The Iranian authorities have long accused Google Earth of being a tool for western spy agencies, but now they have taken their attacks on the 3D mapping service one step further – by planning the launch of an “Islamic” competitor. Iran’s minister for information and communications technology, Mohammad Hassan Nami, announced this week that his country was developing what he described as an “Islamic Google Earth” to be called Basir (spectator in Farsi) which will be ready for use “within the next four months”. “Preparations have been made for launching our world’s 3D map project and we are currently creating an appropriate data centre which could be capable of processing this volume of information,” the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Nami as saying on Tuesday.