لیلا دوست عزیزم بالهای خود را جمع کرد و به آسمان رفت.
خبرنگار خوب ایرنا- حدود۱۰ سال در ایرنا به عنوان رابط خبری کار کرد.مسوولان محترم ایرنا هزار بار وعده دادند که استخدام می کنند قراردادی می کنند اما...
در آزمون استخدامی ایرنا پذیرفته شد اما گفتند که باید به شهرستان برود هزار بهانه تراشیدند و آخر عطایش را به لقایش بخشید و رابط خبری باقی ماند.
هفته پیش با هم دیزی می خوردیم و به قول لیلا آمده بودیم تا از زندگی بنالیم.چقدر درد و دل کرد .چقدر دلش پر بود از همه چیز ...
باورم نمی شود که لیلا از میان ما رفته است.لیلا چطور دلت آمد که گزارشهای اجتماعی ات را نیمه کاره رها کنی و بروی ؟بهتر از تو چه کسی می توانست درد این مردم را بگوید؟
همیشه دغدغه مردم را داشت.گزارشهایش را می توانید بخوانید .
چقدر با هم خندیدیم.به نطق های پیش از دستور....
لیلا جان امیدوارم که حالا به آرامش رسیده باشی.... لیلا جان دیدی آنقدر ها هم بدشانس نبودی.... خدا در خواستت را پذیرفت... می گفتی شانس هم نداریم که خدا از روی زمین برمان دارد .... چقدر خوش شانس بودی لیلا که رفتی ....
+ نوشته شده توسط فرزانه سید سعیدی - پارمیس سعادتمند در پنجشنبه دوم اسفند 1386 و ساعت
22:11 |
سرانجام پس از سه روز سکوت خبری رسانه های داخلی از تجمع دانشجویان دانشگاه تهران در کوی دانشگاه خبرگزاری ها اجازه یا جرات یافتند تا درباره این اتفاق مطلب بنویسند.
براساس اخبار شنیده شده در جریان تحصن دانشجویان حدود ۱۰ نفر دستگیر و ۸ نفر زخمی شده اند.
خبرنگاران با ارسال پیامک هایی اخبار مختص به این حادثه را به اطلاع یکدیگر می رسانند.
مدیر کوی دانشگاه تهران به درستی این اتفاقات را به بهانه اعتراض به کیفیت غذا دانسته است.
ادامه سیاستهای کنونی با افزایش بی ثباتی، افزایش نرخ تورم ، افزایش نرخ بیکاری،گرانی مسکن و بسیاری اتفاقات از این دست و از طرفی کاهش آزادی بیان با برخورد با روزنامه ها و خبرنگاران سبب شده تا دانشجویان آرام ننشسته و اعتراض کنند .اعتراضاتی که رفته رفته دامنه خواسته آنان را بالا می برد.
خبرگزاری فارس گزارش می دهد:
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مديركل كوي دانشگاه تهران گفت: اتفاقات اخير كوي دانشگاه تهران با يك حركت چند نفره و حساب شده به بهانه اعتراض به كيفيت غذا آغاز شده است. |
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علي فرهادي مديركل كوي دانشگاه تهران در گفتگو با خبرنگار سياسي خبرگزاري فارس با بيان اينكه اتفاقات كوي دانشگاه تهران از روز جمعه آغاز شد، اظهار داشت: اتفاقات با يك حركت چند نفره و حساب شده به بهانه اعتراض به كيفيت غذا آغاز شد اما به اعتقاد ما اينها بهانه واقعي نبود چرا كه اولاً بين زمان اين حركت و توزيع غذا 2 ساعت فاصله وجود داشت و دوم اينكه در جمعيت 10 هزار نفري مجموعه خوابگاههاي كوي، هسته اوليه معترضين 10 تا 15 نفر بودند كه با تحريكات بعدي به حدود 50 نفر و در اوج اتفاقات هم به 100 نفر رسيدند.
وي با بيان اينكه حتي به فرض اگر ايرادي بر غذا وارد بود، نبايد اعتراضات در روزهاي بعد ادامه مييافت، تصريح كرد: به اعتراف همگان غذاي روزهاي بعد مشكلي نداشت پس دليلي وجود نداشت كه اين وقايع تداوم پيدا كند مگر اينكه اهدافي ديگر را دنبال كند.
فرهادي به كمكهاي مختلف به كوي دانشگاه تهران به ويژه از ناحيه رياست جمهوري در 2 سال گذشته اشاره كرد و افزود: خدماترساني و مسايل رفاهي در 2 سال گذشته به شدت پيگيري شده، كمك ديگري هم از همين بخش در راه است، طبق قرار قبلي به دنبال ارتقاي مواد اوليه هستيم و خدمات اياب و ذهاب دانشجويان از لحاظ تعداد اتوبوس و زمان آن را افزايش داديم.
مديركل كوي دانشگاه تهران حركت و نوع عملكرد معترضين را با ادعاي اعتراض صنفي مغاير دانست و گفت: ضمن عذرخواهي از قاطبه دانشجويان و با تاكيد بر اين نكته كه نبايد دهها هزار دانشجو به خاطر عدهاي معدود بدنام شوند اما تخريب، غارت و سرقت اموال و حمله به انبار مواد غذايي با هيچ منطق دانشجويي قابل توجيه و تفسير نيست.
فرهادي حركت اخير معترضين را از لحاظ اخلاقي ناشايست دانست و اضافه كرد: فحاشي و به كار بردن الفاظ ركيك در محل شهروندي و عمومي با هيچ منطقي سازگار نيست.
وي به تلاش عدهاي براي نسبت دادن مشكلات به مديريت كوي اشاره و اضافه كرد: به گواه شواهد و مستندات بيشترين خدمات در مقايسه با دورههاي قبل در اين دولت و در اين دوره مديريت ارايه شده است و همانگونه كه شهيد بهشتي فرمودند؛ شيفتگان خدمت هستيم نه تشنگان قدرت، بنابراين خادم نظام هستيم و هر جا مصلحت نظام باشد خدمت خواهيم كرد.
مديركل كوي دانشگاه تهران با بيان اينكه در 2 سال گذشته هيچ حركت مسئلهداري را در كوي دانشگاه نداشتهايم، اظهار داشت: برخيها منافع ملي را فداي مصالح حزبي خود ميكنند چرا كه آنها با شخص من مخالفت ندارند بلكه مخالف تفكر من هستند.
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+ نوشته شده توسط فرزانه سید سعیدی - پارمیس سعادتمند در دوشنبه هشتم بهمن 1386 و ساعت
18:54 |
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« At long last, a victim is laid to rest | Main
 Inflation rather than the American warships moored in the Persian Gulf may be the biggest threat to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The country's inflation rate itself is a matter of heated dispute between officials and experts. The Central Bank pegged the rate at 16.2% in a report published this year. Reformist critics say it's closer to 25%.
However, consumers have their own assessment of inflation. Stores regularly say they’ve raised prices 30% to 35% over the last year for basic staples such as rice, bread and meat.
Time magazine Middle East correspondent Scott MacLeod wrote about the inflation issue on his blog last week. He quoted from a speech by former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani.
There is no need for the Central Bank to announce the inflation rate. The people know the real rate of inflation better than the Central Bank. The Central Bank calculates with its own particular formula, but people feel it in their very existence.
I think prices have doubled over the last six months. For instance, my favorite fish soup served at a shop near Tehran University has gone from about $2 to $4 per serving.
To hide price increases, shops engage in trickery. Fruit juice stands serve drinks loaded with ice. Restaurants discreetly raise prices on appetizers and side dishes without touching the price of main dishes.
Tehran’s squeaky clean subways have also found a trick to cloak higher prices. Though they announced a fare increase of only 10% and 20%, but then they did away with one-way fares, effectively doubling the price of a ticket for someone who doesn’t want to take the subway back home.
I protested to the ticket office salesman. A man in the blue uniform of the subway attendants approached me.
“You are right, sir, we know, but what can we do?” he said politely. “The managers of the subway system are very tricky people.”
— Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran
Photo: Tehran subway ticket fares have officially gone up 10% to 20%, but some say they have effectively doubled for some. Credit: Ramin Mostaghim
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+ نوشته شده توسط فرزانه سید سعیدی - پارمیس سعادتمند در سه شنبه ششم آذر 1386 و ساعت
10:37 |
Iranian authorities have banned a Persian-language translation of Gabriel Garcia-Marquez's novel, "Memories of My Melancholy Whores," but pirated copies continue to sell briskly in Tehran. In fact, sales appear to have increased since the ban went into effect.
On the sidewalks outside Tehran University, vendors sold copies of the book, which is titled "Memories of my Melancholy Sweethearts," in the Persian version. On Sunday, the booksellers busily bound copies of the Colombian novelist's book to sell for about $3 each. At least one website put the whole book online, and without mistranslating the title.
The novel tells the story of a 90-year-old man who spends a night with an adolescent virgin.
Publication of the book sparked controversy in Iran. The Fars News Agency, in a report that has now apparently been removed from its website, first revealed last week that the officially sanctioned publishing of the book was a "bureaucratic error."
Fars reported that the an initial 5,000-copy print run of the book had sold out within weeks before the book was discontinued. "The official responsible for originally authorizing the book's publication has been sacked," the report said.
Fars quoted an unnamed official of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, which censors all movies, books and newspapers in Iran, as saying, "This kind of thing can happen when 50,000 books are published every year in Iran."
Literature blogs jumped all over the news. "Good to hear -- if true -- that they're still publishing that much, wrote the Literary Saloon, "and lets hope more spills through the cracks."
The Nobel laureate Garcia-Marquez, considered one of the world's greatest novelists, all but invented the fictional sub-genre of magical realism.
— Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran and Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
+ نوشته شده توسط فرزانه سید سعیدی - پارمیس سعادتمند در سه شنبه بیست و نهم آبان 1386 و ساعت
7:21 |
 In his Friday sermon in Tehran, ultraconservative Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami (not to be confused with reformist former President Mohammad Khatami) addressed signs of an emerging rift between the hard-line clique of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and more pragmatic groups within Tehran's ruling establishment.
Addressing worshipers at Tehran University, he played down the recent war of words between the camp of Ahmadinejad and his powerful rival, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, ahead of parliamentary elections slated for spring.
"It is better, as the late Imam [Ruhollah] Khomeini said, 'to argue in private like seminary students in school' and to avoid the public podiums," he told the faithful.
He also took the opportunity to denounce the U.S., demanding that America apologize for "lying" about the recent International Atomic Energy Assn. report on Iran's nuclear program, chronicled here and here by The Times' United Nations Bureau chief, Maggie Farley.
But then he lashed out at enemies closer to home, criticizing figures such as Rafsanjani for emphasizing the dangers of a U.S. attack on Iran to halt its nuclear program. Tensions within the Iranian ruling establishment's quarrelsome camps have heated up ahead of March 2008 parliamentary elections.
 This fight has been simmering for a while, as blogger Big Lizards notes in a posting summarizing some of the recent back and forth between the two camps. Veteran Time Magazine Middle East correspondent Scott Macleod also describes divisions in Tehran in a posting on his blog.
Hard-liners are nervous they'll lose the parliamentary elections because of their handling of international affairs and missteps on the economy. Farideh Farhi, of the blog Informed Comment Global Affairs, wrote recently about the moderates and reformists' boisterous reemergence onto the political scene.
...key players in Iranian politics have not given up on coming back to power. The fact that so many have been willing to be placed on the list, despite the assured attack against their personal lives and finances by the hard-liners, is a sign that contested politics in Iran (albeit still among a limited number of players) is alive and well.
— Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran and Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
Photos: Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami (top) addresses the faithful (bottom) during a recent Friday prayer sermon at Tehran University. Khatami today blasted the U.S. as well as domestic rivals. Credit: Hassan Ammar/AFP/Getty Images
+ نوشته شده توسط فرزانه سید سعیدی - پارمیس سعادتمند در یکشنبه بیست و هفتم آبان 1386 و ساعت
12:35 |
It is said that to make a costume drama in London — say a feature film based on a Charles Dickens novel — filmmakers need only cordon off traffic from any given street and begin shooting.
 But in Tehran, where everybody delivers long-winded speeches about Iran’s heritage and grand cultural past and issues slogans about fending off the encroachments of the West, you can get lost in your own city because the architecture, street names and landmarks change so fast.
The disorientation has struck me and many of my friends, watching as old buildings are demolished and new high-rises spiral ever upward. Part of the rapid change is because of safety. On the radio they say 700,000 housing units in Tehran are in danger of collapse if a minor earthquake jolts the seismically active capital.
The World Bank provides loans for demolishing derelict houses and erecting apartment buildings or creating parks. But who will rebuild our ravaged memories?
When an Iranian poet based in the U.S. returned to Tehran for his father’s funeral, he coined the term "cultural Alzheimer’s disease" to describe the phenomenon.
 When I walk the old sections of the downtown, near the spacious embassies of Russia, Britain, Italy and France, I find myself constantly staring up in confusion, as if I were a blind man. I have to look past the first floor of the buildings just to figure out where I am. The ground floors of the old buildings have been turned into gleaming home appliance stores selling sleek Asian cellphones and refrigerators, or into seductive window displays of colorful men’s and women’s clothing.
It’s beyond the ground floors that you see dilapidated brick facades falling apart, old wooden staircases. I peek furtively through a crack of a surviving wooden gate or apertures in a leaning wall.
I catch sight of an untended fig, pine or Cypress tree on a piece of property that hasn’t yet been uprooted by contractors, or sold at an exorbitant price to a developer who rents out commercial space to computer or furniture retailers for $300 a square foot.
I wonder if I survive all calamities of the future and get to the age 80, what sort of Tehran I will roam with my walking stick.
--Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran
Photos: "Cultural Alzheimer's" is how one Iranian intellectual describes the effect of returning to the rapidly changing city of Tehran, where old buildings (top) are quickly torn down to make way for gleaming glass-and-steel towers (bottom). Credit: Ramin Mostaghim
+ نوشته شده توسط فرزانه سید سعیدی - پارمیس سعادتمند در پنجشنبه بیست و چهارم آبان 1386 و ساعت
12:53 |
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Main | November 2007 »
In the bustling streets of Damascus, Syrians have something new to grumble about — the increasing frequency in which they say they hear the Iraqi accents of their neighbors who have fled the war and come to Syria.
Best estimates put the Iraqi refugee population in Syria (population 18.5 million) at anywhere from 1.5 million to 2 million, an influx that clearly has been felt by all segments of Syrian society.
For the poor, there is competition for entry-level jobs such as janitors, waiters and laborers, with Iraqis willing to flout the law and their refugee status to earn a living. This, however, pushes Syrians out of this kind of work. And the situation has been made worse because the influx of Iraqis is driving up the prices for apartments and other rentals.
While the wave of petty crimes such as thefts and burglaries that many connected with the early refugee influx has ebbed, Syrians remain unhappy that Iraqis take on illegal employment and that some have been linked to kidnappings for ransom, particularly in Aleppo, in northern Syria.
Meantime, for even middle-class and affluent Syrians, the Iraqi deluge has strained supplies of water, power, fuel and housing; the government says that water use has gone up by 20%, while that of electricity rose 27%. Because the government subsidizes some commodity costs, Syrians resent that their taxes will go up because of the increased Iraqi refugees' consumption.
Further, in every day life, Syrians see a group of elite and wealthy Iraqis who have moved into the Damascus suburbs; some have opened fancy stores and restaurants with distinctly Iraqi goods and cuisine. This has provoked xenophobia among some Syrians, who also fear that the Iraqi refugees may become a permanent part of life in Syria, which, historically, already has seen a flow of Armenians, Kurds, Lebanese, Kuwaitis and Palestinians.
The government has taken note of Syrians' unhappiness with the Iraqi refugees. Officials hope to find new ways to ensure that only Syrians can benefit from government-subsidzed goods, especially bread and fuel. But this may mean that Iraqis then will have to pay more for these items — and that can only worsen the situation for the Iraqi poor.
— Ramy Mansour in Damascus
Mansour is an ICFJ-Daniel Pearl Fellow at The Times
By recently calling for a ban on non-Muslims and women from running for the Egyptian presidency, the Muslim Brotherhood has reignited a debate over how genuine their espousal of democratic values is.
The 79-year-old Egyptian organization has been striving to project a democratic image for years. Yet, this new platform, circulated among intellectuals for the last few months, has shattered this image by arguing that women and Coptic Christians and other non-Muslims are incapable of meeting the religious requirements that would qualify them to assume Egypt's highest political office.
Besides the stir this ban has caused, the platform has exposed the internal rift between the doves and hawks in the nation's largest Islamic group. The former have expressed their endorsement of women's and Copts' full political rights on several occasions. However, the platform is a blow to their moderate discourse showing that hard-liners have a strong grip over the group.
— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
 Director Peter Berg's "The Kingdom," a star-studded Hollywood blockbuster set in Saudi Arabia, has been banned from the screens of at least three Persian Gulf kingdoms.
Puritanical Saudi Arabia, where most of the film's story unfolds, doesn't allow any movie theaters. But other Gulf states have given the film a big thumbs-down. News agencies report that Kuwaiti censors have banished the film from the nation's screens. Even libertine Bahrain's Ministry of Information has barred the action-packed thriller.
"The movie, 'The Kingdom,' was banned from cinemas here because it is not in conformity with the censorship laws of the Kingdom of Bahrain," said an official at Bahrain’s Ministry of Information, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Released this month in the Middle East, "The Kingdom" tells the tale of a group of federal agents who fly to the Persian Gulf to track down the terrorist who is the mastermind behind the killing of American oil workers and their families in Riyadh.
Much of the the movie was filmed in the Persian Gulf city of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, which, along with Qatar, has allowed the movie to show in cinemas.
Starring Oscar winners Jamie Foxx and Chris Cooper, along with "Alias" star Jennifer Garner, the film has proved a fairly big hit in the Arab world. It strives hard to sensitively depict daily life in the oil-rich, religiously conservative Gulf. It adheres to a standard buddy-cop formula. Foxx and his team of no-nonsense G-men first resent then team up with and befriend a hardworking and talented Saudi cop. (It wouldn't be much of a spoiler to reveal who gets killed at the end of the movie.)
But perhaps the film's suggestion that extremists have infiltrated Saudi security forces rankled Gulf censors.
"The film vilifies a brotherly country, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," the Bahraini official said in a phone conversation from Manama. "It attempts to show Saudi Arabia as a country that supports terrorism or helps propagate it."
All films shown in Bahrain must be screened by the Information Ministry before being allowed in movie theaters, and quite a few get barred. "Many films shown in Europe and the U.S. do not conform with the nature of societies and culture in Bahrain," he said.
— Borzou Daragahi and Raed Rafei in Beirut
Photo: From left to right, Agent Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner), Saudi police Sergeant Haytham (Ali Suliman), Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) and Agent Grant Sykes (Chris Cooper) duck for cover in "The Kingdom," which won't be getting any theater play in several kingdoms of the Persian Gulf. Credit: Universal Pictures
The change was so gradual, I can’t recall exactly when the buses stopped giving me the willies.
I moved to Jerusalem with my wife and our 10-month-old daughter in late 2003, a time when Palestinian suicide bombers were regularly blowing themselves up in restaurants, markets and aboard public buses packed with Israelis. Some friends back home were appalled we would take such a risk. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” a former college roommate chided in an e-mail before our departure.
I assured everyone we’d be careful — or as careful as you can be when violence is random and regular at the same time. We adopted some ironclad rules: Never ride the buses; stay out of crowded markets, choose restaurants with security guards and sit as far from the front door as possible.
Still, during our first three months in Jerusalem, I covered two gruesome bus bombings within a few blocks from our apartment. I began to view the green-and-white city buses as rolling time bombs, and got a shiver every time I was stuck in traffic next to one.
No more. The last time a bus blew up in Jerusalem was in February 2004. It was, in fact, the last time a suicide bomber was able to carry out an attack on any civilians in Jerusalem, though cities elsewhere in Israel have been bombed.
The lull in Jerusalem stems from a number of factors. Hamas has not carried out a suicide attack anywhere inside Israel since 2004 and committed to a cease-fire with Israel last November. Israeli officials also say the barrier their government has erected in and around the West Bank has made Israel safer. Meanwhile, hundreds of Palestinian militants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been killed and arrested, so there are fewer potential bombers.
You can gauge the change in the air in Jerusalem through the crowds of sidewalk diners downtown, the return of tourists to the stone-paved pedestrian Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall and the deafening chatter of jackhammers all over as landlords gussy up their buildings to catch the wave of booming real-estate prices.
We’ve let down our defenses somewhat, too. Streetside tables are no longer off-limits, and guards no longer a requirement. On Jerusalem’s traffic-choked streets, city buses are to me merely an annoyance these days, rather than a menace.
But I still haven’t ridden one.
— Ken Ellingwood in Jerusalem
 When Lebanese mega pop star Nancy Ajram signed a six-figure endorsement deal with Coca-Cola in 2005, Pepsi took the challenge, and very seriously.
Not content with signing one rival singer, Pepsi assembled a whole team of Arab world pop stars and cast them in a full-length musical, a totally unprecedented move by a multinational in the Middle East.
The two giant beverage companies have been gearing up vehemently to claim the soft-drink allegiance among Arab youth. This comes as no surprise in a region with a burgeoning population of Muslim youths often socially or legally forbidden from drinking alcohol.
Pepsi’s upcoming movie, called the “Sea of Stars,” is being shot in a picturesque village nestled in the green hills of northern Lebanon. It will feature hit songs by Lebanon’s sex symbol, Haifa Wehbé, and is expected to play cinemas across the Arab world by the end of the year.
Pepsi has remained tight-lipped about the movie’s plot. But, according to showbiz gossip, the film tells a Hollywood-inspired story of a small village restaurant on verge of closing down when a brave group of stars save it by organizing a fiesta bringing in customers, music, dance and, of course, a lot of Pepsi cans.
Before the movie, Pepsi cast French soccer star Thierry Henry with Wehbé, a sultry Lebanese singer and former model who landed in the top 50 of People magazine’s 2006 most beautiful people list. Another Pepsi ad featured Christina Aguilera with another Lebanese singer, Elissa.
Coke got the jump on using Lebanese pop stars by emblazoning Ajram’s face on cans. It now floods the airwaves with ads featuring popular songs by the Lebanese star, who presents herself as more innocent and wholesome than Wehbé. In the latest, Ajram walks into one neighborhood, spreading psychedelic images of love and harmony as she sings and distributes Coca-Cola bottles.
Coca-Cola has also put up gigantic billboards of Ajram surrounded by children of different ethnic backgrounds all sort of springing from a Coca-Cola bottle. The ad, displayed along Lebanon’s main coastal highway, promotes Ajram's album for kids, “Scratch Scratches.”
— Raed Rafei in Beirut
Photo: Nancy Ajram (center, in brown T-shirt), appearing in a billboard along Lebanon's main north-south highway, is the face that launched a thousand cola ads. The battle between Coke and Pepsi to sign up Arab pop stars is on. Credit: Borzou Daragahi
The fish restaurant glowed in the alley. The door opened, a man slipped through hanging beads. Calamari sizzled, plates clattered. A lute player sat like a relic against the whitewashed wall, singing of love and country and God hovering somewhere beyond the coast. The waiter, a corkscrew dangling from his pocket, was sweaty and quick. A boy rushed in with a bag of what appeared to money, but turned out to be baguettes. Old men sat cross-legged. Tablecloths were dotted with cigarette burns; they looked like tiny islands on a white sea. The men whispered and laughed, they sipped rose, they breathed in the fish, the grit and the smoke, happy to be out for another evening in their worn blazers, a trickle of cash in their pockets. They clapped for the lute player.
A few streets over, above a market closed for the night, a blogger known as Mr. Yahyawi sat in the gray light of a computer, evading government censors. He typed with abandon, his hair as kinetic as the circuitry he navigated to escape the firewalls and break out into the ether with messages of torture and political repression, and all those things not discussed in fish restaurants. He hop-scotched through cyberspace, taping into proxy servers, disguising his electronic footprint. Sometimes the government, often cited by international agencies for human rights abuses, tracks him and fries his computer with a virus. He writes in French and Arabic. His motto is: We live under a kingdom, not in a democracy. About 800 people visit his site each day. That's not many, but he's too obsessed to ponder numbers. He will be posting long after the lute has fallen silent and the waiter has showered and gone to sleep.
"The gateway to progress," he said, "is when people start expressing themselves."
— Jeffrey Fleishman in Tunis
An innocent trip to the grocery store Monday night almost developed into an international incident — and a sobering glance at the very real fears lurking just below the surface of daily life in Jerusalem.
I was ravenous and a little light-headed from a hard-fought squash match, so I parked my car on the sidewalk (Israeli style) on Emek Rafaim Street — a strip of stores, restaurants and fast food joints. When I returned to the car, laden with grocery bags, a middle-aged Israeli-American woman started yelling at me for almost giving her a heart attack. She was on the phone to the police and in the process of reporting a suspicious vehicle — mine.
At first it seemed ridiculous, but after hearing her reasoning, I started to feel really embarrassed and clueless. I had left the car unlocked with the windows open and my gym bag sitting on the front seat, across the street from a crowded street cafe.
Even worse, the trunk of my rental car — as I’ve discovered — is apparently prone to popping open.
The open trunk was the last little suspicious detail that seemed to push her over the edge and onto the phone with the police. I don’t like to think how the rest of the night would have gone if I'd stayed another 10 minutes in that store.
The irony of all this: I truly believe the woman's suspicions had nothing to do with me being Arab-American
So was she paranoid? Or am I clueless, careless and completely out of step with the psychology of this country? Been pondering this one for three days now, and I think I’m siding with her.
— Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem
Israelis howled in protest against Jimmy Carter’s recent book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," and its critique of discriminatory Israeli policies. But Carter wasn’t the first to make the analogy with the racial separation policies once practiced in South Africa. A few Israeli leftists have long used the A-word to draw critical attention to their country’s treatment of Palestinians.
Today the word popped up on signs brandished by demonstrators who blocked Israel’s Highway 443 during the morning rush, before police cleared them away and made three arrests. "Caution: Apartheid Road," one sign read. The grievance: Israel bans Palestinian vehicles from the highway, which cuts through the West Bank to connect Jerusalem with the Israeli town of Lod.
The protesters, numbering several dozen, are with a coalition of Jewish and Arab organizations that favor Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. One Jewish activist, Hadar Grievsky, told Israel’s Army Radio: "There is a policy here of apartheid. Highways are built on roads that were seized from Palestinians and are accessible only to Jewish drivers."
Army Radio’s audience no doubt cringed. Most Israelis, including many on the left, argue that Israel’s separation policies are based not on racism but on a need for protection against suicide bombers. The Israeli military says the prohibition of Palestinian traffic on the road is temporary and subject to security considerations.
The protesters suspect that the ban has a hidden purpose — to pave the way to Israel’s annexation of more West Bank land. If the state were interested only in protecting Israeli lives, they say, it could limit the travel of Israelis on roads cutting through the West Bank and build roads inside Israeli territory instead. In making this argument, the protesters use the term apartheid to mean "acts that are used as a means for establishing and maintaining domination of one racial group over another."
Thursday’s highway blockade drew an acid comment from Otniel Schneller, a right-wing member of Parliament, who dismissed its anti-apartheid theme as the work of outside agitators. "A lot of anarchists come from overseas, funded by terror, and do whatever they want," he told Israel Radio. "We must demand that the police not let these anarchists into Israel to light fires and to ruin the atmosphere we are trying to create."
— Richard Boudreaux in Jerusalem
 On a recent visit to Iran, I was shocked to discover that one of my favorite blogs — the Huffington Post — was blocked by my Internet service provider.
"The requested page is Forbidden," it said when I tried to log on.
Dejected, I tried to visit another website on the opposite side of the political spectrum, the Drudge Report, only to find that it too was blocked out. My favorite trashy gossip site, TMZ, blocked! Even Wonkette, blocked!
The warning pages include a space where you can submit the names of websites that might have been blocked in error. I've submitted countless websites countless times. But they've never reversed a decision. My favorite sites always remain blocked.
Now, it's easy to understand why the Islamic Republic of Iran wants to filter out pornography websites. Iran, is after all, run by conservative clerics. You can also relate to why they would block the sites of dissident bloggers who wield the Internet as a weapon against the system. The Iranian government, in turn, demands that all Internet service providers filter out a list of websites with adult or anti-establishment content.
But come on! Do they really need to block MySpace? The Seattle Times? The Arizona Republic?
Using one Internet service provider, I found even the Boston Globe's website was blocked . Are the Red Sox really a threat to anyone except the New York Yankees?
I got curious. I started looking for which sites were blocked and which weren't. I found out that it was very arbitrary. Oanda, the website I use for converting currency rates, was blocked while Regime Change Iran, was not.
Creative Iranians find their way around everything. Thanks to a couple friends, I discovered a whole subculture devoted to circumventing the filters. Friends e-mail each other ever-changing proxy addresses that let them access whatever site they want.
The Iranian government filters out the proxies as soon as they find them, but new ones constantly pop up. The demand is just too great, and people are willing to go to great lengths to read and see what they want when they want.
Once in Tehran, I got a phone call from a new Internet service provider. It was a telemarketer. She was offering dial-up Internet rates at a decent price. I was polite, but non-committal. She read my mind, moved in for the kill.
"For a small added fee," she said, "we can get you unfiltered Internet."
— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
Photo: The Internet can be an exercise in frustration in Iran, especially when your favorite sites for killing time are filtered out. Credit: Borzou Daragahi
On the night Benazir Bhutto’s convoy was attacked on the outskirts of Karachi, I hurried out of my hotel to get to the scene. For the last mile or two, I had to travel by motorbike — one ridden by a young follower of Bhutto’s Pakistan People's Party, flagged down by my desperate driver when he realized he wouldn’t be able to get close enough.
As we approached the chaotic scene, I felt my dupatta — the shawl-like scarf worn by Pakistani women and adopted by foreigners like me — fly off my shoulders. As I jumped off the bike, I looked around. I spotted it, but it had already been trampled, perhaps run over by another motorbike. The ground was sticky with blood and pebbled with broken glass.
I quickly began talking with the people still milling around the scene. What happened? What did you see? Are you hurt? People were tearful, distraught, but almost everyone took a moment to describe what they’d seen, and what had happened to them. Many were crying.
Just as I turned away from a particularly difficult conversation, I felt a pair of bony hands pressing on my shoulders. A Pakistani woman was draping a faded blue dupatta over me. Her face was kind. I saw my motorbike driver standing by; he must have appealed to her for help. She slipped away almost before I could stutter my thanks.
Covering your head isn’t mandatory in Pakistan — at least, not yet, and not in most urban areas. Most city women wear a dupatta draped loosely across their chest and shoulders, and tug it up over their hair only if they feel the occasion demands.
With a scarf or without one, I was conspicuously foreign. But the last thing I wanted on that night was to give offense to anyone. I was grateful for the cover.
I used the dupatta again the next day, when I went to the morgue. The weather in Karachi is warm, even in autumn, and the smell of decomposing bodies was overwhelming. I wrapped my face in it as I talked to morgue workers, who were also wearing scarves around their heads to mask the unmistakable smell of death.
Back at the hotel, I considered throwing out the scarf, together with everything else I’d been wearing that day. Instead, I sent my things off to the hotel laundry.
The blue dupatta was duly returned, with a polite note from the laundry staff noting that it was already tattered and torn before they’d been asked to wash it. They couldn’t fix it, they said.
It came back to me wrapped in crinkly cellophane, and I think I’ll leave it that way. Carefully pressed and starched, with its holes and fraying ends still visible, it reminds me of a pressed flower — a memento of a terrible night, and of a sisterly gesture of kindness.
— Laura King in Pakistan
 As a reporter covering Iran, former president Mohammad Khatami drove me nuts. He frequently improvised his speeches and strayed far from his prepared remarks, often adjusting them to the audience he was addressing.
At the holy shrine of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, for example, he played up his Islamic credentials and devotion to the 1979 revolution that brought clerical rule to Iran. To students at Tehran University, he presented himself as a strident freedom fighter and advocate of individual and social liberty.
He was often totally misunderstood or misquoted because reporters didn’t know what to expect from him, and often, what he was talking about. You had to arrive on time for every speech and not miss a word. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, however, causes me no such worries.
“The utopia of mankind is a city where justice, affection, love, self-esteem, dignity, liberty, science, knowledge and wisdom rule,” he told students in the Armenian capital of Yerevan this week, before returning home to Tehran.
“The requirement and exigency of this very utopian city is the rule of pious and devout people,” he continued. “We all wait for the day to come when the perfect human being, the 12th Imam Mahdi will reappear accompanied with Jesus Christ and good governance will dominate universally in the world.”
In the past two years I have heard more or less the same speech or gist of it over and over on different occasions. So whenever and wherever Ahamadinejad makes a speech, I am sure if I do not arrive in time or listen to the whole thing, I will not miss much. I can just reread his previous speeches on other occasions or at different forums.
This is how I learned to appreciate Ahmadinejad. He may be the most consistent and predictable politician in a place rife with convoluted politics.
— Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran
Photo: Say what you will about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but he often recycles the same stump speech, making him a reporter’s dream. Credit: Getty Images | |
+ نوشته شده توسط فرزانه سید سعیدی - پارمیس سعادتمند در پنجشنبه بیست و چهارم آبان 1386 و ساعت
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« The atomic cafe | Main
 The more Iran's clerics tried to change things in the country, the more they stayed the same.
A pharmacist friend gave me a short history of pharmaceutical drugs in the Islamic Republic of Iran and how it sheds light on the country's evolving revolution.
In the early years after the 1979 revolution, all drugs were generic, in part because multinational pharmaceutical companies cut their ties with Iran. But it was also because drab generic drugs fit in well with the revolutionary ethos of the time. Iran had thrown off the shackles of Western imperialism and was standing on its own feet, without the help of the U.S. Its own pharmaceutical factories could meet the needs of most patients. Meanwhile, those who could afford it bought smuggled brand-name drugs on the black market.
In 1989, after the Iran-Iraq war ended and freewheeling Hashemi Rafsanjani became president, Iranian companies were allowed to label their drugs with colorful logos and brand names, such as A.S.A., Jalinous or Hakim.
Nowadays healthcare in Iran is a business estimated to be worth more than $300 billion annually and there are more than 50 pharmaceutical companies. Ideological considerations have fallen by the wayside, and almost all pharmacies sell dietary supplements which bears the words "Made in the U.S.A." They're second-tier American brands like 21st Century Health Care or Nature Bounty. They're labeled "genuine" by the Iranian Health Ministry in order assure conscientious consumers that the drugs are truly made in the U.S. or Canada.
— Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran
Photo: An ad promotes an Iranian anti-arthritis drug. As the Iranian healthcare industry tops $300 billion a year, it looks more and more like the Western business it was designed to replace. Credit: Aburihan.com
+ نوشته شده توسط فرزانه سید سعیدی - پارمیس سعادتمند در پنجشنبه بیست و چهارم آبان 1386 و ساعت
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 The books are for sale in a crumbling three-story building doomed to be demolished to make way for a new western wing of Tehran University. A man in his mid-30s asks a salesman about selling his used English-language books in bulk. He built up the collection painstakingly over the years, evading censors and sanctions. But they’re now a burden for him as he plans his immigration to North America, Australia or Europe.
The official figures say that up to 180,000 educated Iranians leavethe country every year in search of a better life abroad. The desire to leave the country is evident, simply take a look at the lines outside the Canadian or French embassies in Tehran, or at the growing number of lucrative private language schools. Or visit the used book stores.
I have mixed feelings when I buy such books. I'm happy to own some books by Edgar Allan Poe and William James but I feel sad for the man selling his beloved books. He seems like a father giving away his motherless children to be adopted by a rich family.
I once bought a book at a flea market. It bore a hand-written dedication from its author to Abbas Milani, the well-regarded scholar who now heads Iranian Studies at Stanford University.
I emailed Prof. Milani. "I want to know how your private library ended up in secondhand bookstores,” I wrote. “Did you sell them to middlemen or were they seized by security forces before you left the country?"
Prof. Milani graciously answered me. "I did not sell my books but left them all to my friends," he wrote. "But losing my books was indeed a small price compared to losing my country and my right to live in my home and not as an émigré."
He added, "Happy reading."
— Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran
Photo: First thing to go for an educated young Iranian planning to move abroad are the English-language books. Credit: Ramin Mostaghim
+ نوشته شده توسط فرزانه سید سعیدی - پارمیس سعادتمند در جمعه هجدهم آبان 1386 و ساعت
10:35 |
دولت نهم با برنامه های عجیب و غریبی که علمی و کارشناسی نبود خواست تا مشکلات اقتصادی را به روش من درآوردی خود حل کند.البته بیشتر می خواست جنجال کند و به این وسیله مقدمات پیروزی در انتخابات بعدی فراهم شود اما از آنجا که در دوره کنونی کارهای غیر علمی محکوم به شکست است سیاستهای جدید مردم را به بدبختی کشاند.
اوایل دولت نهم مصاحبه مفصلی با ماشاالله شمس الواعظین داشتم .پس از مصاحبه با او درباره این مساله که دوره تجربه و خطا گذشته است و سیاستهای کنونی نارضایتی عمومی را منجر خواهد شد صحبت کردم.شمس الواعظین اینگونه پاسخ داد:"دولت جدید مانند دولتهای گذشته بالاخره نحوه اداره کشور را یاد می گیرد".پاسخ دادم :مردم ضرر خواهند کرد .شمس الواعظین تایید کرد و گفت متاسفانه اینگونه است.البته وی به اندازه من بدبین نبود.
در مصاحبه با بسیاری از اقتصاد دانان اکثریت قریب به اتفاق معتقد به اشتباهات فاحش دولت جدید بودند و برای ادعاهای خود دلایل علمی داشتند اما دولت لجبازی می کرد و حاضر به پذیرش اشتباهات خود نبود .
کسانی که در دولت کارشناس به اصطلاح اقتصادی بودند انتقادات و تحلیل هایی که افزایش تورم را پیش بینی می کرد بر نمی تابیدند و نظرات غیر کارشناسی ارائه می کردند که افزایش نقدینگی منجر به افزایش تورم نخواهد شد .مثل اینکه بگویید ۲ضربدر ۲ برابر با ۹ است .
چند ماه پیش در مصاحبه ریئس جمهوری با خبرنگاران این موضوع را مطرح کردم و گفتم که حجم پول سرگردان در کشور افزایش یافته و نقدینگی سبب افزایش تورم شده است اما در کمال تعجب رئیس جمهوری گفت که عبارات جدید می شونم .پول سرگردان یعنی چه؟! پاسخ دادم :پول سرگردان عبارت جدیدی نیست.البته سوال و جواب ما به بحث و جدلی تبدیل شد که نمی خواهم به ان بپردازم .موضوع اصلی این است که رئیس جمهوری در اخرین مصاحبه با خبرنگاران که دو روز پیش برگزار شد نقدینگی را عامل افزایش نرخ تورم دانست انهم بعد از دوسال اعمال سیاستهای اشتباه که چوب آنرا تنها ملت خوردند.
با این وجود رئیس جمهوری هنوز در موارد مشابه دیگری لجبازی می کند و حاضر به پذیرش اشتباهات خود و برگشتن به روال علمی ندارد.او حتی واکنش خاتمی را در مورد برنامه های غیر کارشناسی اش را به باد انتقاد گرفته است.
البته انتظار زیادی از احمدی نژاد که هنوز نمی داند در سخنرانی ها و گفت و گوهای خبری اش از چه واژاگانی استفاده کند نمی توان داشت.گاهی من قادر به تکرار سخنان او برای سردبیر نیستم و از اینکار ابا دارم .بعضی اوقات وی از عباراتی استفاده می کند که اگر در خانواده اصیل ایرانی این واژه توسط فرزند کوچکی گفته شود مورد سرزنش قرار خواهد گرفت.
+ نوشته شده توسط فرزانه سید سعیدی - پارمیس سعادتمند در جمعه چهارم آبان 1386 و ساعت
15:35 |
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