You might think that Iranians live in total information isolation, and have little idea what is being said in the U.S. and other Western countries. Watching Link TV's documentary "The Dish", about Iran's national obsession with satellite TV, will quickly disabuse you of that notion. And this week, Link TV expanded its global reach when the Tehran Times, Iran's major English-language daily newspaper, reprinted Mosaic Producer Jamal Dajani's latest article in the Huffington Post, "Iraq: Talk is Cheap, Blood is Cheaper". Though the Tehran Times is hardly a progressive, pro-Western media outlet, claiming that "it must be a loud voice of the Islamic Revolution," it does frequently include reports from international news agencies such as the Associated Press, Reuters, and now, even our own Jamal Dajani, to keep its readers informed of outside news and opinion.

If you missed Dajani's excellent Mosaic Intelligence Report from Friday, which expands upon his Huffington Post article on Iraq, we encourage you to watch it below. And to stay updated on what's really going on in the Middle East, follow Jamal Dajani on Twitter, and subscribe to his weekly Mosaic Intelligence Report enewsletter.

And a reminder: to keep Mosaic going, we rely on donations from our viewers. So if you value Mosaic, the Mosaic Intelligence Report and Link's other great programming focused on the Middle East and more, be sure to donate today, in any amount. We need to hear from you!

Three American hikers who have been detained in Iran since July 31st, including Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, and Josh Fattal, apparently unwittingly strayed over the border from Iraqi Kurdistan, according to a fourth member of their party, Shon Meckfessel. Meckfessel, who did not join his friends on the ill-fated hike, wrote in a statement that the four were travelling in Iraqi Kurdistan on vacation, and his friends went off on a recommended hike to popular tourist destination Ahmed Awa, an area known for its lovely waterfall. Apparently unaware that Ahmed Awa was near the Iranian border, the three were detained while hiking in the area by Iranian authorities, and have yet to be released. Meckfessel writes, "I hope that people understand my friends' presence in the area for what it was: a simple and very regrettable mistake."

With the recent release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee from North Korean custody, thanks to a deus ex machina intervention from former U.S. President Bill Clinton, the question being asked in the Iran case is where diplomacy goes next. Have Clinton's actions in North Korea piqued the interest of the Ahmadinejad regime, perhaps empowering them to turn these hikers into pawns in a greater diplomatic game with the United States? Iran has detained many Americans over the years, most recently arresting Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh, charged with instigating post-election violence.

The story of one of these hikers, freelance journalist and documentary photographer Shane Bauer, was featured in today's episode of Democracy Now below, which airs on Link TV. Bauer, an Arabic speaker and graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, delivered a report for Democracy Now in February 2009 on U.S. military alliances with Iraq's Sunni militias.

Iran is slipping off the media radar, finding itself replaced by the global mourning rituals for Michael Jackson, Wall Street's continued decline, and the latest Republican career-ending train wreck. But there is still a story in Tehran, and it's not a happy one.
 
As Nobel laureates call for the release of prisoners and a full investigation into Iran's human rights violations, the Guardian UK has developed an amazing interactive tool to track those killed or arrested in the unrest. And our own Michal Shapiro's World Music blog has unearthed a music video dedicated to Neda Agha Soltan, whose disturbing killing, broadcast on YouTube, made her an unwitting symbol of the crisis.

Iran's youth are at the center of this stalled revolution, and their discontent was apparent well before the first protests began in Tehran. Six months ago, this prescient video was posted to YouTube, proclaiming Iran as a "nation of bloggers":


Of course, technology - and the micro-blogging service Twitter in particular - played a critical role in organizing June's mass street demonstrations. An op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor has even nominated Twitter for a Nobel Peace Prize, as the "megaphone" of Iran's new youth movement. While Mosaic's own Jalal Ghazi is skeptical, arguing well that Iran "cannot be explained in a Twitter feed", Twitter is proving its mettle in the crowded world of news distribution, and is a service that Link TV is using more and more. It remains to be seen whether Twitter can successfully foment true revolution, but we'll continue to keep an eye on Iran's young twittering generation.

Jalal Ghazi, Associate Producer of Mosaic, recently had an article featured on Anderson Cooper's blog, in which he explains why the complex situation in Iran cannot be easily understood via the terse, rapidfire posts on Twitter or through simple newsfeeds:

Read the entire article at New American Media.

The conflict in Iran has brought media attention to a diverse group of young Iranians. As David Michaelis stated in his recent blog post, "Iran has gained a new face. Instead of relating to Ahmadinejad as the only face of Iran, we now see a multitude of younger people."

Link TV has been producing a series of documentaries to give Americans a unique glimpse into the lives of ordinary Iranians, called Bridge to Iran.  Showcasing documentaries by contemporary independent Iranian filmmakers living and working in Iran, Bridge to Iran shatters preconceived notions about a nation and culture that most Americans know little about and have never experienced firsthand.

Tonight marks the premiere of a new installment of the series: Cinema Encounters in Tehran. An original production of Link TV, the film follows Americans Yoni Brook and Musa Syeed as they travel to Iran for the 2007 Verite Film Festival, where they meet two young filmmakers Atefeh and Abbas. The film documents their efforts to overcome language and cultural barriers and use cinematic language and friendship to create a movie.  In the end they find that the friendship and understanding they develop in a short time transcends the barriers of the national and political divisions that separates them.

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Jamal Dajani, Senior Director of Middle Eastern Programming at Link TV and producer of Mosaic, recently appeared on CBS to discuss the results and and unrest in Tehran following the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

For more information about the election, watch Global Pulse's report on the Iranian media's coverage of the candidates, and learn about Saudi Arabia's role via Mosaic Intelligence Report.

Roxana Saberi, fiancé of accomplished Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi, is being held in an Iranian jail under accusations of espionage. Her arrest has sparked widespread outrage, as witnessed in this New York Times editorial. In an open letter posted online, Ghobadi asserts her innocence and expresses that he has become frustrated trying to work as a filmmaker in Iran -- his films banned, released on the black market, and future projects not given authorization.

But Ghobadi says he does not want to leave Iran without Saberi, according to the LA Times.

Bahman Ghobadi's film, A Time for Drunken Horses, has previously been featured in Link TV's CINEMONDO lineup, and in May 2007, Peter Scarlet interviewed Ghobadi in northern Iraq: