May 31, 2004

Sad Story

Iran has become a land of sad stories for a long time!
What do you call this:

After the earthquake in Northern Iran last friday, the Governer and some other officials from Qazvin province who where visiting the catastrophe scene were killed because their helicopter crashed!

It was just last february when officials visiting the explosion scene at Neishabour railway station were killed in the second explosion.

Posted by Shauheen at 07:56 PM | Comments (1)

May 28, 2004

Earthquake

Another earthquake has hit Iran.

Recently a huge quake in the ancient city of Bam killed more than 25000 people, and destroyed the city.

Something that draws my attention is that, as BBC reports:

"The geophysical institute at Tehran University said the magnitude of the quake was 5.5, while the Strasbourg seismic observatory put it at 6.1 and the American Geological Survey said it was 6.2"

How is it that the Tehran University geophysical institute is reporting something while they have senced otherwise from France or US?! which observation is flawed?! are the scientists in Tehran using old instruments or is there any policy to report the earthquake power less than what it has been in order to avoid people from panic! or what?

Posted by Shauheen at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)

May 27, 2004

Spam Paradise

Orkut is an online community, which has recently become very popular among different groups. It is assumed to be something more than a match making online application. Yet the most interesting rule is that, a new user can only be added by receiving an invitation from a current user of the system.

There are many concerns about the system and the fact that it is collecting much information regarding each person and his/her network of friends, and that all the data provided by the users on the system is a property of the owners of the system.

Anyways! What I want to say is that, there is a messaging system built into the software, that lets users to send messages to different [groups] of people! This is critically growing to offer a means for spamming! The questions regarding the security levels defined in the software is now more valid by adding the fact that there is no restriction on messaging and no spam filter at all. With a huge list of people classified into well-defined communities who share some specific interests!

orkut is a spammers paradise!

Posted by Shauheen at 02:24 PM | Comments (2)

May 18, 2004

Last target

An idiot left! another idiot replaced!

low participation of people in Iran has caused the so called new conservative party to win the recent elections and conquer tehran city council and majority of parliament seats.

The head of the state owned television which is the only radio and television broadcasting organization in Iran is also appointed by the leader of the revolution. Ali Larijani has left the post after 10 years of broadcasting nonsense, and another conservative has been replaced by him.

Now the last target for the new conservatives would be the presidential post, and one possibilty for them would be Larijani himself. One has to wait and see if Iranians are so out of their minds to vote for such a person to become their president! They should not forget his performance at IRIB.

Posted by Shauheen at 11:49 AM | Comments (4)

May 16, 2004

Tehran Bookfair

bookfair.JPG

How do they think about each other?
the leader of the islamic revolution in Iran is visiting a kurdish publisher booth in Tehran Book Fair.

Posted by Shauheen at 07:01 PM | Comments (3)

May 08, 2004

bloodless coup

Just when, the conservatives have taken most of the upcoming Parliament seats both in first and second round of the elections (due to reformist candidates being banned from participating in the elections by the hard-line watchdog!) just after Tehran City Council, they are preparing to win the presidential elections to ANY cost.

Obviously people are not much happy with the performance of the current cabinet, But the conservatives seem to have started a big war in the remainder of the time that Khatami and his cabinet are at the head of the government.

Attacking social gatherings, is again on the agenda of militia groups who break into conferences, ruin everything, hit innocent people, and take all the cameras and photos after threatening the journalists, without the police forces even interfering the event.

Also the Army has closed Tehran's new international airport on its first day of scheduled flights on Saturday. A move which looks more like an armed coup d'etat.

not saying that conservatives might more be happy to open the airport by a conservative cabinet. they are doing their best to ruin the image of the current cabinet and Khatami himself, as a symbol of reformists.

How many votes will this buy for them? one has to wait and see.

Posted by Shauheen at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)

May 06, 2004

New-Iraq

Iran Newspaper has an article in critisizing Iraq's new proposed flag._40087109_iraq_new_flag2_203.gif
It was reported that Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council has approved a new national flag for the embattled country.
there were lot's of reaction to the decision. specially the way Iran was trying to approach the story was to condemn the decision, and show how most of Iraqi people are opposing the decisions made by the US-approved governing council and coalition forces.
I don't want to argue regarding wether the new proposed flag is beautiful and well-designed or not, and if it looks like the israeli flag or it is a good representation of Iraqi society or so. Neither do I approve that a non-elected government should be allowed to make such decisions (not just this one, but many more).
Rather, what is interesting to me is how others feel like they should influence the decisions made in another country for some other people! bad or not Iraqi people will decide soon on what should happen to their future. why should Iranian media want to influence the public Iraqi beleifs so much?

Posted by Shauheen at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)