This article about uppity Iranian women has a realistic picture of what Iranian female students look like at the moment. Similar picture on Iranmania.

The Economist Survey now has the Iran report slated for January 18, 2003. It used to be November 9, 2002. I hope it's not postponed again.

Road accidents kill 20000 people in Iran per year. "[The deputy chief of traffic police] blamed the high figures on ... the scant resources of police to enforce the regulations." Of course, there's plenty of resources to harass young people of the opposite sex who gather together.

I think I've seen at least four articles in the last day encouraging people to invest in Iran... Karroubi, Khatami, Costa, Mazaheri. Sounds like the government is desperate. Remember the Economist Intelligence Unit assessment -
Iran is the second least attractive country in the world to invest in, above Nigeria.

It's starting to rain in Tehran. Last night in Vanak Square, after I finished teaching English, I saw a Paykan which had been involved in an accident being towed by another Paykan. The chain was attached to the bumper/bumper bar on the front of the broken car, which then fell off, blocking traffic on the roundabout. With the wet conditions, traffic will become more dangerous.

I forgot to write about my experiment with Iran News... I downloaded all the English articles since October 2001 (about 15000) and looked for the most common words. The US is mentioned more than Iran, which again points to a lack of self-criticism, although English articles will bias the count.

Is it even possible for me to write something positive? OK - last night, I really enjoyed teaching English for some reason. The school used the Passages book. We discussed the differences between friendship among men and friendship among women to start with, and my class for some reason generally agreed with the Deborah Tannen thesis - men gather together to see sport, talk about cars etc and women to talk about work, family, cooking, gossip. So you see, Iran is not like another world compared to the West!

From SlashDot a report about Saddam's Inbox being hacked.

The Economist Survey has put "TBC" for Iran in 2003, meaning To Be Confirmed, I suppose. I'd like to see their report on Iran fairly early on in the year. In the meantime the best report on Iran, if you want to learn about its politics and the future, is still the International Crisis Group's report.