Ramin Mostaghim has been the Times' Tehran-based special correspondent since early 2007. He has worked as a journalist, producer and translator for Iranian and Western media for three decades. Since joining the Times, he has covered Iran's capture and release of British sailors in 2007, the parliamentary elections of 2008, the disputed presidential election of 2009 and its violent aftermath. He graduated with a degree in zoology from Razi University in Kermanshah and maintains strong personal connections to Iran's Kurdish western provinces and northern Caspian Sea region.