…but like Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s modern dictator.

After the death of his brother, Basil in 1994 (first in line for Presidency), Bashar left the UK and his studies in ophthalmology to assume the mantle of President in waiting. Six years later his father Hafez al-Assad (in office 1971-2000) died and the new President arose.
Unlike Hafez, Bashar [...]

When I began thinking about dissertation topics over two years ago I was met by one particular unenthusiastic criticism due to my lack of knowledge regarding the Persian language. I don’t think she ever really understood my subject or why it was important. it was either that or she was too busy playing around in [...]

Google have been providing their useful Google Translate service for quite a while now but today seems to be a rather special day. They’ve finally released a support for Persian, something I think is much more appropriate than colouring the Google logo green for a day – simply because this is it far more useful [...]

Today has been one of those days that came around far too quickly. My dissertation supervisor asked me a couple of months ago whether I would be interested in coming back to the University to guest spot in a lecture concerning censorship, freedom and privacy and today was to be the day it was done.
The [...]

So it seems Google is ‘officially’ blocked in Iran. Sadly it means that not only will fellow Gmailers have trouble accessing their email accounts but also that Google Reader, which numerous Iranians rely upon to get round government restrictions on Persian weblogs, is also now a no go zone. I have no doubt that the authorities [...]