A view of Sheikh Zayed Road - a major highway in Dubai that has been the site of rapid urban development. (Image credit: Al Miller) Passing remarks, it turns out, can make a lasting impression. I had come to appreciate such remarks while conducting my dissertation fieldwork in Dubai during the course of 2010. That year saw me regularly engage ... Continue reading »
Sunday, May 19th, 2013
TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran is tightening control of the Internet ahead of next month's presidential election, mindful of violent street protests that social networkers inspired last time around over claims of fraud, users and experts say.
The authorities deny such claims, but have not explained exactly why service has become slower ... Continue reading »
Iran is tightening control of the Internet ahead of next month's presidential election, mindful of violent street protests that social networkers inspired last time around over claims of fraud, users and experts say.
The authorities deny such claims, but have not explained exactly why service has become slower.
Businesses, banks and even state ... Continue reading »
On the last available day, ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani arrived at the ministry of the interior to register himself as a presidential candidate. Rafsanjani was the Islamic republic’s fourth president, from 1989 to 1997, and is now once again standing as a ‘reformist’. In reality he is the candidate of capitalism and probably still one of the riches ... Continue reading »
Once again it begins. The great farce and grand illusion that is the Iranian Presidential election. If you read the Iranian Constitution it's painfully obvious. But my astute colleagues, even ones more astute than me, people with PhDs even, seem to be blissfully ignorant as to how the system and laws work, choosing instead to be gullibly swept ... Continue reading »
Farce, by definition, is a standard theatrical comedy. Sadly enough, some criminal agents, for more than three decades, have devised a sickening strain of farce which boggles the mind. This 21st century strain combines the rough boisterous comedy with human suffering in a disgusting manner. In farce, everything is exaggerated, including the plo ... Continue reading »
The notion that U.S. sanctions on Iran are supposed to act as diplomatic leverage to get a nuclear deal may be dispelled once and for all by a new Congressional action now in the works.
The House is poised to move ahead with a new round of Iran sanctions, and a slew of new sanctions proposals are set to be introduced in the Senate, even as a host ... Continue reading »
While the real story of some people’s lives may begin with romance, a scandal, or with love affairs, my mother’s story began conceivably with a marriage devoid of any scandal or adventurous romance. I am pretty sure that my father had not even seen my mother before their marriage; this was not, in fact, unusual at that time nor is it unusual today ... Continue reading »
In 1990, Saddam Hussein did not understand that the world had changed with the fall of the Wall. He thought that the USSR would protect him from America after the invasion of Kuwait, and paid dearly his mistake. Abandoned by the Soviets, Iraq had to bear the cost, first of a war lost, and second of international sanctions, on a scale and harshness ... Continue reading »
Say Iranian-American and few will think social entrepreneur or political advocate. Engineer? Yes. Doctor? Certainly. Reality show star? Yes, a few. Lawyer? Definitely. But a force for political reform and change? Not quite yet. In the eyes of most Americans, Iranian Americans are not yet known as givers or as a community that takes the lead for soc ... Continue reading »
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