persian Empire, came to throne in 550 BC, but since almost 2000 years before him when...

  Kourosh Ziabari - The Persian New Year has just started and Iranians across the world as well as people from such countries as Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Armenia and Iraq will be celebrating the festivities marking the commencement of the New Year and arrival of the vernal equinox. Nowruz (meaning “new day” in Persian) is a set of rituals and customs that inaugurate the Persian New Year. There are diverse viewpoints regarding the origins and roots of Nowruz. Some scholars believe that Nowruz first emerged 7,000 years ago, and some others put the number at 15,000. However, what is clear is that Nowruz is an ancient festival with delicate and subtle cultural ramifications and is...

 Kourosh Ziabari - Christian Bromberger is globally renowned as a prolific and outstanding orientalist who has dedicated almost three decades of his life to research and study on the culture and civilization of the Near and Middle East.Fluent in English, Persian, Russian, Italian, Greek, and French, he has served several years as the Director of French Association of Iranology in Paris and currently holds the Professorship of Ethnology at the University of Aix En Provence.His latest research titled “the Interrelation of Crafts and Cultures in Guilan or the Exploration of a Society Through the Arts and Crafts”, which reveals some anthropological facts on the lifestyle of people at the North Iranian Province of Guilan, is...

Kourosh Ziabari - May 18 is dedicated to the commemoration of Omar Khayyam in the Iranian solar calendar; the calendar which Khayyam has invented himself. To the Western world which has always been enchanted by the magnificence and glory of oriental culture, Omar Khayyam is a venerable and honored figure who brings to mind the delicacy and gracefulness of ancient Persian civilization. The Iranian polymath, astronomer, philosopher and poet is internationally known for his insightful rubaiyyat (quatrains) which the influential British poet Edward FitzGerland translated from Persian into English 150 years ago. Omar Khayyam constitutes an inseparable part of Iran’s impressive history of literature and science. He is associated with the...

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 - In a flagrant show of hostility toward the Iranian nation and a clear exercise of double standards in dealing with international terrorism, the U.S. Department of State has just removed the name of Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) from its list of foreign terrorist organizations. MKO which was established on September 5, 1965 is a terrorist cult which assisted Saddam Hussein in the 1980s war with Iran and killed more than 40,000 innocent Iranian civilians. It's also responsible for the assassination of several high-ranking Iranian officials in the first years of Islamic Revolution and also 5 Iranian nuclear scientists since 2010. The U.S. government claimed that MKO has not been involved in any terrorist...

Kourosh Ziabari - The 16th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran was unquestionably a diplomatic triumph for Iran, and the Western politicians know this very well. Perhaps it's in this context that the frustration and annoyance of the Western state-run mainstream media at the Tehran summit can be explained. During the one-week meetings of the experts, foreign ministers and heads of state and government of the NAM member states, several high-ranking delegations from 120 countries in the five continents traveled to Tehran to take part in what is seen to be the most important diplomatic gathering of the world after the UN General Assembly. This gigantic international gathering which was unprecedented in Iran's political history took...

Kourosh Ziabari - American journalist and photographer Nile Bowie believes that the reality of Iran is absolutely different from what the Western mainstream media portray of it. "I would stress that Iran is an extremely safe country to travel through, and anyone who visits will certainly leave with more accurate perceptions than what Western media attempts to depict," he said in an interview with Tehran Times. Based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Nile Bowie writes for the Canadian Center for Research on Globalization. Last week, Bowie and a group of American tourists traveled to Iran to visit the country's different cities, historical villages and cultural sites. He took numerous pictures of Iran and provided us with some of them for...

2012 came to an end with all of its turbulence, anxieties, fears and hopes. Our world experienced determining and crucial moments in this year and the consequences of many important events which took place in 2012 still continue to affect our lives. The boiling Middle East has been engulfed in battles and conflicts which have deprived our region of peace and tranquility. Thousands of innocent citizens lost their lives in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Syria. The final days of the year also heralded a painful and heartrending incident which shocked the whole world: the Sandy Hook School massacre in the U.S. state of Connecticut in which 26 innocent children were brutally slaughtered by a mentally retarded boy who couldn't tolerate the...

  Kourosh Ziabari - "Iran has a long rich history dating back to ancient Greece and Rome, and its culture predates the rise of Islam in the seventh century. Reclaiming its dignity and patrimony in the 1979 revolution, it is logical that Iran would be the first country in the Middle East to break free from its imperial chains given its vast reservoir of history and knowledge from which to draw on in getting back on its feet," said Dr. Colin S. Cavell during an exclusive interview with Tehran Times. Born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Dr. Cavell is an American author who earned his Doctorate of Philosophy degree in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Dr. Cavell is currently Assistant Professor...

  Kourosh Ziabari - Targeted with the biting sanctions of the United States and European Union over its nuclear program, Iran's economy is experiencing difficult and breathtaking days. The import of vital goods, including medicine and foodstuff is being impeded, the energy, insurance, transportation and industrial companies are unable to smoothly do business with their foreign counterparts and their financial transactions have been obstructed and the price of goods increases on a daily basis. Prof. Steve H. Hanke, Professor of Applied Economics at the Johns Hopkins University believes that Iran is facing hyperinflation, with a monthly inflation rate of nearly 70% per month and its national currency, rial, has lost its value...