Rey or Ray (Persian: شهر ری‎, Shahr-e-Ray, "City of Ray"), also known as Rhages ( /ˈreɪdʒəz/; Greek: Ῥάγαι, Rhagai; Latin: Rhagae or Rhaganae) and formerly as Arsacia, is the capital of Rey County, Tehran Province, Iran, and is the oldest existing city in the province.

Ray today has been absorbed into the Greater Tehran metropolitan area. Ray is connected via the Tehran Metro to the rest of Tehran and has many industries and factories in operation. Limited excavations of what was not bulldozed began in 1997 in collaboration with the Iranian Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO), the Department of Archaeological Sciences of the University of Bradford and the Department of Archaeology of the University of Tehran.

Note on spelling: According to the Iranian Chamber Society, the correct spelling of the city in both English and Persian is "Ray," (with an "a" vowel sound) though variations in spelling also exist. The city university also uses the spelling "Ray" ("Azad University, Shahr-e-Ray") as does the Encyclopædia Iranica published by Columbia University.

Coordinates: 32°N 53°E / 32°N 53°E / 32; 53

Iran (ⁱ/ɪˈrɑːn/ or /aɪˈræn/;Persian: ایران‎ [ʔiˈɾɒn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: جمهوری اسلامی ایران‎ Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān), is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran", which in Persian means "Land of the Aryans", has been in use natively since the Sassanian era. It came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia ( /ˈpɜrʒə/ or /ˈpɜrʃə/). Both "Persia" and "Iran" are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, "Iran" is the name used officially in political contexts.

The 18th-largest country in the world in terms of area at 1,648,195 km² (636,372 sq mi), Iran has a population of around 79 million. It is a country of particular geopolitical significance owing to its location in the Middle East and central Eurasia. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. As Iran is a littoral state of the Caspian Sea, which is an inland sea, Kazakhstan and Russia are also Iran's direct neighbors to the north. Iran is bordered on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by Iraq and on the northwest by Turkey. Tehran is the capital, the country's largest city and the political, cultural, commercial and industrial center of the nation. Iran is a regional power, and holds an important position in international energy security and world economy as a result of its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Iran has the second largest proven natural gas reserves in the world and the fourth largest proven petroleum reserves.

Raymond McGovern (born 1939) is a retired CIA officer turned political activist. McGovern was a Federal employee under seven U.S. presidents over 27 years, presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many of them.

McGovern has been an outspoken commentator on intelligence-related issues since the late 1990s. He was heavily critical of the government's handling of the Wen Ho Lee case in 2000. In 2002 he was publicly critical of President George W. Bush's use of government intelligence in the lead-up to the war in Iraq.

In 2003, together with other former CIA employees, McGovern founded the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity or VIPS. The organization is dedicated to analyzing and criticizing the use of intelligence, specifically relating to the War in Iraq. In January 2006, McGovern began speaking out on behalf of the anti-war group Not in Our Name. According to the group's press release, McGovern served symbolic "war crimes indictments" on the Bush White House from a "people's tribunal."

Annie Machon (born 1968) is a former British Security Service (MI5) intelligence officer who left the Service at the same time as David Shayler, her partner at the time, to help him blow the whistle about alleged criminality within the intelligence agencies. By doing this, they had to give up their careers, go on the run across Europe, live in hiding for a year, and then spend the next two years in exile in Paris. They, and many of their friends, family, supporters and journalists, claim to have been intimidated, and some of them were arrested, and put on trial. A death threat was announced against her on a middle eastern radio station.

In 2005, Machon published her first book, Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers: MI5, MI6 and the Shayler Affair in which she offers criticism of the Security Service and Secret Intelligence Service based on her observations of the two whilst in the employment of MI5. Machon has been accused by some of being involved with conspiracy theories.

Machon read Classics at Cambridge University and after her academic years started a career in publishing.