Science and Technology

RFL/RE – International broadcasters are increasingly concerned about their ability to reach audiences in Iran as the authorities there crack down on journalists working for foreign media outlets and hamper access to the Internet, the president of RFE/RL said in an interview with its Persian-language service, Radio Farda.“We are very concerned about the targeting of our journalists here at Farda,” …

PayvandNews – Russian state nuclear company Rosatom has suspended work on modernizing a unit of Iran’s Fordow nuclear complex due to an issue with uranium compatibility, Rosatom’s nuclear fuel cycle unit TVEL said on December 5. Fordow nuclear enrichment facility near Qom, Iran “Uranium enrichment and the production of stable isotopes cannot be carried out in the same room,” TVEL …

Al-Arabia – Iran is using the current upheaval in Iraq to secretly move and stockpile short-range ballistic missiles in its neighboring country, the New York Times reports citing US intelligence and military officials. “Intelligence officials would not discuss the precise model of ballistic missile Iran has sneaked into Iraq. But short-range missiles have a range of just over 600 miles, …

RFL/RE – France, Germany, and Britain have voiced concern to the UN’s secretary-general that Iran has developed a ballistic-missile system capable of delivering a nuclear weapon in violation of the international body’s Security Council resolution. A letter the three countries circulated widely at the UN on December 4 stated that “Iran’s development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles” was inconsistent with a …

Radiofarda – Officials in Iran claim cell phone internet has been reconnected in parts of the country. However, users still complain about internet blackout in most parts of the country. While ISNA reported Wednesday afternoon that cell phone internet connectivity has been restored in most parts of Tehran Province, users in Tehran complain that most cell phone users are still …

Radiofarda – Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar has denied being a Qatari asset and passing sensitive information through intermediaries to Iran, her office told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. According to the Israeli newspaper a court in Florida was told by a witness that the Somali-born congresswoman had been recruited by a foreign government, received funding from a foreign government, and passed sensitive …

atlanticcouncil.org – On November 16, 2019, the Iranian government shut down the Internet throughout the country following a decision to triple the price of fuel overnight. The abrupt price hike, coming at a time when Iranians are already dealing with 40 percent inflation in part because of US sanctions, plunged the country into upheaval as people took to streets and …

gatestoneinstitute.org – This marks a dangerous phase in Iran’s nuclear defiance. Tehran is now using a kind of prototype centrifuge that enriches uranium almost 50 times faster. Although Iran is a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it refuses to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect its sites. The IAEA is also not allowed to inspect or monitor …

Al-Arabia – Iran’s Minister of Information and Communications Technology, Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi, 37, is the youngest minister in the Rouhani Cabinet. He is known to be a key player in the regime’s censorship and surveillance campaign, which intensified in the wake of anti-regime protests. The US sanctioned Azari-Jahromi on Saturday for his role in the Iranian regime’s wide scale Internet …

Radiofarda – In a statement released on Friday Iran International Television, a London-based Persian-language news channel, said it will lodge a complaint against Iran with OFCOM, the UK’s communications regulator, for blocking its signals since Tuesday on Hotbird Satellite by uplink (orbital) jamming. On November 16, following protests throughout the country against the three-fold increase in the price of gasoline …