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Showing posts from August, 2020

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh creeps into the limelight

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Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of Iran's shadowy SPND organization, has traditionally shunned publicity. Until recently, the only glimpses that we've had of Fakhrizadeh have been from grainy photographs probably purloined by intelligence agencies.   That's all changed. We recently wrote about how we spotted Fakhrizadeh in publicly-released footage from a meeting in January 2019 of Iran's Cognitive Science and Technologies Council (CSTC or ستاد توسعه علوم و فناوریهای شناختی ) - probably much to Fakhrizadeh's annoyance. Little did we realize then that Mohsen actually made at least two public appearances that month - and at the second one, he certainly wasn't hiding from the cameras.   On 5 January 2019, as an obscure Iranian media outlet reported , Fakhrizadeh signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding on behalf of SPND with the IRGC's Basij mobilization organization ( مسلح سازمان بسیج سازندگی کشور ) and Iran's Supreme National Defense Univers

SPND sells snake oil: Regenerative Nanotech Company

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  Dear readers,   We are shocked and appalled to let you know we have learned that Iran's SPND ( سازمان پژوهش و نوآوری دفاعی ) organization is involved in a new scam designed to separate the foolish from their money. Perish the thought!     Some SPND old timers have established a new venture , the Regenerative Nanotech Company ( شرکت نانو فناوران احیاگر ). You can visit their website here , in case they stop paying the server bills...   Regenerative Nanotech is selling something called "hydrogen enhanced water", with purported health benefits. This enhanced water allegedly makes concrete stronger , which is a sure sign that you should be drinking as much of it as possible.   This product is snake oil, pure and simple. And it doesn't surprise us that the company is fully owned by four guys with longstanding ties to SPND. Regenerative Nanotech's four owners are all old hands of Malek Ashtar University's Physics Department, which has long functi