Iran’s naval drill ‘show of strength’ to U.S.

Iran is preparing to hold a joint naval exercise with China and Russia in the Indian Ocean, the first of its kind since

the 1979 Islamic Revolution.The date of the drill has not been

yet announced, but sources expect that the exercise will be held on Dec. 27 in the northern Indian Ocean and Oman Sea.

Although Beijing and Moscow have not publicly commented on the drill, co-operation between the three countries on making these naval drills a regular affair has been on agenda for a long time.

Observers see the exercise, dubbed “Marine Security Belt”, as a message by Iran to the U.S. amid tension between Tehran and Washington over its nuclear program.

Analysts cite a series of recent events in the Persian Gulf for increasing tension between Iran and the U.S.

“The seizure of tankers [by UK and Iran], smuggling of oil and downing of a [U.S.] military drone all pushed the region to a tipping point where military confrontation seemed imminent,” Mo-hammad Jafari, a strategic affairs analyst, told Anadolu Agency.

“We can expect anything anytime. These are troubled waters.”

Military actionAnalysts believe that the possibility

of the U.S. resorting to military action against Iran has grown after drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities in September.

Although Yemen’s Houthi rebel group has claimed the attacks, Riyadh and Wash-ington have pointed the finger at Iran.

While rejecting the accusations, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned of an “all-out war” if the U.S. or Saudi Arabia considered any military action against Tehran.

Iran, says Jafari, does not want to be caught off-guard.

“To prepare for any eventuality, it is important that the Persian Gulf waters are secured, and that’s exactly what Iran, with the help of its allies, is doing,” he said.

Although the naval drill has been under discussion for a while, the three countries have timed it impeccably, in response to the U.S. administration’s “maximum pres-sure” policy against Iran. 1 1

Algeria mourns its man of honour Gaid Salah, Army Chief of Staff

Algeria mourns one of its defenders and great men. Algeria’s powerful Army Chief Major- General Ahmed Gaid

Salah, one of the last veterans of the 1954-62 independence war against the French colonization, passed away, on Monday, of a heart attack, announced the Algerian presidency of the Republic in a statement.

“The deputy defense minister and chief of staff of the army died Monday morn-ing of a heart attack,” the presidency said in the statement read out on state news channel Algeria 3.

“The general died at home of a heart attack at about 6:00 am (0500 GMT) be-fore his body was transferred to a military hospital,” the statement added.

The deceased played a commendable role in preserving Africa’s largest country’s stability and integrity. Following the erup-tion of the mass protests, almost one year ago, demanding the ruling elite and the old guard to quit, Gaid Salah’s delivered at a televised speech, endorsing the protesters’ claims, while insisting on the army support for the protests, “marked, according to him, by the deeds of noble aims and pure intentions, through which the Algerian people has clearly expressed its values and principles of sincere and dedicated work to Allah and the motherland”.

The deceased pushed the long-serv-ing president Abdelaziz Bouteflika to step down in April after 20 years in power. He, also, prevented foreign hands from manipulating protesters.

The military chief, then, championed an unprecedented anti graft investiga-tions, targeting the ousted President Bouteflika’s inner circle. This massive corruption drive included the arrest and conviction of Bouteflika’s brother Said, once-feared intelligence chiefs as well as two premiers, ministers and a bunch of tycoons and oligarchs.

The lifelong military man had made his last public appearance Thursday at the swearing-in ceremony of the newly elected President of the Republic Abdel-madjid Tebboune, where he was awarded the rank of “Sadr” in Algeria’s National Order of Merit. 1 1

W W W . T E H R A N T I M E S . C O M I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

16 Pages Price 40,000 Rials 1.00 EURO 4.00 AED 39th year No.13564 Thursday DECEMBER 26, 2019 Dey 5, 1398 Rabi’ Al thani 29, 1441

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Reuters has been following ‘policy of lies’ against Iran

Iran crowned Asian Nations Cup U14 Chess Team champions 15

Minerals, mining industry exports to reach $10b by Mar.2020

Iran’s civilization, history deserve to be seen, Italian tourism expert says

Iraq parliament approves new electoral law

TEHRAN — Iranian mining sector is expected to export up to $10 billion of minerals and mining industry products by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 19, 2020), IRNA reported on Wednesday, quoting an industry official as saying.

“Mines of Iran will not only meet the needs of the country’s industrial

plants and construction industry, but will also export about $9-$10 billion of minerals and other products by the end of the year,” Deputy Industry, Mining and Trade Minister Jafar Sarqini said on the sidelines of a gathering of the country’s supreme council of mining in the city of Zanjan, west-central Iran. 4

TEHRAN — A senior Italian tourism expert who has recently embarked on some tours across Iran believes that a gap exists between reality in Iran and the media image of the country worldwide, emphasizing that the country’s civilization and history deserve to be seen.

“There is a gap and vacuum between reality in Iran and what is being depicted from the country [worldwide]. Outside the borders, there is no mention of Iranian civilization and

historical monuments, while they deserve to be seen,” Maurizio Davolio, chairperson of Eu-ropean Alliance for Responsible Tourism and Hospitality, said in an interview with ISNA published on Wednesday.

Davolio, who is also the president of Italian Association of Responsible Tourism and a member of the National Council for Development Cooperation at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has toured provinces of Kordestan, 1 0

In a move to stem public anger and drawn-out street protests, Iraq’s parlia-ment has approved a new electoral law, which enables the electorate to choose individual candidates instead of picking from party lists.

On Tuesday, the legislature lent its blessing to the law, which has constituted a key demand by protesters, who have been taking to the streets in the capital

Baghdad and the country’s southern ar-eas since October 1, Reuters reported.

The new law also allows each lawmaker to represent a specific electoral district instead of groups of legislators representing entire provinces.

The protests have been pressing the government to bring in reforms that would root out corruption and alleviate the coun-try’s economic woes. 1 3

Hana SaadaJournalist from Algeria

A R T I C L EBy Zahra Mirzafarjouyan Syed Zafar Mehdi

Journalistfrom New Delhi

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Israel air raids against Syria will not go unanswered

Iranian translator to discuss Iran-Croatia cultural relations 16

Leader marks birth anniversary of Jesus Christ

A UK-based charity has revealed that Britain’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia and its allies in their aggression on Yemen have seen an almost 50-per-cent rise over the past five years.

The British government has sold some 6.4 billion pounds worth of aircraft, helicopters, drones and other weapons and ammunition to the Saudi-led coalition since 2015, accord-ing to a research study published by Oxfam on Tuesday.

The charity said the UK has signed off two billion pounds more in arms exports since Janu-ary 2015 than it approved over the previous five years, which marks a 45-percent spike in licenses for British arms manufacturers.

Ruth Tanner, the Oxfam’s head of human-itarian campaigns, denounced the increase in arms sales as a “stain” on Britain’s conscience given the buying countries’ role in the devastating war in Yemen.

“Just a few years ago, the UK government enthusiastically pursued the introduction of legislation to better control arms transfers to avoid the kind of indiscriminate violence that has been unleashed on civilians in Yemen,” Tanner said.

“Now the UK is doing all it can to avoid sus-pending arms sales to Saudi Arabia and its coa-lition partners. This rise in arms sales should be a stain on our conscience. The Yemenis who’ve

had to flee their homes, go without food and clean water, and endure outbreaks of disease need an end to this war and a chance to rebuild their lives,” she added.

The increase comes despite the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) signed in 2014 — an international treaty that bans arms sales if there is a risk those weapons could be used in violation of international humanitarian or human rights law.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement. 1 3

TEHRAN (MNA) — The joint naval drill of Iran, China and Russia will be started on Friday in the waters of Sea of Oman and the northern Indian Ocean for 4 days.

A joint military drill with China and Russia can be considered as one of the greatest achieve-ments of Iran’s defense diplomacy showing the successful diplomacy of Iran.

This joint drill which was called ‘Maritime Safety Belt’ by Iran’s Navy commander will be held on December 27, 2019, said a senior spokes-man for the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, according to IRNA.

Reports during the last week show that

the Chinese and Russian navies have moved to Iranian waters to participate in the joint naval exercise.

Russian Navy will participate in this drill with three vessels, including a Neustrashimy frigate class named “Yaroslav Mudry”, a tugboat named “Yevgeniy Khorov” and a tanker named “Yel’nya”, according to a report by Fars News.

Chinese Navy also will take part in the event with a Type 052D destroyer named Xining.

The composition and capability of war-ships deployed by China and Russia to the waters of the region to conduct joint drill with Iran show that this joint event is of strategic importance to Russia and China as the two countries have deployed advanced and new

vessels to carry out the exercise.On the other hand, this joint naval drill of

Iran, China and Russia can be considered as the counter to the US-led coalition for maritime se-curity in the Persian Gulf.

In this regard, Iran Navy Commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi said in an interview with Mehr News agency in late November, “The joint naval drill to be staged by Iran, China and Russia delivers this message to the world that any kind of security at sea must include the interests of all concerned countries.”

“A joint wargame between several countries, whether on land, at sea or in the air, indicates a remarkable expansion of cooperation among them,” he noted. 1 1

UK arms sales to Saudi-led coalition up by almost 50 percent: Oxfam

Iran, China, Russia joint military drill success of Iran’s defense diplomacyBirthday of Jesus Christ was celebrated by Armenians in Tehran at Surp Grigor Church on Wednesday, December 25, 2019

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Festivities marking Christmas in Iran

Austrian composer Eric Spitzer-Marlyn lauds Iran’s Cinéma

Vérité

TEHRAN – Eric Spitzer-Marlyn, an Austrian composer who has worked with world-renowned filmmakers such as Werner Herzog, has praised Iran for organizing Cinéma Vérité, the major documentary festival of the country.

He was in Tehran last week to hold work-shops on sound in documentary movies during the event.

“I was really impressed,” Spitzer-Marlyn told the Tehran Times and added, “The quality of the movies and the organization of the festival were very impressive. It can be compared with the top level festivals around the world and you can be proud of it.” 1 6

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DECEMBER 26, 2019

I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

P O L I T I C S

TEHRAN — Mahmoud Vaezi, President

Rouhani’s chief of staff, on Wednesday lashed out at the West for its double-standard approach towards the human rights issue.

“Human rights issue for Western countries have been turned into a political tool to exert pressures on other nations. Such countries are pursuing a double-standard approach in this regard,” Vaezi told reporters on the sidelines of cabinet session.

“Such (Western) countries in their own land have committed stern anti-human rights behaviors against religious minorities and persons of color. On the other hand, they have very good relations with certain regional countries which do not observe even the preliminary principles of the human rights,” he pointed out.

He further said, “Nowadays, thanks to cyberspace, all these issues have become transparent, so, the Western states’ claims have no supporter neither in Iran nor in other places.”

On Sunday, the lawmakers who represent religious minorities in the Majlis censured an anti-Iran resolution by the United Nations General Assembly, calling the move a “politically-motivated” stance.

In their statement, the representatives said the Canadian-drafted UN resolution against Iran, although seemingly about human rights, is inherently a political statement that is intended to exert more pressure on Iran.

On December 18, the UN General Assembly passed the resolution calling on Iran to stop committing human rights abuses. The measure proposed by Canada passed on a vote of 81-30, with 70 abstentions.

Early in November, the spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry highlighted a

number of anti-human rights dossiers filed against Washington, saying the White House’s claims in defending human rights could only be named as “shameless hypocrisy”.

Seyed Abbas Mousavi’s remarks came in reaction to his American counterpart Morgan Deann Ortagus, who had questioned Iran’s achievements demonstrated in a human rights exhibition organized by Tehran.

“Organizing a U.S. human rights exhibition will drastically be excellent. Downing a passenger plane, discrimination against the Blacks, bombardments against civilians from Vietnam to Iraq and Yemen and providing full supports for the wildest and the most inhuman terrorist regimes in the region (should be displayed in the exhibition),” Mousavi wrote in his Twitter account.

“This, as a real meaning for a single word, is shameless hypocrisy,” the spokesman reiterated in response to Ortagus.

Iran inaugurated an exhibition at the venue of the United Nations headquarters in Geneva on November 4 to display the country’s achievements in human rights.

Ortagus had claimed that Iran was among the most notorious human rights violators worldwide.

TEHRAN – In a letter to the Leader of the Islamic

Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a number of MPs have pushed for the approval of the FATF by the Expediency Council.

Shahabaddin Bimeghdar, a lawmaker, told IRNA on Wednesday that the MPs are gathering more signatures about the need to join the Financial Action Task Force.

It is said in the letter that being black-listed by the FATF will isolate the economy which is already restricted by the United States “cruel sanctions”.

The MPs said failure to join the FATF will cause “closure of the bank accounts in foreign countries”, “accusations of money laundering against the country”, “inter-national distrust”, “financial and bank-ing crisis”, “inefficiency of Iranian bank branches in foreign countries” and also “destabilization in stock exchange market”.

Mahmoud Vaezi, President Rouhani’s chief of staff, said on Tuesday that being blacklisted by the FATF will definitely harm the economy.

Mehdi Zakerian, an expert on interna-

tional relations, told ISNA in an interview published on Wednesday that joining the FATF will not prevent Iran to circumvent the U.S. sanctions.

Fatemeh Saeidi, a member of the Hope parliamentary faction, also told ISNA on Wednesday that those who opposes joining the FATF should accept responsibility for the consequences.

Mohsen Rezaee, secretary of the Guard-ian Council, said on Tuesday that Palermo and CFT bills are still under assessment in the council.

“The FATF-related bills (Palermo and CFT) are still under evaluation in the Ex-pediency Council, so, I can’t say anything now (about the outcome of assessment),” Rezaee said, Fars reported.

In October 2018, the parliament voted to join the FATF. However, the Guardian Council rejected it. Now the ball is in the Expediency Council’s court.

When there is a dispute between parlia-ment and the Guardian Council the issue is referred to the Expediency Council for final arbitration.

The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said on October 18 that it has given Iran a final deadline of February 2020 to tighten its laws against money laundering in compliance with the global watchdog’s financial standards.

“If before February 2020, Iran does not enact the Palermo and Terrorist Fi-nancing Conventions in line with the FATF Standards, then the FATF will fully lift the suspension of counter-measures and call on its members and urge all jurisdictions to apply effective counter-measures, in line with recommendation 19,” the FATF said in a statement, Reuters reported.

One of the actions Iran is required to take to appease the FATF is to ratify the CFT, the convention combatting the financing of terrorism.

The government is pushing for the ap-proval of the FATF.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on December 16 that the Expediency Council takes the final decision on the FATF, expressing hope its decision would be in line with the country’s “ex-

pediency”.Majid Ansari, a member of the Expedi-

ency Council, told IRNA on December 16 that the council is still studying the CFT and the Palermo bill.

He declined to comment about whether the two bills would be finally rejected or approved by the council.

The Expediency Council issued a state-ment on Saturday announcing that the two FATF-related bills of Palermo and CFT have not yet received green light, saying that the bills are under accurate assessment.

Vaezi blasts the West’s double-standardapproach towards human rights

TEHRAN —Mohammad Javad

Jamali, the deputy chairman of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, has said that continuation of economic ties with Japan can be an achievement of President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Tokyo.

In an interview with ISNA published on Wednesday, Jamali said the visit will be an achievement if Iran-Japan’s relations be less affected by the United States’ sanctions.

“Like China and Russia, they [the Japanese] can find ways that their economic relations with us would not be severed,” he said.

Rouhani met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on December 20. Rouhani was accompanied by a senior political and economic delegation in his tour of Japan.

Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who accompanied President Hassan Rouhani to Japan, has said that Iran is aiming to strengthen its relationship with Japan, and keep all channels open, the NHK said in a report on its website on Saturday.

Araghchi also announced on Saturday that Tehran and Tokyo are resolved to continue their consultations over key international and regional issues more closely than ever.

Araqchi, who served as Tehran’s ambassador to Tokyo from 2007-2011, said Iran has been continuously holding diplomatic talks with Japan but consultations between the countries are now of paramount importance as Iran has come under “unfair pressures and

sanctions” by the United States.“We have always had close diplomatic

consultations with Japan. This year, due to the current developments, including the U.S. unfair pressures and sanctions on Iran, it was necessary to hold closer and tighter talks with Japan which are an old trade partner of Iran,” the deputy foreign minister remarked.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif hailed the “substantive, friendly and frank” summit between Rouhani and Abe, saying the meeting aimed to strengthen ties between the two countries.

“Substantive, friendly and frank summit between President @HassanRouhani and Prime Minister @AbeShizo: further strengthening bilateral, regional and global cooperation,” Zarif tweeted on December 20.

Following his meeting with Abe, Rouhani tweeted on Friday: “I welcome any effort that could boost economic exchanges, especially in the energy sector, and increase oil exports.”

During his meeting with Abe, Rouhani said that he hopes Japan and other countries in the world will work hard to help preserve the 2015 nuclear agreement, officially known as the JCPOA.

Abe, for his part, said, “Japan would like to do its utmost to ease tensions and stabilize the situation in the Middle East.”

“As for Iran, I strongly hope the country will fully implement the nuclear agreement and play a constructive role for peace and stability in the region,” the Japanese prime minister noted.

Continuation of economic ties can be achievement of Rouhani’s visit to Japan: MPP O L I T I C A Ld e s k

P O L I T I C A Ld e s k

TEHRAN – President Hassan Rouhani said on

Wednesday that Iran has proven that it does not refute negotiations, a reference to 12 years of nuclear negotiations with the West which finally produced the JCPOA, the official name for the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Iran and the West started negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program in 2003. In later years the United States also joined the talks. However, intensive negotiations started in 2013 when Hassan Rouhani took over as president in Iran.

In 2018 U.S. President Donald Trump quit the JCPOA and ordered sanctions on Iran. He has been claiming that he seeks a better deal with Iran.

“The United States announced that it is ready for talks and it is Iran who does not sit at the negotiating table. It was a plot and we succeeded in foiling it,” Rouhani said during a cabinet meeting.

While calling for negotiations, the Trump administration has been continuously tighten-ing the sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Many believe that Trump abandoned the JCPOA because it was a foreign policy success for his predecessor Barack Obama. Sir Kim Darroch, Britain’s ambassador to Washington, had said Trump abandoned the nuclear deal to spite Obama. Darroch described the move as an act of “diplomatic vandalism”.

Japan, a friend of Iran and an ally of the United States, has been trying to reduce tension in the Persian Gulf region.

Tension between Tehran and Washington heightened after Iran shot down a U.S. drone which violated Iran’s airspace on June 20.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vis-ited Iran in early July and President Rouhani also made a visit to Tokyo on December 20. The two countries have vowed to continue their consultations.

Pointing to his meeting with Prime Minister Abe, Rouhani said, “Visit to Japan proved that we have no problem with negotiation and dialogue.”

Trump withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal despite the fact that the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog, was repeatedly confirm-ing Iran’s full adherence to its obligations.

“Nobody doubts that the Islamic Republic of Iran has fulfilled its commitments and

has taken steps within the framework of international peace, security and stability and it is the other side who has reneged on its commitments,” Rouhani asserted.

‘Iran not the only country subject-ed to U.S. pressure campaign’

Referring to his remarks at the inaugura-tion ceremony of the Kuala Lumpur Summit on December 19, he said that a solution must be found to get rid of the U.S. dollar in inter-national trade, noting that many countries have problems with Washington.

The president said there was consensus among several participants in the summit on the need for ditching the dollar.

“Cryptocurrency and exchanges of na-tional currencies and gold were among the issues raised at the summit, and the four aforementioned countries agreed to find ways” to promote those mechanisms, Rou-hani told the cabinet meeting, according to Press TV.

During his speech at the summit, Rouhani suggested that the Muslim world should take measures to put an end to the domination of the United States’ dollar and financial regime.

According to Free Malaysia Today, Ma-hathir Mohamad has accepted Iran’s proposal on using cryptocurrency as an alternative to the dollar.

“We are hearing this for the first time — that Iran and Turkey are of the opinion that we should use an alternative to the U.S. dollar. We can use our own currencies or have a common currency,” Free Malaysia Today quoted Mahathir as saying on December 19.

“It looks like sometimes when we use the U.S. dollar, there are sanctions that can curb economic development,” the Malaysian prime minister added.

At a closing speech at the KL Summit, the prime minister said that sanctions and embargos are not going to be exclusively for Iran.

“With the world witnessing nations making unilateral decisions to impose such punitive measures, Malaysia and other nations must always bear in mind that they can be imposed on any of us,” he said.

He added, “I have suggested that we re-visit the idea of trading using the gold dinar and barter trade among us. We are seriously looking into this and we hope that we will be able to find a mechanism to put it into effect.”

P O L I T I C A Ld e s k

P O L I T I C A Ld e s k

P O L I T I C A Ld e s k

Solution must be found to circumvent dollar in foreign trade: Rouhani

Military jet crashes in northwestern Iran

TEHRAN —The Iranian Army’s public rela-tions announced on Wednesday that an Air

Force’s fighter jet crashed when it was on a mission over Sabalan heights in the northwestern province of Ardabil.

“The Army Air Force’ MiG-29, which was on a mission… in the northwestern part of the country, has crashed,” the army said, adding that fate of the jet’s pilots is under investigation.

According to the army, the fighter jet’s pilot Colonel Mohammad Reza Rahmani was one of the most skillful pilots of the air force.

It said despite the fact that the region is impassable and the weather is snowy, efforts are underway by ground and aerial rescue teams to locate the pilots.

The MiG-29 fighter jet had taken off from an airbase in the city of Tabriz and was patrolling in the airspace of Ardabil Province when it crashed in a mountainous area.

Israel air raids against Syria will not go unanswered: Velayati (Press TV) — A senior Iranian official says Israel “will regret” committing acts of aggression against Syria, and that the Syrian and Lebanese nations will give a response to the Tel Aviv regime.

“Israeli airstrikes against Syria will not go unanswered, and Tel Aviv will regret having committed these crimes,” Ali Akbar Velayati, adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on international affairs, said in an interview with Russia Today’s Arabic channel aired on Tuesday night.

“Sooner or later, Israel will receive a response for its aerial attacks on and crimes in Syria,” he said, expressing hope that resistance forces in

Syria and Lebanon would “stand against the crimes committed by the U.S. and Israel.”

He said that “Israel cannot continue its unlawful aggression in the region with impunity.”

Velayati further dismissed as “propaganda” anti-Iran remarks made by Israeli officials, saying, “Tel Aviv is powerless and cannot carry out its threats against Iran.”

The Iranian official also said that the Lebanese Hezbollah re-sistance movement will “raze Israel to ground” if the regime dares to attack Lebanon.

The regime sporadically carries out such attacks via Lebanon’s skies against positions of pro-Damascus forces or what the regime usually claims to be Ira-nian targets in Syria, where Tehran has military advisors deployed.

The latest such attack took place on the weekend.At Syria’s request, Iran — along with Russia and Lebanon’s

Hezbollah resistance movement — has been supporting the Syrian military’s efforts to cleanse the Arab country of terror groups, many of which have the support of Israel, the U.S. and their regional allies.

Israel views the Islamic Republic’s advisors in Syria as a threat and has openly pledged to target them out until they leave the country.

Both Tehran and Damascus have rejected claims of Israeli attacks on Iranian targets as sheer lies and pointless propaganda.

Damascus has repeatedly called on the UN to adopt necessary measures to stop Israel’s acts of military aggression on the Arab country.

New ambassador calls for leap in Iran-Russia tradeTEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran’s new ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, said although there are close political relations between the two countries, the economic ties have not developed well.

Tehran and Moscow should “make a leap” in economic relations because the two sides have great potentials, the Russian-language RIA Novosti quoted Jalali as saying on Wednesday.

The business-economic relations between the two countries have not developed to the level they should have, he added.

The value of bilateral trade between the Islamic Republic and the Russian Federation is less than two billion dollars, the diplomat said, adding that the figure should increase.

In similar remarks on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi highlighted the country’s strategic relations with Russia and said the Islamic Republic will never forget true friends who sided with it in hard times.

E3’s claim of triggering dispute mechanism has no legal basis: VaeziTEHRAN (MNA) – President’s chief of staff Mahmoud Vaezi said the E3’s claim of triggering the JCPOA’s “dispute resolution mechanism” has no legal basis, adding that the European sides are looking for a way to come to an understanding with Iran.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Vaezi said, “Iranian and foreign experts have all confirmed that the measures Iran has taken in the four steps of its reduction in commitments to the JCPOA did not run counter to any international conventions.”

“The Europeans’ claim has no legal basis. It seems that they are trying to find an answer to satisfy their own countries’ public in the face of Iran’s reductions to its JCPOA commitments,” he added.

“That they raise the possibly of triggering the dispute mech-anism, it will not happen. Rather, they are after holding nego-tiations with Iran so that they could reach an understanding through other ways,” he said.

According to a recent report by Reuters, the three European parties to the nuclear deal said they were likely to trigger a dispute resolution process in January but would stop short of rushing to restore UN sanctions on Iran that would kill off the accord.

Six European and Western diplomats said Britain, France and Germany had agreed in principle to begin the process but they would still wait to see how significant Iran’s steps were before taking a final decision, according to the report.

The measure is also known as the trigger mechanism and its activation can lead to the return of the UN sanctions against Iran.

Diplomats said the Europeans would focus on extending the process rather than pushing towards sanctions unless Iran’s upcoming steps crossed an unacceptable threshold.

Iran’s reduction to its commitments comes in response to the U.S. withdrawal from the agreement and the E3’s failure to fulfill their obligations under the JCPOA and to salvage it.

MPs ask Expediency Council to approve FATF

President says Iran has proven it does not shun negotiations

3I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

I R A N I N F O C U SDECEMBER 26, 2019

TEHRAN (MNA) — Manufacturing homegrown fighter jet “Kosar” is fast on track, according to the Commander of the Iranian Air Force Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh.

The production process of this newly-developed aircraft is being carried out in Tehran and Isfahan with a very sat-isfactory pace, the Commander of the Iranian Air Force Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh said on Tuesday.

“We are hoping to stage an aerial parade with three of the fully-Iranian Kosar fighter jets on 17th April, concurrent with the Army Day,” he added.

The Iranian commander maintained that the Army Air Force in Tehran and the Defense Industries Organization in Isfahan are jointly in charge of managing the Kosar jets’

production line.The newly-developed aircraft is a twin-engine military

fighter, which is capable of carrying various weapons and is used for short aerial support missions.

Kosar is equipped with the fourth generation of avionics systems, and it can carry various kinds of missiles and bombs that are designed and manufactured domestically and there will be no need for any foreign help.

Kosar was as unveiled in July 2017 and made its first training airshow flight over the skies of the Capital Tehran in April 2018.

Its mass-production line opened in early November 2018 in Isfahan.

Reuters has been following ‘policy of lies’ against Iran, ambassador says Festivities marking

Christmas in Iran

TEHRAN – The Iranian Christians are celebrating the birth anniversary of Jesus Christ (PBUH).

On Tuesday night, for example, a festivity was held at Surp Grigor Armenian Catholic Church in Tehran to mark the auspicious occasion.

Contrary to propaganda campaigns by certain Western coun-tries, religious minorities in Iran enjoy full freedom. They are also respected highly by the general public.

Also, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei marked the birth anniversary of Jesus Christ, calling for adherence to the teachings of the prophet.

“The honor #Muslims attribute to #JesusChrist (pbuh) is no less than his position and merit in the eyes of the Christian believers in Christianity,” a post on Ayatollah Khamenei’s official Twitter account read.

“Today, many who claim to follow Jesus Christ, take a different path than that of him. The guidance of #Jesus, the son of #Mary (peace be upon our Prophet and her) is guidance towards worshiping #God and confronting the Pharaohs and tyrants,” another tweet by the Leader said.

“Following #JesusChrist requires adherence to righteousness and abhorrence of anti-righteous powers, and it is hoped that #Christians and #Muslims in every part of the world will adhere to this great lesson from Jesus (pbuh) in their lives and deeds.”

Christmas is an annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ, celebrated generally on December 25 as a religious and cul-tural holiday by millions of people around the world.

President Hassan Rouhani also wished his Christian counterparts and heads of states a happy Christmas and New Year.

“Establishment of peace and tranquility is the long-awaited as-piration of mankind and the prerequisite for human prosperity,” he said in a message, Tasnim reported.

“Feeling the need for this vital issue pushes us to move towards promotion of peace and justice as part of human desire to build a better future,” he added.

The president also wished the heads of states health and success and their people welfare and prosperity.

Rouhani also sent a congratulatory message to the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, hoping that followers of all divine religions would push for the establishment of global peace and justice in 2020.

In his letter, the president described Jesus Christ as the prophet of peace and kindness, messenger of monotheism and altruism, symbol of patience and fortitude, and harbinger of freedom and dignity.

He expressed hope that at Christmas, Christians and followers of all other monotheistic religions would take steps to establish peace and justice in the world.

The Iranian president finally wished the Pope health and success.On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also ex-

tended his congratulations to his Christian counterparts and others, wishing a “joyous, peaceful holiday season” for all Christians.

“Wishing my Christian compatriots, and all across our globe who are observing, a very Happy Christmas and a joyous, peaceful holiday season. The birth of Jesus Christ, prophet in Islam, is a wondrous occasion to celebrate,” he said in a Twitter post.

Advisor calls for regional cooperation to protect Persian Gulf security

TEHRAN — Hossein Amir Abdollahian, a senior foreign policy advisor to the Iranian parliament

speaker, has called for regional countries’ cooperation to protect the security of the Persian Gulf.

“Preserving the security of the Persian Gulf needs collective co-operation of regional countries,” Amir Abdollahian said in a tweet, Mehr reported on Tuesday.

“The outcome of the United States and other foreigners’ military presence and the foreigners’ stockpiling of weapons in the Persian Gulf would be an increase in insecurity,” he pointed out.

Amir Abdollahian stated that dialogue, building trust and mutual respect are currently necessary for the region.

“And the Islamic Republic of Iran has always recommended this path,” he added.

Iran has in recent months called for closer cooperation with regional countries to counter threats.

President Hassan Rouhani, during his speech at the 74th UN General Assembly, called on regional states to join the Hormuz Peace Endeavor (HOPE).

“Based upon the historical responsibility of my country in main-taining security, peace, stability and progress in the Persian Gulf region and Strait of Hormuz, I would like to invite all the countries directly affected by the developments in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz to the ‘Coalition for Hope’, meaning Hormuz Peace Endeavor,” Rouhani said at the summit.

He added, “The Coalition for Hope is based on important princi-ples such as compliance with the goals and principles of the United Nations, mutual respect, equal footing, dialog and understanding, respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, inviolability of inter-national borders, the peaceful settlement of all disputes, and more importantly, the two fundamental principles of non-aggression and non-interference in the domestic affairs of each other. The presence of the United Nations is necessary for the creation of an international umbrella in support of the Coalition for Hope.”

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Jannati: Guardian Council carefullystudying parliamentary candidates’ records

Iran to continue boosting cooperation with neighbors at borders: commander

TEHRAN — In a ceremony in city of

Ardabil on Wednesday, the Iranian Border Guards Commander announced that promotion of cooperation and coordination with the neighbors will help full security to prevail in border regions.

Brigadier General Qassem Rezaee said, “One of the priorities of border guards is enhancing border diplomacy with the all neighboring countries.”

“Widening such relations has not only resulted in remarkable cut in bor-ders’ expenses but also has increased competence of border guards,” the commander remarked.

He also pointed to holding joint Nowrouz celebrations at joint borders, saying, “Holding Nowrouz testifies that there are deep-rooted cultural com-monalities among the Iranians and people of the neighboring countries.”

The commander went on to say that Iran and Pakistan are to stage a

maritime military exercise in common waters in Esfand (February 20-March 19).

Elsewhere in his remarks, Rezaee touched upon the Iranian border guards who had been kidnapped and transferred to Pakistan by a terrorist group and said, “Some of these beloved forces have been released and we have kept efforts to release the remaining guards.”

On October 15, 2018, Jaish-ul-Adl terrorist group infiltrated Iran from the Pakistani side of the border and took hostage 14 border guards, local Basij forces, and the Islamic Revolu-tion Guards Corps (IRGC) members.

Rezaee pointed to “satisfactory” negotiations held with the Pakistani officials to secure the release of the three Iranian border guards who have been held in Pakistan since their abduction by the terrorists, adding that the three kidnapped soldiers are safe and well and will return home very soon.

TEHRAN — The Guard-ian Council is investigat-

ing the qualifications of the parliamentary candidates as well as their complaints with due care, the Guardian Council chief said on Wednesday.

“Investigating complaints and quali-fications, especially in such short time, is an extremely laborious measure which the Guardian Council is doing carefully, so that no one’s right is violated,” Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said, IRNA reported.

He said the registrants’ qualifications are being examined based on documented records. The next parliamentary elections will be held on February 21.

To be able to run for parliament, the candidates must be finally confirmed by the Guardian Council.

The candidates will have 8 days to spend on the campaign trail, ending on February 19.

The Iranian parliament has 290 members who are elected by the people for four-year terms. The parliamentary elections will be held in over 200 constituencies across the

country’s 31 provinces.The midterm elections of the Assembly of

Experts will also be held on the same date in Tehran, Khorasan Razavi, North Khorasan, Fars and Qom provinces.

Guardian Council spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodaei said on Saturday that the council would not dismiss as ineligible the candidates who have criticized the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“We have a free country and merely criticizing an individual or body would not lead to disqualification,” Kadkhodaei told a press conference.

However, he added, insult, defamation and inflammatory remarks, which are clearly different from criticism, will be probed into when vetting candidates. Earlier this month, Kadkhodaei said that the council is the only body responsible to supervise the elections.

“Sometimes questions arise over whether we are the only supervisor of the elections or not,” Kadkhodaei said, adding, “I empha-size that the Guardian Council is the only supervisor of the elections.”

The extraordinary and plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria Hossein Mashalchizadeh on Wednesday headed to the People’s Palace in memory of the late Algerian Lieutenant General Ahmed Gaid Salah, Army’s Chief of Staff, who died Monday at the age of 79 after suffering a heart attack.

The wooden coffin containing the body of the late general arrived at the People’s Palace. It was covered in a national flag and carried by officers. The ceremony was organized to allow officials and citizens pay their respect to the military chief.

The Iranian diplomat was alongside senior civilian officials and officers of the People National Army as well as the representatives of the diplomatic corps accredited to Algeria who paid a final tribute to the deceased general.

Gaid Salah was one of the last veterans of the 1954-62 independence war against the French colonization as a young

man and this year became the saver of Algeria’s blood. He played a commendable role in preserving the stability and integrity of Algeria as Africa’s largest country.

Following the eruption of mass protests almost one year ago, demanding the ruling elite and the old guard to quit, he advised the army to relentlessly support the protesters and prevent foreigners to manipulate the crisis.

The military chief also championed an unprecedented anti-graft investigations, targeting the ousted President Bouteflika’s inner circle. The massive corruption drive included the arrest and conviction of Bouteflika’s brother Said, once-feared intelligence chiefs as well as two premiers, ministers and a bunch of influential and prominent tycoons and oligarchs.

Algerians, for their part, paid a final tribute to the late military chief where thousands of citizens made sure to be present at the Palace of People and along the route of the funeral procession

to the cemetery of El Alia, where he was laid to rest.The burial took place at the presence of the Algerian President

of the Republic Abdelmadjid Tebboune, senior state and army officials, members of the government, representatives of the diplomatic corps, and his family.

Iranian ambassador pays last respect to late Algerian military chief

Kosar fighter jet manufacturing ‘fast on track’: Air Force chief

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TEHRAN — The Iranian ambassador to London, in

a series of tweets, has vehemently dismissed a report by Reuters that claimed about 1,500 people were killed in the November unrest in Iran, saying that Reuters has been pursuing a policy of lies against Iran.

“The country’s officials will announce the precise death toll in the recent unrest, which will be much less than what has been announced by foreign media. The professional duty of the media makes it essential to avoid releasing fake news until the time the official news about the death toll is announced,” Hamid Baeidinejad tweeted on Tuesday.

“Reuters was part of the Thomson Reuters Corporation and was sold to a Zionist Cana-dian. Unfortunately, it has been following a biased policy based on lies against Iran,” Baeidinejad said in another tweet.

In another tweet, the ambassador noted that Reuters’ policy is just based on support-ing the Zionist regime of Israel.

He also said that the Reuters’ report helped shed further light on the role of the notorious U.S.-backed Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) terror group in the unrest.

Baeidinejad pointed to one of the MKO-sympathetic tweets in a post, saying the group had, by supporting the Reuters

report, “identified itself as the only influential force managing and spearheading organized protests and street fights in Iran.”

In a report on Monday, Reuters claimed that about 1,500 people were killed during less than two weeks of unrest across Iran that started on November 15.

“The toll, provided to Reuters by three Iranian Interior Ministry officials, included

at least 17 teenagers and about 400 women as well as some members of the security forces and police,” the London-based news outlet claimed.

The report came a month after protests erupted in some cities in Iran against in-creasing gasoline price. In certain cases, the protests turned violent as some rioters clashed with police, using knives and guns.

Rioters damaged public and private property and put banks and state build-ings on fire.

The protests ended after a few days.Amnesty International claimed on De-

cember 16 that at least 304 people were killed during the unrest. The number has been widely used by news media outlets despite the fact that Iran has repeatedly rejected any international estimate as “invalid”.

An official at Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) has denied Reu-ters’ claim.

Alireza Zarifian Yeganeh, head of the SNSC Information and Communications Secretariat, said such claims were part of the anti-Iran disinformation campaign, Mehr reported.

“Such news producing and leveling ac-cusations is basically very easy,” he said, describing the act as a psychological oper-ation against the Islamic Republic.

“When asked to offer sources or docu-ments, the media outlet would refer you to invisible creatures,” he added.

Mahmoud Vaezi, the presidential chief of staff, said on Wednesday that the con-cerned bodies are gathering evidence about the number of the dead and rejected specu-lation that the establishment has adopted a policy of silence about the issue.

Baeidinejad says Reuters’ fake news verifies MKO role in riots Leader marks birth anniversary of Jesus Christ

Majlis committee approves next year’s budget bill

TEHRAN — The Iranian parliament (Majlis)’s Ad hoc Budget Review

Committee on Tuesday approved the 1.988 quadrillion rials (about $473.5 billion) national budget bill for the next Iranian calendar year, starting March 20, Mehr news agency reported, quoting a member of the committee as saying.

Mohammad Khodabakhshi said the committee held two meetings on Tuesday to investigate the budget bill, in which Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and Budget and Planning Organization (PBO) Head Mohammad Baqer Nobakht together with a number of other officials including the acting chairman of Majlis Research Center debated over different parts of the bill.

The bill had been approved by Majlis’s Planning and Budget Committee on December 16.

On December 8, President Hassan Rouhani submitted the administration’s draft of the national budget bill for the next Iranian calendar year 1399 to the Majlis.

The proposed budget amounted to about 1.988 quadrillion rials (about $473.5 billion at the official rate of 42,000 rials), with a 14-percent rise from the current year’s approved budget.

The bill has estimated the government’s budget at 5.63 quadrillion rials (about $134.04 billion), 8.2 percent higher than the figure in the present year’s budget.

A 15-percent rise has been envisaged in the salary of the governmental employees.

The submitted bill has envisaged 2.61 quadrillion rials (about $62.14 billion) of incomes, while 3.67 quadrillion rials (about $87.38 billion) of expenses.

Revenues from exporting oil, gas, and gas condensate are estimated at 454.9 trillion rials (about $10.83 billion), down 66 percent from 1.37 quadrillion rials (about $32.61 billion) approved in the current year’s budget.

Tax incomes are predicted to be 1.95 quadrillion rials (about $46.42 billion), rising 27 percent from 1.72 quadrillion rials (about $40.95 billion) envisaged in the present year’s budget.

Like the current year’s budget, the next year’s proposed budget requires the government to pay 20 percent of its oil revenues to the National Development Fund (NDF).

The main characteristic of the next year’s budget bill which makes it different from previous years’ budget bills, is the impact of the U.S. sanctions on the country’s economy and the consequent considerations which have been taken into account in preparing it.

The next year’s budget bill has been modified in terms of resources, expenditures, policies, and objectives, considering the resistance against the U.S. sanctions.

In resources, the government has tried to have the least dependence on oil resources in the history of the country’s economy.

The budget bill was submitted under a condition that the next year is predicted to be one of the toughest years in terms of economy for the government and country, as the U.S. intensified sanctions are limiting Iran’s sources of revenue.

Although Planning and Budget Organization has announced that the budget bill has been prepared based on the economic realities of the country, and its main characteristic is considering the impact of the U.S. sanctions on Iran’s economy, the bill has drawn many criticisms specially by the private sector, as the Head of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA) Gholam-Hossein Shafe’i believes that there will be the risk of budget deficit in the next year.

1 In late November, the Industry, Mining and Trade Ministry announced that the value of Iran’s minerals and products exports increased by 11.7 percent in the first six months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-September 22) compared to the figure for last year’s same period.

Based on the data released by the ministry, a total of 15.8 million tons of minerals and mining products worth $3.891 billion were exported to other countries in the first half of the current year.

The released data also indicated that up to the mentioned date, nearly 40 percent

of the total export target for the country’s mining sector was realized.

As reported, steel ingot was the top ex-ported product in this sector with $1.198 billion worth of exports, followed by iron ore and iron ore concentrate with $617 million value, steel products worth $575 million, and cathode copper valued at $262 million, as well as rolled steel products valued at $230 million.

China, Iraq, Indonesia, Ghana, Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan, UAE, Oman, and Thai-land were the major importers of minerals and mining industry products from Iran in

the mentioned six months.The value of minerals exports to China

reached $1.2 billion, while Iraq imported

$454 million of such products; Indonesia’s imports stood at $422 million, Thailand at $302 million, and Turkey at $296 million.

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DECEMBER 26, 20194 E C O N O M Y

COMMODITIES

CURRENCIES

STOCK MARKET

USD 42,000 rials

EUR 46,567 rials

GBP 54,411 rials

AED 11,437 rials

TEDPIX 361088.4IFX 4646.99

Brent $66.16/b

WTI $61.11/b

OPEC Basket $67.93/b

Gold $1,502.00/oz

Silver $$17.90/oz

Platinium $948.25/oz

Sources: tse.ir, Ifb.ir

Source: cbi.ir

Sources: oilprice.com, Moneymetals.com

Minerals, mining industry exports to reach $10b by Mar. 2020

Joining FATF is in line with national interests: CBI governor

New production plant to boost Iran’s paper output by 240,000 tons

TCCIMA explores major challenges in foreign trade

Stock market posts decline on Wednesday

TEHRAN – The governor of Central Bank

of Iran (CBI) says joining the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is in line with the interests of the country’s banking system, IRNA reported.

Making the remarks on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Abdolnaser Hemmati said China and Russia have informed Iran that refusing to join FATF would create problems in the way of banking transactions between Iran and these countries.

Asked about the possibility of U.S. pres-sures tightening after Iran joins the task force, Hemmati said, “There are some standards in international banking transactions which are set by the FATF, and joining the FATF not only does not create any barriers for Iran, but makes its transactions more transparent and smooth.”

“We have nothing to worry about. We are following anti-money laundering rules and regulations very seriously,” the gover-nor added.

Earlier on Monday, Government spokes-man Ali Rabiei said the government will sup-port any decision the Expediency Council and the Guardian Council make on the fate of the FATF-related bills, but argued that Iran’s interests will be secured by not exiting the FATF.

The Iranian parliament ratified the FATF

in October 2018. However, the oversight Guardian Council rejected the bill.

The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force said on October 18 that it has given Iran a final deadline of February 2020 to tighten its laws against money laundering in compliance with the global watchdog’s financial standards.

“If before February 2020, Iran does not enact the Palermo and Terrorist Financing Conventions in line with the FATF Standards, then the FATF will fully lift the suspension of counter-measures and call on its members and urge all jurisdictions to apply effective counter-measures, in line with recommen-dation 19,” the FATF said in a statement, Reuters reported.

One of the actions Iran is required to take to appease the FATF is to ratify the CFT, the convention combatting the financing of ter-rorism.

The government is pushing for the ap-proval of the FATF.

TEHRAN — A new production plant is

planned to be constructed in Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzestan that will add 240,000 tons to the country’s annual paper output, IRIB reported, quoting the head of the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam, as saying.

Mohammad Mokhber Dezfouli said when starting operation, the new plant will supply 38 percent of Iran’s requirement for paper, saving the country $285 million per annum.

He put the value of investment for setting up the plant at $467 million.

As previously announced by the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade, production of paper in Iran rose 2.3 percent during the first five months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-August 22) compared to the same period of time in the previous year.

The ministry’s data indicated that 398,800 tons of paper have been produced during the mentioned five-month period.

Deputy Industry Minister Farshad Moqim has announced that export of papers and cardboards from Iran has risen 63 percent in the past Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20, 2019) from its previous year.

The official has also said that Iran’s paper and cardboard import has fallen 18 percent in the previous year.

TEHRAN- Iranian banking system has paid 5.31 quadrillion rials (about

$126.42 billion) of facilities to domestic economic sectors in the first eight months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-November 23), registering a 27.6-percent rise from the previous year’s same period, IRNA reported citing the data released by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI).

According to the data provided by CBI, working capital loans paid to different economic sectors were

above 2.85 quadrillion rials (about $67.85 billion), accounting for 53.8 percent of the total provided facilities in the said period, and showing 15.3 percent growth year on year.

As previously announced by the CBI, Iranian banking system has offered 3.821 quadrillion rials (about $90.97 billion) of facilities to domestic economic sectors in the first half of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-September 22), which was 26 percent higher than the figure of the first half of the past year.

Back in April, CBI reported that during the past Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20, 2019) the country’s banking system offered 7.737 quadrillion rials (about $184.2 billion) facilities to domestic economic sectors to register a 26-percent rise from its previous year.

Working capital loans paid to different economic sectors was above 4.319 quadrillion rials (about $102.8 billion) accounting for 55.8 percent of the total provided facilities in the said period, registering a 14-percent increase from the previous year.

TEHRAN— Iran imported three million tires of heavy vehicles during the first half

of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-September 22), IRIB quoted Mohammadreza Ganji, the head of Iranian Tire Industry Association, as saying on Tuesday.

Last week, Iranian Industry, Mining and Trade Minister Reza Rahmani announced that a truck tire manufacturing plant will be inaugurated in the country next month to meet 25 percent of the domestic requirement.

“We are currently importing 70 percent of our required truck tires; but five manufacturing plants have been planned to reduce the imports. Putting the first plant into operation next month, we will achieve 55 percent self-reliance in terms of this product”, the minister further said.

“We have taken several serious steps in terms of domestic production and self-reliance and the first one is to prevent from import of the products that can be produced inside the country”, Rahmani mentioned.

The minister has recently said that relying on domestic production has saved €412 million for the country over the past six months in which six desks have been held on

the matter.He said the mentioned desks are focused on automo-

tive, petrochemicals, mining, electricity, electronics and telecommunications industries.

The official also noted that preparations have been made for holding seven more desks for promoting domestic pro-duction in the fields of electricity, electronics and telecom-munications, petrochemicals, home appliances, utilities, rail and auto industries which will save the country another €490 million.

Improving and boosting domestic production has been one of the major strategies that Iran has been following in the past two years in order to increase its independence.

To this end, Iranian government has put supporting domestic producers atop agenda in the current year.

In late November, Rahmani had said that relying on domestic production will save $10 billion for the country in the next two years.

TEHRAN — The 10th meeting of Tehran

Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (TCCIMA)’s trade facilitation and export promotion committee was held on Wednesday in which the most important challenges that Iranian businessmen are facing in foreign trade were explored.

In the meeting which was attended by representatives of the country’s private sector and the Deputy Industry, Mining and Trade Minister Hossein Modares Khiabani, as well as Mohammad Lahouti, the head of Iran Exports Confederation, a variety of issues regarding foreign trade were discussed.

Problems regarding the imports of raw materials and machinery, clearance of the goods which have been deposited in the country’s customs were among the discussed issues.

Speaking in the gathering, Lahouti who is also the head of TCCIMA export promotion committee, underlined the committee’s main policy, which has been facilitating trade through interaction and dialogue with senior officials such as the heads of Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA), Trade Promotion Organization (TPO), Export

Guarantee Fund and Export Development Bank.

He further pointed to restrictions regarding the imports of raw materials and machinery as a major problem with which Iranian businessmen are facing, and said: the problem is that only certain producers are allowed to import raw materials and machines and other businesses which lack specific authorization are not able to import their requirements.

“It is important to note that not every producer is necessarily an importer and engaging producers into the imports field requires double working capital. These types of rules can lead to abuse and bribery,” Lahouti added.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the official referred to the deposition of goods at the customs as a waste of national resources and said that if such goods were not cleared as soon as possible, it would be a waste of resources which can contribute to the country’s economy.

Modares Khiabani for his part, praised the efforts of the country’s businessmen and exporters and noted that non-oil revenues are replacing the oil incomes in the face of the U.S. sanctions which is a great success for the country.

TEHRAN — TEDPIX, the main index of Tehran

Stock Exchange (TSE), dropped 1,170 points to 361,088 on Wednesday.

Some 4.209 billion securities worth 23.888 trillion rials (about $568.7 million) were traded at TSE.

TEDPIX rose 49,000 points, or 16.7 percent, to stand at 353,997 points at the end of the past Iranian calendar month of Azar (ends on December 21).

As reported, 82.215 billion securities worth 432.151 trillion rials (about $10.29 billion) were traded through 10.153 million deals at TSE during the previous month, with growth of 61 percent and 76 percent in the number and value of traded securities, respectively, while 71 percent rise in the number of deals.

Iran’s over-the-counter (OTC) market known as Iran Fara Bourse (IFB), also wit-nessed decline of its index on Wednesday.

IFX, the main index of IFB, dropped 4

points to 4,646.Some 1.596 securities worth 11.99 trillion

rias (about $285.4 million) were traded at IFB on Wednesday.

IFX rose 15 percent in the past Iranian calendar month of Azar, while experiencing a 102-percent rise since the beginning of current Iranian calendar year (March 21).

The index stood at 4,559 points at the end of the past month.

The value of trades at IFB rose 16 percent in the previous month and 85 percent since the year start.

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Heavy vehicles tire imports at 3m in H1

Bank loans to economic sectors rise 27% in 8 months yr/yr

5I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

E N E R G YDECEMBER 26, 2019

TEHRAN – Head of the National Iranian Gas

Company (NIGC) said currently 95 of the country’s urban and rural areas are connected to the national gas network, Shana reported on Tuesday.

Speaking in a national seminar in Tehran, Hassan Montazer Torbati said Iran is the only country in the region with such an extensive gas supply network and the realization of this network is due to the government’s concerns for the expansion of public welfare in all parts of the country.

According to the official, in the past few years, every year more than 3,000 villages have been connected to the national gas network.

Back in August, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said 84 percent of the country’s rural areas were supplied with gas through national gas network.

According to the minister, at the time,

some 28,916 villages were connected to the national gas network.

He put the cost of gas supply to the cities and rural areas at 192 trillion rials (about $4.5 billion), of which 157 trillion rials (about $3.7 billion) have been spent in villages and the rest was spent to supply gas to urban areas.

Earlier that month, National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC)’s Gas Distribution Director Saeid Momeni said the NIGC has it on the agenda to supply gas to 10 villages every month to reach the goal of 3600 villages by the end of the current year (March 19, 2020).

Earlier in January, Iranian parliament (Majlis) approved a bill to allocate 50 trillion rials (about $1.16 billion) for expanding the country’s gas network to new rural areas.

According to the bill, the banks would provide NIGC and provincial gas companies with the mentioned fund under the Oil Ministry’s guarantee.

TEHRAN – Generating electricity from renewable sources prevented the emission

of Green House Gases (GHG) in Iran by 3,048 tons during the first nine months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 22-December 21).

Electricity generation from renewables in the mentioned period has led to economizing on consumption of fossil fuels by 1.263 billion cubic meters.

According to the data released by Iran’s Renewable Ener-gy and Energy Efficiency Organization (known as SATBA), the country’s renewable power plants generated over 4.448 billion kilowatt hours (Kwh) in the said timespan.

As reported, currently, 377 MW capacity of renewable power plants are under construction across the country and the installed capacity of such power plants has reached 849 MW.

The data also indicates that so far, 118 MW capacity of large-scale power plants are installed in the country and

another 37 MW are under construction.Renewables, including hydropower, account for just six

percent of energy generation, versus natural gas’ 90 percent share.

Overall, in the next five years, Iran is aiming for a 5,000 MW increase in renewable capacity to meet growing do-mestic demand and expand its presence in the regional electricity market.

According to SATBA, the number of small scale solar power plants across the country which are used by households or small industries is being increased noticeably as Iranian households and small industries have embraced the new technology with open arms and investors also seem eager for more contribution in this area.

Back in February, Head of SATBA Seyed Mohammad Sadeqzadeh announced that Iran also plans to add electric-ity generated from renewable sources to the export basket.

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95% of Iranian households supplied with natural gas: NIGC head

OPEC cuts said unlikely to solve ‘fragile’ oil price floor, looming oversupply

Mitsubishi Shipbuilding delivered fuel gas supply system “FGSS”

The global oil cartel and its allies earlier this month agreed to increase their oil production cuts beginning with the New Year, but those reductions are unlikely to resolve a massive oversupply, according to Rystad Energy.

The Organization of the Petroleum Ex-porting Countries (OPEC), aka OPEC, and its allies including Russia plan to overall production levels by another 500,000 b/d from January through March. Since July, OPEC-plus has curbed oil output collectively by around 1.2 million b/d. The latest cutback increased the total pullback overall to 1.7 million b/d through March.

The “OPEC cuts didn’t fully solve the problem,” said Rystad’s Bjørnar Tonhaugen, head of oil market research. “Instead, they offer a light bandage to get through the first quarter of 2020, but after that, we believe the market will begin to realize the looming oversupply reflected in our balances and call-on-OPEC.”

Rystad’s conclusion that deeper oil reductions are required was driven by a bottom-up supply analysis, which indicat-ed an oil production surplus despite the recent cuts.

Analysts incorporated the new agree-ment assuming full compliance with the new targets by core OPEC members Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates.

“We find that OPEC production is likely to average 29.3 million b/d for the first quarter of 2020, which compares to our call-on-OPEC of 29.0 million b/d,” researchers said.

Analysts expect the oil market balance outlook to become more challenged later

next year after the initial effect of the In-ternational Maritime Organization (IMO) marine fuel regulations, which begin Jan. 1. Demand fears eventually may “creep back into the market” as production rises.

OPEC sticks to production“As long as OPEC sticks to production

pledges and Saudi Arabia cuts an additional voluntary 400,000 bbl as promised, the implied production target for OPEC is 29.2 million b/d, above our call-on-OPEC and thus likely to result in stock builds and downward pressure on oil prices,” Ton-haugen said.

For the first three months of 2020, the market should remain “nearly balanced” with 0.3 million b/d of implied stock builds, according to Rystad. Including a positive effect from IMO on crude demand to around 0.3 million b/d in 1Q2020, the market should be balanced.

In March, however, OPEC-plus could be forced to reduce output through the rest of the year.

“Worryingly, for the last three quarters of 2020, the call-on-OPEC is forecast to average 28.9 million b/d on the assumption of a positive IMO effect, but only 28.3 million b/d without our expected 0.6 million b/d IMO effect on crude demand,” Tonhaugen said.

“In other words, the implied production target for OPEC of 29.2 million b/d is likely not low enough to avoid stock builds and downward pressure on oil prices, putting the $60/bbl Brent oil price environment in jeopardy in 2020.”

The current price floor, Tongaugen said, “is fragile beyond 1Q2020.”

(Source: naturalgasintel.com)

Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., a mem-ber of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) Group, based in Yokohama, has delivered the first LNG (Liquefied Natu-ral Gas) fuel supply system “FGSS (Fuel Gas Supply System)” for dual-fuel marine engines. This system will be installed on-board the first LNG fueled pure car carrier (PCC) built in Japan, which is currently under construction at Shin Kurushima Toyohashi Shipbuilding Co., Ltd.

The FGSS is an LNG fuel gas supply system developed by Mitsubishi Ship-building utilizing LNG and vaporized gas handling technology developed through its long experience on the construction of LNG carriers, and also has been verified for marine use backed by accumulating experience in marine engine test facilities at engine manufacturers.

The FGSS consists of LNG fuel tanks, LNG fuel gas supply units and control unit etc., and is delivered in modules, which is expected to contribute to the optimum design of the cargo space and help the shipyard to shorten the installation pe-riod, as well as support safe operation by customizing the control system, etc. of FGSS to meet the operational needs of the shipowner.

Mitsubishi Shipbuilding has also provided the shipbuilding yard with the engineering service and technical support relating to the gas handling of the ship.

The supply of FGSS is expected to greatly contribute to the environmental performance of the ship and not only to meet the sulfur oxide (SOx) emission reg-ulations coming effect globally in 2020,

but also to improve the energy efficiency (CO2 emissions per unit of transporta-tion) of the ship by approximately 40%, which is far exceeding the Internation-al Maritime Organization (IMO) EEDI Phase 3 requirements(1) that will become effective in 2025.

The ship is additionally expected to reduce SOx by approximately 99% and nitrogen oxides (NOx) by approximately 86% compared with the conventional heavy oil-fired engines. Further, the ship has also been adopted by Japan’s Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism as the model project to reduce CO2 emis-sions by using alternative fuel.

To convert conventional oil-fired ship into LNG fuel ship is one of the solutions to conform to the emission regulations. By providing FGSS and the related engi-neering services and technical support for new buildings and conversions, Mitsub-ishi Shipbuilding is going to contribute to the economy for the ship owners and operators, increase the added value of the ships and reduce the environmental load that is increasing on a global scale.

Regulations on the energy efficiency of ships based on the 2013 revision of the International Convention on the Prevention of Ship Pollution 1997 Protocol (Appendix VI to the MARPOL Convention).

EEDI (Energy Efficiency Design Index) is the number of grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) required to carry 1 ton of cargo for 1 mile, and the reduction rate from the base-line (baseline) will be gradually enhanced.

(Source: hellenicshippingnews.com)

By Carolyn Davis

E N E R G Yd e s k

E N E R G Yd e s k

Renewables prevent emission of 3,048 tons GHG in 9 months

Secret to 100% renewable energy system?By turning renewable electricity into fuel, power-to-X could free trans-port, heating and industrial process from fossil fuels, once costs fall.

Around the world, more and more electricity is being generated from the sun and wind. The technology has advanced massively over recent decades and the price of renewable power is plummeting.

But if we look beyond the power sector at our overall energy con-sumption, renewables are still only a bit player. Heating, transport and industrial processes are still dominated by fossil fuels and many of these systems can’t run on electricity; they need fuel.

That’s where power-to-X (also referred to as P2X or PtX) comes in. An umbrella term, it covers various processes that turn electricity into heat, hydrogen or synthetic fuels, meaning that ever-more of our energy system might say goodbye to coal, oil and natural gas.

Power-to-X could also solve another of the energy transition’s biggest hurdles: storage. At the moment, wind turbines in northern Germany, for example, sometimes produce so much power they have to be disconnected from the grid to prevent it from overloading.

Instead, that excess power could be used to split water into oxygen and hydrogen, through electrolysis. Not only can hydrogen be stored and saved for less blustery days, it can be used to heat buildings, man-ufacture steel, or go into fuel cells for trucks and ships.

Once you’ve got your hydrogen, in fact, the possibilities go on. Through a process that adds carbon dioxide, you can then produce synthetic kerosene, petrol or diesel. “Power-to-liquid”, as this is known, can also be used to manufacture various chemicals.

The technology itself is actually nothing new – during the Second World War, Germany produced large quantities of synthetic kerosene for its air force. Now, as we look for ways to do without fossil fuels, it’s having a renaissance and several demonstration plants have been built, mainly in Europe.

The carbon-neutral worldThe CO2 needed to make these fuels can be filtered from the emis-

sions from coal-fired power, cement, or biogas plants – or, better still, for a carbon-neutral world, direct from the air.

In 2017, Swiss company Climeworks opened a commercial plant with huge absorber fans that suck around 900 tons of CO2 from the air every year. The company says this currently costs around 550 euros per ton of CO2 – although experts say with greater demand, prices could fall as low as 50 euros per ton by 2050. There are now 14 such plants in Europe and more are on the way.

Right now, high costs are probably the biggest barrier to pow-er-to-X covering ever-more of our energy needs. Most hydrogen is still produced from crude oil and natural gas, which is a good deal cheaper than getting it from wind power.

Still, Michael Sterner, professor of energy economics at Germany’s Regensburg University of Applied Sciences, points out that if the costs of climate damage were factored in, “hydrogen would quickly establish itself as an alternative”.

Sterner is a pioneer in the technology, and says we’ve reached a stage where costs could start falling. “We are now starting to enter industrial production,” he said.

He points out that 20 years ago, photovoltaic solar power still seemed prohibitively expensive but, with state support, demand soared, the technology improved and economies of scale helped costs plummet.

(Source: khmertimeskh.com)

New Mexico wind power projects move forwardTwo wind energy projects in New Mexico moved forward last week as the state works to shift its reliance from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

In Roosevelt County, Xcel Energy’s Sagamore Wind Project broke ground on Dec. 16 to provide 522 megawatts (MW) of wind energy near Dora by the end of 2020.

The wind farm was intended to reduce costs for customers in both eastern New Mexico and West Texas.

“This is a historic investment for Roosevelt County, but its benefits reach far beyond,” said David Hudson, president of Xcel’s New Mexico and Texas operations. “We’ll see a significant economic boost to the New Mexico economy through increased jobs, royalty payments to landowners, and more revenue for county and school budgets.

“And for the next 25 years, Xcel Energy customers in both New Mexico and Texas will benefit from lower fuel costs since our fuel source is the free and abundant wind of eastern New Mexico.”

The company invested about $900 million to build 240 wind tur-bines which would generate enough power for about 194,000 homes each year.

When complete, it will be the largest wind energy plant in New Mexico.

Additional fuel costsThe wind farm will have no additional fuel costs, Hudson said, and

will not use water in operations which will also have zero emissions.Construction of the wind farm will be headed by Wanzek Con-

struction and employ about 400 workers from the areas.Xcel expected to maintain 20 to 30 full-time permanent positions to

support maintenance and operations once the facility goes into service.Initial work on the 100,000 acres site will include construction of

roads and preparations for the foundations to support the wind turbines.The Sagamore project was the last and largest in a series com-

prising Xcel’s 1,230-megawatt expansion of wind energy in the New Mexico-Texas system.

Sagamore joined the 478-megawatt Hale Wind Project near Plain-view, Texas which was completed in June.

Xcel also purchased 230 megawatts of wind energy to supply to customers from two wind farms in the region owned and operated by NextEra Energy Resources.

The project were intended to help Xcel reach its goals of an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, and a 100 percent reduction by 2050.

Carbon-free electricityThe goals were in response to New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan

Grisham’s signing of the Energy Transition Act during the 2019 Legis-lative Session, calling for 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2045.

When Hale and Sagamore are both complete, Xcel expected al-most half of its electricity supply in Texas and New Mexico would be carbon-free by 2023.

The “Energy Transition Act fundamentally changes the dynamic in New Mexico,” Lujan Grisham said at the signing of the bill. “This legislation is a promise to future generations of New Mexicans, who will benefit from both a cleaner environment and a more robust energy economy with exciting career and job opportunities.”

In northeast New Mexico, PNE USA won a bid to develop a wind farm on 7,636 acres of State Trust land in Union and Colfax counties, read a State Land Office news release.

The area was designated as “primed” for wind energy generation, the release read, and the State Trust land portion was expected to generate about 31 megawatts from 11 turbines, enough to power about 6,200 homes.

The Gladstone Wind Project was also anticipated to generate about $8 million in state revenue during the lease.

(Source: evwind.es)

Energy Cloud Market to witness huge growth with projected CAGR of 23.69%

FINANCIAL TIMES — The past year will be remembered as a moment of reckoning for central banks. The relentless wave of cheap money provided by policymakers set the bond market racing higher, spreading negative yields throughout the financial system and prompting many rate-setters, bankers and investors to wonder whether they could really control the monster they had created.

The Federal Reserve’s policy U-turn that set it on course for rate cuts put investors in a spin. Ructions in the repo market caused plenty of angst. And President Trump shook currency markets with a series of off-the-cuff remarks.

Here, FT reporters around the world look back on the big moments and personalities that defined 2019 in markets. Enjoy.

JANUARY 2The yen starts the year with a bangAs traders were recovering from the

holiday season, just before 11pm London time on January 2, the Japanese currency suddenly, and without any obvious reason, leapt by 3 per cent against the dollar in a matter of seconds. Other currencies convulsed, with the Australian dollar briefly hitting a 10-year low.

Central banks and regulators later struggled to explain what caused the swings, before settling on very thin trading in the so-called “witching hour“ that happens every day between 5pm and 6pm New York time. Still, as exciting as the start of the year proved to be, currencies spent much of the year in a slumber, with volatility collapsing to record lows. Eva Szalay

JANUARY 30The Federal ReverseThe US central bank closed out 2018

by raising US interest rates for the fourth time in 12 months and warning that additional increases were on the way.

Six weeks later, not only did the Fed put further rate rises on hold, but it signalled it would instead consider easing policy, leaving investors reeling. In July, it initiated the first of three cuts.

The January U-turn reflected a big shift in the central bank’s views about the health of the US economy and its ability to shield itself from risks. Now the Fed is waiting for a “material” change in economic conditions before pulling the lever of monetary policy once more. Colby

SmithSaudi Aramco’s (first) record

fundraisingState-owned energy company Saudi

Aramco set records in 2019, drumming up a whopping $100bn of demand for its debut $12bn international bond sale — before going on to land the world’s biggest IPO in December.

The demand for the bonds was the strongest ever seen in an emerging market and marked a watershed for the world’s largest oil company as it opened its books for the first time.

It also highlighted the peculiarity of the way bonds are sold, given that the initial frenzy of orders failed to lead to much demand when the bonds began to change hands, and sank as low as 95 cents on the dollar. In big transactions like this, it has become routine for investors to overstate how much of the bond deal they want to buy. Joe Rennison

JUNE 3Neil Woodford meets his matchNeil Woodford’s eponymous

investment firm sent shockwaves through London in 2019, announcing that it had blocked redemptions from the star stock picker’s flagship £3.7bn fund.

The root of the problem was that while the fund offered investors the ability to withdraw their money daily, it was heavily invested in assets that could not be sold easily. This type of liquidity mismatch earlier sparked a crisis at Swiss asset manager GAM in 2018, but the unravelling of Mr Woodford put the issue front and centre.

Liquidity became a watch word for the year. When the FT revealed that H2O Asset Management had large holdings of illiquid bonds linked to a racy German financier, it suffered €8bn of investor withdrawals. Funds are now thinking harder about how to handle potential rushes to the exits. Robert Smith

JUNE 18Shots fired in the currency warThe middle of 2019 brought evidence

that Donald Trump was paying attention to the European Central Bank’s pronouncements. “Very unfair to the United States!” he tweeted after the ECB signalled plans for a fresh round of stimulus.

Mr Trump made it clear he thought this represented an effort to weaken the euro, “making it easier for [the eurozone] to compete against the USA”.

Market participants started taking the possibility of a global currency war seriously and contemplating how it might work. Since then, the US president has also lashed out at Brazil and Argentina, levying tariffs on their metals exports in retaliation for what he labels their currency “devaluations”. Katie Martin

AUGUST 5Renminbi ‘cracks seven’The People’s Bank of China allowed

the renminbi to fall past Rmb7 per US dollar for the first time since the depths of the 2008 financial crisis, raising echoes of the fallout from the currency’s shock devaluation of 2015.

But “cracking seven” did not lead to a repeat of the drama three years ago, which prompted major capital outflows and drew the ire of critics in Washington who accused Beijing of currency manipulation.

This time, the breach drew the ire of President Trump. But the controlled fall, aided by capital controls introduced since 2015, suggested that Beijing had another tool at hand to cushion the blow

from US tariffs. Hudson LockettAUGUSTThe hot summer that put bond yields

in the deep freezeRed-hot demand for bonds turned the

laws of finance upside down in 2019. At the peak in late August, $17tn of debt was trading with a negative yield, meaning investors buying bonds and holding them to maturity were guaranteed to make a loss.

Traditional havens such as Japan and Germany dominated, but the phenomenon spread into surprising areas like short-term Greek debt and a handful of emerging market bonds, as yield-starved fund managers reached further afield in search of something offering a positive return.

A backlash came in the autumn as investors began to question whether the economic backdrop was really gloomy enough to justify locking in losses. At the same time, concerns about the nasty side-effects of negative yields for pension savers and the banking sector clouded the prospects for even more rate cuts. Tommy Stubbington

AUGUST 11A shock for Argentina’s bondholdersWall Street-darling incumbent

Mauricio Macri lost to leftist candidate

Alberto Fernández in the country’s primary presidential elections, paving a path for Mr Fernández’s victory two months later. Argentina’s assets faced a drubbing.

Some of the country’s dollar bonds suffered a 40 per cent drop in value, while the peso plummeted 20 per cent.

Mr Macri was forced to enact a series of emergency measures to stave off a full-blown crisis. He instituted capital controls to stop the drain of dollars from the country and announced that the government had sought to delay payment on $101bn of debts. That sparked fear among debtholders that the country was hurtling towards its ninth default.Colby Smith

AUGUST 19Rewriting the rules on shareholdersOn a sultry Monday in August one of

America’s biggest pro-business lobbying groups said it was redefining what it means to be a company. Investors, board members and legions of lawyers are still trying to figure out exactly what that means.

The Business Roundtable said that

shareholders would no longer be the primary beneficiaries of corporate activity. The 181 signatories to the policy shift said that “we share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders”, including suppliers, workers and the communities they inhabit.

The change was a reversion to a policy prior to 1997, but it sent the business community into a tizz. For some, it was a gimmick lacking an enforcement mechanism. It might have also represented an attempt to ward off tax and regulatory reforms in the US ahead of an election. Still, it may actually mean something in the years ahead. Patrick Temple-West

SEPTEMBER 11Charles Li’s love letter to LondonHong Kong Exchanges and

Clearing created waves when it made an audacious £32bn approach for the London Stock Exchange Group.

HKEX, which had never attempted such a large deal before, had grand ambitions to unite London’s capital markets with those in China. But what prompted the bid proposal was that a hostile LSE board had just agreed its own blockbuster deal — a $27bn purchase of Refinitiv, the data and trading group. HKEX saw this as a bad deal for an

exchange group it had always admired from afar, and stepped in to try to break up the engagement.

But HKEX boss Charles Li’s efforts to focus on the deal’s commercial benefits were almost immediately drowned out by political concerns. It could not persuade enough of its own shareholders, nor those of the LSE, to make a formal bid. It gave up a month later. Philip Stafford

SEPTEMBER 16Oil soars, then slumps, as Saudi

attacks fizzle outOil prices soared almost 20 per cent

after missile and drone attacks knocked out more than half of Saudi Arabia’s production. It was the biggest one-day move in the market since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Trading volumes across New York and London smashed daily records, with the equivalent of more than 5bn barrels changing hands as investors scrambled to adjust their positions, fearing a prolonged disruption in supplies from the world’s largest crude exporter.

But the rally would eventually prove to be shortlived as Saudi Arabia was able to tap oil in storage to help keep customers supplied. Meanwhile, traders were wrongfooted by the speed at which the kingdom restored the majority of its production capacity.

That the attacks did not lead to a wider confrontation with Iran, which was blamed by the US for carrying out the strikes, meant that prices stabilised in little over a week.David Sheppard

SEPTEMBER 16Grim repoThe sleepy market for sourcing

short-term cash loans in exchange for Treasuries and other high quality collateral woke up with a start and borrowing costs soared.

The sharp move (explained in full here) began to ease only when the Federal Reserve announced it would inject billions of dollars into the market.

The episode was initially blamed on a funding squeeze created by tax payments coinciding with investors settling up Treasury purchases with the US government.

But with hindsight, bankers, investors and policymakers have said it exposed structural fragilities at the heart of the arcane — but crucial — market. Banks have grown reluctant to lend out cash held to satisfy tougher post-crisis rules

on liquidity, at the same time as demand has become amplified by the growth of highly leveraged hedge funds. Joe Rennison

SEPTEMBER 30WeWork’s stock market dalliance

endsWeWork delivered the year’s most

high-profile IPO slip-up when it scrapped plans to list shares after investors voiced concerns over its governance and leadership.

The office space provider fired its chief executive Adam Neumann, who was the focus of reports he had smoked marijuana on a corporate jet and was enjoying a lavish lifestyle on the company’s dime. The group’s valuation crumbled from $47bn in its last round of private fundraising in August 2018 to just $8bn, according to the terms of a rescue package swiftly arranged by SoftBank. The Japanese company was the group’s largest shareholder, through its Vision fund.

Big companies widely expected to list put their plans on ice, while investment banks began pricing new IPOs more conservatively.

Some of the most anticipated deals of the year have also disappointed. Shares in Uber, the largest with $8.1bn raised, cratered by nearly half in the six months after listing. Lyft, the third biggest IPO of the year, also sank. Richard Henderson

NOVEMBER 1Draghi bows outMario Draghi’s tenure as president

of the European Central Bank ended, leaving him to hand over the reins to IMF director Christine Lagarde.

Mr Draghi departed with a repeat of a plea he had been making increasingly loudly over the previous few months, for governments to do their part in stimulating the eurozone economy. Bluntly, monetary policy alone cannot do the job, he said. But he also called for a united front on policy within the ECB itself, reflecting the intense debate and disagreement on whether negative rates are doing more harm than good.

Still, Mr Draghi was celebrated on his way out of the door as the man who saved the eurozone in the darkest days of the decade’s debt crisis, through his promise to do “whatever it takes” to protect the single currency. Ms Lagarde has already made a splash in urging governments to step up. Katie Martin

The year 2020 will mark the beginning of the decade of the old, or the “young old”, as the Japanese call people aged between 65 and 75. The height of the baby boom, the period of high fertility in rich countries after the Second World War, was 1955-60. The traditional retirement age is 65, and 2020-25 is 65 years later. One might therefore expect peak retirement for ba-by-boomers in the coming years—except that they are not retiring. By continuing to work, and staying socially engaged, the boomers, in their new guise as the young yold, will change the world, as they have done several times before at different stages of their lives.

The yold are more numerous, healthier and wealthier than previous generations of seniors. There will be 134m 65- to 74-year-olds in rich countries in 2020 (11 percent of the population), up from 99m (8 percent) in 2000. That is the fastest rate of growth of any large age group. Health worsens with age, but the yold are resist-ing the decline better than most: of the 3.7 years of increased life expectancy in rich countries between 2000 and 2015, says the World Health Organization, 3.2 years were enjoyed in good health. The yold are also better off: between 1989 and 2013, the median wealth of families

headed by someone over 62 in America rose by 40 percent to $210,000, while the wealth of all other age groups declined.

The yold are busier, too. In 2016 just over a fifth of people aged 65-69 were in work in rich countries, a figure that is rising fast. Working is one of the factors that are helping people stay healthy longer. A German study found that people who remain at work after the normal retire-ment age manage to slow the cognitive decline associated with yold age and have a cognitive capacity of someone a year and a half younger.

And miles to go before they sleepIn short, the yold are not just any group of

old people. They are challenging the traditional expectations of the retired as people who wear slippers and look after the grandchildren. That will disrupt consumer, service and financial markets.

The over-60s are one of the fastest-growing groups of customers of the airline business. The old are vital to the tourism industry because they spend much more, when taking a foreign holiday, than younger adults. They are also changing edu-cation. Harvard has more students at its Division for Continuing Education (for mature and retired students) than it does at the university itself. And, because of the importance of pensions, the yold are transforming insurance companies

from passive distributors of fixed annuities to financial-service providers for customers who want to manage their pension pots more actively.

The rise of the yold will be a boon to themselves, to economies and to societies. Many bosses and HR departments think productivity falls with age, but studies of truck making and insurance firms in Germany suggest older workers have, if anything, slightly above-average productivity—and

that teams of workers from multiple generations are the most productive of all. Societies should be better off because public spending on health and pensions should be lower than expected, as people work longer and need less medical care.

But for all this to happen, three big things will have to change, under pressure from the yold themselves. The most important is public attitudes towards older people, and in particular

the expectation that 60-somethings ought to be putting their feet up and quietly retiring into the background. Many companies discriminate against older workers by offering training only to younger ones, or by limiting part-time em-ployment and job-sharing. The yold will demand that companies become more age-friendly and, in the process, help change attitudes towards ageing itself.

Government policies will have to change, too. The retirement age in many rich countries is still below the age to which many people want to work. The effective retirement age (the age at which people actually leave the workforce) is usually even lower. Public policy makes retirement a cliff edge, when it should be a ramp.

Third, higher numbers of healthy yold people will require drastic changes in health spending. Most diseases of ageing are best met with pre-vention and lifestyle changes. But only about 2-3 percent of most countries’ health-care spending goes on prevention. That will have to rise, because although the yold will constitute a bulge of comparative health and activity over the next decade, by 2030 they will hit 75—and enter a long period of decline for which few rich countries are ready.

(Source: The Economist)

DECEMBER 26, 20196I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

INTERNATIONAL

By John Parker

The big market moments of 2019

The decade of the “young old” beginsPeople turning 65 will not retire quietly into the background

The year was dominated by central bankers, politicians and companies with grand ideas

7I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

ANALYSIS & INTERVIEWDECEMBER 26, 2019

Make laws, not money

Members of Congress should not be allowed to buy and sell stocks, or to serve on corporate boards.

By Richard Quest and Anna FletcherThe case of Chris Collins, the New York Republican who re-signed from Congress and pleaded guilty to insider trading ear-lier this fall, was a rare victory in the long-running battle to ensure that members of Congress do not take improper advantage of their privileged positions.

It also underscored the need for stronger rules.Mr. Collins is going to jail because he called his son seven

times from the White House lawn to share the private news that a small drug company’s flagship product had failed a key clinical trial. Those phone calls prompted the son to dump his shares.

But in the years before that flagrant act of insider trading, Mr. Collins already was deeply involved in the affairs of the company, Innate Immunotherapeutics, even as he served on various congressional committees that played a role in directing federal health care policy.

Mr. Collins was the company’s largest shareholder. He served on the company’s board. He solicited investments in the company, including from other members of Congress. (Tom Price, who served as a Republican representative from Georgia and then as secretary of health and human services in the Trump administration, was among the buyers.)

Mr. Collins wrote legislative language to expedite drug trials, potentially benefiting Innate, and he pressed a staff member at the National Institutes of Health to meet with the company about its clinical trial.

He also invested in other health care firms, some of which held federal contracts.

None of this was clearly illegal. But it should have been.Members of Congress serve in positions of privilege and

power. They have the opportunity to shape public policy for their own benefit, and to profit from information not available to the general public — and it is clearly too much to expect that all of them will resist temptation.

Congress took an important step in 2012, passing a law that bars members and their aides from trading on the basis of confidential information that they receive as lawmakers. The law also strengthened disclosure requirements. It has made a difference. The volume of stock trading by members of Congress declined by 65 percent in the three years after it took effect, compared with the three years before its passage, according to a 2017 study by Public Citizen.

But the 2012 law is insufficient.When the Securities and Exchange Commission began

its first investigation under the new law, in 2013, Congress went to court to prevent the S.E.C. from obtaining docu-ments. The two sides eventually reached a deal, but the case showed that Congress remained unwilling to play by the same rules as everyone else.

Congress also passed a bill in 2013 reversing some of the disclosure requirements that it had established and cele-brated just one year before. The original bill, for example, mandated the creation of a searchable online database of

trades by members and aides. The 2013 law made it harder to identify wrongdoing, allowing members of Congress to submit disclosures in a form that is not easily searchable.

And the narrow ban on insider trading does not go far enough. Members still may be tempted to cast votes that are personally profitable but not in the public interest. And because insider trading is a very difficult crime to prove, it is likely that they still have ample opportunity to profit from their privileged positions. As if to underscore these problems, members continue to buy and sell shares in companies that have business before Congress.

Senator James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who chairs the Armed Services Committee, bought stock in the defense contractor Raytheon last year while pushing for an increase in federal spending on defense. The senator said the decision was made by a financial adviser, and after its public disclosure, he said he would make no further investments in the industry.

Inhofe’s declaration of abstinence amounts to a tacit ac-knowledgment of the need for stronger rules that apply to all

members of Congress. Public Citizen and other groups have argued for a narrow rule barring members from trading in the shares of companies that have business before their committees. Such a rule, however, would not go far enough. The work of Congress encompasses the entirety of the economy.

The most comprehensive solution would be to require people who are elected to Congress to divest holdings in public companies within a reasonable period following their election. But such a requirement could impose significant costs on people entering public service. It would be nearly as effective, and less burdensome, to bar members from buying or selling shares.

A bill that would impose such a ban was introduced earlier this year by Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, and Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio. It would require members to put holdings in blind trusts, or else to refrain from any trading until they leave Congress. The bill also would bar members of Congress from serving on corporate boards.

These are necessary reforms, and they are long overdue.(Source: The New York Times)

It was bound to be an anxious year for the Chinese Com-munist Party. Years ending in 9 have always been since the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests on June 4th 1989. The party feared that anniversaries of the bloodshed might trigger unrest (though security is always so tight that they never have). In 2019 they were on heightened alert, jittery not only about the 30th anniversary, but about other round-number anniversaries of political upheavals, includ-ing a national one a century ago, another in Tibet, and the party’s own seizure of power in 1949.

But China’s leader, Xi Jinping, was right to sense that troubles in 2019 might come from unexpected quarters. In a speech in January he warned officials of “black swan” and “grey rhino” events, in other words, unforeseen crises or ones arising from obvious but neglected problems. What occurred was a combination of both types, with the color black prevailing. It was in Hong Kong that the year’s biggest crisis erupted, on a scale that caught not only the party, but the entire world, by surprise. Chinese officials call it a color revolution, or, referring to the preferred hue of anti-govern-ment protesters involved in it, a black terror.

The unrest that erupted in the territory in June has been the biggest sustained challenge to the party’s authority since the upheaval of 1989. The central government in Beijing says the demonstrations have transgressed the “bottom line” of the “one country, two systems” principle that China says it has been implementing in Hong Kong since it took it back from the British in 1997. Despite such rhetoric, the party has refrained from sending in troops to crush the protests. But

the challenge it faces is far from over. Despite widespread violence, public support for the protesters still appears strong. Mr Xi may continue to keep his troops leashed, but he will find other ways of tightening control in the territory.

Hong Kong’s protests have complicated China’s al-ready deeply troubled relations with the United States. Officials in Beijing have reacted furiously to support for the protesters from American politicians. President Trump, focused on fighting his trade war with China, has been more reticent, but after Congress gave overwhelming approval to bills aimed at improving human rights in Hong Kong, Mr Trump in November signed them into law. He may do the same again soon with a bill that would require

him to impose sanctions against Chinese officials guilty of human-rights violations in the far-western region of Xinjiang. A senior leader in Xinjiang recently said people who had been studying in “vocational training” schools there (ie, Muslims confined without trial in a vast gulag) had all “graduated”. But it is a safe bet that anyone released will remain under close watch.

The repression in Xinjiang, and China’s resolute opposi-tion to democratic reform in Hong Kong, are being closely watched in Taiwan, where presidential and parliamentary elections will be held on January 11th. It is likely that voters will react by giving more support to Tsai Ing-wen, who, be-fore the outbreak of unrest in Hong Kong, had been widely expected to lose her bid to serve a second term as president. A victory for Ms Tsai and her independence-leaning party would infuriate Mr Xi, who sets great store by the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”—meaning, among other things, reunification with Taiwan.

China is not likely to risk conflict with America in 2020 by attacking Taiwan, but cross-strait tensions will rise. Mr Xi used one of 2019’s big anniversaries, the 70th of Communist rule that was marked on October 1st, to show off the kind of weaponry that China might use should it ever come to blows with America. The intended message of the big pa-rade in Tiananmen Square was clear: Mr Xi remains firmly in charge, with the world’s largest army at his command. Despite all the pressures he endured in 2019, there is no clear evidence to the contrary.

(Source: The Economist)

The dark, ruined city that became the home of Christmas

It’s an Arctic destination that, when snow transforms it into a winter wonderland, attracts visitors from all over the world with its beautiful scenery, ski resorts and -- particularly in December -- Christmas magic.

Because as well as being the capital of Lapland, Finland, Rovaniemi is also the official home of Santa Claus.

But while the weeks leading up to Christmas bathe Rovaniemi in a festive glow, this is a place that has known extreme darkness. Not just in the long winter months when the sun barely creeps over the horizon, but also in the brutality of World War II and its aftermath.

The story of Rovaniemi’s emergence from the rubble of conflict into the cheerful destination it is today reflects both the extraor-dinary spirit of a city that survives on the very edge of civilization, but also a very special bond between humans and animals.

And given that those animals are reindeer -- it’s a very good story to tell at Christmas.

Rovaniemi was once just a cluster of villages on the cusp of the Arctic Circle where the local indigenous Sami people depended on farming, foraging and logging to keep their families alive through harsh winters.

Reindeer were their only companions. The Sami have herded the creatures across Scandinavia and Russia for hundreds of years, relying on them for food, warm clothes and transport, in a some-times deadly landscape. Many of their traditions survive today.

“We know how many reindeer nature can handle and feed,” says modern Rovaniemi herder Sami Ruismäki.

The herders of Lapland treat the natural world with great respect, making sure their reindeer don’t spoil the land, he says.

Ruismäki’s family has tended to reindeer for generations on the snowy plains surrounding the city.

But by the time of World War II, a gold mining rush had turned Rovaniemi into a bustling city. It was also a transport hub, connecting Europe to Russia and the Barents Sea.

This was why, when German troops attacked Finland, they destroyed as much of Rovaniemi as possible. Wooden houses, schools and churches were burned to the ground. Only 10% of the city remained standing.

After the war ended, Alvar Aalto -- one of Finland’s most famous architects -- was given the job of designing a new Rovaniemi.

Inspired by Finland’s landscape and wildlife, Aalto looked to Finland’s most beloved animal.

Seen from the sky, the modern city shows the outline of a rein-deer. Its antlers stretch alongside the public parks, while a ring road marks its long face. The city’s stadium is the animal’s eye.

The very streets of Rovaniemi celebrate the animal that allowed humans to survive in this lonely part of the world.

In 1950, as Rovaniemi was being rebuilt from the ashes, it received an unexpected visit from US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who came to show her support for the city’s post-war recovery.

With only a week’s notice, officials rushed to build a log cabin where she could stay and receive visitors.

Roosevelt’s highly publicized visit was a triumph for Rovaniemi. The humble Roosevelt cabin became the heart of Santa Claus Village, a theme park filled with every Christmassy experience imaginable. Meetings with Santa, northern lights sightings and reindeer rides were paired with warm Lapland hospitality.

Santa Claus’ Post Office (at 96930 Napapiiri, Finland) opened up, and now receives hundreds of thousands of let-ters every year.

Rovaniemi had achieved the seemingly impossible. It was attracting tourists to the Arctic Circle in the depths of winter.

Irene Kangasniemi, an artist, is among the local people who today make a living from the worldwide fame of the Lapland Christmas. She fashions reindeer antlers into jewelry and works of art. “Reindeer are survivors,” she says. “Reindeer are the reason why people came here after the ice age.”

Kangasniemi also follows a traditional Lappish lifestyle. She forages for berries and mushrooms, and makes traditional dishes like joulutorttu, a Christmas tart.

These foods are part of Lappish fine dining. In perhaps a less festive vein, sautéed reindeer meat -- poronkäristys -- is a popular delicacy in Finland all year round. Other traditional Lapland foods enjoyed by tourists include salmon, flatbread and mulled wine.

Lapland’s winter appeal isn’t limited to Christmas. Tourists can also enjoy a plethora of high-adrenaline sports.

Skiing vacations are immensely popular, with 32 resorts and 340 kilometers of slopes to choose from. Finland alone is home to around one million active skiiers -- over a sixth of the country’s population. Ice climbing and snow-kiting offer more unusual experiences in Lapland’s festive landscape.

Jyri Keskiaho is the only professional freestyle snowmobiler in Finland. “I think it comes from my childhood,” he says. “My father and mother did cross country skiing, and we drove behind them on sleds.”

Daredevil stunts and top speeds aside, snowmobiling is a chance to soak up the rich wilderness of Lapland. “I love traveling by snowmobile through nature -- through the forest, the ramps, the track, the trails, everywhere,” he says. “I’ve done this for six years now. You really can feel like you’re flying.”

For the hardier, a dip in Rovaniemi’s rivers offers a bracing start to the day. At only a few degrees above freezing, these waters entertain guests and locals alike throughout the ice swimming season, from November until April. This sport may improve heart function and blood circulation -- but it’s not for the faint-hearted.

(Source: CNN)

Illustration by Nicholas Konrad; photographs by Getty Images

2019 in review: Testing China’s bottom line

By Sarah Zhang

Up in the Arctic cold, frozen woolly-mam-moth carcasses can be so well preserved that they still have blood in their veins. Their flesh is still pink—which means that, of course, yes, someone has thought about eating it. Tales of dining on woolly mammoths frozen since the Ice Age range from the fantastical to the truer and grosser. Let us start—why not?—with the fantastical stories.

In 1901, an expedition to the Beresovca River in Siberia found a male mammoth so exquisitely preserved that it still had grass in its mouth. The mammoth’s bones and skin were put on display in St. Petersburg, and its flesh was, supposedly, served at a “mammoth banquet.” The meal was a hit, according to one glowing account, “particularly the course of mammoth steak, which all the learned guests declared was agreeable to the taste, and not much tougher than some of the sirloin furnished by butchers of today.”

Half a century later, the Explorers Club put on its own exotic feast in New York. This time, the prehistoric flesh reportedly came

from a carcass found in the Aleutian Islands, by a Jesuit-turned-geologist known as the Glacier Priest. Each diner got mere slivers of meat, but those slivers made quite the impression. Guests went home bragging of their Ice Age dinner. But they later disagreed over whether the meat was really supposed to be mammoth or mastodon or an extinct giant sloth called megatherium.

In any case, DNA analysis of meat from the 1951 dinner eventually proved it was none of the above. It wasn’t even prehistoric at all. Its DNA matched green sea turtle, a modern and living species. As for the 1901 banquet, well, that couldn’t have been mammoth either. “All stories published in newspapers of this country of a dinner in St. Petersburg where the meat of the Beresovca mammoth was served, are a hundred per cent invention,” the paleontologist I. P. Tolmachoff wrote in the Transactions of the American Philo-sophical Society back in 1929. As Tolmachoff also wrote, woolly-mammoth meat frozen for tens of thousands of years is “absolute-ly unpalatable” with “an intolerable putrid smell.” It is not something that belongs on

a dinner table. It is certainly not something that belongs in a human mouth.

Which brings us to the true stories of eat-ing—or attempting to eat—frozen mammoth.

In the 18th and 19th century, explorers to Siberia wrote that the region’s indigenous people, the Evenki, occasionally fed their dogs mammoth meat. But humans have generally been less enthusiastic about eating it. Over tens of thousands of years, the things that make meat tasty turn quite foul.

Fat is one problem. It turns to soap—spe-cifically, a substance called adipocere, also known as “corpse wax” or “grave wax” when it’s found in human bodies left in cool, wet conditions. Paleontologists have noticed it in the fat of woolly mammoths too, even though extremely cold conditions are thought to inhibit the microbes that turn fat into adi-pocere. The substance could have formed in Siberia, says Shari Forbes, a forensics expert at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, if temperatures ever fluctuated over tens of thousands of years. Adipocere, she adds, can have the texture of cottage cheese. The smell is rancid. “I know why people would not

want to eat it!,” she wrote to me in an email.The muscle of the frozen mammoths

changes as well, like meat left in the freezer for too long. (In this case, many, many millennia too long.) The formation of ice crystals would pierce the muscle fibers of the meat, says Matt Hartings, a food chemist at American University. Frozen, the meat might still be reasonably solid and, well, meat-like. But once defrosted, he says, “it’ll be turned into a goo.”

In fact, Dmitry V. Arzyutov, a historian at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, wrote earlier this year that Russian paleon-tologists he interviewed about woolly mam-moths “had tried to fry mammoth meat, but it had turned into a smelly liquid.” Not that this has stopped certain mammoth hunters. In the recent woolly-mammoth documenta-ry Genesis 2.0, one expeditioner even chews raw Ice Age meat on camera.

“It looks for me like a common practice among them,” Arzyutov added to me in an email. Male bravado, he suggested, may have something to do with it.

(Source: The Atlantic)

What happens to meat when you freeze it for 35,000 yearsA gastronomic investigation of mammoth feasts

The past year has been unusually stressful for Xi Jinping. The coming one will be no easier

Janne Sampalahti sold Christmas trees in Kruununhaka, Helsinki, on Saturday, 21 December 2019. (Heikki Saukkomaa – Lehtikuva)

DECEMBER 26, 20198I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

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S C I E N C EDECEMBER 26, 2019

The first ever human head transplants could be achieved within the next decade, claims a former NHS neurosurgeon who believes he knows how the feat of moving a person’s consciousness to another body could be made to work.

Bruce Mathew, a former clinical lead for neurosurgery at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, was working on a science fiction novel with Institute of Futurology founder Michael Lee when he realized the potential key to making the outlandish surgery a success.

He believes that surgeons would not only have to transplant a person’s head, but place their entire spinal cord into another body.

Until now, the few contentious scientists striving to make head transplants a reality have mainly focused on methods that sever the spinal cord – an idea that Mr. Mathew, who has performed more than 10,000 operations, describes as “utterly ridiculous”.

But the 63-year-old from Hull asserts that advancements in nerve surgery, robotics and stem cell transplants mean that it could be possible to reattach an entire spinal cord – and its corresponding head – to another body before 2030.

“Initially our intention was to just brainstorm an idea and it seemed rather silly, but then I realized, it actually isn’t. If you transplant the brain and keep the brain and spinal cord together it’s actually not impossible,” he told The Telegraph.

“The spinal cord is the most profound thing imaginable. You need to keep the brain connected to the spinal cord. The idea that you cut the split the spinal cord

is utterly ridiculous.One of the more infamous scientists

in the sparse head transplant field, Sergio Canavero, in 2017 claimed to have performed a successful transplant on a human corpse based on a method that severs the spinal cord at the base of the neck.

He claimed electrical stimulation proved it had been a success, but other scientists criticized the claims and pointed to his previous claim of success with a monkey, which never regained consciousness and would have remained paralyzed if it had done so.

Mr. Canavero, who has a willing human volunteer lined up, suggested his work could pave the way to immortality – a word also used in the title of Mr. Mathew and Mr. Lee’s book, called Chrysalis: A surgical sci-fi story about immortal potential.

Mr. Mathew continued: “The thought of keeping [the spinal cord] in one piece has always been totally daunting, but now with modern technology you can do most things.

“At the moment, you can connect one or two nerves, but with robotics and artificial intelligence we’ll soon be

able to do 200 nerves. You would take off all the spinal column, so that you could drop in the whole brain and spinal cord and lumbar sacra into a new body.

“Obviously it’s very difficult to take out the dura (the protective membrane of the spinal cord) intact without making a hole in it. It will take a number of advancements and incremental steps but it will probably will happen in the next 10 years.”

While the method would be of no help to those with spinal injuries, it could help those with degenerative muscle diseases, and Mr. Mathew suggests it could allow people to be given robotic bodies.

Mr. Mathew told The Telegraph that there are still doubts as to whether the head and spine could be made to successfully integrate with so much of another person’s DNA, and that gut bacteria may need to also be transferred.

But he believes stem cell transplants could be used to prevent rejection.

“You would take on the DNA of the actual brain and spinal cord, so rather like a bone marrow donor, and you would get rid of donor DNA and then colonize it with that from the person receiving the body,” he told the paper.

“I mean there are huge problems, but it is possible. And you’ve got to remember you’ve got thousands of people in deep freezes, often just heads, and companies who really believe you will one day be able to reawaken them from the dead, cure them of disease, and give them new bodies. In comparison what I’m proposing is fairly conservative.”?

(Source: The Independent)

First human head transplant could be achieved by 2030

Nearby pulsar’s gamma-ray ‘halo’ linked to antimatter puzzleNASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a faint but sprawling glow of high-energy light around a nearby pulsar. If visible to the human eye, this gamma-ray “halo” would appear about 40 times bigger in the sky than a full Moon. This structure may provide the solution to a long-standing mystery about the amount of antimatter in our neighborhood.

“Our analysis suggests that this same pulsar could be responsible for a decade-long puzzle about why one type of cosmic particle is unusually abundant near Earth,” said Mattia Di Mauro, an astrophysicist at the Catholic University of America in Washington and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “These are positrons, the antimatter version of electrons, coming from somewhere beyond the solar system.”

A paper detailing the findings was published in the journal Physical Review D on Dec. 17.

A neutron star is the crushed core left behind when a star much more massive than the Sun runs out of fuel, collapses under its own weight and explodes as a supernova. We see some neutron stars as pulsars, rapidly spinning objects emitting beams of light that, much like a lighthouse, regularly sweep across our line of sight.

Geminga (pronounced geh-MING-ga), discovered in 1972 by NASA’s Small Astronomy Satellite 2, is among the brightest pulsars in gamma rays. It is located about 800 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. Geminga’s name is both a play on the phrase “Gemini gamma-ray source” and the expression “it’s not there” -- referring to astronomers’ inability to find the object at other energies -- in the dialect of Milan, Italy.

Geminga was finally identified in March 1991, when flickering X-rays picked up by Germany’s ROSAT mission revealed the source to be a pulsar spinning 4.2 times a second.

A pulsar naturally surrounds itself with a cloud of electrons and positrons. This is because the neutron star’s intense magnetic field pulls the particles from the pulsar’s surface and accelerates them to nearly the speed of light.

Electrons and positrons are among the speedy particles known as cosmic rays, which originate beyond the solar system. Because cosmic ray particles carry an electrical charge, their paths become scrambled when they encounter magnetic fields on their journey to Earth. This means astronomers cannot directly track them back to their sources.

For the past decade, cosmic ray measurements by Fermi, NASA’s Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) aboard the International Space Station, and other space experiments near Earth have seen more positrons at high energies than scientists expected. Nearby pulsars like Geminga were prime suspects.

Then, in 2017, scientists with the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Gamma-ray Observatory (HAWC) near Puebla, Mexico, confirmed earlier ground-based detections of a small gamma-ray halo around Geminga. They observed this structure at energies from 5 to 40 trillion electron volts -- light with trillions of times more energy than our eyes can see.

Scientists think this emission arises when accelerated electrons and positrons collide with nearby starlight. The collision boosts the light up to much higher energies. Based on the size of the halo, the HAWC team concluded that Geminga positrons at these energies only rarely reach Earth. If true, it would mean that the observed positron excess must have a more exotic explanation.

But interest in a pulsar origin continued, and Geminga was front and center. Di Mauro led an analysis of a decade of Geminga gamma-ray data acquired by Fermi’s Large Area Telescope (LAT), which observes lower-energy light than HAWC.

“To study the halo, we had to subtract out all other sources of gamma rays, including diffuse light produced by cosmic ray collisions with interstellar gas clouds,” said co-author Silvia Manconi, a postdoctoral researcher at RWTH Aachen University in Germany. “We explored the data using 10 different models of interstellar emission.”

What remained when these sources were removed was a vast, oblong glow spanning some 20 degrees in the sky at an energy of 10 billion electron volts (GeV). That’s similar to the size of the famous Big Dipper star pattern -- and the halo is even bigger at lower energies.

“Lower-energy particles travel much farther from the pulsar before they run into starlight, transfer part of their energy to it, and boost the light to gamma rays. This is why the gamma-ray emission covers a larger area at lower energies ,” explained co-author Fiorenza Donato at the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics and the University of Turin. “Also, Geminga’s halo is elongated partly because of the pulsar’s motion through space.”

(Source: Science Daily)

A decade on Earth captured from space

The biggest news events of the past decade have been chronicled from space.

The last 10 years have seen a boom in the use of satellite imagery for reporting, led by a growth in commercial satellites that has slashed the cost of such images, and advances in technology that have made high-resolution images from many parts of the world accessible, almost instantly, even on a phone.

U.S. satellite imagery company Maxar Technologies Inc has released satellite images from some of the biggest news events of the past decade – from natural disasters to war to the construction of Apple’s “Spaceship” headquarters in Cupertino, California.

The images range from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to the launch of China’s first domestically produced aircraft carrier, the Shandong, from a base on the shore of the disputed South China Sea last month.

Headquartered in Westminster, Colorado, Maxar specializes in satellites for Earth imagery, geospatial data and analytics.

New engine tech that could get us to Mars fasterIf we’re ever to make regular journeys from Earth to Mars and other far-off destinations, we might need new kinds of engines. Engineers are exploring revolutionary new technologies that could help us traverse the Solar System in much less time.

Because of the orbital paths Mars and Earth take around the Sun, the distance between them varies between 54.6 million km and 401 million km.

Missions to Mars are launched when the two planets make a close approach. During one of these approaches, it takes nine months to get to Mars using chemical rockets - the form of propulsion in widespread use.

That’s a long time for anyone to spend travelling. But engineers, including those at the US space agency (NASA), are working with industrial partners to develop faster methods of getting us there.

So what are some of the most promising technologies?* Solar electric propulsionSolar electric propulsion could be used to send cargo

to Mars ahead of a human mission. That would ensure equipment and supplies were ready and waiting for astronauts when they arrived using chemical rockets, according to Dr. Jeff Sheehy, chief engineer in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

With solar electric propulsion, large solar arrays unfurl to capture solar energy, which is then converted to electricity. This powers something called a Hall thruster.

There are pros and cons. On the upside, you need far less fuel, so the spacecraft becomes lighter. But it also takes your vehicle longer to get there.

“In order to carry the payload we’d need to, it would probably take between two to 2.5 years to get us there,” Dr. Sheehy tells the BBC.

“For the kinds of outposts we’d need to build on Mars for crews to be able to survive for months, and the vehicles, you’d need a lot of cargo.”

Aerojet Rocketdyne is working on a Hall thruster for the Gateway, a proposed space station in lunar orbit.

“Solar is the best because we know we can scale it up,” Joe Cassidy, executive director of Aerojet Rocketdyne’s space division, explains.

“We’ve already got these flying today on communications satellites. The power level we fly at today is 10-15kW (kilowatts), and what we’re looking to do with the Gateway is to scale it up to something greater than 50kW.”

Mr. Cassidy said Aerojet Rocketdyne’s Hall thruster will be much more fuel efficient than a liquid hydrogen and oxygen rocket engine.

But a good way to make access to space cheaper would be to have fewer launches, he explains.

“I think that solar electric propulsion is very good technology, using xenon as the propellant. But the two major drawbacks are the amount of time it takes to get there, and the size of the solar arrays,” says Tim Cichan, a human spaceflight architect at aerospace giant Lockheed Martin.

Dale Thomas, a professor and eminent scholar in systems engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) concurs.

“Solar electric works well for smaller payloads, but we’re still having trouble getting it to scale,” he tells the BBC.

He thinks it could become an important alternative technology if the technical challenges can be solved. But for now, he says, there are other better options, such as nuclear thermal electric propulsion.

* Nuclear thermal electric propulsionAnother idea is to use chemical rockets to lift off from

Earth and to land on Mars. But for the middle part of the journey, some engineers propose using something called nuclear thermal electric propulsion.

Astronauts could be sent to the Gateway in NASA’s Orion capsule. The Orion crew capsule would then dock with a transfer vehicle.

Once Orion has been connected to the transfer vehicle, a nuclear electric rocket would be used to get the crew capsule and the transport module to Mars, where they link up with a Mars orbiter and lander, which are waiting in Mars’ orbit.

In a nuclear thermal electric rocket, a small nuclear reactor heats up liquid hydrogen. The gaseous form of the element expands and shoots out of the thruster.

“If we can cut transit time [to Mars] down by 30-60 days, it will improve the exposure to radiation facing the crew,” says Mr. Cassidy. “We’re looking at nuclear thermal as a key technology because it can enable faster transit times.”

Dale Thomas, together with UAH, has a study contract with NASA to design a space rocket featuring a nuclear thermal engine. He thinks nuclear thermal electric is the closest new engine technology to being ready for use.

“Some of the trajectories we run in my lab, we can get the transit time down to three months, which is still a very long journey, but it’s about a third of the time that chemical propulsion requires to get us there,” he says.

Boeing is not so keen on nuclear thermal propulsion, because it worries about the effects a nuclear reactor might have on astronauts.

Mr. Thomas disagrees: “This is a common misperception. The hydrogen propellant is a great radiation shield.

“The crew will be at one end of the vehicle, and the engine at the other end. As such, preliminary estimates show that the crew will get more radiation dosage from cosmic rays than from the nuclear thermal engine.”

However, he admits one downside of the technology is the inability to easily test it on Earth.

But NASA is designing a ground test apparatus that scrubs the exhaust to remove radioactive particles - making ground tests possible.

* Electric ion propulsionAnother idea is electric ion propulsion. These generate

thrust by accelerating ions - charged atoms or molecules - using electricity.

Ion propulsion is already being used to power satellites in space. But they produce only a low thrust - more like the power of a hairdryer - and therefore have a low acceleration. But given time, they can reach high speeds.

Ad Astra says it is working on a type of thruster called the Vasimr that uses radio waves to ionize and heat a propellant and then a magnetic field to accelerate the resulting soup of particles - the plasma. The Vasimr is designed to produce much more thrust than a standard ion engine.

The electricity needed can be generated in different ways. But for sending humans to Mars, the team wants to use a nuclear reactor. The Vasimr would use solar electric for smaller payloads.

Ad Astra’s president and chief executive Franklin Chang Diaz, who is a former NASA astronaut, says crewed missions need to get to Mars in less than nine months, ideally.

Going to the Red Planet is much harder than going to the Moon, he says.

“The solution is to go fast,” Mr. Chang Diaz tells the

BBC. “For a spacecraft that would weigh 400-600 metric tons, with a power level of 200 MW (megawatts), you can get to Mars in 39 days.”

Dale Thomas believes scaling up the Vasimr will be difficult, like going from the power of a lawnmower to a space rocket. But the technology does show promise.

“If, or perhaps I should say, when Ad Astra can solve the technical challenges of Vasimr, it does appear to be the best choice for electric propulsion at the human-ferrying spacecraft scale,” Mr. Thomas says.

“The physics says that it should work. However, I must point out that Vasimr is still under development in the laboratory; it’s a long way from being flight-ready at any scale.”

Mr. Chang Diaz doesn’t see a problem with scaling up, it’s just that there’s currently no market for a 10MW engine, so Ad Astra is sticking with 200kW.

“We have a market for the 200kW engine, there’s a lot of activity in low-Earth orbit and near the Moon to move cis-Earth satellites,” says Mr. Chang Diaz.

Lockheed Martin also thinks the Vasimr is promising technology, but it is focusing on solar electric propulsion.

* The case for chemical rocketsAlthough the new technologies are interesting, veteran

space players Lockheed Martin and Boeing both think liquid chemical rockets need to be the bedrock of any human mission to Mars.

Lockheed Martin says we already have the technology we need to get to Mars, and chemical rockets are a proven technology that worked in all the Apollo missions.

“We already have the technology to get us to Mars today,” says Mr. Cichan, the former system architect for Orion.

“There are some technical challenges, but it’s really about taking the technology we have, building the systems and gaining experience in flying in deep space that is the work ahead of us, as well as developing technology that will be groundbreaking in the future.”

Hydrogen upper stage launchers have been used since the 1960s, and they have a high success rate, he stresses.

“NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) has four liquid hydrogen and oxygen RS-25 rocket engines,” Rob Broeren, a Boeing rocket propulsion specialist tells the BBC.

“These are shuttle heritage engines, and the advantage of the RS-25’s is that they’re well proven, high-reliability engines.

“The nice thing about going with highly proven technologies is that you have full confidence that they definitely work. With new technologies, they sound good on paper, but when it comes to implementing them, you will run into issues that will delay you.”

* When will we get to Mars?A recent study by the Science and Technology

Policy Institute (STPI) found that it was unlikely for human missions to Mars to follow NASA’s timetable and begin in 2033.

Given the constraints on NASA’s budgets, STPI thinks it is much more likely that we will leave for Mars in 2039, though the White House wants the US space agency to explore the Moon first by 2024, under its Artemis program.

Dr. Paul Dimotakis, John K Northrop professor of aeronautics and professor of applied physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is skeptical of the new technologies, and even chemical propulsion.

“I personally have not seen answers to technical questions of how to have enough chemical propulsion to last the long trip. It’s not known for a hydrogen-oxygen rocket to last longer than six months,” he says.

“We do not have a technical solution that addresses all the issues. Plus, someone has to demonstrate this before we send humans to Mars, and all of these things do not correspond to NASA’s timetable.”

(Source: BBC)

If you travel overseas, be warned: Pickpockets really are out to get you.

I don’t mean the light-fingered thieves who try to grab your wallet. I am talking about digital pickpockets: hotels, restaurants and shops that systematically overcharge foreigners who use credit and debit cards in their establishments.

A few weeks ago, my family ate at the café at one of India’s most famous tourist attrac-tions, the lakefront City Palace in Udaipur. The waiter ran my Visa card, added 5 percent to my bill and gave me my charge receipt in dollars. When I protested, the manager professed ignorance and showed me how the machine did it automatically.

The tool used to nick foreign travelers goes by a fancy name — dynamic currency conversion. But its premise is simple: foreign merchants add a stiff markup to your bill, convert it to your home currency, then claim it benefits you.

In the City Palace case, the restaurant did not ask for my consent, which is required by both Visa and Mastercard. Unfortunately, this strong-arm approach is becoming more common.

As an American journalist who lives in India and travels frequently to other countries, I have seen businesses from neighborhood drugstores to hotels in the Marriott and Hyatt chains try to dupe me into paying their high currency fees.

Here’s how to avoid being fleeced. Insist that charges be run in the

local currencyMost of the time, when you make a charge

overseas, the amount is sent to Visa, Master-

card or American Express in the local currency. The card networks convert the charge into your home currency at a wholesale rate and send it your bank, which might tack on an additional foreign transaction fee of 0 to 2 percent, depending on the card.

So if you charge a hotel room for 7,100 Indian rupees, or about $100 at current rates, it should show up on your statement as $100 or $102.

However, in a bid to make more money from travelers, many businesses have pro-grammed their card machines to present foreign customers with a choice: Do you want to process the charge in the local currency or your home currency?

They tout this dynamic currency conver-sion as a convenience to you. But the mer-chants rarely disclose that you are paying them an extra fee of 3 percent to 8 percent, sometimes more, bringing the cost of that Indian hotel room to $105 or $110.

“It is a complete scam,” said Alexander Bachuwa, a frequent traveler and consumer lawyer who practices in New York, lives in Puerto Rico and writes the Points of Life travel blog. He advises using a currency app on your phone to estimate charges instead.

Just say no to conversions. Always pay in the local currency for the lowest cost to you.

Check your receipt for unauthor-ized conversions

Often, you don’t get a chance to say no, despite Visa and Mastercard rules that say consumers must be offered a choice if a mer-chant does currency conversion.

The giveaway that you’ve been hit is when

the charge slip lists an amount in your home currency with microscopic print that claims you gave consent.

In India, this maneuver is common at higher-end hotels, where a bill can easily run $1,000 and an extra 5 percent fee is $50.

When the J.W. Marriott in Kolkata ini-tially charged a May stay in dollars despite my request to pay in rupees, a manager explained that the hotel’s systems were set up to automatically add the markup and do the conversion. To run the charge in rupees without the markup, she had to reprocess the payment on a special machine. (Marriott declined to comment, as did Hyatt, anoth-er chain where I have seen such automatic conversion frequently occur.)

Banks, which share the extra fees with merchants, appear to be complicit in this fee extraction. When a currency markup suddenly appeared last month on a charge slip from my Mumbai car service, the finance manager said that his Indian bank, Axis, had upgraded his swipe machines, added the fees without his knowledge and was keeping the money.

Axis, which was also the bank for the City Palace in Udaipur, said it offers merchants two types of swipe machines, including one that automatically adds a fee and converts the charge to the customer’s home currency. With that machine, if the customer insists on paying in rupees, the clerk has to go through a convoluted process to redo the transaction.

Sanjeev Moghe, the head of cards and payments for Axis, said that merchants are supposed to allow customers to choose their currency. But he acknowledged that

many cashiers might not know how to do that. “We may review this and make some changes,” he said.

Visa said that it requires banks or mer-chants that do currency conversions to offer customers “an educated choice.” However, it declined to discuss how it detects violations or what action it takes in response.

Mastercard, which markets its own dy-namic currency conversion service to mer-chants to help them make more money from customers, did not respond to a request for comment.

Fight back against deceptive chargesIf you are charged a foreign currency fee

without your consent and the merchant won’t reverse it, make sure you write on the charge slip that currency conversion was rejected. Then file a dispute with your credit card company.

Big American banks like Chase get so many of these complaints that you can file them online in just a few clicks. Small over-charges are usually refunded instantly. Larger sums might take longer, but I have never had any bank ultimately decline a currency overcharge claim.

If you want to see exactly what the bill should have cost in your home currency, you can use online calculators from Visa and Mastercard.

For companies like hotels and restaurants, you can also expose their bad behavior on review sites like TripAdvisor. That warns other travelers and sends a message to man-agement that customers are paying attention.

(Source: The New York Times)

How to avoid being fleeced when using a credit card overseas

While most good things get more expensive, one dream got ridiculously cheap in 2019 thanks to the rise of the €1 home in Italy.

CNN Travel broke the news 12 months ago that the village of Sambuca in southern Italy was selling off abandoned, dilapidated homes for just over a dollar as it tried to reverse a trend of rural depopulation.

The story quickly went viral, drawing global interest, particularly as other towns and villages from the northern Alps to sunny Sicily were attempting the same thing.

Soon, some of these towns found themselves besieged by buyers. Mayors fielded thousands of requests, web-sites crashed, sleepy villages were invaded and locals freaked out.

The silence of narrow alleys was broken by foreign

voices and loud reporters. Dusty cobwebbed doors were unlocked for the first time in decades as people lined up early in the morning to secure an Italian casa dolce casa (home sweet home).

As CNN reported in November, some of the first buyers have already moved in and, for once, an offer that seemed too good to be true actually appears to have been worth it.

A year later, has it all died down? Have all the bargain homes been snapped up?

Not quite. It’s still possible to get in on the action.Below, we’ve rounded up the destinations still offer-

ing deals for anyone willing to commit to refurbishing a crumbling Italian home.

And if you’re wondering how you get a slice of the action, here are a few pointers:

For starters, unless you know someone who’s already on board and can advise, it’s worth checking out the towns’ official websites for listings of available properties and ap-plication form downloads.

Visiting the area to see what you’re actually signing up for before closing the deal is a good move, though many buyers have grabbed their houses sight unseen.

If your application and documents are approved, the town will contact you regarding the next steps.

But remember the catch: buyers must pay a secu-rity deposit varying between €2,000 and €5,000 and commit to refurbishing the property within three years. Once it’s complete and the purchase deed is made, the deposit is refunded.

(Source: CNN)

You can still buy $1 homes all over Italy

10I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

HERITAGE & TOURISM DECEMBER 26, 2019

1 Kermanshah, Khuzestan, Fars and Tehran during his one-week stay in Iran. The expert also took part in joint project for developing cultural heritage and tour-ism between the two countries, which was unveiled in Tehran on December 17.

On the sidelines of the unveiling cer-emony, Italian ambassador to Iran Gi-useppe Perrone said: “The [joint] project aims to make sure that Iran develops its capabilities to attract more foreign tourists and better organize its tourism industries.”

The envoy described Iran “as a country that is very rich in terms of cultural sites and archeological sites… so there is a lot for people to discover,” adding “Iran is a country that has a great and [un-]tapped potential and when it comes to tourism, cultural heritage, it has a lot to offer.”

For more than 20 centuries Iran and Italy have been the embodiment of Eastern and Western civilizations and such a long history of relationships and many histor-ical, religious and cultural commonalities between the two nations has helped Iran and Italy better understanding each other today, the ambassador added.

In November, Tehran and Rome marked 60 years of collaboration in the fields of cultural heritage and ar-chaeology in a conference, which was

held at the National Museum of Iran in downtown Tehran.

Iran embraces hundreds of historical sites such as bazaars, museums, mosques,

bridges, bathhouses, madrasas, mausole-ums, churches, towers, and mansions, of which 22 being inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

Under the 2025 Tourism Vision Plan, the country aims to increase the number of tourist arrivals from 4.8 million in 2014 to 20 million in 2025.

T O U R I S Md e s k

T O U R I S Md e s k

Ali-Asghar Mounesan in an undated photo

Iran’s civilization, history deserve to be seen, Italian tourism expert says

By Vindu Goel

Iran to unveil national brand name for tourism

TEHRAN — Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Tour-ism and Handicrafts Minister has said that the

national brand for tourism will be unveiled on February 11, 2020. The ministry has been cooperating very well with the World

Tourism Organization and the United Nations Educational, Sci-entific and Cultural Organization, Ali-Asghar Mounesan said on Monday, Mehr reported.

The issue of rural employment and ecotourism has been one of the drastic measures taken in the [President Rouhani’s] adminis-tration, he said, adding, “In this period, welfare and recreational centers increased from 400 to 1,700 across the country, showing a considerable growth.”

“Rural tourism has developed rapidly in the country. Not only development of rural tourism has prevented migration of villagers to the city, but also reverse migration has been created from cities to villages.”

Ecotourism is one of the subjects that has been highly wel-comed by domestic and foreign tourists, the minister concluded.

Ancient Irish pagans traveled vast distances for large feasts at legendary site, ancient animal bones reveal

Navan Fort is one of Ireland’s most famous and important archaeological sites. Now, research has revealed that in the Iron Age, people from all over the island flocked to the area for large feasts, often traveling vast distances and bringing animals with them.

For a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, a team of scientists analyzed the bones of 35 animals that were found at Navan—including, pigs, cattle and sheep.

This analysis revealed that some of these animals had been transported to the site from locations more than 100 miles away.

“Our results provide clear evidence that communities in Iron Age Ireland were very mobile and that livestock were also moved over greater distances than was previously thought,” Richard Madgwick, an author of the study from the University of Cardiff in the UK, said in a statement.

“The high proportion of pig remains found there is very rare for this period. This suggests that Navan Fort was a feasting center, as pigs are well-suited as feasting animals and in early Irish literature pork is the preferred food of the feast,” he said. “It is clear that Navan Fort had a vast catch-ment and that the influence of the site was far-reaching.”

For their analysis, the team investigated tooth enamel samples from the animals, which can help to determine their origins. The food and water that an animal consumes contains a certain chemical makeup that can be traced back to specific geographic areas. Researchers can examine the teeth to find signs of these chemicals.

(Source: Newsweek)

Darien National ParkDarien National Park extends across some 575.000 hectares in the Darien Province of Southeastern Panama. The largest protected area in Panama, Darien is also among the largest and most valuable protected areas in Central America.

A World Heritage, the property includes a stretch of the Pacific Coast and almost the entire border with neighboring Colombia. This includes a shared border with Los Katios Na-tional Park, likewise a World Heritage property.

From sea level to Cerro Tacarcuna at 1,875 m.a.s.l., the property boasts an exceptional variety of coastal, lowland and mountain ecosystems and habitats.

There are sandy beaches, rocky shores and mangroves along the coast, countless wetlands, rivers and creeks, palm forests and various types of rainforest, including the most extensive lowland rainforest on Central America’s Pacific Coast.

The property is also culturally and ethnically diverse, as evidenced by major archaeological findings, as well as Afro-de-scendants and indigenous peoples of the Embera, Wounaan, Kuna and others living within the property to this day. Darien National Park was groundbreaking by explicitly including a cultural dimension in the management and conservation of a protected area.

The large size and remoteness across a broad spectrum of habitats favor the continuation of evolutionary processes in an area of both cultural significance and exceptional diversity of flora and fauna with a high degree of endemism in numerous taxonomic groups.

(Source: UNESCO)

ROUND THE GLOBE

TEHRAN — Three cultural occasions were

officially added to Iran’s national calendar of events on Tuesday.

Ratified by the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution chaired by President Hassan Rouhani, the occasions are in com-memoration of [Prophet] Zarathustra, the [international] tourism day, and Sheikh Safi al-Din Ardabili (1253-1334) who was a Sufi philosopher and leader of Islamic mystic practices, ISNA reported.

In this regard, the days Farvardin 6th is dedicated to Zarathustra’s birthday an-niversary, Mehr 5th to the [international] tourism day, and Mordad 4th to the com-memoration of Sheikh Safi al-Din Ardabili, the latter concurrent with Safavid dynasty’s establishment which resulted in spreading Shiatism in the country, the report added.

Zarathustra, also spelled Zarathushtra, Greek Zoroaster, (born traditionally c. 628 BC, possibly Rhages, Iran—died c. 551 BC), was an Iranian religious reformer and proph-et, traditionally regarded as the founder of

Zoroastrianism. According to Britannica Encyclopedia, a major figure in the history of world religions, Zarathustra has been the object of much scholarly attention, in large part because of his apparent monotheism

(his concept of one god, whom he referred to as Ahura Mazda, or the “Wise Lord”), his purported dualism (evident in the stark distinction he drew between the forces of good and the forces of evil), and the possible

influence of his teachings on subsequently emerging Middle Eastern religions.

World Tourism Day is commemorated each year on 27 September (which usually falls on Mehr 5 in the Iranian calendar). Its purpose is to foster awareness among the international community of the importance of tourism and its social, cultural, political and economic value. The event seeks to ad-dress global challenges outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to highlight the contribution the tourism industry can make in reaching the Sustainable Development Goals.

?afavid dynasty, (1501–1736), ruling dynasty of Iran whose establishment of Shite Islam as the state religion of Iran was a major factor in the emergence of a unified national consciousness among the various ethnic and linguistic elements of the country. The ?afavids were descended from Sheikh Safi al-Din Ardabili of Ard-abil, head of the Sufi order of ?afaviyeh (?afawiyyah), but about 1399 exchanged their Sunni affiliation for Shiatism.

New cultural occasions added to Iran’s calendar of events

Travelers look at the polychrome dome of the Jameh Mosque of Yazd (Masjid-e-Jameh Yazd) in and undated photo. Soaring above the ancient UNESCO-tagged city, the mosque is graced with a lavishly decorated entrance portal (which is one of the highest in Iran), flanked by two raised minarets. Exquisite mosaics and tilework, intricate stucco and mirrorwork along with masterpieces of Persian calligraphy are amongst charms of the 12th-century structure to name a few.

A view of the Sheikh Safi al-Din Ardabili in Ardebil, northwest Iran

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – An American author described the Reuters news agen-cy as “not reliable” and said reports like the one claiming that some 1,500 people have been killed in the recent unrest in Iran have nothing to do with “the truth or historical fact”.

“No, it’s not reliable. It’s not impartial and it’s beholden to the power that funds it,” John Steppling, who is based in Norway, told Tasnim in an interview.

“The fact is that nothing resembling the truth or historical fact is ever in these sorts of reports. The best approach is to try and dig through the propaganda and find history. History, when you can access it, does not lie. The US has interfered in Iran for half a century. Why should they and their organs of disinformation start telling the truth now.”

Steppling is a well-known author, play-wright and an original founding member of the Padua Hills Playwrights Festival, a two-time NEA recipient, Rockefeller Fel-low in theater, and PEN-West winner for playwriting. He is also a regular political commentator for a number of media outlets around the world.

Following is the full text of the interview: The Reuters news agency earlier this

week published a report on the death toll of Iran’s recent unrest citing unknown sourc-es. Later a spokesman for Iran’s Supreme National Security Council described the report as “fake news”. What is your take on the report? Can a media report on sensitive and controversial issues based on unknown sources be considered professional work?

A: The best way to answer this, in a sense, is to step back and really examine who is behind corporate-owned media, and what

is the agenda. Iran is a target of US foreign policy and all that that means. Reuters is going to parrot the US line on these things. Think of them, and the NY Times, Wash-ington Post et al during the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. Did they believe they were telling the truth? Of course not. And as you point out there are no sources given. It’s a bit absurd at this point. But the public in the English speaking world and much of Europe, too, are heavily indoctrinated.

The planet faces a massive loss of bi-odiversity and pollution and growing in-equality. But do we hear much about the environmental impact of the military?

The climate discussion is shaped to help convince people that the forces that caused the problems are the only ones who can save it. There is no climate consensus. Science is not free of these forces. People live in some fantasy about scientific objectivity. In the 1950s, science in the form of doctors was telling you which cigarette to smoke. Any independent nation will be a target of this disinformation. Even in Imperialist nations like the US, there is a marked growth in precarity for growing numbers of people. Israel has the highest poverty rate in the developed world. But mass media erases these contradictions. So, no, as it is the

report is meaningless. Given the fact that Britain has lost

its interests in Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, do you agree that such reports by an anti-Iran media outlet are politically motivated or biased?

A: Of course it’s biased. The UK just elected the English version of Donald Trump. That tells you something about indoctri-nation. How is it that so many people vote against their own interests? The answer is that contemporary life is awash in prop-aganda. The ruling class wants to make sure that capitalism survives and the class structure remains intact. Not to mention in the US (and now in South America with the fascist coups and opposition) there is radical Christian extremism. Mike Pom-peo is a Dominionist. That means he is on the far fringe of religious extremism. Mike Pence the same. The rise of far-right parties in Europe is another feature of this recalibration by the ruling capitalist class. Fascism is growing, and the media is helping rehabilitate it.

Given that Reuters had similar fake news about Iran in the past and, accord-ingly, it faced restrictions on its media activities, can we regard the new agency as a professional one?

A: No, it’s not reliable. It’s not impartial and it’s beholden to the power that funds it. The fact is that nothing resembling the truth or historical fact is ever in these sorts of reports. The best approach is to try and dig through the propaganda and find his-tory. History, when you can access it, does not lie. The US has interfered in Iran for half a century. Why should they and their organs of disinformation start telling the truth now?

1 The U.S. recently formed an international maritime coalition, also joined by Australia, UK, UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, in a bid to mount pressure on Iran.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in response, flouted the idea of a regional peace plan, urging all countries along the Strait of Hormuz, as well as China and Russia, to join it.

His outspoken Foreign Minister Moham-mad Javad Zarif said the naval drill should not be viewed as a “display of hostility” to any other country but as an exercise to en-sure safe waters.

Show of strengthThe participation of China and Russia

in the naval drill is significant given that Moscow has been Tehran’s all-weather strategic ally, while Beijing is the largest buyer of Iranian oil.

Whether the drill is a show of support by Russia and China for Iran in the event of a military escalation or a normal military

exchange between the three allies, it is a matter of intense speculation at the moment.

Ali Ahmadi, a geopolitical analyst focusing

on Iran-U.S. relations, said coordination among Asian and Eurasian countries has tremendous potential for positive security

gains in the region.“It doesn’t challenge U.S. hegemony

worldwide. But right now, it limits Amer-ica’s strategic options and capabilities in most of Asia and northern Africa,” he said.

“China, Russia and Iran have many com-monalities on interests but they need a deeper dialogue to consolidate their relationship into a real strategic alliance,” he said.

Mani Mehrabi, an international affairs analyst, calls the drill a “show of strength” by Iran and its allies in the wake of naval tension between Iran and UK, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

“Iran is changing its military defense tactic and wants to send a message to the West that its maritime defense borders are expanding, which is why the Persian Gulf region has not been chosen for the exer-cise,” he said.

Although he refrains from predicting a direct confrontation between the two sides, he says it poses threat to the whole region.

TEHRAN (FNA) — Germany and Russia have reacted angrily to sanctions approved by US President Donald Trump on a gas pipeline between the two countries.

The sanctions target firms building Nord Stream 2, an undersea pipeline that will allow Russia to increase gas exports to Germany. The US considers it a security risk. But Germany accused Washington of interfering in its internal affairs, while Russia and EU officials also criticised the sanctions. Congress voted through the measures as part of a defence bill last week and the legislation, which described the pipeline as a “tool of coercion”, was signed off by Trump.

The almost $11bn Nord Stream 2 project has infuriated the US, with both Republican and Democratic lawmakers opposing it. The Trump administration claims the pipeline will tighten Russia’s grip over Europe’s energy supply and reduce its own share of the lucrative European market for American liquefied natural gas. Trump also claims the 1,225km pipeline, owned by Russia’s state-owned gas company, Gazprom, could turn Germany into a “hostage of Russia”.

Europe is united in its response. Spokesman for the European Union expressed the bloc’s opposition to sanctions against “EU companies conducting legitimate business.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that Germany is “opposed to extraterritorial sanctions.” German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass equated the sanction to “interference in autonomous decisions taken in Europe” and claimed that “European energy policy is decided in Europe, not the US” Chancellor Merkel’s spokeswoman said this act “constitute an interference in our internal affairs.”

Russia’s foreign ministry accused the US of promoting ideology at the expense of global competition.

The US is justifying its actions in the name of security and independence. President Trump has long accused Germany of being subdued by Russia because of Germany’s reliance on Russian energy. He described the deal as turning Germany into Russia’s “hostage.” A Russia-controlled Germany, as the US speculates, could tip the political inclination of the European continent to Russia’s side.

Germany does lack natural gas resources. It is the world’s largest natural gas importer, importing 92 percent of its gas from other countries. In the latest account, Germany imports 35 percent of its gas from Russia. The Nord Stream 2 is expected to be able to double the volume of gas Russia sends directly to Germany. This would make Russia a substantially larger exporter to Germany than other nations are. And with Russia already being the supplier of 37 percent of Europe’s natural gas, the pipeline does make Russia’s energy cooperation with the European Union closer. The US seems to be concerned by this expanding relationship between Russia and European countries.

However, this argument doesn’t legitimize the sanctions. Natural gas only accounts for less than 24 percent of Germany’s energy production in 2018. Renewable energy like wind and solar are rapidly overtaking other forms of energy production. According to Reuters, in 2018, over 40 percent of electricity was produced by green energy sources.

And Russia is rich in gas! It’s just a fact. Free market decides that there is a supply-demand relationship. Given

Germany’s lack in gas and the proximity to Russia, it is more than natural for the two countries to conduct energy business. There is a theory that the sanctions are motivated by US’ desire to enlarge its own energy exports to Europe. After the breakthrough in the shale gas technology, the United States has overtaken Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world’s top energy producer.

However, US energy companies are still in the process of preparing for exports to Germany. According to US Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette, these companies are trying to get the preparation done and start exporting by 2022, two years after the Nord Stream 2 is expected to come online. Delaying the project could earn the US energy more market space in Germany.

The US Congress was livid about this. Democrats and Republicans have been vocal in their opposition to Trump’s

decision. But, without the Executive Branch’s cooperation, countering Russia is hard for Congress to achieve alone. The NDAA gives Congress the chance to make its strongest demand on foreign policy. By sanctioning the pipeline, Congress not only prevents Russia from getting more profit from selling energy and contains the so called “Russian threat,” but also gains a tool to leverage the United States into a stronger position in the Middle East and Europe.

The sanctioning of Nord Stream 2 doesn’t happen without context. There could be lots of energy and strategic benefits for the United States by impeding this project. What’s interesting is that this act not only hurts their adversaries, but also damages one of the most important US ally on the European continent. And a country that blatantly interferes in its allies’ affairs and hurts their interests solely for its own benefits is self-defeating.

11I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

DECEMBER 26, 2019 I N T E R N A T I O N A L

Iran’s naval drill ‘show of strength’ to U.S.

Nothing resembling truth seen in Reuters report on Iran: U.S. author

Algeria mourns its man of honour Gaid Salah, Army Chief of Stuff

1 President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, for his part, announced that the Commander of land forces, General Said Chengriha would take over as acting chief of staff of the Algerian armed forces.

In his message of condolences following the death of Army Lieutenant General Ahmed Gaïd Salah, President Tebboune paid a heartfelt tribute to the courageous military leader.

“There are, among the believers, men who have been sincere in their commitment to Allah. Some of them have reached their end, and others are still waiting, and they have not changed in any way,” wrote the President of the Republic at the beginning of his message of condolence, APS reported.

“It is with deep sadness and sorrow that I learned of the death of the valiant Mu-jahid and leader Ahmed Gaïd Salah, he said.Algeria mourns one of its great men and devoted sons,” said Tebboune, adding that the deceased, “one of the State’s pillars,” served Algeria with a high sense of sacrifice and dedication by being a model for his generation, among military and civilians, and an example for future generations.”

“He was, peace be upon him, a courageous military leader, a man with a pure and generous heart, a patriot dedicated to the service of his party, clear-sighted in his management and of unequalled availability in his defence, in all circumstances,” the head of the state stressed.

A man of honour who keeps his word, late Ahmed Gaïd Salah was imbued with nationalist convictions and immutable repub-lican positions, said the President of the Republic.

He was a religious and pious man, who never varied (neither in his faith nor in his commitment),” he added.

“In the face of this tragedy, words cannot express our feelings and we can only surrender to God’s will. Farewell dear brother and great leader. Farewell Lion. You have been for Algeria a faithful protector and for the state a sincere adviser for years. Your long journey and your proven perspicacity will remain a reference for us and our successors. Congratulations for your place in Paradise among the martyrs and those whom Allah has graced with His blessings and surrounded by His eternal grace,” the Head of the State wrote in his message of condolence.

In this painful circumstance, I can only resign myself to the will of Allah,” he added to the family of the deceased.

“To all members of the family of the deceased, to his com-panions in the People’s National Army (ANP), worthy heir of the National Liberation Army and to the entire Algerian people, I address my sincere condolences, Praying to the Almighty to fill us with the courage and patience and to reward the deceased for his actions in the service of his country,” concluded President of the Republic Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

Following the death of mujaheed, Lieutenant General Ahmed Gaïd Salah, President of the Republic, Minister of National De-fence, Supreme Chief of Armed Forces Abdelmadjid Tebboune has decreed a three day national mourning and seven days for the Army.

Born on January 13, 1940 in the eastern Batna province, Gaid Salah joined the Algeria’s National Liberation Army at the age of 17 to defend his country against the French colonization. Following the independence of Algeria in 1962 after 132 years of colonization, he joined the army, attended a Soviet military academy and pursued his career in the Algerian army, moving up to the rank of major general in 1993. He commanded several regions before becoming chief of Algeria’s land forces. After the 2004 presidential election, Gaid Saleh was appointed as Algerian People’s National Army’s chief of staff.

“To God we belong and to Him we shall return”.

Iran, China, Russia joint military drill success of Iran’s defense diplomacy

1 Khanzadi then told Mehr News Agency that “the joint wargame between Iran, Russia, and China, which will hopefully be conducted next month, carries the same message to the world, that these three countries have reached a meaningful strategic point in their relations, with regard to their shared and non-shared interests, and by non-shared I mean the respect we have for one another’s national interests.”

According to Commander of Iran’s Army Major General Seyyed Abdolrahim Mousavi, this drill demonstrates the determination of countries that are seeking security in the region against those countries that are after creating insecurity, and enemies should take lessons from the drill’s messages.

The drill has political goals, as well as the exchange of tactical and military experiences and represents a kind of convergence between participants.

Noting the joint naval drill of Iran, China and Russia is of particular importance, Shekarchi said, “The Indian Ocean and the Sea of Oman are key areas of world trade, so security in this area is important and vital.”

“Iran has so far proven that it has always strived to secure international waterways, especially in this key area,” he said, adding, “The military drill will be held to enhance and strengthen the international trade security in the region.”

He went on to say, “The exchange of security experience be-tween Iran, Russia, and China, fight against terrorism and piracy are among the most important goals of the joint naval drill.”

“The security implications of this drill will be for all countries around the world and bring security stability,” Shekarchi noted.

U.S. sanctions on Germany are self-defeating

I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

S O C I E T Y DECEMBER 26, 2019

TEHRAN — Over the past six days, polluted

air in the country sent 13,931 people to hospitals and medical centers due to heart and respiratory problems, Mojtaba Khaledi, Emergency Medical Services Organization spokesman has said.

Due to air pollution and increased partic-ulate matters in provinces of Isfahan, Alborz, Tehran, Markazi, Qazvin, Qom, East Azarbai-jan, West Azarbaijan, Khuzestan, and Yazd, 13,931 people referred to hospital emergency services throughout the country, of whom 8,547 were cardiac patients and 5,384 were respiratory patients, he explained.

He went on to add that 931 people also received pre-hospital emergency services, IRNA news agency reported on Wednesday.

Tehran hit pollution record high Khaledi also stated that Tehran had the

highest number of patients as a result of pol-lution, as 6,852 citizens referred to emergency medical centers and hospitals, of whom 4,219 were suffering from cardiac problems and 2,633 from respiratory problems.

Polluted air also resulted in closure of schools and universities for five days.

Tehran air quality index (AQI) reached an unhealthy level of pollution for 57 days since the beginning of this year (March 21), according to a report published by the Tehran Air Quality Control Company.

An AQI is used to communicate to the public how polluted the air currently is or how polluted it is forecast to become.

The index categorizes conditions ac-cording to a measure of polluting matters into excellent (0-50), good (51-100), lightly polluted or unhealthy for sensitive groups

(101-150), moderately polluted (151-200), heavily polluted (201-300) and severely polluted (301-500).

Some of the air control stations in the

capital exceeded 210 level, including south-ern city of Shar-e Rey and southwestern city of Shadabad.

During the aforementioned period,

heavily polluted air haunted the capital for 4 days which was almost dangerous for all the residents.

This is while, last year over the same period 42 days were unhealthy for sensitive groups, and Tehraners did not breathe a single day of heavily polluted air.

The leading cause of air pollution in the capital is PM 2.5, PM 10 and Nitrogen Di-oxide (NO2).

Air pollution kills 5,000 Tehrani citizens annually

Some 4,000 to 5,000 Tehrani citizens die each year from direct exposure to PM emissions, and air pollution brings Iran a loss of over $2.6 billion per year, or about $2,000 a day.

Tehran’s air pollution mitigation needs $4 billion

The Municipality of Tehran prepared a comprehensive plan to mitigate air pollution in the metropolis, based on which a total budget of 174 trillion rials (nearly $4 billion) is required over the course of four years.

The plan focuses on reducing particulate matter and the concentration of PM 2.5, so it reduces primary PM sources and secondary precursors like nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

It has envisaged that primary PM sources will be reduced by 55 percent and secondary precursors by 45 percent.

The plan claims that the main reasons behind air pollution intensification in the capital is lack of clean and cheap public transport, overcrowded transport fleet, poor quality vehicles, extremely old pub-lic transportation fleet and poor urban development policies.

12Air pollution choking Iranian cities,

some 14,000 hospitalized The cafe gives food in exchange for plasticOn bad days, when his employer made some excuse for not paying him his paltry daily wage, Ram Yadav’s main meal used to be dry chapatis, with salt and raw onion for flavour. Sometimes he just went hungry. For a ragpicker like him, one of the thousands of Indians who make a living bringing in plastic waste for recycling, eating in a cafe or restaurant was the stuff of fairytales.

But last week, Yadav was sitting at a table at the Garbage Cafe in Ambikapur, in the state of Chhattisgarh, over a piping hot meal of dal, aloo gobi, poppadoms and rice. He earned the food in exchange for bringing in 1kg of plastic waste. “The hot meal I get here lasts me all day. And it feels good to sit at a table like everyone else,” he said.

Opened in October by the Ambikapur municipal corporation, the cafe is designed both to encourage awareness about the need to collect and remove plastic waste and to give a meal to anyone – ragpicker, student or civic-minded individual – who does so. The tagline? “More the waste, better the taste.”

The launch was attended by the Chhattisgarh health minister, TS Singh Deo, who emphasised that the cafe was for everyone by bringing in half a kilo of plastic himself.

“It’s become well known fast, because it’s located right by the main bus stand in the city,” said the city’s mayor, Ajay Tirkey. “We’re getting about a dozen people coming in every day. One day a whole family came in with huge sacks weighing seven kilos.”

Most Indian cities are struggling with huge amounts of un-segregated waste. There are few effective waste-management systems, and according to the country’s environment ministry the country generates approximately 25,000 tonnes of plastic waste every day – only about 14,000 tonnes of which are collected.

A modest effort to push back against single-use plastic received a boost in October, when the prime minster, Narendra Modi, used the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth to announce that India would phase out single-use plastic by 2022 (though he stopped short of a blanket ban). Later that month, during a visit to Tamil Nadu state, he went for a morning walk by the sea at Mamallapuram and ended up “plogging” on the beach.

Ambikapur is one of the cities at the front of the charge. It boasts 100% door-to-door waste collection and segregation, and was the second-cleanest in government rankings this year. It also generates about 1.2 million rupees (13,000 pounds sterling) a month selling plastic and recycled paper to private companies. The collected plastic from the Garbage Cafe will be used to construct roads – in 2015, the Ambikapur authorities built an entire road out of plastic. “It has lasted really well, even during the monsoon rains,” said Tirkey.

The cafe’s concept of bartering food for plastic waste is catching on elsewhere, too. In Siliguri, West Bengal, the alumni of a local school are distributing free food on Saturdays to anyone who de-posits half a kilo of plastic waste. At the other end of the country in Mulugu in Telangana state, the town authorities give one kilo of rice in return for one kilo of plastic. Local school children also go around collecting plastic. The district collector of Mulugu has said he wants to make his district the first in India to be free of single use plastic. The enthusiasm is proving infections: one local couple sent out wedding invitations printed on reusable cloth grocery bags.

It has now reached the capital, New Delhi, where municipal authorities plan to open several Garbage Cafes along the lines of the one in Ambikapur. About 70% of the city’s plastic waste is single use, and most of it ends up in landfills or clogging drains. It is a particular menace for hungry cows who end up rummaging through garbage bins and eating plastic. Last year, a vet in Delhi removed 70kg of plastic from a cow’s stomach.

Simar Malhotra, co-founder of Parvaah, a not-for-profit in New Delhi which campaigns against plastic, believes the Garbage Cafe is worth emulating across the country.

(Source: The Guardian)

WORDS IN THE NEWSBhopal hearings will go ahead (August 28, 2002)In 1984 thousands of people died in Bhopal, India, after a gas leak from the Union Carbide plant there. Now the court in Bhopal has rejected the Indian government’s attempt to reduce the seriousness of its own charge against a former chairman of Union Carbide. This report from Charles Haviland.The Indian government had applied to reduce its own eleven-year-old charge against the former Union Carbide Chairman Warren Anderson from “culpable homicide not amounting to murder”, to the much lesser offence of a ”rash and negligent act”. It had said this was to match charges against leaders of the company’s former Indian subsidiary, who themselves got their accusation reduced to negligence six years ago after they appealed.But rejecting the application today, the chief judicial magistrate in Bhopal said there were no grounds for reducing the charge against Warren Anderson because he had not himself delivered any appeal either to the supreme court, or to any other court. The magistrate said steps to extradite Mr Anderson from the United States should now be speeded up, and that India’s central bureau of investigation should make a statement on this at the court’s next hearings, due to begin on the seventeen of September.

Wordscharge: a formal statement that someone has done something illegalformer: a former chairman no longer has that job‹culpable homicide’ (legal term): doing something which you know could cause someone’s death‘rash and negligent act’ (legal term): doing something which you know could injure someonematch: if you match something you make it the sameaccusation: a chargeappealed: asked the court to change its decisiongrounds: reasonsextradite: send someone abroad to face a legal trialhearings: an official court meeting

(Source: BBC)

ENGLISH IN USE

DOE not convinced to transfer water from Caspian Sea Studies carried out so far has not yet convinced the Department of Environment (DOE) to transfer water from the Caspian Sea to central Iran, Parvin Farshchi, deputy director of the DOE for marine affairs has said. Over the past few years Iran has faced recurrent drought spells and low precipitation and the value of water has become more tangible, Khabaronline quoted Farshchi as saying on Saturday.She further explained that water transfer from the Caspian Sea to central Iran has been a matter of interest for some years now and in the [Iranian calendar year of] 1389 (March 2010-March 2011) various research and studies on the issue were conducted.

سازمان‌محیط‌زیست؛‌برای‌انتقال‌آب‌خزر‌مجاب‌نشده‌ایمــن فرشــچی معــاون محیــط زیســت دریایــی ســازمان حفاظــت محیــط پرویزیســت گفــت: مطالعاتــی کــه مــا را بــه انتقــال آب خــزر بــه فــات مرکــزی

مجــاب کنــد، هنــوز تکمیــل نشــده اســت.بــه گــزارش روز شــنبه خبرآنایــن پرویــن فرشــچی در خصــوص وضعیــت آبــی ــه رو ــارش روب ــود ب ــالی و کمب ــا خشک س ــن ســال ها ب ــت: طــی ای کشــور گف

ــر مطرح شــده اســت. ــذاری آب ملموس ت ــن ارزش گ ــم، بنابرای بودیــاره ــت درب ــط زیس ــت محی ــازمان حفاظ ــی س ــت دریای ــط زیس ــاون محی معمســائل مطرح شــده در خصــوص انتقــال آب خــزر بــه فــات مرکــزی گفــت: ایــن موضــوع از ســال ها پیــش مطــرح بــوده و در ســال 1389 نیــز مطالعــات

ــی در ایــن حــوزه صــورت گرفتــه اســت. گوناگون

LEARN NEWS TRANSLATION

PREFIX/SUFFIX PHRASAL VERB IDIOM“extra-, extro-”

Meaning: outside or beyond For example: Chris’s behavior that morning was

quite extraordinary.

Think back Meaning: to think about things that happened in

the past For example: Thinking back, it amazes me how we

survived on so little sleep.

Cool as a cucumber Explanation: calm and composed, especially in

times of stress For example: Practicing meditation has helped me

to be as cool as a cucumber in times of trouble.

Some 4,000 to 5,000 Tehrani citizens die each year from direct exposure to PM emissions, and air pollution brings Iran a loss of over $2.6 billion per year, or about

$2,000 a day.

S O C I E T Yd e s k

ENVIRONMENTd e s k

America’s bird populations may be fac-ing an existential crisis but there is a glimmer of hope for one endangered species at least, with a breeding pro-gram helping dramatically boost the population of the endangered Flori-da grasshopper sparrow.

Around 50 of the birds, found in the prairies of south-central Florida, were estimated to be in the wild in 2018, down from 1,000 in little more than decade. But a conservation program has, for the first time, now successfully reared 100 Florida grasshopper sparrows and released them back into their natural environment.

The sparrow has been listed as endan-gered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service since 1986 and has suffered steep declines

in its population since then.A shy, ground-nesting bird, the Florida

grasshopper sparrow has experienced a huge reduction in its habitat, with vast tracts of its preferred grassland prairie turned into pastures for cattle. Altered flooding and fire regimes have also hurt the species, as well as the spread of the red fire ant, an invasive species that can attack the birds’ eggs.

A conservation program involving federal, state and non-government part-ners has aimed to reverse this, with 100 birds released into the wild and further breeding program planned for next year. All the birds have been tagged in order to monitor the population’s progress.

The White Oak wildlife refuge, just north of Jacksonville in Florida, handled

the breeding program in what it calls a “naturalistic” way, by setting controlled fires that regenerated the prairie habitat and requiring the birds to forage for their own insects.

“We hope that this will help them to survive,” said Brandon Speeg, direc-tor of conservation at White Oak. “We won’t be able to tell until spring 2020 but we hope we will then see a lot of the birds during the breeding program then. We don’t want this going on for-ever but we hope if we do this for the next five years we can get the species out of immediate danger.”

Bird species in the US are shrouded by the threat of extinctions, with recent re-search showing that more than one in four birds have been lost in North America

since 1970. A separate study found that two-thirds of North American bird species are at risk of extinction due to the climate crisis, with rising temperatures causing havoc with suitable habitats.

“It’s clear that a lot more bird species are going to need direct human interven-tion to survive in the future,” Speeg said.

(Source: The Guardian)

Breeding program boosts endangered Florida grasshopper sparrow population

TEHRAN — A paper mill will be estab-lished in southwestern Khuzestan province

that would prevent from cutting down six million trees per year, IRNA news agency reported.

An agreement was signed in this regard on Tuesday between the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam, as the manager, and five domestic banks as the financers of the project.

A total budget of $467 million is allocated to implement the project, which will reduce imports by $285 million annually, while preventing from cutting down six million trees each year.

According to Mohammad Mokhbar, head of the Head-quarters for Executing the Order of the Imam, the paper mill will benefit from modern environmentally-friend-

ly technology and will develop the country’s technical knowledge in the field of paper making.

With the implementation of the plan, about 2,000 new direct and indirect jobs will be created in the province within three years, he said.

How many trees are cut down a day for paper?Approximately 80,000 to 160,000 trees are cut down

daily worldwide, according to data published by the Global Forest Resource Assessment, which estimates that Earth lost around 60,000 square kilometers of trees globally in one year.

Each ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees and a multitude of other resources such as oil, water, landfill space and the energy used to produce paper. World consumption of paper has grown 400 percent in the last 40 years. Now nearly 4 billion trees or 35 percent of the total trees cut around the world are used in paper industries on every continent.

Paper mill in Iran to save 6 million trees a year

India orders drawback of 7,000 troops sent to Kashmir after security review

Russia to counter Washington’s pressure on Nord Stream 2 via close cooperation with Europe

Over 7,000 troops, which were deployed to the India-controlled Kashmir ahead of the withdrawal of its semi-auton-omous status, are returning to their permanent bases due to the improved security situation.

A total of 72 companies drawn from various paramilitary branches were or-dered to return from Kashmir on Monday, Indian media has reported. Each company comprises 100 people. The decision to scale down the presence of troops in the predominantly Muslim region was made as the government in New Delhi evaluated the security situation there as safer.

The units were drawn from the Cen-tral Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Bor-der Security Force (BSF), Indo-Tibetan

Border Police (ITBP), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), and the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and were sent to the Kashmir Valley earlier this year as part of a 43,000-strong surge.

The build-up of troops was ordered as the central government feared a surge of violence after it abrogated the special status for Jammu and Kashmir in August and brought the security presence in the area over the levels seen in the 1990s. The crackdown included curfews, house arrests of local politicians, and suppression of internet and cell phone services.

This week’s withdrawal follows a smaller drawdown of 2,000 men earli-er this month.

(Source: RT)

The United States could ratchet up pressure on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, said Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Ko-zak. However, energy security is Europe’s top priority regardless of U.S. sanctions, he noted.

“We are sure that we will solve this problem and reach compromise in co-operation with European countries, with the European Union,” Kozak told Rossiya 24 Channel.

“The pressure is likely to grow, but the capacities of this pressure are not unlimited, taking into consideration the position of the key EU member states that are interested in having the necessary level of energy security,” he said.

According to Kozak, Russian gas

will be 30 percent cheaper for Eu-rope than American LNG (liquefied natural gas).

Washington introduced sanctions against Nord Stream 2 this month, claim-ing that the Russia-led project posesses a danger to European security.

The move came despite Berlin’s calls not to interfere in Germany’s “domestic affairs.” The $11-billion pipeline, which extends from Russia to Germany across the bottom of the Baltic Sea, is 93.5 per-cent complete.

A Swiss-Dutch company, Allseas, that has been laying the pipeline has withdrawn from the project this week, under pressure of U.S. sanctions.

(Source: TASS)

WORLD IN FOCUS 13I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

Aoun hopes for govt. formation in new year

President Michel Aoun spoke of his hope that Lebanon would emerge from its crisis and that the government would be formed in the new year, ahead of a Christmas Day mass at the seat of the Maronite Church in Bkirki Wednesday.

Aoun added that caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil was not respon-sible for forming the government but that he had the right to participate in its composition as he is the “leader of the largest bloc.”

“Until now, we have not discussed the formation of the government,” Aoun confirmed in a televised news conference.

His comments come after caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri launched Tuesday his harshest criticism yet of Bassil, saying he would not work again with the Free Patriotic Movement leader unless he abandons his “sectarian and racist” rhetoric.

Aoun expressed these sentiments af-ter a meeting with a private meeting with Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai.

At the Mass, Rai said in his sermon that, “peace does not coexist with hunger, un-employment, deprivation and injustice... [and] the pursuit of private interests at the expense of the common good.”

Rai expressed his support for the swift formation of a new government adding that “the prime minister-designate must be

supported, in order to form it in accordance with the challenges of Lebanon and the expectations of the Lebanese people, who have been expressing them for 70 days in [the] uprising.”

Since his designation by Aoun last week to form the next government, after gaining the support of a parliamentary majority, Prime Minister-designate Hassan Diab has pledged to form a small government made up of “independent specialists” who do not

belong to political parties. This has been a major demand of the nationwide proteste movement, since it began on Oct. 17.

Right trackMeanwhile, Prime Minister-designate

Hassan Diab Tuesday said “things are going on the right track.”

Diab’s comments came after his meeting with President Michel Aoun at the Baabda Palace.

The two were said to have discussed the

structure of the upcoming government, the number of ministers, and the people who will be heading the ministries, according to local TV channel LBCI.

The TV channel reported that the cab-inet will likely be comprised of either 18 or 24 members.

According to the report, the new minis-ters might be backed by the Amal Movement, Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Move-ment, if the Future Movement, Lebanese Forces and the Progressive Socialist Party insist on sitting in opposition to the new government.

Diab had previously promised to form a small government made up of “independent specialists” who do not belong to political parties – a major demand of the nationwide protest movement – since his designation as premier by Aoun last week, after gaining the support of a parliamentary majority.

Both Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, leader of the Amal movement, and Hezbollah officials have called for the formation of a techno-political government, with wider representation to embrace all parties.

The Future, LF and Kataeb Party blocs have told Diab they will not participate in the government. The PSP’s parliamentary bloc, which boycotted Saturday’s consul-tations with Diab to form the new cabinet, also said it would not take part.

(Source: Daily Star)

Pakistan has rejected a U.S. govern-ment move to designate the country “of particular concern” on religious freedom, with the Pakistani foreign ministry saying the label was “unilat-eral and arbitrary” and the result of a biased evaluation process.

The U.S. State Department an-nounced last week that it was re-desig-nating Pakistan a “country of particular concern” for having “having engaged in or tolerated ‘systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious violations of religious freedom’”.

Pakistan’s Foreign Office, how-ever, rejected the designation, say-ing it was a “selective targeting” of countries.

“This pronouncement is not only de-tached from ground realities of Pakistan but also raises questions about the credibility and transparency of the entire exercise,” said Foreign Office spokesperson Aisha Farooqui in a statement.

“The designation is reflective of selective targeting of countries, and thus unlikely to be helpful to the professed cause of ad-

vancing religious freedom.”Pakistan is home to roughly 207 mil-

lion people, of whom the vast majority are Muslim. About 1.6 percent of the popula-tion is Hindu, with a further 1.59 percent Christian, according to a 1998 government census.

Crimes targeting members of minority groups - including non-majority Mus-lim sects - occur sporadically, including targeted attacks against Christians, Shia Muslims, Ahmadiyya Muslims and oth-ers, and the disproportionate application

of the country’s strict blasphemy laws, which can carry a death sentence.

The U.S. designation is based on an evaluation carried out by the U.S. Com-mission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent body funded by Washington.

In its 2019 report, the USCIRF said Pa-kistan had failed to adequately protect its minorities and failed to ensure religious freedom for all, including members of the majority.

(Source: al Jazeera)

Despite claiming to fight terrorists in Syria, the Americans are gladly using them to further anti-Damascus policies and occasionally giving them a helping hand, the Syrian foreign minister told RT.

“The Americans are using ISIL (ISIS) terrorist groupas a scarecrow,” Minister Walid Muallem said in an interview with RT Arabic. “At the same time they are feeding ISIS, encourage them, protect ISIS leaders and help them move from one area to another.”

The Syrian government has long accused the U.S. of

fueling groups of foreign fighters, even those bragging of committing atrocities in Syria, as long as they were willing to fight against the forces loyal to Damascus. Washington claimed its illegal deployment of troops in Syria was aimed at destroying IS, but even after the group was declared defeated the American boots remain on the ground.

The latest public justification coming from the U.S. is that oil in northeastern Syria needs to be “secured” from the defeated jihadists. In

practice, the U.S. denies the internationally recog-nized government of Syria of using the country’s national resources.

Muallem also said the U.S. continues its attempts to topple the government he serves with various measures, including by targeting Damascus with economic sanctions. A new round of those is expected after the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) earlier this month.

(Source: RT)

Israel has reportedly halted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to annex the Jordan Valley in the wake of a decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch a probe into the regime’s war crimes in the oc-cupied Palestinian territories.

Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Tuesday that the first meeting of an inter-ministerial committee on applying the Israeli “sovereignty” over the Jordan Valley had been canceled last week, hours before it was scheduled to start.

The meeting of the panel, chaired by acting director general of the prime minister’s office Ronen Peretz, was nixed after it became clear that an ICC announcement of a full investigation into Israeli war crimes was forthcoming.

“Because of the decision of the prosecutor in The Hague, the issue of annexing the Jordan Valley will enter a deep freeze,” an unnamed source told the Israeli daily.

The inter-ministerial committee had been tasked with formulating the Tel Aviv regime’s annexation move and a Knesset bill.

On Friday, ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said a preliminary examination into war crimes, opened in 2015, had provided enough information to meet all criteria for opening an inquiry.

There was “a reasonable basis” to investigate the sit-

uation in Palestine, she said. “I am satisfied that ... war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem [al-Quds], and the Gaza Strip.”

In September, Netanyahu vowed that if re-elected, he would immediately annex the Jordan Valley, a fertile strip of land that accounts for roughly one quarter of the West Bank.

Approximately 70,000 Palestinians and some 9,500 Israeli settlers currently live in the Jordan Valley.

Israeli political commentator Barak Ravid tweeted on Saturday that Netanyahu’s West Bank annexation plan was one of the causes of the ICC investigation.

“Here is what the prosecutor wrote in article 177: ‘De-spite the clear and enduring calls that Israel cease activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory deemed contrary to international law, there is no indication that they will end. To the contrary, there are indications that they may not only continue but that Israel may seek to annex these territories,” he wrote.

The day before the ICC announcement, Netanyahu vowed to secure support from the U.S. for the annexation of the Jordan Valley and other West Bank settlements.

“The first thing we will do is to apply our sovereignty in the Jordan Valley and also in settlements, and we will do so with American recognition,” he said.

Since taking office in 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump has been showering Netanyahu with political gifts, including recognizing Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s “capital” and moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to the occupied city as well as cutting aid to the Palestinians and closing the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in Washington.

Before Israel’s general elections in April, Trump signed a decree recognizing Israeli “sovereignty” over Syria’s oc-cupied Golan Heights.

(Source: agencies)

Pakistan rejects U.S. religious freedom designation

U.S. uses ISIL as ‘scarecrow’ to intimidate others, while secretly backing them: Muallem

‘Israel freezes Jordan Valley annexation bid after ICC decision for war crimes probe’

Iraq parliament approves new electoral law

1 The rallies, however, soon turned violent -- amid reports of foreign interference – killing hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, the Parliament’s Human Rights Commission says.

Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi resigned last month amid the demonstrations, but retains the position as care-taker premier.

Political bickering at the Parliament has prevented pick-ing a replacement, though.

Also on Tuesday, hundreds of student rallied in the southern port city of Basra, blaming the ruling political parties for the delay in the nomination of a new PM, the news agency said.

On Friday, Iraq’s prominent Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for early elections in order to put an end to the political paralysis, saying that a new government had to be formed soon.

“The fastest and most peaceful way out of the current crisis, and avoiding the unknown or chaos or civil strife, is to go back to the people by holding an early election after legislating a fair electoral law,” Ayatollah Sistani said in a statement read out by his representative Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalaei during a sermon in the holy city of Karbala.

(Source: Press TV)

UK arms sales to Saudi-led coalition up by almost 50 percent: Oxfam

1 A number of Western countries — the U.S., France and Britain in particular — are accused of being complic-it in the ongoing aggression as they supply Saudi Arabia with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance.The  U.S.-based Armed  Conflict  Location  and  Event 

Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research or-ganization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past four and a half years.

The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s in-frastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN says over 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from ex-treme levels of hunger.

(Source: Press TV)

Erdogan in Tunisia for surprise talks with presidentTurkish President Tayyip Erdogan paid a surprise visit to Tunisia Wednesday to discuss cooperation for a possible ceasefire in neighboring Libya, where Ankara supports the internationally recognized government.

Erdogan, speaking at a joint news conference with Tunisia’s President Kais Saied, also reaffirmed Ankara’s willingness to send troops to Libya if it received such a request.

Erdogan’s visit to Tunis came a month after Turkey and Libya signed two separate accords, one on maritime boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean and another on security and military cooperation.

Turkey backs Fayez al-Serraj’s Government of National Accord (GNA), which has been fending off a months-long offensive by Khalifa Haftar’s forces in eastern Libya.

Erdogan, the first head of state to visit Tunis since Saied’s landslide election win in October, said the developments in Libya were having a negative impact on neighboring states, including Tunisia.

“We discussed the possible steps we can take and coop-eration opportunities with the aim of establishing ceasefire in Libya as soon as possible and returning to a political process,” Erdogan said.

In Tunisia’s hybrid political system, the prime minis-ter controls most policy areas, while the president is in charge of foreign affairs, defence and security. Tunisia’s main foreign policy interests have traditionally been in maintaining strong ties with its two much larger neighbors Algeria and Libya.

POSSIBLE TROOP DEPLOYMENTLast week, Erdogan said Turkey would not remain silent

in the face of “mercenaries” such as the Russian-backed Wagner, a group of private military contractors, support-ing Haftar’s forces in Libya. Moscow has said it is very concerned about the prospect of Turkish troops being deployed there.

On Wednesday, Erdogan reiterated that Turkey would evaluate the option of deploying troops if the GNA asked for support after signing the military agreement, and added that the Wagner group had “no connections, noth-ing” in Libya.

“Until today, we have never been unwanted guests an-ywhere, but if a call is made then we will surely evaluate it and take steps,” Erdogan said. “Serraj is the GNA’s premier. We are taking steps with him. Haftar has no such title.”

On Tuesday Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Turkey’s parliament was working on a draft bill that would allow troop deployment to Libya.

Turkey has already sent military supplies to the GNA despite a United Nations arms embargo, according to a U.N. report seen by Reuters last month. Haftar, meanwhile, has received support from Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

Turkey and Russia have been cooperating in the search for a political solution to Syria’s eight-year war, even though they back opposing sides. They also have strong ties in defence and trade.

Erdogan’s visit to Tunis comes as Turkey ramps up efforts to strike deals with nations around the Mediterranean, where Ankara has been at loggerheads with Greece over resources off the coast of the divided island of Cyprus.

Athens was outraged by the agreement signed by Turkey and the GNA last month mapping out maritime boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean.

Greece says the deal violates international law, but Turkey says it aims to protect its rights in the region and that the accord is in full compliance with maritime laws.

(Source: Reuters)

DECEMBER 26, 2019

Govt. formation on the right track: Diab

I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

W O R L D S P O R T S DECEMBER 26, 201914Vardy dilemma for Leicester as

champions-elect Liverpool lie in waitFraser-Pryce to go for sprint double at Tokyo OlympicsJamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will run in both the 100 metres and 200 metres events at the Tokyo Olympics next year.

Fraser-Pryce is a two-times Olympic 100 metres champion and she won gold at this year’s world championships in Doha.

The 32-year-old, who has four world 100m titles to her name, did not compete in the 200 at the 2016 Rio Olympics to focus on the shorter event in which she finished third despite a toe injury.

“I will be doubling up definitely,” Fraser-Pryce was quoted as saying by website insidethegames.

“Last year I really wanted to attempt the double but coach had other plans so I just worked with that plan. He knows best.”

Fraser-Pryce, who won the 200 metres gold medal at the 2013 world championships and silver at the 2012 London Olympics, said her aim was to run under 22 seconds for the first time in what will be her fourth and final Olympics.

“I am definitely looking forward to running the 200 metres, especially because I believe in my heart that I can run 21 seconds,” she added. “It’s a big passion of mine so I am working really hard towards that.”

The Tokyo Olympics runs from July 24 to Aug. 9.(Source: Reuters)

Sources: Barcelona to seek Neymar reunionBarcelona will once again step up their attempts to sign Neymar next summer, sources have told ESPN.

The Barca hierarchy believes that Neymar is the natural replacement for Lionel Messi. The club believe it will be easier to bring Neymar back to Camp Nou once Messi is gone, given that Neymar has already played there and there are not too many players at his level.

The Brazil international retains a good relationship with Barca despite his acrimonious exit to Paris Saint-Germain for a world-record €222 million fee.

Mundo Deportivo’s front page on Tuesday said Barca will attempt to sign the forward depending on his performances during the second half of the season, when PSG will look to finally win the Champions League.

Neymar has a tense relationship with the French champions, who refused to let him join Barca last summer despite the club’s best efforts.

PSG’s owners continue to make things difficult for Barca, which could go to FIFA to decide a fee, given the player has been at the club for three years and has no release clause.

(Source: Soccernet)

Emery could make Monaco move as Jardim strugglesUnai Emery has been out of work only a matter of weeks but already the former Arsenal boss is being linked with jobs - Monaco the latest.

Monaco are reportedly hunting for a new boss as Jardim’s future looks bleak with the Monegasque club, and Emery is said to be a target.

According to Le 10 Sport, Monaco officials are considering former Valencia boss Marcelino and ex-PSG and France head coach Laurent Blanc.

A third coach reported to be interesting Monaco is Emery, who was sacked by Arsenal last month after a dismal run of form with the Premier League side.

The Spaniard would bring experience of French football after his time at PSG, with Sevilla and Valencia also among his former teams.

Monaco sit seventh in Ligue 1 this term, with Jardim handed a welcome boost when his team produced a shock 5-1 win over Lille at the weekend.

(Source: AS)

Arteta announces new coaching staffAfter taking charge as Arsenal’s new head coach Mikel Arteta has announced his core coaching team. While Freddie Ljungberg continues to remain as an assistant coach, Albert Stuivenberg and Steve Round has been named as the other assistants. Inaki Cana Pavon has joined as a goalkeeping coach.

“I am delighted to have this talented group of coaches alongside me. They bring a great mix of experience and fresh thinking. Along with the talented people we have in the club already they will be key people to get us back to winning ways,” Arteta was quoted as saying on the club’s official website.

Notably, Arteta has signed a three-and-a-half-year contract by taking the reins from Ljungberg, who served as caretaker manager since Unai Emery was fired on November 29.

The 37-year-old Spaniard, who played for the Gunners from 2011-2016, has spent the last three years as an assistant to Pep Guardiola with two-time defending Premier League champions Manchester City.

Upon joining his former club, the 37-year-old expressed his excitement and said he was aware of the expectations that the fans have from him.

“I’ve been back home. I’m extremely happy and proud to have been given the opportunity to be the manager of this football club,” Arteta said.

“I’ve been preparing for a few years for this challenge to come. I know the expectations, I know the level and I know the stature of this club, and what it deserves. So I’m ready for that challenge, I can’t wait to start working with the players, and everybody here at the club. But I’ve got a good vibe, I’m sensing a good energy since I walked in at London Colney, so it’s giving me more energy and I feel so happy,” he added.

(Source: Guardian)

Sports stars around the world are celebrating Christmas in style as they enjoy a break from their hectic training and playing schedules.

Most donned snazzy festive jumpers or pyjamas or even, in the case of Dani Alves and the very excitable Patrice Evra, a full on Santa outfit.

Cristiano Ronaldo was on the beach with his family and Father Christmas too.

Arsenal star Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Everton forward Richarlison posed for family pictures and posted on their Instagram accounts as Christmas got into full swing.

Tottenham defender Jan Vertonghen and Watford’s Gerard Deulofeu, meanwhile, were dressed up to the nines as they celebrated the holiday season.

Manchester United forward Marcus Rash-ford’s Christmas was more casual as he posed with his dog Saint beneath a framed shirt in his home.

Manchester City duo Sergio Aguero and Nicolas Otamendi appeared to be enjoy-ing a Christmas Eve get together, while top marks for coordinated Christmas fashion go to Liverpool keeper Alisson and his Man City counterpart Edison.

Plenty of Premier League stars enjoyed celebrations on Christmas Eve before atten-tions returned to the day job ahead of a packed Boxing Day programme.

Many managers will ask their squads to assemble on Christmas Day for training and to travel to an away fixture.

The highlight of the Boxing Day games in the Premier League is the visit of leaders Liverpool to second-placed Leicester City. The Foxes will try and eat into the current 10-point gap between the two teams.

Chelsea are at home to Southampton, Manchester United play Newcastle United and Tottenham entertain Brighton in some of the December 26 highlights.

Sergio RamosWith his media profile at an all time high

following his Amazon docu. series, the Real Madrid captain sports a classic look with just a hint of an Andaluz Clark Gable wishing his 16.7M followers seasons greetings.

Kylian Mbappé The PSG striker opts for the classic Santa

Claus outfit in his festive social media post with a few Father Christmas emojis and a

mention to his Ligue 1 side. Simple and ef-fective from the French striker.

Chris SmallingStaying with Serie A, AS Roma’s new re-

cruit Smalling is clearly delighted to be in the Eternal City over the festive period and not preparing for a rainy Boxing Day away trip to Newcastle.

(Source: Daily Mail)

Sports stars around the world celebrate Christmas with family Instagram snaps

Valverde: If Barcelona had beaten Liverpool, we’d have won the Copa del Rey final

Kawhi Leonard: Clippers, Lakers different teams since opener

Barcelona didn’t manage to reach the Cham-pions League final last season as they were knocked out in the semi-final by Liverpool, but Ernesto Valverde believes that if the Blau-grana had progressed, they would have gone on to win the Copa del Rey.

The 55-year-old tactician also admitted that the elimination at the hands of Roma one year before psychologically affected his players at Anfield.

“Until Liverpool. we were having an incred-ible Champions League,” Valverde said in an interview for Barcelona’s official website.

“At Anfield, we had chances but they scored early on and psychologically we started wor-rying that what happened in Rome might happen again.

“There was a moment of weakness and we paid for it. It was one of the toughest mo-ments of the year.

“We must admit that the hit we took in Liverpool meant our morale was down go-ing into the Copa [del Rey] final [against Valencia].

“If we’d won against Liverpool, we’d have won the Copa [del Rey] final too.”

Valverde went on to assess Barcelona’s start in the 2019/20 season before setting the Catalans’ objectives for 2020.

“We didn’t start well, but we’ve gradually been getting better,” he added.

“We’re top of the table [in LaLiga San-tander], but there’s still a long way to go.

“This year is tighter than other years. It’s harder to win games.

“Next year, we need to be more on top of certain key moments, and we especially need to be careful not to leak two goals in a matter of minutes.

“[Our target for 2020 is] to win every game.“You are always going to need a little bit

of luck, but we’ll try to get fortune to tip our way and we’ll do everything we can to make that happen.”

Antoine Griezmann, Frenkie de Jong, Neto and Junior Firpo joined the club in summer and Valverde discussed their progress in the first months of the 2019/20 campaign.

“Antoine Griezmann is not just a goalscorer but also a hard worker,” he noted.

“He knows how to drop into midfield, and he knows the moment in which he has to help the full-back. We are very happy with him.

“Frenkie de Jong covers a lot of ground and he is playing well.

“However, he still has more to give, es-pecially inside the opponents’ box.

“Neto and Junior are performing as expected.

“When Junior has come in for Jordi Alba, he has done well, and he is [getting] more and more involved.

“As for Neto, he is always ready to come in [for Marc-Andre ter Stegen] and he is a very competitive player.”

(Source: Marca)

It will be 65 days since the Los Angeles Lakers and LA Clippers last faced each other.

And when the two teams take to the Staples Center floor again on Christmas, Kawhi Leonard expects both to look very different than they did on opening night.

“It was just the first game of the season, everybody was just trying to get in their rhythm,” Leonard said of the first meeting that the Clippers took 112-102 on Oct. 22. “I think they got [Kyle] Kuzma back playing and now we got Paul [George], so it’s gonna be two different teams.

“We’ve been through a journey ‘til Christmas. It’s a different matchup.”

The last time the Clippers and Lakers saw each other, George was in a tuxedo-like jacket on the bench. He missed all of training camp and the first 11 games as he made his way back from surgeries on his shoulders. After also not having Leonard play in a complete back-to-back all season due to his knee, and having to deal with other injuries to role players like Landry Shamet, the Clippers (22-10) are finally whole entering Christmas.

Head coach Doc Rivers said Tuesday’s Christmas Eve practice was the first one the team has had all season with a full roster available and healthy. Rivers seemed more excited about that than the highly anticipated Christmas game that all of

the city of Los Angeles and much of the NBA has waited to see.

“That’s the city,” Rivers said after Tuesday’s practice of the anticipation heading into this showdown. “We haven’t been waiting for tomorrow. We start waiting for tomorrow today. We’ve had to get through the other games, so now we can focus on the Christmas game.”

Rivers said Leonard and his team are not dealing with any distractions, including a story by The Athletic, which reported that Leonard’s uncle, Dennis Robertson, made requests during free agency when Leonard was considering the Clippers, Lakers and Toronto Raptors that made the Lakers feel uncomfortable.

Among the reported requests were a stake in ownership and a private plane.

“I don’t know. I didn’t read it, so I don’t know how reliable it is,” Leonard said when asked about the report after practice. “I don’t have no knowledge of it ... people make up stories every day.”

Rivers said the NBA routinely investigated the Clippers after their free-agent signing of Leonard to a three-year, $103 million deal.

“They investigate every year,” Rivers said. “... Every year, someone signs, there is going to be an investigation. That’s fine. The key is once you’re clear.

(Source: ESPN)

Leicester City face runaway Premier League leaders Liverpool on Boxing Day knowing their own title hopes are very much in the balance.

Thursday’s match will see the second-placed Foxes, the shock 2015/16 champions, kick off 10 points adrift of Liverpool, who will arrive in the East Midlands fresh from winning a maiden Club World Cup title following a 1-0 victory over Brazilian side Flamengo in Qatar.

One of the more remarkable statistics in English football is that it is nearly 30 years since Liverpool were last crowned domestic champions in what was then the First Division.

But Premier League silverware is now in sight following a successful 2019 that has also seen Liverpool take the Champions League and UEFA Super Cup trophies back to Anfield as well as the Club World Cup.

One of the enduring peculiarities of the English game that has not changed, however, is the packed programme of matches that take place during the Christmas and New Year holiday period.

The congested schedule is again causing headaches for managers, with Foxes boss Brendan Rodgers saying the fixture list is a “nonsense”.

Leicester kick off against Liverpool at 2000 GMT on Thursday before they play West Ham on Saturday.

‘Game about money now’ They then complete four games in 10

days with a trip to Newcastle on New Year’s

Day, before hosting Wigan in the FA Cup on January 4.

This presents Rodgers with a problem about how often to field Jamie Vardy, the league’s leading scorer so far this season, given the striker is now aged 32.

“The game is about money now. You can’t say it’s about the welfare of players,” insisted Rodgers, himself a former Liverpool manager who added that Vardy, for all he has scored 16 goals this term, had “no chance” of being involved throughout the festive period.

This season sees the Premier League ex-

perimenting with a ‘winter break’ that will see all teams get a weekend off in February.

But that pales into insignificance com-pared to the Bundesliga’s long-established winter break.

The German top-flight closes down for several weeks in December and January, with Rodgers saying the English break was a “let’s pretend” version.

Liverpool will be without Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain after the midfielder suffered an ankle injury against Flamengo as Jurgen Klopp’s side, unbeaten in the Premier League

this season, bid to go 13 points clear and all but end the title-race before by the halfway stage.

“If anyone wants to think things are over before they are over we cannot stop them doing that, though it is not important to us,” said Liverpool manager Klopp.

“As a group we are pretty good at shutting the doors all around us to keep out the noise from outside,” the German added.

Fourth-placed Chelsea, fresh from a 2-0 win away to Tottenham Hotspur marred by allegation of racist abuse, are at home to Southampton while Spurs will be without the suspended Son Heung-min for the visit of Brighton after the South Korean’s red card against the Blues.

Mikel Arteta’s reign as Arsenal manager starts away to Bournemouth, while new Everton boss Carlo Ancelotti is in charge at home to Burnley.

Newcastle, managed by former Old Trafford favorite Steve Bruce, will look to complete a league double over Manchester United with both sides presently level on 25 points and looking to break into the top six.

Sheffield United face Watford, still bottom despite last week’s win over Manchester United.

“We’re halfway through this season and we knew this season was going to be a season of some ups and downs,” said Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Meanwhile reigning champions Manchester City are away to Wolves on Friday.

(Source: AFP)

S P O R T S 15I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

S P O R T Sd e s k

S P O R T Sd e s k

Oklahoma State is in mourning over the loss of one of its greats, Rusty Hilger.

The OSU football program confirmed Tuesday that Hilger has passed away. While there was no cause of death given by the school, Hilger’s coach at OSU, Pat Jones, told Tulsa World that the former quarterback’s health had been in decline for years. News9.com in Oklahoma City noted that Hilger had battled cancer for years.

The Oklahoma City native was 57 at the time of his passing.

Hilger, who was famously given the 30th and final scholarship as part of Jones’ 1980 recruiting class, play for OSU from 1980-84. Three times (1981, 83-84), he was a letterman. In 1983, he was named MVP of the Bluebonnet Bowl. The fol-lowing year, Hilger quarterbacked the Cowboys to the first 10-win season in program history.

From the school’s press release:To this day, Hilger’s name still appears

prominently in the Oklahoma State re-cord book. He set single-season school records for pass completions, pass at-tempts and passing yards in 1984 and remains in the top 10 in school history for career pass attempts, career pass completions, career passing yards and career completion percentage, among other categories.

Hilger went on to an eight-year career in the NFL. He spent time with the Los Angeles Rams, Detroit Lions, Indianapolis Colts and Seattle Seahawks.

Hilger’s alma mater is in the midst of prepping for their Dec. 27 matchup with Texas A&M in the Texas Bowl. It’s unclear if the football program will honor Hilger in some form or fashion during the game.

(Source: NBC Sports)

Former Oklahoma State, NFL quarterback Hilger dies at 57

Korea Republic have announced a 22-man roster for the AFC U23 Championship Thailand 2020, leaving one spot open for the possibility of filling it with an European-based player.

In the running for the final spot are Lee Kang-in, who plays for Spanish club Valencia CF and midfielder Paik Seung-ho from German outfit SV Darmstadt 98.

Both Lee and Paik have played for the senior Korea Republic national team. Lee, 18, also starred for the U-20 national squad this year, leading Korea Republic to the final at the FIFA U-20 World Cup Poland 2019 and winning the Golden Ball as the tournament’s best player.

Other notable call-ups by head coach Kim Hak-bum are goalkeeper Song Bum-keun, the starting custodian for the three-time reigning K League 1 champions Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors while Lee Dong-jun, voted MVP of the

second-division K League 2 for Busan IPark, is one of 10 midfielders.

Joining Lee in midfield is Jeong Woo-yeong of German side SC Freiburg.

In Thailand, Korea Republic will face defending champions Uzbekistan, China PR and Islamic Republic of Iran in Group C.

Kim’s team will depart for Malaysia on Saturday to set up training camp there and will play practice matches against Saudi Arabia on New Year’s Eve and Australia on January 3.

Korea Republic will play their first Group C match against China PR on January 9 before taking on Iran three days later and Uzbekistan on January 15.

The top three teams from Thailand 2020 will qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

(Sources: Korea Football Associa-tion, Yonhap News Agency)

Korea Republic get set for Thailand 2020 challenge

DECEMBER 26, 2019

Manchester United target Milan Mandzukic has shocked Europe’s top clubs by swapping Juventus for Qatari league leaders Al Duhail.

Croatia striker Mandzukic, 33, has regularly been linked with Old Trafford, especially after Juve boss Maurizio Sarri snubbed him all this season.

But United’s interest is said to have waned last month and now the 2018 World Cup finalist, whose goal saw off England in the semis, has opted for what could be a big final payday in the Middle East.

United chief Ole Gunnar Solskjaer now seems likely to focus on recruiting fellow Norwegian Erling Haaland, 19, who has been in sensational scoring form for Austrians RB Salzburg forward.

Yet reports in Italy suggest Juventus are favorites to beat United in the £25 million race to sign Haaland, possibly in next month’s transfer window.

Haaland’s 22 goals in 28 club games this term include

eight Champions League strikes.But both Tuttosport and Corriere dello Sport tip Juve

to edge out United, Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig for the ex-Molde star.

Meanwhile, Mandzukic’s exit for the Italian champions appeared inevitable after he failed to start a single minute under Sarri.

He was even told to stay away from Juve’s Christmas celebrations.

It was all so different, though, under Sarri’s predecessor Massimiliano Allegri.

Mandzukic notched four Serie A titles and three Italian Cup successes, as well as netting a brilliant overhead kick when Juventus lost the 2017 Champions League final 4-1 to Real Madrid.

Overall, he represented Juve 117 times with 30 goals, having previously represented Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid.

(Source: Fox Sports)

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has said midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will miss the festive period after suffering a serious ankle injury during the FIFA Club World Cup.

Oxlade-Chamberlain was substituted in the second half of Liverpool’s 1-0 victory over Flamengo in the final on Saturday, and was seen on crutches when the team went up to lift the trophy.

“No news on anyone else, which is good,”

Klopp told a news conference to preview their top-of-the-table clash with Leicester City on Boxing Day. “With Oxlade, you have three ligaments on the ankle and one is damaged.

“I don’t know exactly [how long]. It can take a while. No chance for rest of the year that is clear. We have to see how it settles.”

Oxlade-Chamberlain will miss the crucial Premier League clashes against Leicester and Wolves before the new year.

The midfielder also missed the majority of last season with a knee ligament injury.

Liverpool will go 13 points clear with a win against second-placed Leicester but Klopp praised Brendan Rodgers’ side for their im-pressive season so far.

“Brendan has done an excellent job,” he added. “Top-class team. Exceptional quality. Leicester have the European quality but don’t play it this season.

“[Ben] Chilwell for three or four years a fantastic player. [Jonny] Evans, experienced centre-back, [Kasper] Schmeichel, [Caglar] Soyuncu, top. Highest quality with all their desire. Super footballers. Wingers, quick, creative and [Jamie] Vardy.”

Liverpool remain unbeaten in the league after 17 matches but Klopp said his team are far from perfect this season.

(Source: ESPN)

Juventus veteran Mario Mandzukic joins Qatar’s Al Duhail

Iran crowned Asian Nations Cup U14 Chess Team champions

TEHRAN – Iran claimed the title of the 2nd Asian Nations Cup U14 Chess Team Champi-

onship on Wednesday.The Iranian team defeated Hong Kong and China D in Round

Eight and won the team title.

Iran seized the title with eight wins and one lose. The competition is being held in Shenzhen City, Guangdong

Province, China from Dec. 18 to 27.

Christmas and New Year greetingsThe Asian Football Confederation wishes all its stakeholders a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

As 2019 draws near to a close, we must take time to re-flect on a spectacular 12 months for Asian football before we head into yet another exciting year.

The achievements of Asian teams on the Continental and world stages are remarkable and in line with the AFC’s Vision and Mission of being the leading Confederation and making football the Continent’s biggest sport.

As we spend time with our family members and friends, we wish everyone love, joy and peace during this festive season.

(Source: the-afc)

Iran keeps growing at FIDE rating-related statisticsThe International Chess Federation (FIDE) has analyzed the absolute numbers of rated players and the percentage of active players in different countries.

According to the FIDE December data, integrated by chess-ratings.top, the number of players with a standard rating has surpassed the 350,000 mark (352,234 people to be exact). The number of active (those who have participated in tournaments over the last 12 months) and inactive players is roughly equal.

Over the month’s time, the number of chess players in-creased by 2546, whereas within a year the sport has almost 30,000 new players (29 517). If this trend continues, then by 2024 there will be over a half-million chess players with standard FIDE rating.

The number of people having FIDE standard rating has grown in almost all countries.

Currently, there are 172848 active and 179386 inactive players with standard FIDE rating. Last year those figures were 166862 and 155855 respectively. It is worth mentioning that this year inactive players outnumbered active players.

Comparing to the last month, the list of countries with the greatest number of active players remained the same but there have been some changes inside the upper echelon. Spain tops the list with 15461 active players, followed by France (13716) and Germany (11989). The leaders by the overall number of players India (11682) and Russia (11164) round out the top 5. Iran is sixth in total number of active players with 5611.

Iran sits fifth in total number of new players over 12 months with 1600 players.

India is top with 2,689, Russia sits second with 2,372 and Spain and France are third (1,831) and fourth (1,703), re-spectively.

(Source: FIDE)

Iran to send five athletes to World Team Table Tennis ChampionshipsIRNA – Iran will dispatch five players to the 2020 World Team Table Tennis Championships in South Korea.

Nima and Noshad Alamian, Amir Hossein Hodaei, Afshin Norouzi and Arya Amiri will represent Iran in the competition.

The World Table Tennis Championships have been held since 1926, biennially since 1957. Five individual events, which include men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s dou-bles, women’s double and mixed doubles, are currently held in odd numbered years.

The World Team Table Tennis Championships, which in-clude men’s team and women’s team events, were first their own competition in 2000. The Team Championships are held in even numbered years.

The 2020 World Team Table Tennis Championships will be held in Busan, South Korea from 22 to 29 March 2020.

Iran end year as Asian top team at Futsal World RankingTasnim – The Iranian national futsal team ended the year as the Asian top-ranked team in the latest Futsal World Ranking.

Iran is the best Asian team and sixth in the world with 1603 points.

Brazil and Spain are first and second with 1839 and 1787 points, respectively.

Russia remains third with 1654 points.Portugal and Argentina are fourth and fifth in the table

with 1645 and 1644 points, respectively.Team Melli prepare for the 2020 AFC Futsal Championship,

where the Persians have been drawn along with South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Thailand in Group D.

TEHRAN – Persepolis coach

Gabriel Calderon has said he is disappointed with the club’s behavior, fueling speculation that he is set to leave the team.

He has already said Persepolis have failed to pay him on time and had demanded them to meet the deadline.

The fans are worried Calderon leave their team in a row over his payment.

Persepolis will face the same fate as Esteghlal if the Argentine coach leaves the team.

Andrea Stramaccioni left Esteghlal in early December after only six months in the job, since the Iranian club were unable to handle problems related to payments “partially due to sanctions”.

Persepolis will host Nassaji on Friday in Tehran’s Azadi Stadium and Calderon and his assistants will leave Tehran on Saturday for vacation and if Persepolis fail to make payments at the correct time, they will not return to Iran.

Persepolis have won Iran Professional League over the past three years and are favorites to win the title for the fourth time in row.

The Reds also are favorites to defend their titles at the Iran’s Hazfi Cup.

Persepolis will have to compete at the AFC Champions League from February and it shows they have a busy timetable.

The Iranian giants will face in such a chaotic situation if Calderon quit.

Local reports suggest that some Persepolis stars are reluctant to work with Argentine coach, however he

has good relationship with the team’s players.

Gabriel Calderon on the verge of leaving Persepolis

Oxlade-Chamberlain ruled out with ankle ligament damage

No. 18, Bimeh Alley, Nejatollahi St., Tehran, IranP.o. Box: 14155-4843

Zip Code: 1599814713

Tehrantimes79 Tehrantimesdaily

Prayer Times Noon:12:05 Evening: 17:17 Dawn: 5:43 (tomorrow) Sunrise: 7:13 (tomorrow) DECEMBER 26, 2019

Managing Director: Mohammad Shojaeian Editor-in-Chief: Mohammad Ghaderi

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C U L T U R Ed e s k

GUIDE TO SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

One who delays getting his right is not blameworthy, but he who robs another of his right and wins a bad name is to be blamed.

Imam Ali (AS)

Iran’s “Stain” tops at Italian festival Iranian, Pakistani cultural centers sign MOU

TEHRAN — The Cultural Center of Iran

in Lahore and the Institute for Art and Culture (IAC) in the Pakistani city have signed a memorandum of understating (MOU).

The MOU was inked by Cultural Center of Iran director Ali-Akbar Rezaifar and IAC Vice Chancellor Sajida Haider Vandal, Iran’s Islamic Culture and Relations Organization (ICRO) announced on Wednesday.

In her short speech, Haider Vandal said

that the MOU will provide the opportunity to boost bilateral cooperation between the two centers.

“Iran enjoys a rich culture and we can introduce it to our younger generation to help build bilateral relations and friendship,” she said.

For his part Rezaifar also said that the MOU will help expand bilateral relations and provide the opportunity to introduce the culture of the two countries.

TEHRAN — Iranian director Shoresh

Vakili’s movie “The Stain” won first prize at the 4th edition of the Solidando Film Festival in Italy.

The film is about an ex-soldier who works in a movie theater. He tries to remove a blood stain that appears on screen every time a war film is played, but the more he fights with the stain, the bigger it gets until it drips onto the

floor and leaves a puddle.Another Iranian short “Flying Fishes”

by Mohammad Torivarian also received an honorable mention at the festival of social short films, which was held in Cagliari from December 20 to 22.

The film is about a new teacher in a village, who finds out the only girl in his class has a cigarette burn on her hand. He tries to understand what happened to the girl but the girl doesn’t speak.

A scene from “The Stain” by Iranian director Shoresh Vakili. IAC Vice Chancellor Sajida Haider Vandal (R) and Cultural Center of Iran director Ali-Akbar Rezaifar pose after signing an MOU at IAC in Lahore. (ICRO)

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TEHRAN — Director Siavash Sarmadi is

making his debut feature film “Owj 110” about the late commander-in-chief of the Iran Air Force, Mansur Sattari.

The film is being co-produced by the Owj Arts and Media Organization, a Tehran-based institution that produces revolutionary works in art and cinema,

and the Islamic Republic of Iran Army, the organization announced on Wednesday.

Sattari was one of the main Iranian commanders during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. He was killed in a plane crash near Isfahan in 1995.

At the time, Sattari and his colleagues were working on the project “Owj 110”,

which Iran initiated to make its first jet strike fighter, Azarakhsh.

Jalil Shabani is the producer of the film and Sarmadi himself is the writer of the screenplay.

The film is scheduled to have its premiere during the 38th Fajr Film Festival, which will be held in Tehran from February 1 to 11.

Iran Air Force commander Mansur Sattari subject of debut film

TEHRAN — Veteran calligrapher Jalil Rasuli

has created three calligraphy works on Hazrat Fatima (SA), the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad (S).

He unveiled the three masterpieces during a meeting with Tehran City Council member Ahmad Masjed-Jamei and several cultural figures at his home on Tuesday.

Rasuli said that he usually unveils his new works during exhibitions, but, due to the theme of the artworks, he organized a uniquely special ceremony to unveil them.

“These three have been created differently from my other works, I believe they are sacred,” he said.

He also said that the nature of calligraphy forces one to be a real human being, and added, “I have never created a single artwork that I don’t believe in.”

Masjed-Jamei also said, “The art of calligraphy has a deep connection with religion, and the numerous inscriptions from the Holy Quran proves this.”

He added that Iran stands on the peak of the art of calligraphy, and many calligraphers want to publish their works in Iran.

“Jalili has been active in the field of calligraphy for 55 years, and anytime we need a calligraphy work for international events we refer to Jalili,” he added.

“His hands are decorated with literature, Quran and wisdom,” he stated.

Austrian composer Eric Spitzer-Marlyn lauds Iran’s Cinéma Vérité1 He said that he was satisfied with his workshops and the

enthusiasm of the young Iranian documentarians. “When I arrived in Iran, I was really surprised, considering

the recent unrest in the country, that the organizers could hold such a big event in a short time and that is an amazing job,” said Spitzer-Marlyn who also attended the festival in 2018 for the first time.

He said that he prefers to watch the documentaries that festivals select to screen in their national competition because the films in the section in each country give him real insight into the documentary cinema of that country.

“I can see the movies in the international section all over the world, but the national section can give me a view of the documentary situation in the country,” he added.

However, the lack of subtitles for the entries to the national sections of the festival poses some problems for him.

“Iranian documentaries are good in their stories, however, they have more or less technical issues,” he said and noted, “I always believe that a powerful story can make a good documentary rather than professional equipment.”

Spitzer-Marlyn praised Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Sahrai for his film “Arghavan” that is about a blind Iranian musician who tries to immigrate to Austria, but she fails to get a visa for the country.

“As I come from Vienna and I know the people and atmosphere there, I think the girl was lucky she was refused the entry visa. She is a successful musician in her home, and it is better for her to stay here and continue her profession,” he said.

During his brief stay in Tehran, Spitzer-Marlyn donated his old Nagra III tape recorder to the Film Museum of Iran.

“It was a great pleasure. There was an empty place at the museum that could be filled perfectly with my device. It will remain there where it belongs,” he said.

The Documentary and Experimental Film Center is the organizer of the Cinéma Vérité festival, which is held annually in Tehran during December.

Iranian translator to discuss Iran-Croatia cultural relations

TEHRAN — Ebtehaj Navaey, a Zagreb-based Iranian translator of Croatian

literature, is scheduled to discuss cultural ties between Iran and Croatia during a session that will be held at the Honare Farda Institute today.

The session, which will commence at 9 a.m., is part of the Thursday Mornings of Bokhara, a literary meeting that is organized by the Bokhara literary magazine every Thursday, Bokhara announced in a press release on Wednesday.

Navaey is a dentist whose Dr. Navaey’s Orthodontics practice is among the leading medical institutions in Croatia.

However, he has rendered numerous literary books by Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian writers into Persian. He is a member of the Croatian Association of Literature Translators.

His book “Be a Pearl, Be a Pearl!” (“Budi biser, biser budi!”), an anthology of Persian poetry from the 10th century to the present, won first prize in the Persian Literature Studies category at the 28th Tehran International Book Fair in 2015.

His translation of Croatian Ambassador Drago Stambuk’s poem collection “Damavand Beyond the Sea” (“Damavand, s onu stranu mora”) has recently been published in Persian.

Navaey has also rendered over 20 Iranian movies into Croatian, which all have broadcast by Croatian TV.

Zagreb-based Iranian translator of Croatian literature Ebtehaj Navaey in an undated photo.

K-Pop fans brave Seoul’s Christmas chill to buy BTS ‘merch’

Paris Opera ballerinas, who retire at 42, kick up a fuss over Macron pension plansPARIS (Reuters) — Ballerinas in white tutus danced scenes from Swan Lake on the forecourt of the Paris Opera on Tuesday to protest against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to scrap their special pension benefits.

Backed by musicians from the Paris Symphony Orchestra, the dancers performed their impromptu 20-minute rendition before hundreds of onlookers. Behind them were banners reading “Culture in danger.”

Paris Opera dancers have a bespoke pension plan dating back to the 17th century. It includes the right to retire on a full pension at the age of 42, two decades earlier than the average worker.

They stand to lose those benefits if Macron pushes ahead with a planned overhaul of a convoluted pension system that he says will be fairer, incentives workers to stay in the labor force until 64 and balance the pension budget.

“We start classical dance at the age of 8. By our late teenage years, we’re getting recurring injuries,” said ballerina Heloise Jocqueviel. “Once you reach the age of 42, you’re already suffering from arthritis, stress fractures, hernias and in some cases titanium hips.

“It’s hard to maintain a level of excellence until 42, but 64 seems impossible.”

The dancers have been on strike alongside other public sector workers,

including performers from the state-run Comedie Francaise, since Dec. 5. Dozens of shows have been canceled.

The strikes have caused travel chaos, forced schools to close and prompted refinery shut downs. Macron and his government refuse to back down but will resume negotiations with trade unions in early January.

The Paris Opera house said it had lost nearly 8 million euros in ticket sales.

“It’s important to defend the quality of the Paris Opera,” said Jacques Peigne, the father of one opera house ballerina. “It’s obvious they are not able to dance any older than 42.”

SEOUL (Reuters) — In the early hours of a freezing Christmas Eve, 62-year-old Lee Myeong-sook queues up in Seoul’s ritzy Gangnam area for a chance to buy a t-shirt, or maybe even a toothbrush, branded with the logo of K-Pop boyband BTS.

The rest of the district is all but deserted, but a huge line of fans of all ages and nationalities is building up around her outside the pop-up shop “House of BTS”, dedicated to the seven-piece behind “Boy With Luv” and other hits.

K-Pop management agencies, including BTS’ Big Hit Entertainment, have been expanding their retail operations to capitalize on a merchandising boom - this is the band’s first outlet in Seoul with others popping up as far afield as Mexico.

“I want to buy some cushions, dolls, badges, things like that today, and notebooks to give to my friends,” said Lee, who waited in line with her 35-year-old daughter.

Branded jackets sell for 299,000 won ($257) alongside socks, sleep masks and other merchandise linked to the band which has spearheaded a wave of Korean pop music and become the first group since the Beatles to have three number one albums in the United States in less than a year.

Analysts say demand for the gear is growing as the popularity of K-Pop bands spreads beyond the domestic market across

other parts of Asia and into the West.Japanese fans outside the store told

Reuters they had flown in because the Gangnam store “had more stuff” than the three BTS stores in their own country. About 1,500 fans or more visited the store during a single day last week.

“I’m hoping to buy whatever I can,” said Rebecca Mould, 25, originally from the U.S. city of Boston, a BTS fan for about two years on her first visit to the store. “I already have a lot, so whatever else there is...”

Big Hit - an unlisted company with investments from South Korea’s STIC Investments and China’s Legend Capital - has launched an app called Weply to sell “merch” to fans worldwide.

It has also partnered with Line Friends, an affiliate of South Korea’s top internet firm Naver, to sell goods linked to the “BT21” animated characters designed by members of BTS.

Calligrapher Jalil Rasuli (R) and Tehran City Council member Ahmad Masjed-Jamei unveil his artwork on Hazrat Fatima (SA) at his home on December 24, 2019. (IRNA/Asghar Khamseh).

Calligrapher Jalil Rasuli creates works on Hazrat Fatima (SA)

Late Commander-in-Chief of Iran Air Force Mansur Sattari in an undated photo.

A view shows the Palais Garnier opera house with a banner that reads ‘’Paris opera on strike’’ after 20 days of strike against pension reform plans in Paris, France, December 24, 2019. (Reuters/Gonzalo Fuentes)