Silicon Valley should step up, help Iranians: Via San Francisco Chronicle.

Until Iran's election and ensuing political crisis, many Silicon Valley companies had ignored Persian-language services almost entirely. It's easy to understand why.

First, there's an American embargo against Iran, which forbids American companies from doing business with that country.

Second, there is a perception that the Iranian community (particularly outside of Los Angeles) is not that large or significant. Third, most Iranians in the United States are well-educated, upper-class people who speak English very well.

So ignoring Iran has been convenient - there has seemingly been no real business motivation for tech companies to make their products useful for Iranians both inside and outside Iran.

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Twitter famously received a call from the U.S. Department of State nearly two weeks ago asking the company to postpone its scheduled maintenance to suit those in Tehran's time zone, rather than those on Pacific time.
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VOA News - Clinton Cites 'Huge Credibility Gap' in Iran Over Election: Via Voice of America.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday that a "huge credibility gap" remains among Iranians about their country's June 12 presidential election, despite the partial vote recount that is said to have upheld the announced victory by incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Clinton also deplored Iran's detention of several Iranian staff members of the British embassy in Tehran.  

Clinton says the broad skepticism among Iranians about the electoral process and the apparent re-election of President Ahmadinejad is unlikely to be quelled by Monday's announcement by Iran's Guardian Council that a partial recount upheld the originally-announced outcome.

The powerful council, which supervises elections and has wide-ranging powers in the Islamic government, said a random recount of 10 percent of the ballot boxes nationwide upheld Mr. Ahmadinejad's landslide victory over reformist challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Clinton, appearing at the State Department's daily press briefing, said she did not want to speculate on Iran's political future, but she that the reported recount is unlikely to do much to defuse election-related tensions.
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How Iran's Disputed Election is Playing in Iraq: Via Newsweek International | Newsweek.com .

Iraq's leaders are trying to say as little as possible about Iran's post-election problems—in public, anyway.

It's been hard not to laugh at some Iraqi officials' poses of complete indifference to the upheaval in Tehran. They're trying their best to pretend they don't know or care what's happening there, unwilling to commit themselves until they know which side will prevail—but the act isn't very convincing. "Nothing is going on in Iran," says Sheik Jalal al-Deen al-Sagheer, a senior parliamentarian from Iraq's ruling Shiite coalition, the Unified Iraqi Alliance. And he says it with almost perfect seriousness. Some officials do admit when pushed hard enough that "nothing" may not be the precise term for street riots in Tehran, deaths, arrests, and signs of revolt among Iran's senior clergy. But beyond that, they don't want to say anything too specific. "The Iranian election is an internal issue," the Iraqi prime minister told local journalists a few days ago. "Any confusion that happens in it will affect Iraq because it is a neighboring country and its stability matters to us."

No matter what Iraq's leaders may think of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, they don't want to antagonize Iran's Supreme Leader. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the man who makes the big decisions, and after six years of war and insurgency, Iraq is in no condition to challenge him and his armed forces.
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Iran Extends Deadline for Election Inquiry: Via NYTimes.com .

The Iranian government offered a few small concessions to the opposition on Monday, extending by five days its deadline to investigate opposition claims of vote rigging in this month’s disputed presidential election, beginning a new limited recount, and releasing five of nine British Embassy employees detained in Tehran over the weekend.

But the government’s underlying stance on the electoral dispute remained unchanged, and there were reports that protesters were gathering in Tehran again on Monday evening as they have for more than two weeks, drawing a broad and violent crackdown. On Sunday, security forces aggressively dispersed several thousand protesters, beating and firing tear gas as they gathered at a mosque in support of the defeated presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also called for a judicial inquiry into the “suspicious” death of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman who was shot and killed on the sidelines of a protest on June 20. Her death, captured on film, has become a symbol of the crackdown.
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