by Carl Howard | Sep 18, 2012 | Blog Topics, Interesting Stuff, Travel
Iran is obviously a pretty closed society. In terms of the state control of the media, one only needs to look at Press TV. Just poking around their US page, this was the top story as at 12 Aug: A military analyst [Gordon Duff] says police departments in the United...
by Carl Howard | Sep 11, 2012 | Blog Topics, Resources, Food and Environment, Travel
Iran’s GDP per capita is $6200 according to the 2011 CIA World Factbook (although it’s likely reduced now since the embargo was intensified). This puts it as the 85th richest per capita out of 191. It’s less rich than Colombia, Botswana and Romania but richer than...
by Carl Howard | Sep 4, 2012 | Blog Topics, Interesting Stuff, Travel
The stereotype of Iran is that it’s a desert. While this was a close match for the centre of the country, the north is surprisingly lush, with plenty of green valleys. The desert itself was mostly rocky in my experience — not the sandy dunes that feature in the...
by Carl Howard | Aug 28, 2012 | Blog Topics, Interesting Stuff, Travel
Getting in:As mentioned in the previous post on Iran, this is quite complicated. As with the Central Asian republics there’s a 2 step process where you first need an authorisation (obtained through whoever you’re organising the trip with) and then you can use this to...
by Carl Howard | Aug 21, 2012 | Atheism and Religion, Biases and Fallacies, Blog Topics, Travel
The next country I went to after Turkmenistan is Iran. There are plenty of misconceptions about Iran in all countries (not just developed Western ones). Given that the situation has deteriorated a lot since my visit in Oct 2011, there will probably be even more...
by Carl Howard | Aug 9, 2012 | Atrocities and Oppression, Blog Topics, Society, Travel
In my last post on Central Asia, things got a bit cynical about just how invisible the region is on a world stage. This post was scheduled a few weeks ago, before the almost-unreported outbreak of what could be the start of another civil war in Tajikistan. Yes, there...
