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Decline of Iranian Football

Our football has been in decline in the past thirty years, especially in the past year both at club levels and at the national level. There are a few good players, but they cannot make a huge difference. Clubs should be privatized and managed professionally. Iranian players formerly had a physical advantage over other Asian players but this advantage no longer exists. Many Asian players are stronger and more physically fit in comparison to our players. At the same time, our individual player’s talent is not as good as before and while the Asian players have improved in this area as well>>>

هیزم شکن های نروژی

از کنار رودخانه که رد می شدم خورشید را دیدم که داشت خودش را در میانه ی آب می شست. سر جای همیشگی خورشید ، کس دیگری نشسته بود. خانم ماه در کنار رودخانه با حوله ی سفید، نگران شنا کردن آفتاب بود. می ترسید خدای نکرده اتفاق ناگواری بیافتد. از روی پل معلق رد شدم. رودخانه مشغول کار همیشگی اش بود. آب می چرخید و سنگ ریزه های کوچک تکان می خوردند و سنگ های بزرگ نشسته بر کف رودخانه، خود را صیقل می دادند با سمباده ی آب! آقای خدا، کنار بیشه به روی صندلی چوبی دراز کشیده بود. همان طور که خورشید آب بازی می کرد، باران شروع به باریدن کرد. رنگین کمان، موقعی شکل گرفت که آفتاب به روی باران رقص گرفتنش گرفت. آقای خدا لبخند قشنگی زدو دست هایش را صلیب وار باز کرد و با صدای بلند نفسش را بیرون داد>>>

Bridging the gap

Before accepting his new position as senior advisor to special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Vali Nasr had already distinguished himself as one of the leading analysts on the Middle East and South Asia, appearing on CNN, ABC, NPR, and lending his expertise to articles in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Time Magazine and Newsweek. Author of The Shia Revival, Democracy in Iran, and The Islamic Leviathan, Nasr is also a Professor of international politics at Tufts University, and an Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think-tank focusing on foreign policy. PAAIA's Rudi Bakhtiar caught up with Nasr as he prepares for his new role in the Obama Administration>>>

Fighting together

On March 31, Washington took its first step toward engagement with Tehran through a diplomatic encounter with the Iranian government at the Afghanistan conference in the Hague. Even though the initial contact was awkward, it was clearly a step forward for the Obama administration, and both countries agreed that the opium/heroin trade was a destructive force in both the region and the world. As such, the United States should consider using collaboration on counternarcotics as an effective means to jump-start diplomacy with Iran. Although such an approach would be difficult, it could succeed if both sides focused solely on law enforcement, without the intrusion of politicians, intelligence operatives, and diplomats>>>

Free Saberi

Roxana Saberi's case has by now become internationally known: The very photogenic Iranian-American journalist, who for the six years before her arrest in January had been working in Iran as a freelance reporter with different agencies including the BBC and the NPR, and after a closed-door summary 'trial', was sentenced to eight years in prison on espionage charges. The Iranian President Ahmadinejad along with the head of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi, have since made public announcements, urging the relevant courts to play fair with Ms. Saberi's case and to allow her all the legal means available to her by law, including the chance for a fair defense>>>

In the name of love

In "Hayedeh, Legendary Persian Diva," Akbarzadeh familiarizes us with the life and artistic achievements of one of the most popular Persian singers of the 20th century. In the words of conductor, Farnoosh Behzad, she was a singer "whose voice was unequalled in texture." And, in an interview, Frank Sinatra praised her voice. Hayedeh (1942-1990), whose real name was Massoumeh Dadehbala, was born in Tehran, and died in exile at age 47. In his film, Pejman Akbarzadeh shows the various periods of Hayedeh's artistic activities: Starting in 1960s, when she sang her first song in public, but remained unknown, until her discovery by Ali Tajvidi for the "Gol-ha-ye Rangarang" program on Iranian National Radio, followed by her turn to popular music>>>

سرنوشت

شب ها
درست نیمه های شب
در بیداری من دراز می کشی و به خواب سردی فرو می روی
صورت تو کو؟
روز در زیر پوست تن تو رژه می رود
پوست تو کاشف رنگ نور است
روزها سردند
و روزنامه ها تصویر سایه های دست تو را چاپ کرده اند >>>

A little more

He strained to hear, yes,
a female voice, repeating
"Djinni Djinn Djinn!
Come through the howlin' wind!
Come to your purple kin!"
It sounded like the falls
that Aladdin had stepped in
before he got himself lost,
the deepest rumble now
and more frightening >>>

Why Roxana?

So why is this happening to Saberi? Most analyst agree that she has become a pawn in the political games between the US and Iran, though the explanations for Tehran's actions differ. One theory reads that both Saberi and Esha Momeni, another Iranian American who was arrested in 2008, will be used as leverage with the US in a future negotiation, possibly to exchange for two Iranian nationals taken by US forces in a 2007 raid of the Iranian consulate in Irbil, Iraq. Tehran maintains that the two Iranians are diplomats. The Bush administration said that they were Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps agents>>>

دشمن تراشی

آقای احمدی‌نژاد در مقام ریاست جمهوری اسلامی ایران در كنفرانس ضد نژادپرستی دوربان 2 در سویس حضور یافت و از آن به عنوان فرصتی برای طرح نظریات كلیشه‌ای تكراری‌ خود یك بار دیگر بهره گرفت. او اگر چه در تبلیغ نظریات خود و پذیراندن آن به مستمعان تازه‌ای در سطح جهان توفیقی‌ نداشت، ولی‌ توانست این كنفرانس سازمان ملل را كه با هزینه سنگین و تلاش چند ساله‌ای تدارك دیده شده بود از مسیر خود خارج كند و دست كم برای ساعاتی پیشرفت آن را دچار اخلال سازد. به جز این،‌ آقای احمدی‌ذژاد در لباس حمایت از مردم فلسطین موفق شد یك بار دیگر افكار عمومی ‌جهان غرب و به خصوص مردم اسراییل را علیه ایران برانگیزد و به آتش خصومت با اسراییل دامن بزند، چهره‌ای عمیقا خرافی و خشن از ایران به جهان عرضه كند، و شبح جنگ را باز بر سر ایران و مردم ایران بگستراند>>>

Why I feel for Roxana

I am not a frequent visitor to Iran. Like most Iranian-Americans, I have few other reasons to visit than to see my ailing parents and the remnants of a once large family that is still left in Iran. In the 1990s, I only made two visits. Both were brief, and both were relatively uncomplicated. After my father’s heart attack in 2002, however, I have visited the “homeland” three times. Though my parents are still alive and cannot travel, I will visit Iran no more. Here’s why. Early one spring morning, two civilian clothed men knocked on my mother’s apartment in Yousefabad, Tehran. The time was probably no later than 7am, though my memory may fail me on this detail. They said they wanted to have a word with me>>>

How much longer?

With the sad news of the impending execution of Delara Darabi, the gentle and gifted poet/ painter, imprisoned for a murder that her former boyfriend most likely committed, coupled with the harsh eight-year sentence handed down to Japanese-Iranian American, Roxana Saberi after a one-day secret trial from which even her attorney was barred from attending, I have felt a sick and shameful feeling overcome me. I feel sick that the land of my forefathers has become a place that I rarely feel proud of anymore when I watch the news. Why should I be surprised though? Haven’t thousands upon thousands before these two ladies been victims of a regime that cares nothing for the truth as long as it is able to pursue its twisted political agenda?>>>

آتش شرم مقّدّس

هموطن شعله ي عشقت ز آلامت پيداست
آتش شرم مقدّس ز پيامت بر پاست
پرده ي غفلت تاريخي ما خواهد سوخت
تا چنين آتش جاويد بپا در دل ماست
زاده ي آوروشي و دانش و دادش به سرت
لوحه اش زنده ز منشور حقوق بشرت
اين آه با ظلم رَوَد آبروي ايران است
آيد آن آبروي رفته به يمن اثرت >>>

Traveling Friend

There is always a reason to travel
For beyond everything you see today
There is a tomorrow, a yesterday, a today and a forever
And for the night
A reflection lives in that beating of the moon’s heart
To reach you in a rainbow of strikes
Singing blue, silver and green >>>

Rebel with a pause

News that 31-year-old Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi has received an eight-year jail sentence for being a US “spy” comes a month after 29-year-old blogger Omid-Reza Mirsayafi was found dead in Evin prison and deals a blow to President Obama’s change of foreign policy tack with Iran’s clerics. It is, however, an apt blow – Obama’s now famous Norouz speech, in which he stopped short of praising Ayatollah Khamenei’s taste in underwear, eclipsed reports of Mr Mirsayafi’s death. On 28 March, Voice of America Persian’s website published a report that quoted Reporters Sans Frontieres’ Reza Moini, Amir-Parviz Mirsayafi, Omid’s brother, and Masoumeh, his sister.>>>