The Caspian Kids

Hacking group Anonymous has hacked into Iranian government servers and stolen more than 10,000 e-mail messages from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, say US reports.

By Warwik Ashford  - The hackers sent e-mails from the compromised servers to media organisations to prove it was in control of the servers.

The stolen e-mail archive reportedly includes approvals and rejections for visas and passports.

The hacking comes in the run-up to the second anniversary of Iran's 2009 elections on 12 June, which Anonymous plans to mark with its signature DDoS attacks, according to The Next Web.

Iranian government websites have been under a steady stream of attacks by Anonymous, which launched a DDoS campaign after the Iranian elections and subsequent protests in 2009.

Anonymous is one of the main groups using hacking and cyber attacks as a form of dissent known as "hactivism". The Anonymous group of "hacktivists" has targeted several global companies and Middle East governments in recent months.

The Iranian government has been trying to cover up the incident for the past few days, according to an Anonymous source cited by other reports.

The reports come as suspected Anonymous spin-off, Lulz Security, claims to have accessed the servers hosting Sony Pictures Entertainment and obtained the e-mail addresses, birth dates and passwords of more than 1m users.

Great shots of the area around Arasbaran, a UNESCO registered biosphere located in East Azarbaijan Province, Iran. Some historical places such as Babak Khorramdin's Castle are also located in this area.

Photos by Mahsa Jamali, Mehr News Agency

An avid reader has recently sent us pictures from her first trip to Iran... and frankly, it looks delicious.  Enjoy!

TEHRAN — At least 29 people were killed when a bus overturned on a road south of the Iranian capital Tehran early on Wednesday, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"The number of people dead in today's accident reached 29, while 10 have been injured," the head of city of Saveh's medical network, Habibollah Rezai, was quoted as saying.

The injured were taken to hospitals nearby.

Traffic police Colonel Rasoul Ziaoddin was quoted by the ISNA news agency as saying the accident occurred around 4:00 am (2330 GMT Tuesday) on the road from Tehran to Saveh and that driver fatigue was suspected as the cause.

Roads in Iran, with its 74 million people, are among the most dangerous in the world. According to official figures, around 23,000 people died in car accidents in the 12 months to the end of March, the Iranian year.

Dancers wear black leggings, white T-shirts to respect cultural sensitivities

By Alexandra Hudson, http://nbcsports.msnbc.com

ISTANBUL - Cheerleaders donned black leggings and white T-shirts for a World Championship basketball match between Iran and the United States in Istanbul on Wednesday to respect cultural sensitivities.

Some Iranian officials still left the arena shortly before their routine began, however. At previous matches officials had stood up and turned their backs.

Cheerleaders were missing altogether from Turkey's last two matches in Ankara, raising eyebrows in the overwhelmingly Muslim but officially secular nation, particularly as scantily-clad cheerleaders had been present at other matches.

Patrick Baumann, secretary-general of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), said "special arrangements" had been made with the dancers' dress on Wednesday.

"We want entertainment to be part of the basketball game. If it needs a little bit of adjustment that is fine with us," he told a news conference.

"It is a balance between respecting the culture and making sure basketball delivers all the pace, excitement and entertainment that goes with the World Championship."

Four teams of dancers have been entertaining fans in the Turkish host venues of Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir and Kayseri.

The dancing troupes come from Ukraine, Russia and Lithuania.

The local organizing committees are in charge of arranging the entertainment but it has to be approved by FIBA, a FIBA spokesman said.

The Ankara troupe, named the Red Foxes and hailing from Ukraine, were absent during Turkey's match against Greece on Tuesday and their match against Russia on Sunday.

The Russia match was attended by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his wife, who wears the Muslim headscarf.

A spokeswoman for Turkey's Sport and Youth directorate said she was not aware of any ban on cheerleaders at Turkish games.

A source close to the situation said however that Turkish government authorities had asked informally that cheerleaders not be present at games attended by officials of the ruling AK Party, which has roots in political Islam.

The party rejects the Islamist label and points to its liberal economic and political reforms.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the French First Lady, has been called a “prostitute” by Iran after she criticised the country’s decision to stone a woman to death.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy, the wife of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, was attacked after she
signed a petition calling for the release of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who is accused of cheating on her husband and then helping to kill him.

Kayhan, an Iranian newspaper, which is under control of the government, called Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy and Isabelle Adjani, the French actress who is campaigning for Ashtina’s release, “prostitutes” in an editorial, while Iranian state television accused the former supermodel of “immorality”.
In an open letter to Miss Ashtiani last week, Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy wrote: “Why shed your blood and deprive your children of their mother? Because you have lived, because you have loved, because you’re a woman, and because you’re an Iranian? Everything within me refuses to accept this”.

Iranian authorities have banned all advertisements for pets, pet food and other pet products.

The decision by Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance comes after the fatwa was issued by powerful cleric Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi.

While keeping dogs as pets has become increasingly fashionable in Iran in recent years, the fatwa cited Islamic tradition, which dictates that dogs are unclean.

In June, Ayatollah Shirazi declared dogs unclean, saying that dog owners were “blindly imitating the West” and that their devotion to the animals would result in “evil outcomes”.

“Many people in the West love their dogs more than their wives and children,” he said.

The ban on pet advertising is the latest attempt by Iran’s culture ministry to undermine “decadent” Western culture.

STOCKHOLM — Iranian authorities have arrested five employees of Swedish direct-sales cosmetics firm Oriflame and shut its Tehran office amid reported Iranian allegations of a massive pyramid scheme.

"The authorities have now closed Oriflame's operation in Tehran (and) have also detained three members of staff and two sales consultants without disclosed reasons," the company said in a statement on Monday.

The Oriflame Tehran branch was on Sunday "abruptly shut down with authorities coming into the office," the company's chief financial officer Gabriel Bennet told AFP.

"We are working with the embassy to find out why this is, and to try to secure (our employees') release," he said, adding that a Swede and another foreigner were among those arrested.

Bennet said the company so far had received no explanation from authorities about the closure and arrests, but believed they may be linked to its business model.

"Our business model is to sell cosmetics and give 40,000 Iranians, mainly women, a possibility to earn money through direct sales," he said, adding that the arrests could be seen as a sign that business conditions in Iran were worsening.

Iranian media meanwhile reported Monday that the closure and arrests were linked to suspected fraud in connection to a massive pyramid scheme.

According to hardline Iranian daily Kayhan, the Oriflame headquarters in Tehran had on Sunday morning been "searched and sealed" and "four top managers were arrested on accusations of 250,000 cases of fraud" linked to a 70-million-dollar (55-million-euro) pyramid scheme.

The conservative Tehran Emrouz newspaper also said tax officials had seized Oriflame documents and had halted all its operations over suspected fraudulent operations.

"The company managers did not have a convincing answer when asked about compulsory sales of products, charging membership fees and recruiting members as consultants," Hassan Radmard, the head of the Traders' Centre at the Iranian commerce ministry, told the paper.

Oriflame "has over 200,000 members so it is a pyramid scheme with unlimited members," he added.

Oriflame's Bennet said he would not comment on these "rumours" further than to say any reference to a pyramid scheme was "ridiculous."

"We work the same way in Iran as in the rest of the world, in over 60 countries ... A pyramid firm could not run an internationally recognised business for more than 40 years," he said.

Oriflame acknowledged in its statement that business conditions were difficult in Iran, but said it was intent on staying in the country, which is an important part of its growing Asian business.

The company's business in the country represents 20 percent of its sales in Asia, a region which produced fast growing sales totalling 39.2 million euros during the second quarter, according to an earnings report published this month.

Oriflame's annual sales last year reached 1.32 billion euros worldwide.

The company said a definitive closure in Iran may lead to extraordinary costs of approximately 10 million euros this year, although it maintained its overall sales target.

Following the news Monday, Oriflame's share price fell 3.36 percent in early afternoon trading on the Stockholm stock exchange, which was up 0.1 percent overall.

A spokeswoman for the Swedish foreign ministry meanwhile confirmed that one of the people detained held dual Swedish-Iranian nationality, something that could limit Swedish authorities' ability to help him, since Tehran does not recognise dual nationalities.

The Iranian Parliament has called for imediate attention on the numerious environmental problems facing Lake Urmia. 20 Iranian MPs have written to President Ahmadinejad demanding for immediate attention to the critical situation of Lake Urmia. The lake which has been dealing with various natural and human problems has turned red in recent days. There have been speculations and rumors about this phenomena and many are worried about the fate of the lake.

However, the head with Artemia Research Center has denied the rumors and described the color change as a natural phenomena due to existence of certain algae blossoms and salt-liking bacteria.

Also, the Iranian Fisheries Research Institute issued a statement today regarding the discoloration of the lake. According to the research center, the red color will disappear in the coming years with lower water temperatures, as the winds begin to reduce the regional and sunlight intensity, and as the the water input increases.

POSTED BY: Erico Guizzo - http://spectrum.ieee.org/

Researchers at Tehran University, in Iran, unveiled last month an adult-sized humanoid robot called Surena 2.

The initial press reports in Iran's official news media didn't include many details, saying only it could "walk like a human being but at a slower pace" and perform some other tasks, and there were questions about the robot's real capabilities.

IEEE Spectrum obtained more information about Surena, as well as images and videos showing that the robot can indeed walk -- and even stand on one leg.

Aghil Yousefi-Koma, a professor of engineering at the University of Tehran who lead the Surena project, tells me that the goal is to explore "both theoretical and experimental aspects of bipedal locomotion."

The humanoid relies on gyroscopes and accelerometers to remain in balance and move its legs, still very slowly, but Yousefi-Koma says his team is developing a "feedback control system that provides dynamic balance, yielding a much more human-like motion."

Yousefi-Koma, who is director of both the Center for Advanced Vehicles (CAV) and the Advanced Dynamic and Control Systems Laboratory (ADCSL) at the University of Tehran, says another goal of the project is to "to demonstrate to students and to the public the excitement of a career in engineering."

Next the researchers plan to develop speech and vision capabilities and improve the robot's mobility and dexterity. They also plan to give Surena "a higher level of machine intelligence," he says, "suitable for various industrial, medical, and household applications."

The robot was unveiled by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on July 3rd in Tehran as part of the country's celebration of "Industry and Mine Day." The robot is a joint project between the Center for Advanced Vehicles and the R&D Society of Iranian Industries and Mines.