“Iranian press review: Middle East’s highest peak gravely threatened by mining,” Middle East Eye, September 24, 2020. Environmental experts warn about irreversible impact of mining at Mount Damavand. Each day, 500 trucks of soil are pulled from Damavand’s foothills. There is a current legal dispute between Iran’s Department of Environment and Ogaf, the country’s endowments organization, over the ownership of the foothills, which claimed the land had been donated. But “the case has disappeared from local media after pressure from the high ranking clerics who control Iran’s endowments organization. Esmail Kahrom, Iran’s wildlife and environment expert, told the Arman daily that if the current pace of excavations continues on Mount Damavand, the highest mountain of the Middle East would face the same fate as Lake Urmia. Once the largest saltwater lake in the Middle East, Urmia has shrunk to 10 percent of its former size due to damn buildings, water mismanagement and drought.”
German officials have now banned the sale of model aircraft engines to Iran after a shipment was found in drones used by the Houthis in Yemen attacking Saudi Arabia. Now Iran is using small engines technology that is smuggled in drones bought from Chinese makers and shipped from Xiamen to Mombasa, and there the units are smuggled to Salalah in Oman and then to Houthi strongholds. “Germany stops Iran buying mini-engines after they were found in Houthi drones,” Damien McElroy, The National, September 24, 2020.
“What to Take Away from Iran’s Global Malware Campaign,” Hashed Out, September 24, 2020. “The FBI recently disclosed that Iran’s intelligence agency has been using nation-state actors & a front company to carry out a years-long global malware campaign. … On Sept. 17, the FBI released a cybersecurity advisory about eight previously undisclosed sets of malware that are tied to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). The intelligence agency used them to monitor Iranian citizens, journalists, former government employees and dissidents (among others), as well as international companies in the academic, telecommunications, hospitality and travel sectors. This includes travel companies in the U.S. that have records of millions of travelers. The attacks, which the FBI estimates has cost “millions of dollars” to U.S. and international companies, have been ongoing for years. … MOIS … used a front company called the Rana Intelligence Computing Company (Rana), as well as nation-state actors known publicly as Advanced Persistent Threat 39 (APT 39), which also were known by a few other names including Cadelspy, Chafer, ITG07, and Remexi. … Their goal? In a nutshell, they used their vast resources to target, monitor, harass, repress and exploit anyone that they identified as a threat to the establishment.”
The new naval base will be at Sirik. “Iran Opens Navy Base At World’s Most Crucial Oil Chokepoint,” Michael Kern, OilPrice.com, September 24, 2020.
This discussions could be held over the phone. Wonder why not? “Russian, Iranian top diplomats to meet in Moscow for discussions on nuclear deal,” TASS, September 24, 2020.
“Iran’s Zarif tries to form Russia-China alliance against US,” Seth Frantzman, Jerusalem Post, September 24, 2020.