Journalists on Board

It's a strange coincidence that 40 of the 94 people on board the Iranian military plane which crashed today in Tehran were journalists. Yes, they were employees of the state-run broadcasting service, but still, it's fishy. The journalists were on their way to cover military manoeuvres on the coast when the accident occurred. Even President Ahmadinejad acknowledged the high proportion of journalist victims: "I learned of the catastrophe and the fact that members of the press have been martyred," he said, as he says so well. Surprisingly, it wasn't another ageing Russian aircraft. Unsurprisingly, it was another ageing U.S. aircraft. This is why Iran is called a "developing" and not a "developed" country: the basic act of upgrading public transport modules is about 30 years overdue.