Science and Technology

Radiofarda – A mysterious explosion and fire in one of Iran’s nuclear facilities has opened the flood gates to speculations and analysis as to whether it was an accident, sabotage or foreign attack. A spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) announced on Thursday, July 2, that an “accident” had occurred at the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility in …

VOA – New details of an Iranian nuclear facility damaged in a mysterious fire suggest Thursday’s incident is a much greater setback to Iran’s nuclear ambitions than Tehran has publicly admitted. The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security identified the facility as a centrifuge assembly workshop at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant in central Iran’s Isfahan province. In a …

Al-Monitor – Heated debates during last week’s parliament meeting in Tehran are fueling concerns among millions of Iranians that the newly elected conservative lawmakers are prioritizing restrictions on social media over more urgent economic woes, which they had promised to address upon taking their seats. The session saw Iran’s young Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi cornered and grilled by powerful …

Radiofarda – The Microsoft Threat Protection Intelligence Team has identified a chain of attacks on its cloud service in a post published on June 18. According to Microsoft the group identified as HOLMIUM” has been performing espionage and destructive attacks targeting aerospace, defense, chemical, mining, and petrochemical-mining industries. Based on previous research by the Fireye the group has been linked to Iran and …

(AP) — Iran test fired cruise missiles in a naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman and northern Indian Ocean, state media reported Thursday . The report by the official IRNA news agency said the missiles destroyed targets at a distance of 280 kilometers (170 miles). It said the tests took place during a naval drill by Iran’s navy in …

Al-Monitor – A top Iranian official lashed out against Instagram this week, saying the popular social media network for photos is responsible for “immorality.” The head of the Islamic Development Organization, Mohammad Qomi, said in the Iranian parliament Sunday that Instagram often takes up 60% to 70% of Iran’s internet bandwidth. He also claimed that 30% of cybercrime and 25% of “immorality” crimes and …

Radiofarda – Amid economic crisis and a sinking national currency, the Central Bank of Iran has issued a new directive limiting the amount of foreign currency people can keep or carry. From now on, every individual in Iran is allowed to keep or carry only up to ten thousand euros ($11,287), or its equivalent in hard currency, the CBI has …

gatestoneinstitute.org – Importantly, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has failed on several occasions accurately to detect Iran’s nuclear activities. For instance, in a November 2018 speech to the UN General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke a story stating that Iran had a “secret atomic warehouse for storing massive amounts of equipment and material …

RFL/RE – Facebook says it has begun to label state-controlled media organizations such as Russia’s Sputnik, Iran’s Press TV, and China’s Xinhua News so that people know whether the content they read is coming from an entity that may be under the influence of a state. The social media company announced plans to create a state media label in October …

Radiofarda – The Chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has suggested that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s tweets violate Twitter rules about glorifying violence. In a tweet on Friday Ajit Pai posed the question to Twitter and posted several examples of Khamenei’s tweets deemed as “glorifying violence” by him. The tweets quoted by the FCC Chairman are all about …