Hichkas - Iranian rapper

Here are a handful of videos from Iranian rapper Hichkas. You might know him from the film Nobody Knows About Persian Cats

Hichkas - Ye Roozeh Khoob Miad

Hichkas - Bunch of Soldiers

Hichkas - Ektelhaf

It's great to see that rap music in Iran, as everywhere else in the world, involves standing around on street corners in large overcoats. However, Hichkas looks great, has some interesting lyrics and certainly shows some of the real Tehran in his videos. Some of his homies look distinctly baby-faced/like they're wearing their sister's coats/they're bank clerks or engineering students.

صفر دو یک

Mohsen Sazegara on BBC's Taking A Stand

Mohsen Sazegara (محسن سازگارا), Ayatollah Khomenei's press attache, former head of Iran Radio and Revolutionary Guard founder, was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Taking A Stand. He made the journey from revolutionary true believer and regime mouthpiece through to reformist newspaper publisher. In the interview though, he fudged a few of the hard questions: particularly those around why he did nothing when political opponents were being executed in prisons.

Interviews like this are supposed to be where people say how sorry they are, if they could go back they would change things, etc. Maybe it is better for people to show no remorse, to avoid giving a straight answer and to simply move on to the next question.

The interview was reminiscent of "Abu Jandal" in I Was Osama Bin Laden's Bodyguard. Jandal is quite clearly still in agreement with al-Qaeda/Bin Laden's critique of the West, goals and up to a certain point, attacks on military targets, methods.

Iranian ambassador to the USA... 100 years ago

From the Library of Congress Flickr page.