Iranian Madness

It’s interesting to see the ups and downs of the seemingly never-ending relationship between Iran and Italy.
Not many people know that Italy owns the largest private piece of land in Tehran (and probably in the whole Iran): the ambassador’s residence in Farmanieh, with its flourishing garden of rare trees and its Qajar-style buildings, is [...]

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The latest news from the Iranian government, apart from the endless and pointless debate about the nuclear programme, is that they have kicked off laughter classes in Tehran.
The idea may not work, as Robert Tait (perhaps the most competent journalist when it’s about Iran and Iranians) points out. Laughing during Moharram (which will start [...]

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It appears that the people of Iran are starting to have enough of the government and its continuous suppression of the largely peaceful protests that keep gathering a growing number of people in the streets of Tehran.
The institutions take these seriously, so much that they have now revived previous plans to relocate the capital [...]

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It seems that some Iranians were planning a very profitable Indonesian holiday.
It’s not too late for the Iranian government to decide to tackle the enormous drug consumption issue that affects Iran’s youth. Unfortunately, in order to do this they have to change the way the country works. And they don’t seem to be too [...]

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In spite of silence from the main media, it’s quite clear that the Iranians (especially the students) haven’t given up protesting.
The most recent videos depicting Azad university protests can be seen here. Protests keep being reported every now and then (such as in this article), but the restrictions on foreign media reporting mean we [...]

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Nice of the Netherlands to issue a 44-cent stamp with Mousavi’s combat tag.
Will this help the situation? by judging from Ahmadinejad’s recent speech, and the equally senseless reaction from Israel, I’d say no.

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Ecco una bella storia su un giovane qualsiasi, uno dei tanti ingegneri iraniani che pur di scappare da Basij e compagnia non esitano a fare mestieri ben poco consoni alle loro qualificazioni (tassisti, lavapiatti, contadini e via discorrendo).
La storia di Mahmoud, pubblicata dal Giornale di Feltri, è la storia di mille, centomila altri iraniani [...]

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Chi non conosce Persepolis, il libro autobiografico a fumetti dell’autrice iraniana Marjane Satrapi?
Grazie all’ottima rivista Internazionale, possiamo leggere l’opinione dell’autrice in un articolo che spiega, tra le altre cose, la ragione che spinge gli iraniani a protestare, e ci fa pensare che la rivolta iraniana non abbia esaurito i suoi colpi.

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I want eyes is one of my favourite songs, written by Level 42 back in 1983.
I dedicate it to Neda and the Iranian people.

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BBC aired the review of a very interesting documentary on troubled Tehranian teens, showing the multitude of issues that the next president of Iran must (or has an option to) face.
Drug and alcohol abuse are hushed by the Islamic Republic authorities, but it’s high time that someone brought the issue up to the table and [...]

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