iran
“Five million Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan have become a beacon of light for the 35 million Kurds who live in Turkey, Syria, and Iran. That beacon of light is keeping us awake at night and is filling our hearts with hope.”
-Kani Xulam, Director of the American-Kurdish Information Network
"Persian Visions: Contemporary Photography from Iran," featuring 58 works of photography and video by 20 Iranian photographers, is one-half of a cultural exchange with a gallery at the University of Minnesota, and already has toured the states extensively, even during times when official U.S. relations with Iran were at their worst.
As part of the "Days of Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran," a 120-person Iranian delegation headed by Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Seyed Mohammad Hosseini is in Dushanbe and will travel later to the northern city of Khujand.
Foggy Bottom is flat out denying a British news report on Sunday that said State Department money would be awarded to the BBC to combat Internet censorship around the world. "The BBC World Service is to receive a "significant" sum of money from the US government...
The U.S. State Department will be funding an anti-jamming program for the BBC World Service in repressive regimes. But statements given before Parliament show that the real target is China's "Great Firewall."
As oppressive Arab regimes totter and topple under the pressure of democratization movements, Israel needs to engage directly with the region’s increasingly politically empowered peoples. But can Israel implement an effective public diplomacy and harness “soft power” with the citizenry of its neighborhood? The answer must be yes; but Israeli public diplomacy strategy and analysis over the past decade provide little guidance for outreach to Arab publics.
The Middle East is once again on fire, not because of American warfare, but due to apparently genuine movements aiming to get rid of old rulers and obsolete political systems. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, and Yemen have all either passed the threshold of revolution or are on the verge.