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Photo Feature: North Korea's Halting Opening

By Iason Athanasiadis 05 Dec 2008 | World Politics Review PYONGYANG, North Korea -- Listless saleswomen loiter againststacked shelves at this most exclusive of department stores. An entiresection is filled with sleek white washing machines, driers andflat-screen panel TVs produced by Haier, a low-cost Chinese appliancecompany. But the saleswomen outnumber customers in the echoing mall andthere is little sign of commercial activity. Thisis no store suffering from the credit crunch, but a showcase departmentstore in Pyongyang, capital of the world's most intentionally isolatedcountry, North Korea.

Westerners and Chinese Alike Criticize Beijing Opening Cermonies

By Iason Athanasiadis 14 Aug 2008 | World Politics Review Exclusive BEIJING -- In the aftermath of a dazzling opening ceremony dubbedby the world's media its "coming out party," China appears to beexperiencing a premature hangover. Agrowing chorus of Chinese and foreign voices is criticizing theceremony, albeit for slightly different reasons. AmongChinese critics, the consensus is that the the ceremony did not live upto artistic and cultural expectations, while Western commentators havetended to focus on the symbolic meaning of the ceremony, and its production methods.

Photo Feature: China at the Start of the Olympics

By Iason Athanasiadis 08 Aug 2008 | World Politics Review Exclusive BEIJING -- The games of the 29th Olympiad are shaping up as a coming out party for China, a country that seeks to show the world it has arrived as a 21st century power. But China remains a country of contradictions -- an ancient culture amid restless ambition to create a modern society, poverty alongside ostentatious wealth, and political repression in parallel with economic openness. On the eve of the opening of the games in Beijing, Iason Athanasiadis visited Beijing and the northern city of Shenyang.

Ahead of the Olympic Games, Excitement and Fear in Beijing

By Iason Athanasiadis 06 Aug 2008 | World Politics Review Exclusive BEIJING -- In Athens, four years ago this week, Greek officialswere still scurrying to put the final touches on sporting venues andother civil infrastructure that had been constructed for the games.China's Olympic infrastructure has been ready for much longer, yetChinese officials are still in panic mode: With just hours to go beforethe opening ceremony, Beijing's notorious pollution clouds refuse tobudge, and Chinese Communist Party officials remain on edge aboutdisplays of political dissent.

Photo Feature: Istanbul's Breakdancing Gypsies

By Iason Athanasiadis 25 Jul 2007 | World Politics Review Exclusive ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Roma in Istanbul are resisting efforts to raze their shantytown neighborhoods with events highlighting their culture.

Photo Feature: Life on Iraq's American Military Bases

By Iason Athanasiadis 14 Jun 2007 | WPR Blog During a visit to Iraq in the spring of 2006, journalist Iason Athanasiadis documented quotidian life on Iraq's American military bases.

Photo Feature: A Last Dance Before Extinction

By Iason Athanasiadis 04 Jun 2007 | WPR Blog The Kalash, a tribe in northeastern Pakistan that claims to be descended from the armies of Alexander the Great, celebrate their spring festival.

At the Edge of Revolution: Does Pakistan Have a Khomeini?

By Iason Athanasiadis 30 May 2007 | World Politics Review Exclusive LAHORE, Pakistan -- The yawning social disparity between Pakistan's Westernized elites and its poor is one factor helping to push the country closer to the breaking point. Is Pakistan on the edge of an Iran-style IslamicRevolution? Perhaps not anytime soon. Pakistan lacks a religiousleader like Khomeini behind which its fragmented religious groups can unite, and the corrupt antics of the leaders of the country's mainstream political parties have robbed them of theirpopular legitimacy.

Persian Culture and Iran's Defiant Diplomacy: A View From Tehran

By Iason Athanasiadis 29 Mar 2007 | World Politics Review Exclusive TEHRAN -- I decided to move to Iran after having spent seven yearsliving in and writing about the Arab World, where foreigners aregenerally handled as a rare and privileged species. As such, Iapproached reports of Iranian impudence in dealings with the Westand Westerners with suspicion. Since then I've learned that, while almost all Iranians are impeccably polite with theWesterners they encounter, they also feel the weight of thousands ofyears of nationhood more acutely than their Arab neighbors.

Russia Steps Up Diplomacy in Renewed Bid for Middle East Influence

By Iason Athanasiadis 26 Feb 2007 | World Politics Review Exclusive TEHRAN, Iran -- Moscow is enjoying record foreign currency profitsthrough its natural gas sales and is finally able, for the first timesince the end of the Cold War, to think about resuscitating its foreignpolicy role in the Middle East. This it has begun doing in controversialstyle. It was the only Western government, for example, to welcomesanctioned Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah to Moscow shortlyafter his election last March. Russia also is using the new Cold War between the region's Sunnis and Shiites to play a double game.

Iranians Wary as U.S. Shows Signs of Escalation

By Iason Athanasiadis 16 Jan 2007 | World Politics Review Exclusive TEHRAN, Iran -- It wasn't the news of the raid by the U.S. Armyagainst the Iranian interests section in the northern Iraqi town ofArbil that set off the alarm bells, nor the other recent evidence of a U.S. military mobilization against Iran. Given recent history, it is the familiar denials of U.S. officials that make a U.S. invasion of Iran seem imminent. Ordinary Iranians have responded to the rising tension with both denial and dread, and with criticism for both the United States and the regime of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

After Saddam, a Sunni-Shiite Thirty Years' War?

By Iason Athanasiadis 03 Jan 2007 | World Politics Review Exclusive TEHRAN, Iran -- A bravura performance by former Iraqi dictatorSaddam Hussein at his own hanging has transformed him into a martyr inthe eyes of secular and religious Sunni Muslim nationalists throughout the ArabWorld and may have sharpened Sunni-Shiite tensions beyond the point ofno return. More deleterious than the bombing of Samara's Golden Mosque, Saddam's execution spells the kiss of death for Sunni-Shiite relations in Iraq and could help usher in the equivalent of a Thirty Years' War throughout the Muslim world.

In Tehran, Islamic Fashionistas Brood Over Chinese Valentino

By Iason Athanasiadis 29 Sep 2006 | World Politics Review Exclusive TEHRAN, Iran -- A battery of flashbulbs pop to the rhythm of aleggy model sashaying down the makeshift quadrangular catwalk, strikinga pose for the audience at every corner. At the show's conclusion, the designer is escorted out by themodels to a storm of applause. But the success of the show does nothide the fact that it has taken place in an underground parking lotspecially converted into a catwalk.