The curious, crazy, sad, desperate and oppressive society in Tehran.
Showing all posts tagged Iran
Shell and Iran kissing in a tree
The sheer futility of trying to boycott Iran is revealed once again: Shell, the Anglo-Dutch oil giant, paid the state-owned Iranian oil company at least $1.5bn (…£0.94bn) for crude oil this summer, increasing its business with Tehran as the international community implemented some of the toughest sanctions yet aimed at constricting the Islamic republic’s economy…
Please don’t listen to King Abdullah on, well, anything
This is rather depressing. Here’s Jordan’s King Abdullah talking to Jon Stewart’s Daily Show about how “moderate” he is and the “extremists” are upsetting the Middle East. Yes, because running a US-backed police state completely makes you “moderate”. His country’s influence is decreasing, not least because he so slavishly follows US foreign policy in the…
Guess who would like to bring down Iran’s nuclear plans?
What a story: Little doubt remains that the Stuxnet worm represents one of the most sophisticated digital attacks on critical infrastructure systems that cybersecurity researchers have ever seen. The motives of whoever launched that attack is a far murkier question–but a mounting stack of theories is starting to point to a targeted sabotage of Iran’s…
Hearing the calls from Hoder deep inside Iran
Years ago, in Budapest, I briefly spent time with Iranian blogger Hoder, currently held in Iran and facing the death penalty. It’s a tragic case and highlights the immorality of large sections of the Islamic Republic elite. I was sent the following information via Facebook yesterday and it adds some details to a story that…
Zionist lobby’s achievements are seen in the maddest colonies
Who says Americans have a love affair with Israel? A new study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs offers some insights: “Contrary to the long-standing, official U.S. position, fewer than half of Americans show a readiness to defend Israel even against an unprovoked attack by a neighbor. Asked whether they would favor using U.S.…
Listen to the lessons from Haystack or lives may be lost
The ongoing scandal over the faulty Haystack web censorship circumvention tool – aka web gurus being far too quick to praise something without proper testing – brings an important statement from Electronic Frontier Foundation: Writing software to protect political activists against censorship and surveillance is a tricky business. If those activists are living under the…
America, keep your dirty hands away from fighting web repression
Sami ben Gharbia, the advocacy director for Global Voices, asks that Washington cease its largely counter-productive campaign to assist dissidents around the world. Image problem, anybody? Many people outside of the U.S, not only in the Arab world, have a strong feeling that the Internet Freedom mantra emitting from Washington DC is just a cover…
There’s no truly safe way to surf the web in the Islamic Republic
For anybody who writes about web censorship and finding ways around it, the lesson in this story is that skepticism towards new-found tools is vital. We’ve all been guilty of celebrating prematurely a piece of software that may help a dissident in Iran or China. Beware: A piece of software called Haystack, which claimed to…
Islam is the enemy, kill Islam immediately
Communism is dead. Islamism is the new threat. And the same radical Zionists who once fought (from their bedrooms, of course) against the Evil Empire are now focusing on Islam and Iran. Richard Silverstein uncovers the role of neo-conservatives Jews who once again want to be defined solely through war.