Nasrin Sotoudeh was arrested after defending women who took their hijabs off in public. Why is her hunger strike now being met with silence by the UK’s...
When Salman Rushdie was whiling away the hours in hiding after his fatwa was issued, he could scarcely have imagined that 23 years later a)...
Two American rappers about to go on tour are considering reviving their colleague to join them in holographic form – because he’s dead. Earlier this...
SHAHNAMEH The Persian Book of Kings by Elizabeth Laird (Shirin Adl, Illustrator) 2012 Frances Lincoln Publishers What do you get the little people in the...
Last week, an Iranian musician posted the following statement on Facebook: “Music is my religion and I believe in keeping politics separate from my faith.”...
Muhammad Sahimi, who writes for TehranBureau.com told : “Iranians are concerned about Iran. But, almost none commit suicide because of it.” He was referring to...
A Thai woman boarding a flight at Bangkok's airport is caught with a sedated tiger cub in her luggage. Stuffed in a bag with, er,...
Freedom of speech is a funny old thing. In the Islamic Republic it’s pretty much outlawed – yet in a leafy suburb of west London,...
The Neda 'dokoon' fashions her as a 'martyr' and in this regard, it's better she's a virgin. A man we suspect has had carnal relations...
In Britain, the word “black” usually refers to people of African or Caribbean descent. It’s always been a surprise to many Iranians that Ali Dizaei,...
“There used to be a rooster, right here,” says Afshin Kohinoor, slapping the counter at Britannia restaurant in Mumbai. It held court there from 1982...
What does Neda Agha-Soltan, listed by Time magazine as one of 2009’s ‘25 people who mattered’, have in common with Saddam Hussein? One angel, the...
Last Thursday two prominent Americans spoke about the recent unrest in Iran – President Obama and Kermit the Frog . In Oslo, Obama made a...
New York Times columnist Thomas L Friedman is not a fan of Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan: “I’d prefer a minimalist approach, working with tribal...
Having won the Nobel peace prize in 2003, Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi is now the first laureate whose medal has been confiscated by a government....
To Rt Hon David Miliband MP Secretary of State for Foreigh and Commonwealth Affairs From Peyvand Khorsandi Dear Mr Miliband I am writing to express...
My ex-girlfriend Sandra got married. Last Saturday, she and her groom Joe vowed to look after each other “in credit and in overdraft” even “when...
My grandmother had a big nose. In some ways, she was a big nose that happened to have a body attached to it. Her nose...
Three hours off my plane, back in May, I decamped at the YMCA Colaba, south Mumbai’s tourist district, and made my way to the bar...
It is too early now to publicly attack Messrs Khatami and Mousavi, two appalling political fraudsters hoisted on to the placards of masses who for...
GOA, INDIA: Yesterday night I came home to find four cockroaches perched on my sofa. They were facing the television set even though it was...
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...
1) Move to a third world country and come back when things improve This is by far the best way to improve your financial situation....
In coming weeks, the Islamic Republic, like anyone turning 30, will be wondering what it has done with its life and what its prospects are....
Hossein Shahidi teaches journalism at the American University of Kuwait. In July 2006, when he was at the American University of Beirut, I asked for...
News of playwright Harold Pinter’s death arrived in primetime, Christmas – a religious date, in Britain, for watching telly. You couldn’t escape the news and...
“Feliss Nabbidad!” yells dad. “Happy birthday Jesus!” – it’s always a bad idea to stay at your parents' on Christmas Eve. Cheery Mexican brass blares...
I have a recurring dream. I fly to the homes of Jews, Muslims, and leave presents for their children. Christians are outraged. In one north...
One of the highlights of my last trip to Bombay, in March, was of meeting a 90-year-old Parsi woman who spoke Persian and was a...
The word socialist has been bandied about more in the past few weeks than it has since the early 1990s. John McCain was asked whether...
