News from Iran

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US plans to bomb Iran: Reaction

The report in Sunday's New Yorker, that the US has intensified planning for a major air attack on Iran generated an enormous response in traditional media and the Blogosphere. But few Iranian English-language bloggers, in Iran or elsewhere, tackled the issue.

One of the few who did was Mr Behi.

"I am starting to believe that we are living in a haphazard time of human history! Can still not be live what I hear about the talks of using nuclear weapons against Iran's nuclear sites! Hey, do you hear me? We are people down here! Can you understand that?"

The struggle to censor the blogosphere

As a naturally anarchic medium, the internet has become a top priority of Iranian censors.

The state already controls the television, and exercises a good deal of influence over newspapers too. The internet, however, is much harder to keep in check. A new deputy office within the Iranian government will attempt to do so.

In a talk at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London last week Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, aka Hoder, spoke about how the Iranian government is trying to keep the Blogosphere under control.

By and large, the blogosphere is tolerated. “They are not cracking down on the whole blogging community, otherwise they would shut down blogging servers,” says Mr Derakhshan.

In fact, the government is embracing blogging. Trainee clerics are even being taught to blog for themselves. “They say that blogs can fulfil the promise of the revolution,” he says.

Blogs, Hoder and the body politic

Hossein Derakhshan, profilic blogger and astute observer of the Iranian blogosphere, is probably better known to his readers as Hoder. He was in London on Thursday to talk politics, human rights and daily life. Ben King was there to listen in.

Even in the land of Jerry Springer, it's hard to imagine a Vice President blogging about his diet problems. But in Iran, it happened years ago

Mohammed Ali Abtahi, a former VP under the regime of Mohammed Khatami, keeps a weblog in English, Persian and Arabic.

Even when he was in power, he started blogging, at first discussing a range of intimate and even rather embarrassing personal issues, including the war with his waistline.

He may have jeopardised his dignity, but he's blogged his way to considerable popularity among the young people of Iran, who like teenagers everywhere, are a largely apathetic breed, says Hossein  Derakhshan.

“That has worked for him very well and it has enabled him to show a very human picture of himself and other people in the Iranian government. Even young people are reading his blog. He would be one of the most famous politicians among that group,” he said.