Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist.

Today from London I'm your host Jason Blommer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

The man nicknamed Vladimir Putin's chef has been doing a lot more than cooking.

Yevgeny Degosian has stepped out of the shadows, admitting to being the leader of the notorious

gang of mercenaries called the Vognar Group.

We ask why he's piped up.

And it would seem that workers just aren't taking their sick days.

In the work from home world that so many inhabit, policies from above and attitudes from below

lead to people just beavering away from the place once referred to as their sickbed.

First up though.

Evan prison in Iran's capital Tehran has a well-earned reputation.

If you're a dissident of political pariah, a rabble rouser, Evan is where you go and

where you can expect the conditions to be harsh.

That's why so many took notice when a fire broke out in the prison on Sunday.

One rest has been spreading across Iran and it was hard to imagine the blaze wasn't connected

somehow.

Gunshots and anti-government chance could be heard.

Prisoners families gathered alongside protesters outside.

What exactly was happening inside is hard to know, but to get some sense of it we spoke

to Hossein Derakhshan who spent time in the prison for his role as Iran's so-called

blog father the first to bring dissent into the online space.

...