124 15 16Iranian films win awards at Jaipur festival

Persepolis remains top of Iran Professional League table

Shahsavan nomads, inhabitants of green pastures in northwestern Iran

Iran to receive 2 other Airbus jetliners by Mar. 20

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

By Javad Heirannia

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CondolencesDear Mr. Parviz Esmaeili,Director of the presidential press office We offer our deepest condolences over the passing of your most cherished father. May his soul rest in peace.Tehran Times management and staff

Turkey, Russia sign agreement on coordinating airstrikes in SyriaRussian and Turkish military officials have agreed to coordinate aerial at-tacks against the positions of for-eign-sponsored militant groups in Syria, and signed a memorandum on combat flight safety during missions in Syrian airspace.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that the agreement, reached in Moscow during a Thursday meeting, specifies a course of action to avoid inci-dents during flights over Syrian airspace.

“The memorandum establishes mechanisms of coordination and in-teraction between Russian and Turkish aircraft during airstrikes against terror-ist targets, as well as measures aimed at preventing flight incidents involving aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles in Syrian airspace,” the statement read.

Russia has been bombing the Is-lamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh) and al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (Front for the Conquest of the Levant) formerly known as the al-Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) ter-rorist groups in Syria at the official request of President Bashar al-Assad since September 30, 2015.

On August 24, the Turkish air force and special ground forces kicked off Operation Euphrates Shield inside Syr-ia in a declared bid to support the Free Syrian Army militants and rid the bor-der area of ISIL terrorists and fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG/Yekîneyên Parastina Gel) and Democratic Union Party (PYD/Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat).

The offensive was launched in co-ordination with the United States-led military coalition, which has purportedly been fighting ISIL terrorists since 2014.

(Source: Press TV)

Asia’s smallest economies among fastest growing: World BankAsia’s smallest economies are growing faster than giants like China, according to the World Bank.

Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar will post the most rapid expansions in Asia after India from 2017 to 2019, sustain-ing growth rates of close to 7 percent, according to forecasts released this week. Among the least developed countries, the combined size of the three economies is less than $100 bil-lion, about a third of neighbors like Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines.

Located in the Mekong region, Southeast Asia’s frontier nations are stepping up their infrastructure drive to boost growth and diversify their economies as they seek to shed their image as the region’s backwater.

Vietnam — which has transformed its economy from a mainly farming one to an exporter of electronic goods like smartphones — stands as their role model, said Eugenia Victorino, an economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group in Singapore.

“The promise of transforming the Mekong into a manufacturing hub has a lot of potential,” Victorina said. “Vietnam provides the template for an export-led growth from agricultural. We have seen Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia trying to imitate Vietnam’s model of luring FDI to prop up their export capacity.”

They’re counting on China, which is investing in everything from railroads to real estate in the three countries.

After decades of military rule, My-anmar is liberalizing its economy and adopting market reforms after a tran-sition to democracy. China is its largest trading partner and is building a spe-cial economic zone, power plant and deep-water seaport on the west coast.

In Laos, a long-delayed $5.7 billion railway from China through northern Laos officially began last month, the Global Construction Review report-ed. Cambodia has gained particular appeal for Chinese manufacturers seeking to relocate, which aligns with China’s strategy to export industrial capacity through initiatives such as its One Belt, One Road program.

(Source: Bloomberg)

Rouhani says closer Iran-

Turkey co-op serves Mideast

TEHRAN — Irani-an President Hassan

Rouhani said on Thursday that it is es-sential for Iran and Turkey to expand ties in line with effort to serve the long term interests of the Middle East re-gion.

“ I hope we would be able to eradicate terror ism through co-operat ion between the I ranian and Turk ish governments in or-der to help the regional people fee l more peace,” he sa id in a phone conversat ion wi th Turk-ish Pres ident Recep Tayy ip Er-dogan.

Rouhani added, “The Islamic Re-public of Iran is satisfied with closer cooperation among Ankara, Tehran and Moscow to establish peace in the region.”

He said efforts should be expedited to guard the truce which took effect in Syria on December 30.

Pointing to the upcoming talks in Astana on the Syrian crisis, Rouhani said, “It is our objective to fight all the terrorist groups in the region.”

“I hope we would witness a relative stability in Syria and the region through cooperation between Iran and Turkey,” the president noted.

He called the terrorist groups a “common enemy” of the regional countries. 2

16 Pages Price 10,000 Rials 38th year No.12742 Saturday JANUARY 14, 2017JANUARY 14, 2017 Dey 25, 1395 Rabi’ Al Thani 15, 1438

Iran says U.S. can’t renegotiate nuclear deal

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TEHRAN — Professor Kevin Richards, chair of Liberal Arts Department at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, tells the Tehran Times that the specialized branches of phi-losophy in the West emerged out of post-Re-naissance culture, although the model for such specialization can be traced to Antiquity.

Following is the text of interview with Rich-ards:

What is the importance of specialized branches of the philosophy?

A: The specialized branches of philosophy in the West emerged out of post-Renaissance culture, although the model for such speciali-zation can be traced to Antiquity. It represents a movement towards specialization that will reach its apotheosis with modernity. In this pro-cess, philosophy offers a realm to reflect on oth-er fields, such as science, history, and religion,

while also considering particular specialized concerns like language or ethics. In this fashion, it offers a mode of questioning that considers the impact of these fields and their connection to the larger development of humanity. The growth of these specialized fields, at the same time, may be seen within the larger devel-opment of specialization across fields within modernization. The principles of industrial-ization come to mark all areas of society, in-cluding academia. Just as activities for work-ers within a factory became more and more specialized, focusing on one task, so too has philosophy and other fields of academic study in the West become hyper-specialized over the past three centuries. If Kant could write about earthquakes, aesthetics, mathe-matics, and astronomy, while later develop-ing the foundational blocks of German tran-scendental idealism, today the typical scope

of a philosopher remains relatively limited, though there are famous exceptions.

For instance, Jacques Derrida wrote on a range of subjects that were outside the field of philosophy, such as architecture, art, and the law, while also maintaining a very spe-cialized focus on questions arising from phe-nomenology. At the same time, one of the questions that Derrida’s work raises concerns the authority that philosophy seeks to claim by having something to say about other fields. That is to say, the different special-ized branches of philosophy, while providing a space for ethical reflection, perhaps, also provide a space to rule over other disciplines. Derrida’s own work questioned that authority, reversing the power relations at stake within the specialized fields of philosophy, while also questioning any form of monolithic authority that marginalizes difference. 1 3

A Hungarian camerawoman who caused global outrage after being filmed kicking and tripping up refugees near the country’s bor-der with Serbia has been sentenced to three years’ probation for disorderly conduct.

Petra Laszlo, who appeared via video link at a court in the southern city of Szeged on Thursday, mounted a tearful defense and said she would appeal.

“It was all over within two seconds,” she said, adding she was acting out of panic and felt under attack. “Everybody was shouting, it was very frightening.”

The incident, which occurred in Septem-ber 2015, went viral after footage of her ac-tions was uploaded to Facebook.

The court was shown a frame-by-frame examination of her actions which included de-

livering a roundhouse-style kick to two people, including a young girl, as they fled from police.

Later, she tripped a 52-year-old Syrian ref-ugee carrying a child.

Laszlo, who had earlier said she would sue one of the refugees she tripped, was fired from her job at N1TV, a private right-wing tel-evision station in Hungary.

(Source: agencies)

Governments should immediately suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia: HRWThe House of Saud regime led coali-tion violated the laws of war with im-punity in 2016, Human Rights Watch said in its World Report 2017. Con-cerned governments should seek ac-countability for past and ongoing vio-lations and immediately suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi Arabia-led coalition has carried out military operations, sup-ported by the United States and Brit-ain, against Yemen since March 2015. The coalition has unlawfully attacked homes, markets, hospitals, schools, ci-vilian businesses, and mosques. As of October 10, 2016, at least 4,125 civil-ians had been killed and 6,711 wound-ed, the majority by coalition airstrikes, according to the United Nations hu-man rights office.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Chil-dren’s Fund (UNICEF) says nearly 1,400 children have been killed in the ongoing deadly Saudi campaign against Yemen.

Meritxell Relano, UNICEF’s represent-ative in Yemen, said on Wednesday that hundreds more had been injured and many schools closed since March 2015, when the House of Saud regime launch-es its aggression on Yemen.

“Attacks on civilian areas continue to kill and injure scores of children in Yemen,” Relano said, adding, “Instead of learning, children are witnessing death, war and destruction.” 1 3

Members of a cast of 40 thespi-ans act in the last performance of “The Seven Adventures of Rustam” opera at Honar Hall in the central Iranian city of Isfahan on Jan. 12, 2017. The opera was staged by di-rector/writer Arshia Shafieiun for two weeks.

“The Seven Adventures of Rustam” (The Haft Khan-e Ros-tam) is the title of one of two fa-mous episodes in Persian poet Fer-dowsi’s Shahnameh.

The story recounts Rustam’s endeavors to liberate the Kayanid king Kay Kavus from the bonds of Deeve Sefid (White Demon).

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Specialized branches of philosophy emerged out of post-Renaissance culture: professor

Camerawoman Petra Laszlo sentenced for kicking refugees

Fajr music festival lit up with Fajr music festival lit up with performances by foreign artists performances by foreign artists

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TEHRAN — Iranian Deputy Foreign Min-

ister Hossein Jaberi Ansari met with his Russian counterpart on Friday to confer on the latest developments regarding the Syrian crisis and the war on terrorism.

Jaberi Ansari arrived in Moscow earlier in the day to meet with Mikhail Bogdanov, the Russian deputy foreign minister and President Putin’s top en-voy for the Middle East, Mehr news agency reported.

The Syrian crisis, war on terrorism, plans for talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, and the recent developments in the Middle East were among topics on which the two deputy foreign ministers exchanged views.

This is while the Syrian government and the opposition are due to hold bilat-eral talks, brokered by Russia and Turkey, on the political settlement of the Syrian conflict in Astana on January 23.

This follows a trilateral meeting of the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia, and Turkey in Moscow on December 20, which led to a nationwide ceasefire between the Syrian government and opposition forces on January 1.

Jaberi Ansari and Bogdanov had al-ready met each other both in Tehran and Moscow and discussed the poli-cies of their countries over the issues of war on terror, political solution for the Syrian conflict, and the recent develop-ments in Iraq, Libya, and Yemen.

Iran, Russia discuss Syria, war on terror

TEHRAN — A Rus-sian diplomatic

source has said that Russia is work-ing closely with Iran, Turkey and the UN to urgently restore the vital wa-ter supply to Damascus after it was cut off last month.

“Russian diplomats raised the issue with the UN on Thursday, saying some 5.5 million of people in Damascus were on the verge of humanitarian crisis due to what rad-icals did in the Damascus suburb of Wadi Barada,” the informed source told Sputnik on Friday.

Water supplies from Wadi Barada and Ain al-Fija springs in northwest of Damascus which serve 70 percent of

the city’s population were cut off late December.

“This problem needs to be urgently resolved to restore water supply to Da-mascus. Russia is closely working with Turkey, Iran and the UN,” the Russian source added.

The UN warned weeks ago that four million people in Damascus have been deprived of safe drinking water sup-plies after springs outside the city were targeted.

UN’s Special Envoy for Syria Staf-fan de Mistura has warned that the issue could be crucial for the up-coming Syrian talks in Astana, Ka-zakhstan, which will be held on Jan-uary 23.

‘Russia, Iran, Turkey working to restore water supply to Damascus’

TEHRAN — Just a week away from Pres-

ident-elect Donald Trump to take office, Iran is increasingly toughening rhetoric against the U.S. for a possible dishon-oring of the 2015 international nuclear deal, saying it won’t allow reigniting the debate.

“The BARJAM (Persian acronym for the deal) dossier won’t reopen, and we won’t allow this to happen,” Majid Takhtravanchi, top nuclear negotiator and deputy foreign minister for European and American affairs, was quoted as say-ing on Friday.

“And this is the stance of all signatories to the deal.”

Also, Kamal Kharrazi, director of Iran's Strategic Council on Foreign Re-lations who was Iran’s foreign minister from 1997 to 2008, on Friday highlighted the international dimension of the deal, which cannot be reviewed.

Iran and six world powers - the U.S., China, Russia, France, England, and Ger-many - finalized the nuclear deal in July 2015, removing sanctions against Iran in exchange for it pursuing a limited nuclear

program. The remarks come after U.S. Secre-

tary of State nominee Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday that he feels there should be a "full review” of the nuclear deal and “any number of side agreements that are part of that agreement.”

Tillerson was speaking in his Senate confirmation hearing.

Tillerson is not the first one to emerge hostile to the nuclear deal with some already characterizing Trump’s election as a death knell for the historic international pact.

At his stump speeches, Trump lam-basted the nuclear deal time and again, calling it a "disaster" and "the worst deal ever negotiated.”

He also raised the prospect of pulling out of the deal as U.S. president.

This is while other cabinet nominees have been picking words more cautiously vis-à-vis the deal.

In a break from the pattern, U.S. Defense Secretary nominee James Mattis said on Thursday he backed Washington keeping its side of the bargain although it’s not a deal he

“would have signed.""But when America gives her word, we

have to live up to it and work with our allies."

The antagonistic tone on the deal runs counter to outgoing President Barack Obama who has kept hailing the nuclear deal a signature foreign policy legacy.

JANUARY 14, 2017JANUARY 14, 2017

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

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TEHRAN — An official with the Atomic Energy

Organization of Iran on Thursday implic-itly accused Beijing of fishing in troubled waters by demanding too high a price for redesigning the Arak nuclear reactor.

“Our understanding is that the price proposed by the Chinese is high as com-pared to international standards,” said Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the organization.

The very political nature of the issue has whet appetite of the Chinese for a more lucrative deal, the official specu-lated.

“Perhaps, the Chinese side thinks the issue is not utterly economic and has a political dimension, too.”

Kamalvandi said the two sides have been in talks over the issue to reach a consensus, and the Chinese side has

shown some flexibility though “still insuf-ficient.”

Having said that, the price gap cannot delay the redesigning pro-ject expected to take one year, as much of the work is done by Iranian technicians, Kamalvandi added.

The Chinese side will mainly review the rede-signing and all costs will be calculated on the basis of a docu-ment, he further ex-

plained. “We are working until the last moment to reduce the price.”

The fate of the Arak heavy water reactor was a key stick-ing point in nearly two years of negotiations between Iran and six world powers that led to the

July 2015 nuclear agree-ment.

Under the docu-ment, the reactor will be redesigned and rebuilt in the form of an international

partnership so as to allow for “peace-ful nuclear research” and “radioisotope production for medical and industrial purposes.”

The redesigned reactor also will not produce weapon grade plutonium.

The redesigning process was agreed upon in a separate document on Nov. 13, 17 and 18 by the foreign ministers of Iran and the P5+1.

Iran will act as project manager, ac-cording to the document, while China "will participate in the redesign and the construction of the modernized reactor" and the United States "will provide tech-nical support and review of the modern-ized reactor design".

France, the United Kingdom and Germany will participate in design re-view and Russia will provide consulta-tive services.

1 The talks on the settlement of the Syrian crisis will begin in Astana, Kazakhstan, on January 23.

Erdogan said that the terrorist groups in the region should be countered through joint cooperation.

Iran and Turkey should boost cooperation in

fighting terrorism and alleviating tension in the re-gion, Erdogan said.

He added that Turkey is determined to expand rela-tions with Iran in various areas.

Elsewhere, the Turkish president extended condo-

lences over death of Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsan-jani.

Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, chairman of the Ex-pediency Council and former president of Iran, passed away at the age of 82 on Sunday.

Iran: China acting opportunistically, asking too much for reactor redesign

Rouhani says closer Iran-Turkey co-op serves Mideast

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TEHRAN — Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rya-

bkov has said the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly called the nu-clear deal, has opened a new page in Iran’s relations with other countries, YJC reported on Friday.

Speaking in a meeting with Iranian Ambas-sador to Russia Mehdi Sanaie, Ryabkov also touched on the 6th JCPOA joint commission meeting in Vienna on Tuesday, saying, “Russia actively took part in the event and stressed ne-cessity of fulfilling commitments based on the JCPOA by all sides.”

JCPOA turns new page in Iran’s ties with the world: Russia

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

TEHRAN — The Moderation and Development Party will back

Hassan Rouhani, if any, in the upcoming presiden-tial election, a party member has said.

Mahmoud Vaezi, who currently acts as Rouhani’s minister of ICT, said his party invites all Iranians for a huge turnout in the election, Tasnim reported on Friday.

The presidential election is scheduled to be held on May 19 this year. Rouhani is widely expected to run for a second term.

Moderation and Development Party to back Rouhani

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

Tehran not to call off Hajj this year: official

TEHRAN — Iran has not made any decision to call off the Hajj

pilgrimage this year if Saudi Arabia accepts Iran’s conditions, said the Supreme Leader’s representa-tive in Hajj and pilgrimage affairs.

Ali Ghazi Askar said on Friday that an Iranian delegation will be dispatched to Saudi Arabia on February 23 to discuss the issue. “If our country’s conditions are accepted and the dignity of Iranian pilgrims is preserved, this year the Hajj ritual will be held.”

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

‘Rafsanjani sought govt.-Majlis coordination with Leader’

TEHRAN — During the last session of the Expediency

Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani stressed that the government and Majlis should coordi-nate their actions with the Leader, the council’s secretary said on Friday.

Speaking before the Tehran Friday sermons, Mohsen Rezaee also said after the end of his presidency in 1997, Rafsanjani cooperated with Supreme Leader in the capacity of a consultant for 20 years until death took him away, IRIB reported.

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Cleric: Rafsanjani funeral a show of national solidarity

TEHRAN — The interim Friday prayer leader of Tehran has

said that the funeral of the late Ayatollah Ak-bar Hashemi Rafsanjani was a show of national solidarity.

Elsewhere in his sermon, Ayatollah Moham-mad Emami Kashani blasted arrogant pow-ers, specially the U.S., for sponsoring terrorist groups in the Middle East, Fars news agency reported.

Ayatollah Emami Kashani said, “The global ar-rogance is seeking to create violence in the Middle East as a way to disintegrate Syria and Iraq.”

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

U.S. following scenario of decep-tion: ex-minister

TEHRAN — A former Irani-an foreign minister has said the

United States follows a scenario of deception, not-ing, “At such time we should decide what serves our national interests.”

“America’s enmity against Iran since the begin-ning up to now has been based on a roadmap,” Manouchehr Mottaki said on Thursday.

“To counter America, we should have plans and roadmaps.... Americans always look for their illegal interests and will not leave this re-gion alone.”

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

Iran says U.S. can’t renegotiate nuclear deal

the price gap esigning pro- one year, as one by Iranianndi

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Kamalvandi says the Chinese side is demanding too much for redesigning the Arak nuclear

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nuclear deal, particularly Iran.

d have signed."t when America gives her word, we

to live up to it and work with our

e antagonistic tone on the deal counter to outgoing President k Obama who has kept hailing uclear deal a signature foreign legacy.

TEHRAN — Mohammad Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, the former Ku-

waiti foreign minister, said on Thursday that Iran and the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council should hold talks on crises in the Middle East region.

He said that the consultations should be “real”, “constructive” and based on respecting the coun-

tries’ territorial integrity and in line with internation-al regulations.

Commenting on regional developments, he said the influence of the U.S., Britain and France in the region has been reduced and instead the status of Iran, Turkey and Russia has been strengthened.

He also said that the international community has not

been able to help settle the crises in countries like Syria and Libya.

The [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council is a regional intergovernmental political and economic union consist-ing of all Arab states of the Persian Gulf, except for Iraq. Its members are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Ex-Kuwaiti FM calls for Iran-PGCC talks

Majid Takhtravanchi, deputy foreign minister for European and American affairs

Takhtravanchi says Iran won’t allow the nuclear deal being renegotiated by any

signatories to it.

Obama administration ends special immigration policy for CubansThe United States outgoing President Barack Obama’s ad-ministration on Thursday repealed a measure granting auto-matic residency to virtually every Cuban who arrived in the United States, whether or not they had visas, ending a long-standing exception to U.S. immigration policy.

The end of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which allowed any Cuban who reached U.S. soil to stay but returned any picked up at sea, is effective immediately. Cuban officials had sought the change for years.

The shift had been in the works for months. It was an-nounced abruptly because advance warning might have in-spired thousands more people to take to the seas between the Communist-ruled island and Florida in order to beat a deadline.

The United States and Cuba spent several months nego-tiating the change, including an agreement from Cuba to allow those turned away from the United States to return.

“With this change we will continue to welcome Cubans as we welcome immigrants from other nations, consistent with our laws,” Obama said in a statement.

The Department of Homeland Security also ended a pa-role program that allowed entry for Cuban medical profes-sionals. That program was unpopular with Havana because it prompted doctors to leave, sapping the country's pool of trained health workers.

The U.S. Coast Guard intercepts thousands of Cubans attempting the 90-mile (145-km) crossing to Florida every year, but tens of thousands who reach U.S. soil, including via Mexico, have been allowed to stay in the country, while im-migrants from other nations have been rounded up and sent home.

Cuba welcomed the policy changes, saying they would benefit the whole region by discouraging people-trafficking and dangerous journeys that led to bottlenecks of Cubans in Central America last year.

“Today, a detonator of im-migration crises is eliminated. The United States achieves le-gal, secure and ordered migra-tion from Cuba,” said Josefina Vidal, the Cuban foreign min-istry's chief for U.S. affairs.

El Salvador's foreign minis-try also welcomed the move, saying “there cannot be mi-grants of different categories.” Honduras, from where thou-sands flee each year without the attraction of favorable U.S. immigration policies, said it would wait to see if the flow of Cubans actually reduced.

Anticipating the end of the policy, Cuban immigration has surged since the 2014 normali-zation, said Ben Rhodes, Oba-ma's deputy national security adviser.

“People were motivated to migrate,” Rhodes told report-ers on a call, noting some 40,000 Cubans arrived in 2015 and about 54,000 in 2016.

The administration had rejected Cuban entreaties to over-turn the policy before Obama's historic visit to the island last year, although even some White House aides argued that it was outmoded given efforts to regularize relations between the former Cold War foes.

“Wet foot, dry foot” began in 1995 under President Bill Clinton after an exodus of tens of thousands of Cubans who were picked up at sea by the Coast Guard as they tried to reach Florida.

Obama has been working to normalize relations with Cuba since he and President Raul Castro announced a breakthrough in diplomatic relations in December 2014. His administration has eased restrictions on travel and trade, al-lowing more U.S. business with Cuba and improved commu-nications with the island.

The move to end the policy comes just eight days be-fore the Democratic president turns the White House over to Republican Donald Trump, who has said the United States should get more concessions from Havana in exchange for improved relations.

U.S. immigration policy has given Cubans benefits grant-ed to nationals from no other country. Until now, virtually every Cuban who made it to U.S. soil was granted the right to stay in the country, the right to apply for work permits and, later, green cards, which convey lawful permanent residency.

Jeh Johnson, secretary of Homeland Security, said on a call that Cuba will take back citizens as long as less than four years have passed between the time the migrant left Cuba and the start of the U.S. deportation proceedings.

Under the agreement Cuba will take back some 2,700 people who left the island among 125,000 others during the Mariel boat lift of 1980, fulfilling an agreement made in 1984 to take back 2,746 people who the United States did not grant citizenship to, mainly people with criminal convictions.

(Source: Reuters)

JANUARY 14, 2017JANUARY 14, 2017 INTERNATIONALI N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

Thousands of demonstrators are expect-ed to turn out in Washington next week for protests aiming to “shut down” the in-auguration of Donald Trump as the next United States president, organizers said on Thursday.

Protesters will attempt to close down 12 security checkpoints at the U.S. Cap-itol, where Trump will take the oath of office on Jan. 20, and along the 2.5-mile (4-km) parade route down Pennsylvania Avenue, according to leaders of a group called DisruptJ20.

“We want to shut down the inaugu-ration,” organizer David Thurston told a news conference. “We want to see a seething rebellion develop in this city and across the country.”

A representative of the Trump tran-sition team could not be immediate-ly reached for comment, nor could a spokesman for the District of Columbia police.

After a deeply polarizing campaign, Trump's surprise victory in the Nov. 8 election has inflamed passions across the political spectrum.

The Republican president-elect's supporters embrace his brash, no-non-sense style and image as an astute prob-lem-solver. His detractors are dismayed by what they see as an authoritarian bent and an array of provocative policy pro-nouncements.

DisruptJ20, which is working with

Black Lives Matter and other protest groups, said it also planned predawn blockades and disruptive demon-strations during inaugural balls in the evening.

Some 300 DisruptJ20 volunteers will work to mobilize demonstrators for a se-ries of protests the group has dubbed the “Festival of Resistance.”

“We are not in favor of a peaceful transition of power, and we need to stop it,” organizer Legba Carrefour said.

The group has three protest permits

and “promises other surprises,” said spokeswoman Samantha Miller.

All told, 27 protest groups have been granted permits, more than four times the average number for past inaugu-rations, according to the National Park Service.

The Women's March, on the day after the inauguration, is expected to attract 200,000 people, said the park service, which issues permits.

Tight securityThe inauguration is expected to draw

800,000 spectators, according to officials. That compares with some 1.8 million at-tending Barack Obama's 2009 inaugu-ration as America's first black president, one of the largest crowds ever to gather in the U.S. capital for such an event.

Protest organizers said they were concerned with the potential for violent clashes with Trump supporters.

“We are definitely worried about our safety, so we'll be training to help keep people safe,” Miller said.

The group will have to navigate tight security provided by three dozen law en-forcement agencies, including the Cap-itol Police, FBI (Federal Bureau of Inves-tigation), Secret Service, National Park Service and National Guard.

Security will include more than 3,200 police officers from departments across the country, 8,000 members of the Na-tional Guard and an additional 5,000 ac-tive-duty military members.

Security costs have exceeded $100 million, officials said.

Last week, interim D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham told reporters that au-thorities were ready for any attempt to disrupt the festivities.

“The fact that you have some folks that are indicating on social media that they're coming to shut down the inaugu-ration events is something that we will be prepared for,” Newsham said.

(Source: Reuters)

Protests will aim to disrupt Trump inauguration: organizers

Iraqi forces have entered the Mosul University compound in a key advance against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh) terrorist group in the northern city, the Takfiri terrorist group’s last stronghold in the country.

On Friday, Iraqi Special Forces fought their way into the university’s compound and liberated a number of its build-ings, Iraq’s al-Sumariah television network reported.

The university has served as a base to the terrorists, who have reportedly been using its laboratory to pro-duce chemical weapons.

In another development, Iraq’s Elite Counter-Terror-ism Service (CTS) units liberated Freedom Bridge, the second one running across Tigris River in Mosul, raising the national flag over the structure.

Al-Sumariah, meanwhile, said ISIL had planned to blow up the bridges to slow the troops’ advances.

Iraqi forces also cleansed the Office of the Provincial Governor of Nineveh Province, of which Mosul is the capital, as well as two other government buildings in the province’s Mosul District of terrorist presence.

Abdul-Amir Yar-Allah, the head of the Nineveh oper-ations, further announced the liberation of the buildings housing the province’s Agriculture, Development Plan-ning and Government Properties Authorities.

Iraqi sources, also said the al-Sadriah neighborhood on the western bank of Tigirs had been restored to govern-

ment control.Sources said as many as 90 ISIL elements had been

killed and two of their vehicles destroyed during coun-terterrorism operation on the river ’s eastern bank.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says the country would need three months to vanquish the outfit, which has suffered unprecedented losses since unleashing its campaign of terror against the nation in 2014.

16,000 Iraqi civilians killed in 2016Meanwhile, a research group says violence left 16,361

civilians dead last year in Iraq, which has been hit by a campaign of death and destruction perpetrated by Tak-firi ISIL terrorists over the past few years.

In a report released on Thursday, the London-based Iraqi

Body Count said that an average of more than 1,300 civilians lost their lives due to violence in the country every month.

It further said that the worst affected areas were the northern province of Nineveh and the capital city of Bagh-dad, with 7,431 and 3,714 Iraqi civilians killed, respectively.

The most deadly bomb attack took place at a very crowded market in Baghdad’s Karrada neighborhood on July 3, 2016. ISIL claimed responsibility for the incident, which killed 324 people, including women and children.

The second fatal bomb blast also struck at a petrol sta-tion and restaurant in the Shomali village in the suburbs of the city of al-Hilla on November 24, 2016. It targeted buses carrying Shia pilgrims returning from Arba’een mourning rituals in the holy city of Karbala. The explosion, which was claimed by ISIL, killed up to 100 civilians, among them na-tionals from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Over the past months, Iraq has been rocked by a wave of terrorist bomb attacks.

The ISIL terrorists have recently increased their acts of violence across Iraq in revenge for the blows they have been suffering at the hands of Iraqi forces, particularly in the northern city of Mosul. ISIL began its campaign of terror in northern and western Iraq in 2014.

Iraqi army soldiers and allied fighters are leading mili-tary operations to win back militant-held regions.

(Source: agencies)

Iraq forces enter Mosul University, seize Tigris bridge

The United States President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the Pentagon put Russia at the top of a list of threats to the U.S. interests on Thursday and told Con-gress that America must be ready to confront Moscow where necessary, even as he backed Trump's bid for bet-ter relations.

The remarks by retired Marine General James Mattis were the latest by one of Trump's Cabinet picks that veered away from the president-elect's campaign rhetoric, which included praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin and pledges to improve ties with him.

Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson on Wednesday also expressed views at odds with Trump on key foreign policy issues like nuclear proliferation, trade deals, climate change and relations with Mexico.

Mattis said Russia, China and Islamist militants were pre-senting the biggest challenge to the U.S.-led world order since World War Two, and called for Congress to lift spend-ing caps undermining military readiness.

“I'm all for engagement but we also have to recognize reality in what Russia is up to,” Mattis said, adding there were a “decreasing number of areas” where the United States might cooperate with Moscow.

Asked about the main threats to U.S. interests, Mattis said: “I would consider the principle threats to start with Russia.”

Mattis said he wanted to meet with the new Trump national security team to “craft a strategy to confront Russia for what it's done,” when questioned about the possibility of new U.S. sanctions.

Due to enter the White House in eight days, Trump on Wednesday acknowledged that Russia likely hacked the Democratic National Committee and emails of top Democrats during the 2016 presi-dential election campaign, a conclusion reached by U.S. spy agencies.

Mattis cited Russian involvement in hacking and informa-tion warfare among the challenges posed by Moscow. Others include treaty violations, destabilizing activities abroad and “alarming messages from Moscow regarding the use of nu-clear weapons.”

Strong backing for NATOHe also accused Russia of trying to undermine NATO

(North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Unlike Trump, who appeared to question the alliance during his campaign, Mattis strongly embraced it -- calling NATO central to America's defense.

“We recognize that he (Putin) is trying to break the North Atlantic alliance,” Mattis said.

Senator John McCain, the Republican chairman of the committee, said he “could not be happier” about Mattis' nomination. He warned sternly against optimism about engaging with Putin.

“Putin wants to be our enemy. He needs us as his enemy. He will never be our partner,” McCain exclaimed.

Mattis also singled out China for its activities in the South China Sea, where it has been building man-made islands with anti-aircraft and anti-missile batteries.

Together with Russian activities and the threats of Is-lamist extremists, Mattis said China was part of mounting assault on global stability, and the relationship with Beijing needed to be carefully managed.

“I think it (the world order) is under the biggest at-tack since World War Two, sir, and that is from Russia, from terrorist groups, and with what China is doing in the South China Sea,” he said.

Mattis railed against defense spending caps imposed

by Congress and, when pressed, said he did not believe the U.S. military was strong enough to properly deter potential adversaries.

Mattis, who retired from the military in 2013, is technically ineligible for the job since he has not been a civilian for at least seven years. That means Congress would need to grant him a waiver, something it has not done since 1950, but appears inclined to do now.

After Mattis' testimony, the waiver cleared its first hurdle in Congress when the Senate Armed Services Committee approved it. The full Senate later backed the waiver by an overwhelming 81-17 vote, reflecting the strong support Mattis enjoys in Congress.

Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he expected bipartisan support for Mattis would help him overcome limited opposition.

Mattis, 66, has tried to persuade Trump privately against the use of waterboarding, which simulates drowning, as an interrogation tactic. Top U.S. officials, many lawmakers and hu-man rights groups have denounced waterboarding as torture.

Trump's pick for CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) director took a similar line during his confirmation hearing on Thursday, saying he would stand firm if necessary against Trump on the issue of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.

Cabinet picks contradict Trump stands on some issues

Meantime, the lack of fireworks surrounding Senate consideration of Trump's Cabinet picks may reflect a host of statements his choices have made contradicting positions the billionaire businessman has taken on is-sues ranging from Russia and NATO to Muslims, climate change and nuclear weapons.

Trump acknowledged the differences early on Friday, posting a message on his Twitter account saying: “All my Cabinet nominee are looking good and doing a great job. I want them to be themselves and express their own thoughts, not mine!”

This week's confirmation hearings produced an odd political chemistry where, for instance, one of the harshest examinations of a Trump Cabinet choice came from one of Trump's fellow Republicans, presidential campaign rival Sen. Marco Rubio. 13

Trump’s Pentagon choice: U.S. needs to be ready to confront RussiaCabinet picks contradict Trump stands on some issues

“Today, a detonator of immigration crises is eliminated. The United States achieves legal, secure and ordered migration from Cuba,” said Josefina Vidal, the Cuban foreign ministry’s chief for U.S. affairs.

4I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

E C O N O M Y JANUARY 14, JANUARY 14, 20172017

TEHRAN — Iranian Transport Minister Ab-

bas Akhoundi announced that by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2017) two Airbus A330 jets will be de-livered to the Islamic Republic of Iran, IRIB news reported on Friday.

Making the remarks on the sidelines of an airport ceremony for the delivery of Iran Air A321 jet on Thursday, Akhoundi also added that Iran will receive nine Air-bus 321 and 330 planes during the next Iranian year.

ATR deal to be finalized soonThe minister additionally informed that

Iran Air, Iran’s flag carrier airline, is also ex-pected to seal an order for 20 turboprops from European manufacturer ATR, a joint venture of Airbus and Finmeccanica of Italy, soon.

Akhoundi said that renovation of Iran Air fleet has begun adding that according to the contracts with world major plane mak-ers, Iran Air is to receive 200 new planes,

of which 100 will be purchased from Airbus and 80 from Boeing.

The first of 100 Airbus planes that Iran purchased following its nuclear deal with

world powers arrived in Tehran on Thurs-day.

The Iran Air A321 jet touched down af-ter a flight from Toulouse, France, where the headquarters of the European consor-tium are located. The 189-seat plane is the first of 100 purchased under a December deal worth $18 billion.

Iran is hoping to rapidly upgrade its fleet now that sanctions have been lifted under the 2015 nuclear accord, in which Tehran pledged to curb its nuclear pro-gram.

The election of Donald Trump, howev-er, has cast doubt over the future of the deal. He repeatedly criticized the nuclear agreement on the campaign trail but has not said what he plans to do about it once in office.

The Boeing deal is Iran’s biggest with an American company since the 1979 rev-olution and U.S. embassy takeover. It calls for 50 Boeing 737s and 30 Boeing 777s to be delivered over the next decade.

ECONOMYd e s k

ECONOMYd e s k

Iran to receive 2 other Airbus jetliners by Mar. 20

Boeing Co. won an order for 205 planes from SpiceJet Ltd., marking the biggest expan-sion plan by the Indian budget carrier that is seeking to claw back market share from leader IndiGo.

The deal, which includes 100 firm 737 Max 8 jets, builds on an existing order for 55 aircraft, SpiceJet said in a statement Friday. The airline also has the option to buy 50 more, including widebodies. All combined, the order is worth $22 billion at list prices, the airline said, before discounts that are customary for large orders.

Morgan Stanley (MS.N) laid off a number of senior in-vestment bankers last week and cut bonuses by roughly 15 percent because of a decline in revenue from deal-making and capital raising across Wall Street, people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Individual bankers were awarded different amounts depending on performance and geographic region, though many received a smaller paycheck for 2016, said the sources, who were not authorized to discuss com-pensation publicly.

Morgan Stanley, which ranked fourth for investment banking fees last year, cut more than 20 managing direc-tors from its investment banking division globally, rep-resenting about 5 percent of the total, the sources said.

Amazon.com Inc said it will create more than 100,000 jobs in the United States, from software de-velopment to warehouse work, in its latest move to win over shoppers by investing in faster delivery.

The world’s largest online retailer will grow its full-time U.S. workforce by more than 50 percent to over 280,000 in the next 18 months, it said in a press release.

Amazon is spending heavily on new warehouses so it can stock goods closer to customers and fulfill orders quickly and cheaply. The new hires, from Florida to Tex-as and California, will be key to the company’s promise of two-day shipping to members of its Amazon Prime shopping club, which has given it an edge over rivals.N

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Boeing wins $22b plane order from India’s SpiceJet

Morgan Stanley cuts bankers, bonuses as deals, IPOs stall

Amazon to add more than 100k jobs in U.S. hiring spree

Iran, Malaysia to hold joint economic committee meeting in near future

TEHRAN — The eighth Iran-Malaysia Joint Economic Committee meeting will be held

in near future to further expand economic cooperation, IRNA quoted Iran’s Ambassador to Malaysia, Marzieh Afkham as saying on Friday.

Mentioning the seminar of “Trade with Iran” which was held on Thursday in the Southeast Asian country, Afkham expressed hope that such events would promote exports and also boost foreign investment in the country.

According to the official, both countries are willing to boost bilateral economic ties in post-sanctions era.

Earlier in October, Iranian Communications and Informa-tion Technology Minister Mahmoud Vaezi, who is also the co-chairman of Iran-Malaysia Joint Economic Committee, said that it is expected that the value of trade between the two countries will increase five-fold over the next two years.

In a meeting with Mustapa Mohamed, Malaysia’s minister of international trade and industry who is also Iran-Malaysia Joint Economic Committee’s new co-chairman, Vaezi said bi-lateral trade relations were very good but fell short due to the unjust sanctions over the past years.

The Italian company Nature SRL and the Iranian com-pany UPRO have set up a joint venture under the name UPRO NATURE. The goal of the joint venture is to grow products that comply with the quality standards of Euro-pean target markets. It aims to meet these standards by combining Iranian resources with Italian modern tech-nology.

A key part of UPRO NATURE’s strategy is sustainabil-ity. The company wants to supply products with a min-imum amount of pesticides and fertilizers as well as to grow these products with a minimum of impact on the environment.

By 2020, the UPRO NATURE aims to be at the top of agricultural sector of the Middle East. The company wants to change this sector into a modern industry, as well as boost the volume of non-oil exports in the Mid-dle East.

The joint venture came about when UPRO sent a car-go of pomegranates to Nature SRL in Italy. This led to a business relationship, which in turn led to a visit of UPRO to the Italian headquarters of Nature SRL.

Impressed with the level of technology, UPRO struck up an agreement for bilateral cooperation with Nature

SRL. Nature SRL provides the necessary know-how for UPRO NATURE. The Italian company is responsible for providing machinery, methods for greenhouse planting and the irrigation system that is exclusive to Nature SRL. All staff members are trained in using all this technology. UPRO on the other hand provides farm lands, facilities and labour resources.

According to Sam Nouhi of UPRO NATURE, Iran is considered as one of the most strategic and richest countries in the field of agriculture. However, Iranian production and export has been set back by years of imposed sanctions. “One of the benefits of this joint ven-ture is that it eases Iranian exports to a market that is set by European standards. It also allows for job opportuni-ties, economic prosperity, and optimal use of Iran’s rich resources.

Moreover, it helps in the reduction of production costs. As for Nature SRL, the joint venture allows for a workforce that is cheaper compared to Europe. It also al-lows access to Iran as a strategic trade node from which the company can access new markets,” says Nouhi.

In the next five years, UPRO NATURE wants to cre-ate an acreage in Iran of at least 5,000 hectares. The

technology provided by Nature SGL should provide the company with a competitive edge over other Iranian growers. It is also set to make use of the MEYRO trade mark. The main product the company will be working with is pomegranates and any processed products that are based on pomegranates, like frozen arils, pome-granate juice and pomegranate vinegar. In the future, the company would like to expand to other products like other fresh fruits, dried vegetables or pistachios

(Source: freshplaza.com)

European and U.S. stocks looked to end a sluggish week on a high note on Friday, while the dollar was on track for its biggest weekly fall in two months and U.S. bond yields eyed their longest run of weekly de-clines since July.

Investors largely shrugged off figures that showed Chinese exports fell the most last year since 2009, and will look to earnings reports from U.S. banks JP Morgan Chase (JPM.N), Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC.N) and Wells Fargo (WFC.N) later in the day for direction.

“The banking sector will be the major focus,” said Naeem Aslam, chief market ana-lyst at Think Markets UK. “With rising interest rates and hopes of more friendly regulation, the shares of these banks have a lot of up-side in the coming days.”

Bank stocks led the charge in Europe-an trading, rising 1 percent .SX7P to lift the FTSEuroFirst 300 .FTEU3 0.5 percent. The broader index was still down slightly on the week though, its first weekly fall in six.

Shares in Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCHA.MI) rose 6 percent, recouping some of the previous session’s 16 percent slump triggered by the U.S. Environmental Protec-tion Agency’s (EPA) accusations that the car maker illegally masked excess diesel emis-sions.

Germany’s DAX .GDAXI was up 0.5 per-cent and Britain’s FTSE 100 .FTSE rose 0.4 percent, on course for its 12th record high close and 14th consecutive daily gain.

U.S. futures pointed to a slightly higher open on Wall Street ESc1. Thursday’s slip into the red marked yet another failed attempt to lift the Dow Jones through the magical 20,000 points barrier .DJI.

Wall Street was chilled by president-elect Donald Trump’s failure to address economic policy plans at his first news conference since winning the Nov. 8 election, and growing fears that his proposed protectionist trade policies will choke global trade.

Chinese trade data on Friday poured oil onto those flames. December exports fell by 6.1 percent from a year earlier, meaning the overall fall in exports last year was the big-gest since the depths of the crisis in 2009.

As the world’s largest trading nation, China could come under pressure from pro-tectionist measures this year if Trump follows through on his campaign pledges to brand it a currency manipulator and impose heavy tariffs on the country’s imports.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific

shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS slipped 0.1 percent, after rising to its highest levels since late October in the previous session. It was up 1.8 percent for the week.

Japan’s Nikkei stock index .N225 finished up 0.8 percent, though it still ended the week down 0.9 percent.

Bond yield retracementThe symbiotic dance between the dollar

and U.S. Treasury bond yields held firm on Friday. Both headed lower to end a week in which has seen the dollar fall almost 1 per-cent and yields extend their longest down-turn since last summer.

The 10-year yield US10YT=RR was flat at 2.36 percent, recovering from a six-week low hit on Thursday. But it’s down more than 5 basis points on the week and around 30 bps since the Federal Reserve raised interest rates in mid-December.

The dollar wallowed around five-week lows against a currency basket .DXY at 101.29, and down 0.9 percent for the week.

The euro rose 0.2 percent to $1.0635, well above last week’s 14-year low of $1.0340 EUR= and poised to gain 0.9 percent for the week, while the dollar was steady against the yen at 114.75 yen JPY=.

The dollar index had scaled 14-year peaks this month, on speculation that Trump’s pol-icies would spur growth and inflation, and prompt the Fed to raise interest rates at a faster pace than previously expected.

But doubts have crept in.“Bond markets continue to retrace from

the yield highs set in the middle of last month,” RBC Capital markets rates strategists wrote in a note to clients on Friday.

“The latest move (is) seen as a typical ‘buy-the-rumor-sell-the-fact’ reaction as Donald Trump’s pre-inauguration press con-ference proved to be a disappointment in terms of forthcoming growth boosting pol-icies,” they said.

The overnight rise in crude oil prices, bol-stered by the weaker dollar as well as news that Saudi Arabia has cut oil output to its lowest in almost two years and plans further reductions, fizzled out in early European trading.

Brent crude LCOc1 was down 0.1 percent at $55.95 a barrel, while U.S. crude CLc1 was also down 0.1 percent at $52.97.

Spot gold XAU= held steady at $1,195.87 an ounce, as investors locked in gains on its overnight surge to seven-week highs above $1,200.

(Source: Reuters)

Iran, Italy set up joint venture to grow agricultural products

Here’s Trump’s gift to Mario Draghi

If investors continue to buy the dollar on the back of electoral promises by Donald Trump and a strengthening U.S. economy, that will be felt also in Frankfurt.

That’s according to Taha Saei, an economist at Oxford Eco-nomics, who argues that ECB President Mario Draghi and his fel-low policy makers may be underestimating how fast inflation will rebound after the euro’s latest declines.

In a new study, Saei examines a scenario where euro-area price growth averages 2 percent as soon as the second quarter of this year, and hovers around this level over the medium term.

Saei’s analysis is in sharp contrast with the ECB’s own projec-tions, which foresee inflation accelerating only to an average of 1.7 percent by 2019 -- “not really” in line with the central bank’s goal of just under 2 percent, as Draghi himself admitted last month. The inflation rate for the 19-nation euro area rose to 1.1 percent in December.

The Oxford Economics study begs to differ, arguing that as the euro weakens -- potentially reaching parity with the U.S. dollar -- that will have a stronger impact on domestic inflation than the ECB calculates, and it won’t be just a one-off effect. There are three reasons for this, Saei writes.

First, consumers buy more imported goods and services than they used to, in fact nine percentage points more than they did in 2009. Second, exporters to the euro area become more willing to adapt prices to that higher local demand. And as the euro’s share as an invoicing currency has decreased, exchange rates simply matter more now.

“Underestimating the significance of the exchange rate pass through will provide the hawkish members on the governing council with ammunition to force a discussion on tapering, earlier than expected as inflation creeps above staff projections,’’ he says.

(Source: Bloomberg)

Bleak trend of low, part-time wages in UK is revealedMen on low pay are four times more likely to be working part-time than in the 1990s, according to a survey that illus-trates the trend for low hours and wages to go together.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said 20 years ago only one in 20 men aged 25 to 55 worked part-time with low hourly wages. Today one in five of this group works part-time.

Meanwhile the proportion of middle and high–wage men working part-time remains low at less than 1 in 20, which the thinktank said showed that earnings inequality among men had risen significantly over a single generation.

Jonathan Cribb, an IFS economist, said: “The number of low-wage men working part time has increased sharply over the past 20 years. To understand the drivers of inequality in the UK it is vital to understand the growing association be-tween low hourly wages and low hours of work among men.”

Anti-poverty campaigners are expected to use the figures to show how men with low skills and in areas of the country with few jobs are among the worst hit by the loss of well-paid full-time employment.

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has called for rules to close the gap between the highest and lowest paid as a way to tackle the soaring salaries and bonuses of company bosses.

But recent figures have shown the inequality gap getting smaller after incomes among the top fifth of earners slid while low earners continued to make progress.

The Office for National Statistics said median disposable in-come for the poorest fifth of households had risen by 5.1 per-cent in the year to April 2016 while the richest fifth of house-holds saw their incomes fall by £1,000 over the same period.

However, much of the gap was closed by a significant rise in pensioner incomes driven by higher state pension pay-ments and generous payouts from occupational schemes, not a rise in earnings by low-paid workers.

Benefits for the low paid, which until recently kept pace with inflation, have also influenced the income gap. Succes-sive governments used tax credits and housing benefit to close the growing income deficit faced by low-paid house-holds, though austerity cuts in recent years have reversed the trend.

Chris Belfield, an IFS economist, said: “In the past 20 years, the incomes of the top 1% have pulled further away from the rest. But across the vast majority of the population income inequality has actually fallen.

(Source: The Guardian)

Global stocks up on U.S. bank hopes, dollar and yields slip

By Alessandro Speciale

JANUARY 14, JANUARY 14, 20172017 5I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

E N E R G Y

India’s annual oil imports from Iran surged to a record high in 2016 as some refin-ers resumed purchases after the lifting of sanctions against Tehran, according to ship tracking data and a report compiled by Thomson Reuters Oil Research and Fore-casts.

The sharp increase propelled Iran into fourth place among India’s suppliers in 2016, up from seventh position in 2015. It used to be India›s second-biggest supplier before sanctions.

For the year, the world’s third biggest oil consumer bought about 473,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil from Iran to feed ex-panding refining capacity, up from 208,300 bpd in 2015, the data showed.

In December, imports from Iran trebled from a year earlier to about 546,600 bpd.

In 2015 refiners slowed purchases due to sanctions which choked payment routes, insurance and halved Iran’s exports.

Indian refiners Reliance Industries, Hin-dustan Petroleum, Bharat Petroleum and HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd (HMEL) last year resumed imports from Tehran, attracted by the discount offered by Iran.

“In most of 2016 there was a fight among Persian Gulf producers to increase their market share and lifting of sanctions against Iran has intensified that fight,” said Ehsan ul

Haq, senior analyst at London-based con-sultancy KBC Energy Economics.

In April-December, the first nine months of this fiscal year, Iranian supplies to India averaged a record 530,300 bpd, up from about 400,000 bpd before sanctions tight-ened against Tehran.

India’s 2016 Iranian oil imports were the highest in at least six years, according to the Reuters data.

Government data going back over a longer period shows the average was the highest since the 2001-02 fiscal year.

Overall, India imported 4.3 million bpd oil in 2016, up 7.4 percent from the previ-ous year.

Middle East jumpRising imports from Iran and Iraq lift-

ed the Middle Eastern share in India’s crude diet to 64 percent in 2016, revers-

ing a decline in recent years, partly due to rising prices for Atlantic Basin oil tied to Brent.

The average premium for Brent jumped against Dubai crude to more than $3 a bar-rel in 2016 from around $1.80 in 2015.

“In 2016 Iran ramped up its output to regain market share while Iraq segregated its production into Basra Light and Heavy to attract customers. Basra Heavy was sold at a discount, making it more attractive than rival grades,” said Haq.

Iran’s share of Indian oil imports surged to 11 percent in 2016 from five percent in 2015.

Saudi Arabia remained the top suppli-er to India last year followed by Iraq and Venezuela.

Imports from Latin America declined for a second year, with its share of imports shrinking to about 16 percent from 18 per-cent, while Africa’s share fell to about 15 percent from a fifth.

“Low oil prices brought down produc-tion in Latin America while Nigerian barrels were impacted by violence in the Niger Delta. Also falling U.S. oil output impacted trade flows, with some Latin American and African oil finding a place in the U.S.,” Haq said.

(Source: Reuters)

Oil prices inched up on Friday, supported by reports on details of OPEC output cuts, al-though lingering doubts over producer com-pliance with supply reduction targets weighed on the market.

Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil prices, were trading at $56.04 per barrel at 0632 GMT (1.32 a.m. ET), up three cents from their last close.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were also up three cents at $53.04 per barrel.

Record Chinese crude imports of 8.56 million barrels per day (bpd) in December helped buoy prices, traders said, with ship-

ments expected to continue rising in 2017.However, exports of Chinese refined oil

products last month rose nearly 25 percent on a year earlier to a record 5.35 million tons, well above November’s previous record of 4.85 million tons, in a sign that refiners are producing too much for even fuel-thirsty Chi-na to absorb.

On the supply side, markets were bol-stered by comments from top crude exporter Saudi Arabia which said that its output had fallen below 10 million bpd, to levels last seen in early 2015.

That would mean that the kingdom has cut production by more than the 486,000

bpd it agreed to under a deal to stem a fall in oil prices.

However, hard evidence of export re-ductions has yet to emerge two weeks into January, when the cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other producers like Russia were supposed to start.

“The direction of prices will depend greatly on producer compliance with pledged sup-ply cuts made in 2016,” said French bank BNP Paribas.

“Any slip in the market’s confidence that producers will follow through on their prom-ises may lead to sharp price corrections,” it

added.BNP said that it expected WTI prices to

average $56 per barrel in 2017, up $7 from its previous forecast, and Brent to average $58 per barrel, up $8 from its earlier estimate.

The U.S. Energy Information Administra-tion said in its January outlook that it forecasts Brent and WTI to average $53 per barrel and $52 per barrel respectively in 2017.

Even if OPEC cuts its output as agreed, traders said that rising U.S. shale output and increasing supply from OPEC members Ni-geria and Libya, which were exempt from the pact, might offset any reductions.

(Source: Reuters)

Saudi oil output drops under OPEC quota close to two-year low Saudi Arabia has reduced oil production to less than 10 mil-lion barrels a day, below its targeted level, and will consider renewing its pledge to cut crude output in six months, Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said.

The world’s biggest oil exporter is currently producing at a 22-month low. It had agreed to cut 486,000 barrels a day to 10.058 million barrels a day as part of a global deal to reduce output to curb a supply glut. The caps on production, together with rising demand and natural decreases in output in some countries, will help balance the market and support prices, Al-Falih said in a speech at an energy conference in Abu Dhabi.

“Oil production now is below 10 million so far,” he told reporters later on Thursday. “So, we’re going the extra mile to lead our colleagues within and outside of OPEC to make sure that the market sees that there’s serious action in place.”

Kuwait has also exceeded its targeted cut, according to that country’s oil minister. Algeria’s energy minister said his nation too will reduce output by more than its quota.

(Source: Bloomberg)

Oil prices inch up on record China crude imports, Saudi output cut

India’s 2016 Iran oil imports hit record high

Russia may supply more oil to CubaThe Russian government is considering a possibility of in-creasing supplies of Russian oil and oil products to Cuba, media reported on Friday, referring to a letter of the Russian deputy economy minister to the cabinet.

“In our opinion, the successful completion of the negoti-ations on supplies of Russian hydrocarbons to Cuba will not only promote an increase in trade turnover, but also have a positive socio-political and humanitarian effect on the Rus-sian-Cuban relations,” Alexey Gruzdev’s letter was quoted by the Vedomosti newspaper.

Gruzdev stressed in the letter, written on Wednesday, that Russian supplies to Cuba had not recently been regular. Ac-cording to the Russian Ministry of Energy, Rosneft and Lukoil oil giants are currently discussing possible deliveries to Cuba, though the issue of prices has not been discussed yet. The letter also gives no information on the oil volume that Cuba is ready to buy and on the price, acceptable for Havana. According to the Russia’s Federal Customs Service, Russia supplied 17,100 tons of oil products to Cuba in 2010-2015, with total cost of $11.3 million. In January – November 2016, some 3,100 tons of oil products costing $740,000 were ex-ported to Cuba. (Source: Sputnik)

President Erdogan’s state of emergency risks destroying the very fabric of Turkish society.

The sun has not yet risen in Istanbul, but Aylin* is wide awake. She has tidied her flat, sent a few messages to friends, and packed a small bag. She makes coffee and, catching her reflection in the dark windows, sits down to wait: for a knock on the door, or the sound of boots running up the stairs to her flat.

Aylin is a human rights activist, well-known to the Turkish authorities, and since the failed coup of July 15, 2016 that led to a sweeping crackdown on government critics, she has performed this ritual almost every day. She says that she is terrified of being woken up by the police, in one of the dawn raids that have claimed so many of her friends and colleagues in recent months.

Is Aylin just paranoid? It seems not.Since the coup attempt, tens of

thousands of people have been arrested in Turkey. Near 400 NGOs have been permanently closed and Turkey now accounts for almost a third of journalists imprisoned worldwide. Many of the people who have spent time in Turkey’s overflowing jails are there on the flimsiest of pretexts; like ?enol Buran, who runs the cafeteria at the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper, and spent nine days in detention after he was overheard saying that he would not serve tea to President Erdo?an.

This is the new reality in Turkey, where everybody has to watch what they say. No insult is too small to be taken seriously by the authorities, intent on stamping out criticism of any kind. So Aylin tries to prepare, because if she is arrested, she has no idea how long she could be away for.

On December 31, the hearing of the case of novelist Asli Erdo?an took place in Istanbul. Erdo?an was released from jail on 29 December after spending 132 days in pre-trial detention. Her “crime” was writing a column for the Kurdish daily newspaper Özgür Gündem, which was shut down under the state of emergency enacted following the coup attempt. Erdo?an lived out Aylin’s nightmare—she was detained in a dawn raid on her apartment, to which she would not return for more than four months. Her pre-trial detention was arbitrary, a punishment intended to send a message to others who might think about speaking out against the authorities.

Erdo?an’s release from jail seemed like a small window of hope in Turkey’s dark

recent history, but it was short-lived. Two days later, on New Year’s Eve, a gunman carried out a horrific attack on an Istanbul nightclub, killing 39 people and injuring 65. It was a terrifying start to the year.

The country’s state of emergency On January 4, the Turkish parliament

voted to extend the country’s state of emergency for another three months. Any hopes that Turkey would be a safer, freer place in 2017 sputtered out before the year had even begun.

The state of emergency has been the backdrop to repeated human rights abuses since it was introduced in July. It removes key fair trial provisions, as well as vital safeguards against torture and other ill-treatment. The government is using these emergency measures, impossibly broad in scope, to silence and intimidate those who dare exercise their right to criticize.

For example, journalists Erol Öndero?lu and Ahmet Nesin, and human rights defender ?ebnem Korur Fincanci, are among those facing charges of “terrorist propaganda” for taking part in a campaign of solidarity with the newspaper Özgür Gündem. On the day after Asli Erdo?an was released, Turkish authorities charged the prominent investigative journalist Ahmet ?ik with “making propaganda for a terrorist organization.” He is accused of having links to three groups with

contradictory ideologies, including the Gülen movement that the government accuses of having masterminded the coup attempt, ignoring the fact that ?ik has been an outspoken critic of the movement for years.

There is no doubt that Turkey is facing extreme security challenges, and it has a duty to protect the people under its jurisdiction. Apart from the coup attempt, 2016 saw repeated brutal attacks on civilians by armed groups including the so-called Islamic State (ISIL) and the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). But the issue of how to address these increasing threats is something that needs to be discussed openly, by a wide range of voices. Instead, the authorities have compounded the fear of the population by clamping down on freedom of expression and incarcerating anybody who speaks out of line.

This year has left a deep mark on Turkey, and the fear in the air is palpable. In Istanbul, I cannot help noticing that people speak more quietly in public, with guarded looks on their faces.

Panel discussions At home they watch television “panel

discussions” where everybody has the same opinion, and are repeatedly frustrated by blocks on social media sites

and an ever-diminishing choice of media outlets. It feels like life has lost its color.

This crackdown risks destroying the very fabric of Turkish society. The civil society organizations that have recently been permanently closed include those working with survivors of torture and domestic violence, local humanitarian organizations providing aid to refugees and internally displaced persons, and Turkey’s leading children’s rights NGO, Gündem Çocuk. This vibrant civil society is being reduced to a wasteland, and it is hard to overstate the impact that its destruction will have. In these confused and frightening times, we need the brave voices of journalists, activists and human rights defenders more than ever; instead, they are being thrown into the black holes of prison cells.

The new year in Turkey started out in the worst possible way. People are already living in fear of attacks; they should not have to live in fear for speaking out. They are already mourning the hundreds of lives lost over the past year; they should not have to mourn their freedom.

As daylight spreads through her kitchen, Aylin breathes a hesitant sigh of relief; she has made it to the start of another day. But what tomorrow will bring, for her and for her country, remains uncertain.

(Source: Newsweek)

Bernie Sanders: We need serious talk on serious issues

In my view, the media spends too much time treating politics like a baseball game, a personality contest or a soap opera. We need to focus less on polls,

fundraisers, gaffes and who’s running for president in four years, and more on the very serious problems facing the American people -- problems which get relatively little discussion.

There are a lot of important questions to talk about, including:

How do we stop the movement toward oligarchy in our country in which the economic and political life of the United States is increasingly controlled by a handful of billionaires?

Are we content with the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality that we are experiencing?

Should the top one-tenth of 1 percent own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent? Should one family in this country, the Waltons of the Walmart retail chain, own as much as the bottom 40 percent of our people? Should 52 percent of all new income be going into the pockets of the top 1 percent?

While the very rich become much richer, are we satisfied with having the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth? Can a worker really survive on the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour? How can a working-class family afford $15,000 a year for childcare? How can a senior citizen or a disabled veteran get by on $13,000 a year from Social Security?

Political systemWhat can be done about a political system in which the

very rich are able to spend unlimited sums of money to elect candidates who represent their interests?

Is that really what democracy is about? Why, in the year 2017, do we still have state governments trying to suppress the vote and make it harder for poor people, young people and people of color to participate in the political process?

Why is the richest country in the history of the world the only major country not to provide health care to all as a right, despite spending much more per capita? Why are we one of the very few countries on earth not to provide paid family and medical leave?

With the five major drug companies making over $50 billion in profits last year, why do we end up paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs?

How do we succeed in a competitive global economy if we do not have the best educated workforce in the world? And how can we have that quality workforce if so many of our young people are unable to afford higher education or leave school deeply in debt? Not so many years ago, we had the highest percentage of college graduates in the world. Now we don’t even rank in the top ten. What can we do to make sure that every American, regardless of income, gets all of the education he or she needs?

Meanwhile, on climate change, the debate is over. The scientific community is virtually unanimous in telling us that climate change is real, is caused by human activity and is already doing devastating harm to our country and the entire world. How do we transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy while protecting those workers who might lose their jobs as a result of the transition? This is no small issue. The future of the planet is at stake.

We are now spending $80 billion a year to imprison 2.2 million Americans, who are disproportionately African-American, Latino and Native American. We have more people in jail than any other country on earth, including China, which is home to four times as many people.

How do we reform a broken criminal justice system? How do we create jobs and educational opportunity for young people, not more jails and incarceration?

Undocumented peopleWe must create a path for the 11 million undocumented

people in our country to become lawful permanent residents and eventually citizens.

How can we move our nation toward common sense, humane and comprehensive immigration reform and by doing that help reverse the decline of our middle class and better prepare the United States to compete in the global economy?

Our nation’s infrastructure is collapsing and the American people know it. At a time when our roads, bridges, water systems, rail and airports, levees, dams, schools and housing stock are decaying, the most effective way to rapidly create meaningful jobs is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. How can we work together to make that happen?

These are the issues that need to be talked about all over the country. I thank CNN for allowing us to have a serious discussion about serious issues.

(Source: CNN)

JANUARY 14, 2017JANUARY 14, 20176I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

INTERNATIONAL

By Andrew Gardner

In this Sept. 29, 2015 file photo, President Barack Obama stands with Cuba’s President Raul Castro before a bilat-eral meeting at the United Nations headquarters

Our nation’s infrastructure is

collapsing and the American people

know it.

This year has left a deep mark on Turkey, and the fear in the air is palpable.

By Bernie Sanders

Between terror and the government crackdown, Turkish society is under threat

By Sarah Wheaton

President Barack Obama is ending the decades-old wet foot, dry foot policy for Cuban immigrants, the White House announced on Thursday, a major shift

in the U.S. approach to the island nation and one that could also put President-elect Donald Trump in a bind.

“Effective immediately, Cuban nationals who attempt to enter the United States illegally and do not qualify for humanitarian relief will be subject to removal, consistent with U.S. law and enforcement priorities,” Obama said in a statement. “By taking this step, we are treating Cuban migrants the same way we treat migrants from other countries.”

The Cuban government, Obama said, has agreed to take back Cubans who are deported from the United States. The move, first reported by the Associated Press just eight days before he leaves office, caught the foreign policy establishment off-guard. It’s perhaps the most high-profile step toward normalizing relations with the communist island since Obama began his détente with the Castro regime in December 2014.

And it kicks a major decision to Trump.Trump could conceivably reverse Obama’s executive

action after he moves into the White House next week. That would likely be the preference of the Cuba hard-liners on his foreign policy team, including his chosen deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland and transition official Mauricio Claver-Cuoron, a top pro-embargo activist. However, closing the borders was Trump’s central campaign promise.

The change is a “major shakeup” that puts Trump in a “difficult spot,” said Jason Marczak, director of the Latin America Economic Growth Initiative at the Atlantic Council, a centrist think tank. Trump, Marczak added, has “spoken very passionately about the need to control immigration to the United States, so it would seem to me that it would be politically difficult for him to reverse this.”

Two years ago, Obama announced plans to normalize relations with Cuba, after five decades of a strict embargo. Since then, both countries have opened embassies in their respective capitals, and the U.S. has gradually lifted trade restrictions, and commercial airlines such as Jet Blue, Southwest and Alaska Airlines are now

shuttling passengers directly from New York and from Fort Lauderdale to Havana.

Obama’s Cuban ambitionsSome of Obama’s Cuban ambitions have been

stymied by Congress, where questions about Cuba blur party lines. Lawmakers have refused to confirm an ambassador or lift the main trade restrictions. So ending special privileges for Cuban migrants appears to be Obama’s last big, unilateral move.

Lawmakers and advocacy groups that back more engagement with Cuba didn’t wait for an official White House announcement to praise the move.

“Individuals on both sides of the U.S.-Cuba debate recognize and agree that ending ‘wet foot, dry foot’ is in our national interest,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who joined Obama on his historic trip to Cuba last year. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) was sharply critical, complaining that the Obama administration did

not consult Congress.More than 20 years ago, the U.S. offered an unusual

and dangerous escape route for Cubans: if the Coast Guard intercepted them at sea, they’d be sent back home. However, if they set foot on a Florida beach (or, increasingly, on the Southern border after a desert trek), they’d be automatically eligible to stay in the U.S. and pursue citizenship.

While refugee status won’t be granted automatically, the U.S. is by no means ruling out taking in Cubans, said Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. “Cuban migrants, like everybody else, will still be able to apply for asylum consistent with our laws,” Johnson said on the press call.

Cuban immigrationCuban immigration to the U.S. has spiked since

Obama announced the change in posture toward Cuba, with 40,000 immigrants arriving in 2015 and more than 50,000 arriving in 2016, Obama’s national security spokesman Ben Rhodes told reporters on Thursday. That increase – driven in part by fears that the U.S. would end Cuban migrants’ special privileges – “increased the sense of urgency” to do precisely that, Rhodes said.

A bill proposing changing the immigration rules for Cubans was introduced last year by a bipartisan pair from Texas: Rep. Blake Farenthold (R) and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D), but did not ultimately make its way to Obama’s desk.

Rhodes said the timing of the announcement, coming toward the end of Obama’s last full week in office, “grows out of the normalization of relations between our countries.” The reason there’d been little hint that the move was under serious consideration, he added, was because “frankly, we did not want to speculate publicly about the likelihood of this change for fear of inviting even greater migration flows.”

It was unclear whether there’d be any legal roadblocks to prevent Trump from reversing Obama’s action, which took the form of a Department of Homeland Security policy. Asked about such a possibility, Johnson tried to stress that it was Obama who had been the one to “repeal” something: the exceptions granted to Cubans in the 1990s.

“This is not the enactment of a policy that can be repealed by a subsequent administration,” Johnson said.

(Source: Politico)

Obama’s shift on Cuban immigrants could put Trump in a bind

The change is a “major shakeup” that puts Trump in a “difficult

spot,” said Jason Marczak, director of the Latin America Economic Growth Initiative at the Atlantic Council, a centrist think tank.

A N A L Y S I SJANUARY 14, JANUARY 14, 20172017 7I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

US President Barack Obama’s “farewell address to the nation,” scheduled for tonight, has been

preceded by a concentrated media buildup on the theme of Obama’s leg-acy. This has included fawning tributes portraying the president as a brilliant orator, progressive reformer, visionary and man of the people.

Seeking to mold the narrative of Obama’s presidency, the White House put out a video over the weekend featuring comedians Ellen DeGeneres and Jerry Seinfeld, actors Leonardo Di-Caprio and Tom Hanks, former basket-ball star Michael Jordan and other ce-lebrities extolling the “historic moments that prove, yes, we can create progress.” Such absurd and nauseating effusions testify not to the qualities or accom-plishments of the 44th president, but to the intellectual, political and moral debasement of the American cultural establishment.

For Obama and the privileged social layers that surround the Democrat-ic Party, a legacy can be crafted with honeyed phrases and clever marketing. Millions of people, however, will judge the administration by its actions.

It would take far more space than is available here to outline in detail the real record of the Obama White House. However, any objective appraisal of the past eight years would have to include the following elements:

1. Unending warObama is the first president in

American history to serve two full terms in office with the nation at war. This in-cludes the continued bloodletting in Afghanistan and Iraq, the bombing of Libya, the six-year-long war for re-gime change in Syria, and support for the Saudi-led destruction of Yemen. A recent survey reported that in 2016, US Special Operations forces were de-ployed in 138 nations, or 70 percent of the countries of the world.

The “wars of the 21st century,” be-gun under Bush and expanded under Obama, have killed more than a million people and driven millions more from their homes, producing the worst ref-ugee disaster since the Second World

War. Obama’s “pivot to Asia” has in-flamed tensions from the South China Sea to India and Pakistan. The current president will leave the White House as NATO troops deploy to Eastern Eu-rope in the midst of an anti-Russia war hysteria stoked by the media and the Democratic Party.

Obama is the “drone” president, supervising the killing of some 3,000 people in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya by means of unmanned aerial vehicles, along with several thousand more in Iraq and Afghanistan.

2. Democratic rightsAt least three of the individuals killed

in drone strikes were US citizens. The declaration of the Obama administra-tion in 2011 that the president has the authority to assassinate anyone, includ-ing US citizens, without due process sums up the attitude of the former con-stitutional law professor to basic demo-cratic precepts.

The US detention and torture center in Guantanamo Bay, which Obama pledged on his inauguration day to close, remains open. Chelsea Manning, who courageously exposed war crimes in Iraq, is serving a 35-year prison sentence at Fort Leavenworth, Kan-sas, and the Obama White House has prosecuted more whistleblowers for espionage than all previous administra-

tions combined. Edward Snowden was forced into exile in Russia under threat of prosecution or worse, while WikiL-eaks founder Julian Assange remains trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

The massive spying programs of the National Security Agency exposed by Snowden remain in place, and not a single individual has been prosecuted for clearly illegal and unconstitutional activity. Proclaiming the need to “look forward, not backwards,” Obama gave a free pass to Bush administration offi-cials who institutionalized torture, with some of them, including current CIA Di-rector John Brennan, finding top posts in Obama’s administration.

Obama has expanded the militari-zation of police departments and inter-vened in court to uphold police abuses that violate the Constitution.

3. Social inequalityObama came into office in the im-

mediate aftermath of the 2008 eco-nomic crisis, and the focus of his ad-ministration has been to restore the wealth of the financial aristocracy. Since their low point in March of 2009 (two months after Inauguration Day), stock values—fueled by the “quantitative easing” policies of the US Federal Re-serve—have more than tripled, with the top one percent the overwhelming

beneficiary of this new orgy of specu-lation. Aggregate quarterly corporate profits rose from $671 billion at the end of 2008 to $1.636 trillion in 2016, and the wealth of the richest 400 Americans increased from $1.57 trillion to $2.4 tril-lion.

At the other pole, eight years of the Obama administration have produced declining wages, rising living costs and growing indebtedness. Nearly 95 per-cent of all jobs added during the Oba-ma administration’s “recovery” have been temporary or part-time positions, according to a recent study by Har-vard and Princeton, with the share of workers in temporary jobs rising from 10.7 percent to 15.8 percent. Obama presided over the bankruptcy of the auto companies early in his adminis-tration (imposing an across-the-board 50 percent cut in wages for new-hires). He supported the bankruptcy of Detroit and slashing of city workers’ pensions. In the name of education “reform,” he oversaw a wave of public school clo-sures and attacks on teachers, who were laid off in the hundreds of thou-sands.

As for Obama’s principal domestic initiative, the Affordable Care Act, its intended and actual outcome has been the shifting of health care costs from corporations and the state to individu-als, with corporations slashing coverage and workers forced to pay exorbitant prices for substandard care. One statis-tic sums up the consequences: For the first time since the height of the AIDS epidemic in 1993, life expectancy fell in the US between 2014 and 2015 due to rising adult mortality from drug over-doses, suicides and other manifesta-tions of social distress.

No account of the legacy of Obama would be complete without noting two additional statistics. Since 2009, approx-imately 10,000 people have been killed by police in the United States, while the Obama administration has deported

about three million immigrants, more than any other US administration in history.

Then there is the man himself. What is most striking is Obama’s emptiness. From his first major speech, at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the media has hailed Obama as a great or-ator. Yet over the span of 12 years in political office at the federal level, in-cluding eight in the White House, Oba-ma leaves behind not a single sentence from a speech or interview that will be remembered.

Everything about Obama, who came into office having been named “Marketer of the Year,” is false and con-trived. The only thing he consistently conveys is indifference, a strange re-moteness, a man without qualities.

The personality is related to the function. More than anything else, Obama has been the president of the intelligence agencies. His political con-victions appear to extend no further than his CIA briefing books. To those who care to look more closely into the background, there always seemed to be hands guiding his way to the White House.

For the ruling class, Obama’s par-ticular function was to fuse in his per-son and his administration identity politics with the absolute domination of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus. The “change” Obama was to represent was in the color of his skin,

not the content of his policies.The nominally liberal and pseu-

do-left organizations of the upper-mid-dle class that surround the Democratic Party hailed his election as a “transform-ative” event, seizing upon the elevation of an African-American as an opportu-nity to abandon their oppositional pre-tenses. However, his tenure has merely demonstrated that it is class, not race, that is the decisive social category.

Amidst all the commentary on Obama’s “progressive” legacy, no one seems capable of explaining why it is that eight years of the Obama White House paved the way for the election of Donald Trump. Yet the bitter realities of social life, the widespread anger and disappointment, led to a collapse of the Democratic Party vote amidst a general feeling of disillusionment with the entire political establishment.

Obama now bequeaths to the world a ferocious conflict between two right-wing factions of the ruling class: The Trump administration, which is prepar-ing an authoritarian and militarist gov-ernment of the oligarchy, and its critics, furious that he is reluctant, for the pres-ent, to proceed with their preparations to wage war against Russia.

The record of the Obama admin-istration and the character of the in-dividual himself speak, in the end, to the structure of American politics—an ossified and reactionary political estab-lishment that lacks any broad base of support, standing atop a cauldron of seething social tensions. The true leg-acy of Obama is the deepening of the crisis of American capitalism and the emergence of a new period of social and revolutionary struggles.

Over the past several weeks, dol-lar rate registered fluctuation with gain to the Rials, Iranian

national currency. Following the nuclear deal, the

world market has thrown their weight behind Tehran over the Islamic Repub-lic’s nuclear energy program.

While making Iranian exports more eye-catching to the world business market in the wake of the historical deal, recently, Iran’s currency fell to 41,600 Rials to $1, its lowest point ever.

Under the 2015 nuclear deal be-tween Iran and world powers, inter-national sanctions against the country were lifted in exchange for it limiting its nuclear activities.

In the time since, Iran has rushed to increase oil production to regain its lost market share while simultaneously signing deals worth tens of billions of dollars with airplane manufacturers Air-bus and Boeing Co.

In the meantime, President Has-san Rouhani on Jan 1, 2017 spoken to nation in IRIB’s Channel just 5 months after his last address earlier in Au-gust 2016, criticized speculations that government purposefully devaluated national currency to fit its economic policies to control inflation; “we believe national currency improved during the last months; however, the very recent devaluation was transient and the gen-eral policy is to control inflation, which would be deteriorated if the exchange rate experience a general perturbation and in a volatile market.”

Devaluation of National Cur-rency

Last week, Deputy Minister of Econ-omy and Finance for Banking, Insur-ance and State Companies Affairs Hossein Ghazavi said that dollar gain to the Rials does not mean devaluation of national currency.

Ghazavi underscored that dollar appreciated over the past weeks due to increase in its parity rate against all currencies, adding devaluation of Rial parity against dollar is also the impact of global growth in demand for dollar but does not mean devaluation of na-tional currency.’

Currently, Central Bank of Iran (CBI) should maintain stability in the market and prevent fluctuation of the forex

market and that intervention is not necessary to meet a specific parity rate, commented the official.

Unifying Exchange RateOn Dec 25, 2016, CBI said it has

authorized banks to deal in foreign ex-change trading at a free-market rate – a move which is expected to help con-trol the rising rates of the dollar.

CBI called on merchants and trad-ers to refer to the authorized banks and purchase their required dollars, adding that this would channel foreign exchange operations by individuals and entities to banks and decrease their risks.

Iran operates two exchange rates,

a free market rate and an official rate used for some state transactions, PressTV wrote.

In recent months, the CBI has raised the official rate gradually to shrink the gap between the two. It has said it wants to unify the exchange rate, to make the economy more efficient and create a level field for private firms competing with state institutions with access to cheaper foreign exchange, Reuters added.

The CBI further emphasized in its statement that it would provide the re-quired dollars for the banks to enable them to meet customers’ needs.

Currency Fluctuations

On Dec 31, director of the Central Bank of Iran’s Exports Department pre-dicted that the end of the current Ira-nian year in March will bring about an end to currency fluctuations plaguing the market, as increased supply helps moderate the market.

“We forecast that currency fluctua-tions in the market will be curbed by the yearend. Considering the rise in supply from the central bank and from non-oil exports, especially major petrochem-ical companies, fluctuations will be controlled and the downward trend in exchange rates will continue as it hap-pened in previous years,” Tehran-based English newspaper Financial tribune quoted Samad Karimi as saying.

Referring to past experiences, he said currency rates peak in the Iranian month of Dey (Dec. 21-Jan. 19) and this year will be no different.

“But business demand goes up dra-

matically at the end of December and businesses settle their accounts during this time, which will stoke demand and hence forex rate swings,” he added.

Karimi said the central bank and its Export Department in particular en-deavor to support real demand, but noted that while unofficial trade, con-traband goods and currency smuggling have declined in recent time, “they still heavily influence currency rates”.

The CBI official pointed out that the high volume of smuggling can fuel de-mand for foreign currency, producing adverse effects.

If the central bank and other rele-vant official bodies focus on curbing the influence of illegal trade, he add-ed, currency fluctuations will not recur.

According to Karimi, the green-back’s strengthening at the global lev-el, a rise in precautionary demand for foreign currency, a hike in speculative activities, the conversion of assets into foreign currency, new demand and smuggling of contraband and curren-cy, paired with an increase in business demand, have contributed to the cur-rency market unease.

The central bank official also com-mented on the much-touted plan to unify the foreign exchange rates.

“Rate unification will be accom-plished when the gap between the of-ficial and market rates is no more than

2%, but there are certain requirements and the central bank’s assets must turn into liquid,” he said.

The CBI official said non-oil ex-porters, specifically petrochemical ex-porters, help moderate the market by supplying currency and are an integral part of the market.

Karimi concluded by declaring that the central bank will increase fo-rex supply in the official and unoffi-cial markets until the end of the year, “meaning that by supporting the mar-ket and reducing demand, fluctuations will also die down, which will help bal-ance the market”.

It goes without saying that the rising dollar rates has ignited serious concerns in Iran over what many be-lieve could eventually prove costly for a country which has been planning for months to harvest the benefits of the removal of the sanctions.

Once President Rouhani took of-fice, the dollar had already increased by 298.5 percent during the tenure of his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadine-jad (2005-2013) and he managed to stabilize the currency market despite severe impacts of the sanctions as well as low oil prices.

Now it is expected that the govern-ment continue the previous trend in face of difficulties now that it is in the last year of its tenure.

By Mina Ahmadi

Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance Hossein Ghazavi says that dollar gain to the Rials does not mean devaluation of national

currency.

Obama is the “drone” president, supervising the killing of some 3,000 people in Pakistan,

Yemen, Somalia and Libya by means of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Obama has expanded the militarization of police departments and intervened in court

to uphold police abuses that violate the Constitution.

Iran operates two exchange rates, a free market rate and an official rate used for some state transactions.

The CBI official pointed out that the high volume of smuggling can fuel demand for

foreign currency, producing adverse effects.

By Joseph Kishore

Iran Rial hits fresh record low

Obama’s legacy of war, repression and inequality

JANUARY 14, 2017JANUARY 14, 20178I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

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By Matt Richteljan

To encourage creativity in kids, ask them: ‘What if’?

I was in a second-grade classroom re-cently reading from my new children’s book, “Runaway Booger.” After I finished, and the giggling subsided, several stu-dents asked a version of the same ques-tion: Why did you write about a humon-gous ball of mucus?

It was the question I’d hoped for.I was using the reading session, at the

teacher’s request, to get the children to think about creativity. Where does creativity come from? Are there tricks they can use to be more creative, or, for that matter, that parents and educators can instill?

It’s a subject I think about a lot, as a writer of newspaper articles, mysteries and non-fiction books, a syndicated comic strip and music. (It is sad but true: To accompany the booger book, I wrote a rock anthem called “Don’t Pick Your Nose.”) Scholars who study creativity say that stoking it involves helping children strike a balance between two di-chotomous tools: the whimsy and freedom of a wandering mind, with the rigidity of a prepared one.

We need to help them be both “sen-sitive and assertive,” in the words of John Dacey, professor emeritus of education at Boston College. “Sensitivity means being open to new ideas, and very laid back,” he explained. Assertiveness doesn’t just mean being bold enough to express the idea but having enough experience and judgment to feel true authority about its value.

It means understanding a genre’s structure and form. That can take hard work, and years, but to Dr. Dacey, mere-ly having a good idea doesn’t qualify as genuine creativity until it is matched with execution and follow-through.

“People think creativity is inspiration,” Dr. Dacey said, “but it’s mainly perspiration.”

To help the second graders inspire and perspire, I pulled out a red marker, and on a whiteboard I wrote two words: What if.

I explained to them that these two words are a kind of secret tunnel into the world of new ideas. In fact, I told them, I only came up with the booger story after asking myself: What if a family picked their

noses so much that they create a mon-strous booger? And what if the snot rocket rolled out the window and gained so much steam it threatened to roll over the town? And what if the whole story rhymed?

“Your turn,” I said to the class. “Who wants to give me their own version of ‘what if?’”

Before I relate some “what if” respons-es I’ve gotten from various classes, I’ll note that Dr. Dacey thinks the “what if” exercise is a great way to encourage a laid-back, nonjudgmental approach to open-end-ed thinking. Plus, this exercise helps chil-dren generate lots of potential ideas, and research shows that truly creative people tend to be idea factories. (Lest I take too much credit — or any — I recall coming across a related idea in a book about fiction writing called no less than “What If?”.)

A few days after I visited second grade, I tried the “what if” exercise with a kindergarten class.

“What if you sat on a toilet and it took you to Egypt?” said a curly-haired boy sitting in the middle of the rug. Giggles ensued until I said, “Fantastic! Who can use ‘what if’ to say what happened next in the toilet story?”

“And then you sat on the toilet and it flushed you to outer space?” said another boy.

More hands shot up from eager con-tributors. I called on a girl sitting near the back of the rug.

“And what if you took a giraffe eleva-tor from outer space, and it brought you back?” she offered.

This, it dawned on me, was a signifi-cant moment (even though I’m not sure what a giraffe elevator is). The impor-tance of the suggestion was that it hint-ed at the other key aspect of creativity, namely, having experience and judgment to turn an idea into a creation.

What the girl was suggesting was that she wanted to create some resolution — to get the toilet-traveler back home. In some sense, she was rounding the idea into a story, a structure. Was she lucky, or brilliant, preternatural? Most likely, ac-cording to the scholars I spoke to, she had picked up the logic of life and form by being in the world and interacting with books, movies and other story forms. In fact, some scholars think that merely be-ing engaged with the world is enough to

learn structure, and that formal training is overrated. But not all agree with this.

KH Kim, a professor of innovation and creativity at the College of William & Mary and the author of “The Creativity Chal-lenge: How We Can Recapture American Innovation,” for instance, believes that people can be truly creative only after they’ve had 10 years of real experience studying and playing with a given genre, say music, books or art. Along the way, though, she says students should practice creative flights so they can develop inspi-ration and perspiration in lock-step.

Ultimately, Dr. Dacey offered a nifty measure for how to know whether we’ve helped our child come up with something truly creative. When we see or hear or read the end product of true creativity, he said, we will experience four emotions: surprise, stimulation, satisfaction and savoring.

To my chagrin, there was not a word in his definition about being grossed out by the prospect of a massive town-threaten-ing mucus balloon. Well, that’s O.K. I’ve got more weird ideas where that came from. Hopefully, your children will, too.

(Source: The New York Times)

Study finds new way to pinpoint dangerous prostate cancer

Researchers say they’ve found a new way to tell if a man’s prostate cancer will come back and kill him after treatment.

If a blood test called a PSA doesn’t fall to low enough levels after treatment, it means the cancer’s not all gone and will likely come back and spread, the team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School reported.

That gives doctors a chance to act right away, said Dr. An-thony D’Amico, the senior oncologist on the study.

“Instead of waiting to see if PSA has gone up, this can tell you that somebody has not only failed treatment, but failed so badly that they are going to die of prostate cancer,” D’Am-ico told NBC News.

“By identifying and enrolling these men in clinical trials im-mediately, the hope is to take a prostate cancer that appears to be incurable and make it curable” added Dr. Trevor Royce, who led the work on the study.

It’s an important question.Prostate cancer is very common, showing up in 240,000

U.S. men every year. It kills about 30,000 a year.In most men, prostate cancer isn’t likely to kill them before

something else does. But since prostate cancer still kills so many men, it’s important to find out which men are most at risk of dying early.

Now doctors need to see if treating these men right away, instead of waiting for their PSA levels to rise more, may save them, D’Amico said. “Before, we saw this number and said ‘gee we are concerned but let’s watch,’” he said. Now doctors can act.

There are many drugs that prostate cancer patients can get, but they’re almost never given until the cancer’s come back and started causing symptoms.

“These are treatments that are used when a man has met-astatic disease. They have been shown to prolong life but not to cure it,” D’Amico said.

It might be if a patient gets such treatment right away, he could live even longer or perhaps even be cured. But a study will have to be done to show it.

The men in the study had radiation or hormone therapy, but D’Amico said the finding should hold for men who have had their prostates surgically removed, also.

“You should know what your PSA is after your treatment. You need to know once it stops going down if that low point is above half a point (0.5),” D’Amico said.

(Source: Reuters)

What is the best way to treat sunburn?With an estimated 1.9 million Australians getting sunburnt every year, do teabags, cucumber or aloe vera work best as a remedy? Or all of the above?

Aloe vera, cucumber, teabags and the simple cold shower – most people afflicted with sunburn have a remedy passed down from their parents and their parents’ parents to relieve the pain at home.

With a heatwave sweeping eastern Australia, obviously the best, most effective, and least cancer-inducing strategy is not to get sunburnt in the first place. But with the Cancer Council estimating that 1.9 million Australians are sunburnt every year, it’s not ridiculous to have the treatments on hand.

University of Sydney associate professor Saxon Smith, a dermatologist who also works at the Royal North Shore hos-pital, says most people’s home remedies do work – but by coincidence rather than any inherent superior curing proper-ties in aloe vera or teabags.

“I hear lots of stories of what people try to do at home to alleviate sunburn,” he said. “Some of the things they use can be done in an easier way.”

The first step is to get the heat out – the longer the heat remains in a burn the more damage and sorer it is going to be. A cold shower or pouring cold water directly on the sun-burn is the easiest way to relieve the burn of heat.

The next step is to cool the skin. “It’s not so much the tomatoes or teabags [that people use that are effective], it’s that there’s liquid in them and it’s the liquid cooling the skin,” Smith said.

“Depending on the severity you can use any type of mois-turiser that doesn’t have fragarances in them – fragrance can irritate the skin. There’s always good old-fashioned sorbolene.”

(Source: The Guardian)

HEALTH & MEDICINEJANUARY 14, JANUARY 14, 20172017 9I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

Scientists have long known that stress can influence your heart health, but exactly how this relationship takes place has been something of a mystery -- until now.

Activity in the amygdala, a region of the brain associ-ated with fear and stress, can predict your risk for heart disease and stroke, according to a study published in the journal The Lancet on Wednesday.

“The study produced several novel findings. It showed, for the first time in animal models or humans, the part of the brain -- the amygdala -- that links to the risk of subsequent cardiovascular disease,” said Dr. Ahmed Tawakol, co-director of the cardiac PET/CT pro-gram at Massachusetts General Hospital, who was lead author of the study.

“The amygdala is a critical component of the brain’s stress network and becomes metabolically active during times of stress,” Tawakol said.

He added that the study could provide new insights into how to reduce stress-related cardiovascular diseas-es.

Cardiovascular diseases -- a class of diseases that in-volve the heart or blood vessels -- are the leading cause of death among men and women around the world, ac-cording to the World Health Organization.

In the United States, more than one in three adults has at least one type of cardiovascular disease, and heart disease is the leading cause of death in the country.

The new study involved 293 adults who underwent PET and CT scans at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston between 2005 and 2008. The scans recorded brain activity, bone marrow activity, spleen activity and inflammation in the heart arteries.

Some animal studies have suggested that stress can lead to increased activity of cells in bone marrow and the spleen.

Next, researchers tracked the health of each patient for two to five years, during which 22 of the patients had a cardiovascular disease event, such as a stroke, heart attack or heart failure.

After analyzing the scans and heart health of each patient, the researchers found that higher activity in the amygdala was associated with a higher risk of a cardio-vascular event.

The link between the amygdala and cardiovascular disease events remained significant even after the re-searchers took other cardiovascular risk factors into ac-count, such as smoking, diabetes or hypertension.

“We were surprised at how robustly amygdalar ac-tivity predicted hard cardiovascular events, along with

providing information on the timing of those events,” Tawakol said.

Still, “the associations noted in this study, while statis-tically significant, do not prove causation,” Tawakol said. More research is needed to replicate the findings in a larger sample of patients.

“I’d say the findings are definitely novel, show promise and bear replication,” said Thomas Kamarck, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. He has written about psychosocial stress and cardiovascu-lar disease but was not involved in the new study.

Measuring brain activity to predict cardiovascular events is “quite unique and interesting,” Kamarck said. However, “the implication of the paper is that this meas-ure of brain activity can be used as a marker of cumula-tive exposure to stress. This, I’m not so confident about and will require some additional validation.”

That’s because there has been much debate among sci-entists about how exactly to measure stress, Kamarck said.

“There is no consensus about the best way to define and to measure stress,” he said. “One of my questions about the measure of resting amygdala activity used by these authors is whether it is best conceptualized as a marker of stressor exposure, stress reactivity or perhaps both.”

(Source: CNN)

This might be how stress and heart attacks are linked

By Maggie Fox

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T E C H N O L O G Y JANUARY 14, JANUARY 14, 20172017

Norwegian software maker Opera has released a completely differ-ent take on the desktop browser

with Neon, a so-called 'concept browser' that eschews tabs for bubble icons and pop-out videos.

Opera is once again taking a crack at shaking up the browser market. Af-ter introducing a free VPN and native ad-blocker to its desktop browser last year, its latest effort is Neon, an experi-mental browser for Mac and Windows desktops.

Neon doesn't replace the Opera desktop browser but it will be where the company tests new ideas before bringing them to the standard Opera browser.

The aim is to showcase Opera's long-term vision for the browser in a world where many young people experience smartphones before a desktop, convert-ibles converge with mobile, and smart-phones can stand in for a PC when con-nected to larger displays.

With this in mind, Krystian Kolondra, head of Opera browser, argues it's time to rethink the browser for these devices and users to show what the browser could be in five years.

"We believe it's only a matter of time before you can think about Android PCs," Kolondra told ZDNet.

"Webpages have moved from text to images, video and they've adapted to mobile. But browsers are more or less still the same and the concept of the brows-er hasn't changed much in the past 20 years."

Kolondra said there's a need in the

near future for a really well-designed browser that supports touch.

"Today's browsers are not so great in this. Also, when looking at expectations from people who started using the in-ternet on mobile, when they come to a PC, it looks so static. If you don't see any reaction when you touch it, you think it's broken," he said.

Some aspects of Neon draw on Op-era's Coast browser for iOS, which offers a grid of icons featuring popular websites beneath a large Google-powered search box.

Neon uses the current desktop's back-ground image as its main interface, fea-turing a large Google search box above icons for favorite websites. As with the

standard Opera browser, Neon is also built on Google's Blink engine.

A panel on the left of the interface contains buttons for a video player, download manager, image gallery, and a screenshot tool. Neon also features a split-screen mode, and a pop-out video feature that works fine for YouTube but not Netflix.

The pop-out video was first introduced in a desktop beta last year, which Kolon-dra says young people loved, but which is a huge "procrastinator" for himself.

One of the most obvious differences between Neon and other desktop brows-ers is its apparent lack of tabs and shift towards app-like icons. It does actual-ly feature tabs, but they're displayed as

icons in a column on right-hand side of the screen, which expand when clicked on.

"A webpage is really like an applica-tion," Kolondra said. "If you have mobile, you can move the icon, delete the icon, or put it in a folder. We thought. 'What if a page is more like an object that you can physically move around?'. In Neon, you can drag and drop the page and move it around or have a split screen."

Also, the idea behind the bubbles is that they are more friendly to touch-screens. The Windows version of Neon supports touch for the growing number of Windows 10 convertibles available to-day.

While it's unlikely Neon will replace anyone's primary browser, it does offer a refreshing take on what the desktop browser could be. And, being a concept browser, it can't be considered a failure if adoption remains low, while also offering Opera an avenue to test the appeal of various features.

"We need to now start bringing some of the ideas that we have in the concept into regular browsers. We believe the best way to do this, slowly to start show-ing that the web can be better," Kolondra said.

"We believe some of these changes are really boosting productivity and we'll be bringing some of these features in the next weeks and months to our main browser."

Kolondra said Opera at some point in the future may introduce Neon as a separate mode within the main Opera browser.

(Source: zdnet)

BuzzFeed published an unconfirmed intelligence report on President-elect Donald Trump’s ties with Russia, send-ing the political world into red alert. But as explosive as the Trump allegations were, there was one passage that was particularly interesting for cryptography buffs, con-cerning the popular Telegram chat app.

According to one of the report’s unidentified sources, the app may not be as secure as it seems:

An FSB [Russian secret service] cyber operative flagged up the ‘Telegram’ enciphered commercial sys-tem as having been of especial concern and therefore heavily targeted by the FSB, not least because it was used frequently by Russian internal political activists and oppositionists. His/her understanding was that the FSB now successfully had cracked this communications soft-ware and therefore it was no longer secure to use.

The report raised an alarming thought for Telegram users. Could Russia have an inside line to one of the most popular encrypted chat programs?

Reached by The Verge, Telegram emphasized the vague and unconfirmed nature of the report. “We think the report is likely to be fake,” a Telegram rep-resentative said, “but if it is not, it probably refers to the story of SMS interception by FSB in April 2016 or

a similar incident.”Widely reported at the time, the April incident saw

FSB agents intercepting login requests sent over SMS, then using those requests to hijack individual accounts. A similar attack was later discovered in Iran. While not a bug in Telegram’s encryption protocol, the attack is still a serious threat to Telegram users not using two-factor

authentication.There’s also good reason to doubt the accuracy of the

leaked report. When the FBI investigated the allegations this summer, it found little evidence to support them. Some of the specific claims in the report have already been debunked, like an alleged meeting between Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and Russian leadership in Prague. Cohen was in Los Angeles when the meeting supposedly took place.

The allegations have triggered a new wave of skepticism against Telegram, which has often been criticized for relying on its own protocol rather than a more widely researched one. On Twitter, longtime Telegram critic Nadim Kobeissi laid out a new attack on the protocol, which he claims would allow a hostile party to reset Telegram’s forward secrecy protections. The resulting attack would require an attacker to com-promise a Telegram server, so it’s not a full break of the underlying cryptography, but would still represent a serious weakness in the service.

The allegation has already raised eyebrows among many in the community. As Johns Hopkins professor Matthew Green put it on Twitter, “if accurate, it’s bad.”

(Source: theverge)

Opera Neon: Could this be the future of the desktop browser?

10 hot titles of IT world

Here are high rated IT titles in the world that reviewed by savvy tech users:

iPhone 8 will have wireless charging technology.In order to add wireless charging to a smart-

phone or tablet, the back of the device needs to be plastic, ceramic, or glass.

Well, it just so happens that the current crop of iPhone rumors all point to Apple making a switch from aluminum to glass for the rear panel with the iPhone 8.

YouTube 'Super Chat' comments are a new way to support livestreams.

Super Chat is a new YouTube live feature that lets users pay to pin messages to the top of a chatbox for up to five hours.

Adding a Super Chat is easy: users just have to click the dollar sign in the web chat interface or Android app (iOS support is coming later) and pay to have their comment fea-tured.

Amazon announces plans to create more than 100,000 US jobs.

The world’s largest online retailer announced that it would grow its full-time US workforce by more than 50% to more than 280,000 in the next 18 months.

Google's research sibling X shuts down drone’s project. Project to build solar-powered drone to

provide internet access in remote areas closed in favor of competing high-altitude balloon scheme.

HTC starts 2017 on a relatively high note as it just announced two brand new intriguing devices - the

5.7-inch HTC U Ultra and the 5.7-inch HTC U Play.Just like the HTC U Ultra, the HTC U Play comes with a

metal frame sandwiched between two front and back glass surfaces. HTC’s new flagship phone has AI and a second screen, but no headphone jack

Patent leak shows Nokia may want to enter the folding smartphone game. It seems Nokia believes

there will be a market for foldable smartphones after Phone Arena uncovered a patent filed by Nokia way back in 2013 for a "Foldable device". The patent was granted by the US Patent & Trademark Office.

IBM bets on the blockchain to keep your medical data safe. Big Blue believes the secure transfer of

medical information can be achieved through technology associated with Bitcoin.

Samsung may release its Galaxy X foldable smart-phone in 2018. According to unnamed industry

sources, the so-called Samsung Galaxy X will rely heavily on a material called “polyimide film”. It's a very thin, flexible ma-terial with high heat-resistance, that remains stable in a wide range of temperatures, from extreme cold, to scorching heat.

Adobe is integrating a voice assistant into a photo editing app with futuristic-looking results.

The Photoshop creators demonstrated a mobile photo ed-itor with an integrated microphone button. Tapping it activates a voice assistant that quickly performs simple functions such as cropping and reframing, guided only by the user's voice.

Apple's AirPods have taken 26% of the online mar-ket for wireless headphones.

Prior to the product's launch, Beats had the leading mar-ket share based on online sales, with 24.1%. That company of course, is owned by Apple. After the AirPods launch, Beats owned 15.4% and Apple had 26% for a combined market share of more than 40%.

The FSB was able to hack Telegram messenger

By Liam Tung

Apple is in court once again. This time, the company is part of an anti-trust law-suit over the strict limitations over where users can buy iOS applications. Specif-ically, the requirement that all apps be purchased through the Cupertino com-pany's App Store. The suit alleges that by not allowing customers to buy apps from third-party services, Apple was price fix-ing and that customers could sue as a

result, according to Bloomberg.If this sounds familiar, it's because this

was originally filed back in 2011. Apple's de-fense is that it isn't directly selling software to consumers, but that its 30 percent cut of an app's price amounts to renting space on its digital storefront, Reuters writes.

The US Appeals Court thinks other-wise. "Apple's analogy is unconvincing," it said. "In the case before us, third-party

developers of iPhone apps do not have their own stores."

Currently, the suit covers apps purchased from 2007 to 2013. Attorney Mark Rifkin says that while the case hasn't hit class-action sta-tus yet he might expand the scope of it to anyone who's bought iPhone apps to this day. All of which could cost Apple a boatload of cash; "hundreds of millions" of dollars in dam-ages by Bloomberg's estimate.

Rifkin says that if the court sides with users that Apple should let people buy apps from anywhere they desire, a move that could lower the price on apps. How-ever, that doesn't take into account that third-party app stores (and folks with jail-broken iPhones) often have to con-tend with rafts of malware, or the risk of compromising their phones and security.

(Source: Bloomberg)

“It’s like owning your own newspaper – without the loss-es.” That’s how Donald Trump described the San Francis-co-headquartered social media tool in November 2012.

In a little over four years, the celebrity businessman turned president-elect has grown his Twitter audience from about 2 million followers to almost 19 million, us-ing it as his personal Pravda to post propaganda and stream-of-consciousness musings.

His prolific and opinionated 140-character outpour-ings (“tremendous!”, “very unfair!”, “crooked”, “nice”) are amplified by traditional media, reporting on his ad hom-inem attacks and diplomatic gaffes.

For Twitter, it’s been a marketer’s dream: barely a day goes by without TV channels, newspapers and web-sites name-checking the social media platform in stories about what @real Donald Trump is posting.

President-elect Trump promises to Make Ameri-ca Great Again, but could he also Make Twitter Great Again?

Twitter had a troubled 2016, with a series of high-pro-file executives leaving the company a s it struggled to attract more users (its user base has plateaued at around 300 million) and suffered from slowing revenue growth.

There were rumors the company might be sold to Salesforce or Disney, but discussions were not fruit-ful. Since then the company has been in cost-cut-ting mode, shedding staff and paring back some of its business operations, including video-sharing platform Vine.

Now the company could benefit from its most talked-about user’s ascent to the White House.

“Trump is the best thing that ever happened to Twitter,” said analyst Michael Pachter, from Wedbush Securities. “It’s like E.T. eating Reese’s Pieces!” he said, referring to one of the earliest examples of product placement.

So keen on the platform is Trump that he’s even using it to announce potential policy changes, bypassing the conventions of White House press team filters. Despite promising in November to be “very restrained, if I use it at all” in his social media use once he’s president, Trump has already hinted he’d like to change decades of policy on nuclear weapons and praised Vladimir Putin as “very smart”, even after intelligence agencies said Russia tried to influence the US election.

(Source: Guardian)

Apple faces a price-fixing suit over App Store purchases

Can Donald Trump save Twitter?

“Trump is the best thing that ever happened to Twitter,” said analyst Michael Pachter, from

Wedbush Securities. “It’s like E.T. eating Reese’s Pieces!” he said, referring to one of the earliest

examples of product placement.

By Alireza Khorasani

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Greenpeace slams tech giants over dirty data centersGreenpeace has published its latest report on what powers the internet, and who's working hard to keep our tweeting sustain-able. The nonprofit began researching the energy consumption of the IT sector back in 2009, estimating the environmental cost

of every Netflix video we watch. It describes data centers as the factories of the 21st century and wants to see companies move across to renewables to keep them going. The report puts Apple at the top of the pile for the third year running -- a far cry from when it came in last place, back in 2011.

It's worth noting that this list only judges on their en-

ergy use, rather than their overall attitude towards the environment. It's not a surprise to see names like Apple, Google and Facebook sitting on top of the list, thanks to both their action and commitment to green energy and transparency.

Those companies that didn't release information about their energy footprint were given instant F scores for not doing enough. Unfortunately, that includes plenty of familiar names, including Twitter, Reddit and Hulu, all of which will need to do better in future.

There were also plenty of well-known tech companies that wound up getting poor scores for their energy consumption. Amazon Web Services (along with its client, Netflix), HBO, ASUS, Acer and Samsung's IT services division all got poor scores.

The 102-page report breaks down, as best as Green-peace could ascertain, the energy mix used by each data center, their transparency and their attempts to secure greener power. Unfortunately, many of these businesses are either dragging their feet or aren't doing enough to show the world they're on the case. (Source: Greenpeace)

Predatory animals attack and kill their food all the time — but the brain circuits that control such behaviors re-main unknown.

Researchers have found a switch that seems to turn on a mouse’s predatory instincts. When certain parts of the rodents’ brains were stimulated with light, mice dis-played a complex array of hunting activities.

Predatory behaviors such as grabbing and biting are familiar to fans of nature documentaries, but the brain circuits involved remain a mystery.

Previous research found that the central amygdala, an almond-shaped area of the brain involved in pro-ducing emotions including fear, was activated when rats hunt. Researchers wanted to know whether the amyg-dala itself controls hunting behaviors, and a study pub-lished on 12 January in Cell suggests that it does.

Central amygdala in miceTo activate the central amygdala in mice, Ivan de

Araujo, a neurobiologist at Yale University in New Ha-ven, Connecticut, and his colleagues used a technique called optogenetics. First, they infected the mice with a virus that made the neurons in their brains sensitive to blue light. Then, the researchers used a tiny optic fiber to shine a blue laser on the amygdala. This prompted the animals to tense their jaw and neck muscles. The behavior didn’t occur when the researchers stimulated

other parts of the brain.When the laser was on, the mice hunted just about

everything placed in their paths, from edible treats such as crickets to non-food items like bottle caps. The re-searchers observed the same activity when they trig-gered the amygdala with chemogenetics, a similar tech-nique that stimulates neurons with molecules rather than light. The hunting and feeding behaviors even happened when there was nothing to hunt. When mice in emp-ty cages had their amygdalas activated, they stopped whatever they were doing, positioned their front legs as if they were holding food and moved their mouths as if they were chewing.

Generalized aggressionBut this doesn’t mean that researchers have found

the neural circuit for ravenous, murderous mice, says de Araujo. The “first thing we thought was, maybe this was just generalized aggression. Or maybe we just made the mice very hungry.”

So the team tested that. Although the light-stimulated mice hunted more than the ones left alone, both groups ate the same amount. And the laser-activated mice could still tell the difference between friend and food: “When they were with another mouse, they might have become more curious, but we didn’t observe any attacks,” says de Araujo. This left him fairly certain that the experiments were trig-

gering predation, not hunger or aggression.This is significant because predation is a very complex

behavior, says Kay Tye, a neuroscientist at the Massachu-setts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. “It’s not just physiological, it’s hunting, biting, releasing and eating. Those are motor sequences that require a lot of infor-mation, so it’s remarkable you can get this behavior with that sort of gross manipulation.”

(Source: Scientific American)

Menopause is a mystery to evolution-ary biologists, but new insights could come from a long-term study of killer whales.

In these whales, the explanation may lie in a combination of conflict and co-operation between older and younger females, according to a report pub-lished Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

Killer whales are one of only three spe-cies known to have menopause — the others are pilot whales and humans. Re-searchers have long wondered why it was that these few species evolved to have females that spend so much of their lives unable to have babies.

Killer whales start reproducing around age 15, but stop having calves in their 30s or 40s, even though they can live for around a century.

A team led by behavioral ecologist Darren Croft of the University of Exe-ter decided to search for answers with the help of an unusual long-term study of killer whales in the Pacific Northwest. There, since the 1970s, researchers have carefully collected information on the births and deaths of individual whales that live in family groups.

Intriguing clueContained within the data is an in-

triguing clue about why female whales may stop reproducing later in life.

When older females reproduce at the same time as their daughters, who live alongside them, the calves of the older mothers are nearly twice as likely to die in the first 15 years of life. But

when older mothers had calves in the absence of a reproducing daughter, their calves did just fine.

“It’s not that older mothers are bad mothers, that they’re not able to raise their calves as younger mothers,” says Croft. “It’s that when they enter into this competition with their daughters, they lose out and their calves are more likely

to die.”The competition may center on access

to food, says Croft, because there’s good reason to believe older females feel more pressure to share their precious fish with the others around them.

Killer whalesThat’s because, in killer whales,

females mate with males from other groups but then rejoin their families. That means when a new calf is born, its father is not around, and females start their lives in a situation where their relatedness to the group is rath-er low.

As a female grows older and starts having calves that stay with her, however, she develops more kinship ties to those around her. “It may be that older females are more likely to share, and younger fe-males are less likely to share food,” says Croft. That would mean younger females would have more resources to lavish on their own calves.

It’s clear that in these whales, older females play an important role in the survival of not just their own calves, but all of the family members they live with.

(Source: npr.org)

In the Alice in Wonderland world of the atomically small, things can be in two plac-es at once, merely looking at a particle can alter a twin on the other side of the universe apparently instantaneously, and theoretical cats can be both alive and dead.

Certainty is also somehow replaced by chance, an idea that once moved a some-what vexed Albert Einstein to famously say: “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.”

Such strange, almost magical effects have always been confined to the world of photons and atoms – until now.

In the journal Nature, scientists at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Colorado reported the first “glimpses” of quantum effects, as they are known, happening on a scale just large enough to be seen by the human eye.

Significant implicationsIt is a breakthrough that could have

significant implications for attempts to create quantum computers that are many millions of times faster than the current machines.

One of the researchers, Dr. John Teufel, told the Independent: “I think we’re in an extremely exciting time where this tech-nology we have available gives us access to things people have been talking about as thought experiments for decades.

Possible temperatureA tiny aluminum drum, about the di-

ameter of a “very skinny hair”, was cooled

to only fractionally above absolute zero, which at minus 273.15 degrees Celsius or zero Kelvin is the lowest possible temper-

ature, using microwave light.While shining a light on something

might normally be expected to heat it up,

in this case it actually “steals” energy from the drum as it vibrates.

Previously there was thought to be a limit to how far this cooling could go, be-cause light photons hitting an object also have a heating effect.

But the NIST team were able to “squeeze” the light, Dr. Teufel said, so “all the photons know about each other”.

This enabled them to cool the drum to a point that was previously believed to be theoretically impossible.

It is hard to express the temperature in Celsius because it is so cold, but standard microwave-cooling method enabled the researcher to get the drum to within a few hundred microKelvin of absolute zero or 0.4 quanta. And the new light-squeezing technique then enabled them to reduce the temperature further to just 0.19 quanta.

At this temperature, Dr. Teufel said they were able to observe “glimpses of quantum effects”.

“It makes some of the quantum things more visible and more prevalent,” he said.

In 2004, scientists in Austria reported they had teleported photons across the Danube River.

But now Dr. Teufel and his colleagues are starting to dream about teleporting something large enough to be seen.

“You could imagine doing experiments where you could teleport something into the vibrations of the drum,” he said.

(Source: independent.co.uk)

How old is the moon? Older than we thought, say scientistsA new study of zircon in lunar rocks suggests the moon may have been created 4.51 billion years ago, just 60 million years after the formation of the Solar System.

Surprisingly, that ques-tion has proven to be a difficult one to answer. The hypothesized initial impact that created Earth’s sat-ellite must have occurred billions of years ago, but estimates as to precisely when have varied by hun-dreds of millions of years.

Now, a team of re-searchers think they can nail down a more precise age for the moon, based on a new analysis of min-erals present in moon rocks gathered by Apollo astronauts more than four decades ago. According to their new study, the moon is 4.51 billion years old, older than most currently accepted estimates. If they are correct, the moon would have formed just 60 million years after the rest of the Solar System, give or take about 10 million years.

The new study, published in the journal Science Advances, is based on moon rock samples collected in February 1971 by the Apollo 14 lunar mission. These rocks have been studied extensively for decades, so the team did not expect to make any Earth-shattering (moon-shattering?) discoveries when they set out to determine the age of tiny minerals hidden in the rocks.

“It would be more a double-checking than anything else,” lead author of the study Mélanie Barboni told the Associated Press.

But these old rocks still had a few new tricks. Dr. Barboni’s team, from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), conducted a different kind of analysis: an age-based study of zircon, a remarkably durable mineral found in the Earth’s crust and in moon rocks.

(Source: The CSM)

Manchester scientists tie the tightest knot ever achievedScientists at The University of Manchester have produced the most tightly knotted physical structure ever known - a sci-entific achievement which has the potential to create a new generation of advanced materials.

The University of Manchester researchers, led by Profes-sor David Leigh in Manchester ’s School of Chemistry, have developed a way of braiding multiple molecular strands en-abling tighter and more complex knots to be made than has previously been possible.

The breakthrough knot has eight crossings in a 192-atom closed loop - which is about 20 nanometers long (i.e. 20 mil-lionths of a millimeter).

Being able to make different types of molecular knots means that scientists should be able to probe how knotting affects strength and elasticity of materials which will enable them to weave polymer strands to generate new types of materials.

Professor David Leigh said: “Tying knots is a similar pro-cess to weaving so the techniques being developed to tie knots in molecules should also be applicable to the weaving of molecular strands.

“For example, bullet-proof vests and body armor are made of kevlar, a plastic that consists of rigid molecular rods aligned in a parallel structure - however, interweaving poly-mer strands have the potential to create much tougher, light-er and more flexible materials in the same way that weaving threads does in our everyday world.

“Some polymers, such as spider silk, can be twice as strong as steel so braiding polymer strands may lead to new generations of light, super-strong and flexible materials for fabrication and construction.”

Professor David Leigh said he and his team were delighted to have achieved this scientific landmark.

(Source: EurekAlert)

From hedgehogs to hyenas: biologists share list of flatulent animals Bored biologists amused themselves online by creating a list of animals which break wind and vomit.

New research from the U.S., however, suggests the group of people who could most benefit from adopting the lotus position while locating their spiritual core are in fact those immobilized by pain.

Analysis of more than 1,000 men and women with long-term lower back pain found that patients who practiced the ancient Indian discipline were most likely to reduce pain lev-els and improve their mobility.

The findings add further weight to calls for GPs to prescribe yoga for people with long-term discomfort as a matter of course.

Back pain is the cause of more disability than any oth-er condition and affects nearly one in 10 people, becoming more common with age.

The vast majority of lower back pain cases have an un-known cause, making them hard to treat, and patients com-monly resort to long-term use of strong painkillers.

While National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines instruct doctors to consider recommending various aerobic and biomechanical exercises, there is current-ly no mention of yoga.

However, the new analysis of 12 academic studies from the UK, U.S. and India, suggests that the specific practice of yoga, as distinct from traditional back exercises, could yield the best results.

(Source: The Telegraph)

S C I E N C EJANUARY 14, 2017JANUARY 14, 2017 11I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

Scientists bring ‘nonsensical’ quantum physics into real world

Lasers activate killer instinct in mice

Why do female killer whales experience the change of life?

Managing Director of Bank Maskan Dr. Moham-mad-Hashem Botshekan placed special emphasis on indigenization and localization of information technol-ogy (IT) auditing, Public Relations Dept. of the bank reported.

He elaborated on the status of IT auditing in world banking system and advantages of this vital tool and said: “Paragraph “H” of Article 2 of E-Commerce Law, Article 29 of Banking Law Bill, Article 73 of Banking Law Bill and Note 3 of Article 16 of Law to Remove Compet-itive Production Barriers and also promotion of financial system of the country will pave the way legal bedrocks

for governance of information.”The senior official of the Bank pointed to the IT gov-

ernance as one of the components of corporate gov-ernance which its responsibility has been delegated to the Board of Directors of the bank.

“IT risk and consecutive management process”, “im-plementation of accurate procedure due to controlling information technology” and “IT governance” are con-sidered as three angles of a suitable IT risk manage-ment, he said, adding: “Board of Directors is tasked with identifying IT risks and monitoring on a suitable risk management system.”

Banker Urges Localization of IT Auditing

It is a breakthrough that could have significant implications for attempts to

create quantum computers that are many millions of times faster than the current

machines.

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

I N F O C U S JANUARY 14, 2017JANUARY 14, 201712

Mohammad Reza AbassiTehran Times and Mehr news agency photographer

PHOTO

TEHRAN — Shahsavan nomads are one of the best-known and most important tribes living in northwestern

provinces of East Azarbaijan and Ardebil.The Shahsavan tribes traditionally pursue a nomadic pastoral way of life,

migrating between winter pastures and summer quarters. In the wake of the hot and cold seasons these pastoral nomads travel for kilometers with their whole life packed on their backs.

They begin their migration to their traditional summer camps in Mount Sabalan in early May. With the availability of the pastures and many mountain springs the Shahsavan tribes graze their animals with ease.

They earn a living by breeding livestock and graze them on the pastures of mountain ranges in Ardabil.

Herding sheep and goats is a very time-consuming process which takes up a lot of energy that’s why the whole family is involved. Herding is the basis of economic life for the Shahsavan nomads and the tribe earns its living mainly through various dairy products.

They live in dome-shaped tents stretching almost five meters and are usually decorated with bells, colorful cloths, rugs and cushions. The tents only take 15 minutes to set up.

Their rich history, lifestyle, customs, and traditions attract many tourists annually.

A woman is posing in front of the camera while milking a sheep.

They earn a living by breeding livestock. Aside from dairy products sheep and goats are also a source of food, shelter and clothing for them.

Women bake fresh bread on a daily basis on a huge flat iron plate. In addition to livestock breeding they raise chickens both for their meat and eggs.

Unlike women Shahsavan Men’s clothes are nothing different than what other men wear. They usually wear suits and a hat.

The nomads lead a simple and peaceful life in tents. They are famous for being patriotic people and skilled at hunting.

Two women are making butter by moving a Mashk (a big container made of leather) constantly for 20 to 25 minutes.

The Shahsavan women’s costume is comprising of kerchiefs with floral patterns and colorful long-sleeve dresses. They also wear vests with golden or silver coins sewed on them. The number of the coins indicate their families’ wealth.

Shahsavan nomads, inhabitants of green pastures

in northwestern IranS O C I E T Yd e s k

WORLD IN FOCUS 13I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

JANUARY 14, 2017JANUARY 14, 2017

Erdogan: Early Turkish election not desirable, but not unthinkableTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday ear-ly elections would not be out of the question if parliament becomes unable to do its job, as lawmakers debate consti-tutional changes which would introduce a full presidential system.

Speaking to reporters after Friday prayers, Erdogan said he had always been against early elections and he hoped the constitutional reform talks would be completed this week.

Parliament approved key articles of the reform package in an initial vote, bringing the executive presidency sought by Erdogan a step closer.

Turkey detains Erdogan’s former security chief in post-coup crackdown

Elsewhere, Turkish authorities have arrested the former chief of Erdogan’s security staff over his alleged affiliation to the network of United States-based opposition cleric Fethul-lah Gulen, whom the Ankara government accuses of having orchestrated the failed July 15 coup attempt last year.

Maksut Karal was detained on Wednesday, and charged with being a member of a “terrorist organization” in addition to having backed the botched putsch, Turkish-language CNN Turk television news network reported on Friday.

(Source: AP)

Governments should immediately suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia: HRWSaudi campaign has killed 1400 Yemeni kids: UNICEF

1 Relano said the actual casualty toll was likely to be much higher than the verified figures. She said that some 2,000 schools across Yemen can no longer be used because they have been damaged, destroyed or are used as shelters or for military purposes.

Elsewhere in her remarks, the United Nations official called on all parties in the conflict to stop attacks on schools and protect children.

“Schools have to be zones of peace at all times, a sanctu-ary where children can learn, grow, play and be safe,” Relano said.

“Children should never risk their lives only to attend school.”

The plea follows an airstrike by Saudi regime warplanes near a school in northern Yemen on Tuesday. Medics said the attack killed at least five civilians, including two children.

International organizations and human rights groups have harshly criticized the regime in Riyadh for its airstrikes on Yemen, which have killed and maimed hundreds of children.

The Yemeni army, backed by the Ansarullah (Houthi) movement fighters and allied popular forces, has been de-fending the country against the House of Saud regime’s ag-gression.

In another development the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said “in the midst of one of the world’s worst hunger crises, Yemen’s farmers urgent-ly need support so they can grow more food and provide young people with jobs.”

Nearly two years of Saudi war against Yemen has left more than half of Yemen’s 28 million people facing hunger, its economy in ruins and food supplies disrupted.

Nearly half of Yemen’s 22 governorates are officially rated as being in an emergency food situation, which is four on a five-point scale, where five is famine, the United Nations said last month.

“People’s access to food is rapidly worsening and urgent action is needed,” said Salah Hajj Hassan, FAO representative in Yemen.

About two-thirds of the population depends on agricul-ture for their survival, and it is one of the only sectors of the economy still functioning after years of war, according to FAO.

Yemeni forces, Saudi-backed militants clash near Bab al-Mandeb

Meantime, Yemeni armed forces have reportedly en-gaged in heavy fighting with pro-Saudi militants near the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula state.

The clashes broke out on Friday after Saudi mercenar-ies, backed by Riyadh’s military aircraft, seized the al-Zabab region of southern Yemen and the heights overlooking the al-Amri military base in the area, Yemen 24 reported.

According to militant sources, 11 Ansarullah fighters and eight militiamen loyal to the former Yemeni government were killed in the battles.

The sources said Saudi-backed militants are now advanc-ing towards the areas near the Red Sea port city of Mokha.

Bab al-Mandab Strait is the narrow waterway separating the Arabian Peninsula from the Horn of Africa and links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

It is a key strategic channel for commerce and trade, with an estimated 4 percent of global oil supply passing through it.

The developments come as Saudi regime fighter jets con-tinue their deadly air raids against civilian targets in Yemen.

In the early hours of Friday, at least 17 people were killed and 13 others injured after Riyadh’s warplanes at-tacked Yemen’s southwestern province of Ta’izz.

The air raids hit residential buildings, economic centers and infrastructure in the area.

The Saudi warplanes also bombarded Razeh district in the northwestern province of Sa’ada, using cluster bombs.

The Saudi regime war on Yemen, which has reportedly killed at least 11,400 Yemenis, was launched in an unsuccessful attempt to reinstate the former government.

(Source: agencies)

3 Despite Democrats’ dismay over some of Trump’s selections, the hearings were relatively tranquil, with Democrats generally restrained even in quizzing the more contentious picks. The reason, according to a few Democrats: The nominees are proving more palata-ble than Trump himself.

“As I meet members of the Cabinet I’m puzzled because many of them sound reasonable,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Il-linois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat. “Far more reasonable than their president.”

That could change in weeks to come, because some of the most potentially explosive hearings are still pending, in-cluding the scrutiny of former Goldman Sachs partner Steven Mnuchin for Treas-ury secretary.

Several of Trump’s Cabinet selections this week made statements this week contradicting policy stances espoused by their soon-to-be boss.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, picked for attorney general, said he’s against any outright ban on immigration by Muslims, in con-

trast to Trump’s onetime call to suspend admittance of Muslims until U.S. officials could learn more about nature of the threat of extremism.

His secretary of state candidate, Rex Tillerson, took a relatively hard line on Washington’s dealings with Russia, even though Trump has been talking about improving relations between Washington and Moscow and held out for days be-fore saying he accepted the intelligence community’s conclusion that Moscow meddled in the U.S. election process.

Tillerson demurred, however, when one senator tried to lure him into call-ing Putin, whom he knows, a “war crim-inal,” although he emphasized support for NATO commitments that Trump had questioned. The secretary-of-state des-ignate also said the United States should not back away from its efforts against nuclear proliferation, notwithstanding Trump’s suggestion earlier this year that some key U.S. allies like Japan and South Korea provide their own defense.

(Source: agencies)

1 Within aesthetics, for example, Derrida sug-gests that there is an attempt to control art and liter-ature through philosophical analysis. For Derrida, this makes art and literature subservient to philosophy, the field of knowledge that can supposedly adjudicate over other fields of inquiry. Derrida, however, points to the way that art and literature exceed the purview of philosophy and other fields including art history, while offering philosophical insights from a position outside the domain of philosophy. In essence, he reverses and suspends the hierarchical relationship between philoso-phy and art that aesthetics sets up, opening up a more productive dialog between the different fields of inquiry.

So while modernity brings a further contouring of the specialized branches of philosophy, whose roots derive from Antiquity, we can see contemporary figures who are questioning the values of this tradition, while looking to how these different branches try to define and con-fine the field of inquiry within other disciplines.

Which specialized branches of philosophy are in focus

in the West and why?A: There are a couple of different specialized branch-

es of philosophy that seem vibrant today. Much of this work can be seen as a reaction or extension of the in-sights opened up by Continental thinkers like Derrida, Deleuze, Guattari, Krisetva, Irigaray, Lacan, and Fou-cault. In relation to the growth of technology within culture, two branches seem particularly relevant. First, posthumanist thought touches on a number of signifi-

cant contemporary phenomena, such as the environ-ment, artificial intelligence, animals, cloning, gene-splic-ing, and other questions that loom on the horizon of the twenty-first century. Second, there are new devel-opments in philosophy that draw upon materialism and pragmatism. For instance, speculative realism and new materialism offer a counter to a world gone virally virtual. We see a probing of the physical and sensual experience of things that continues the tra-dition of thinking about reality and being, but now considering it through a lens marked by the age of technology and information.

On another level, when one examines the profes-sion of philosophy today, the continued interest in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of religion, and other traditional branches of philosophy persists, even as one sees a growth in are-as such as environmental philosophy and ethics around health care and other pressing social questions. This may represent an aspect of the industrialization of academia, replete with philosophy departments, conferences and symposia to fuel these diverse in-terests, but, at the same time, I think it also offers some insights into how specialization in philosophy is beginning to change in certain aspects. For in-stance, in addition to the growth of philosophical questions around the environment, reality, and eth-ics, one also sees an expansion of the traditions of philosophy being considered. At the most re-cent American Philosophical Association, some

of the most striking panels were around areas of non-European philosophy, reflecting the new era of globalization, while also opening up new areas of inquiry such as comparative philosophy that of-fer dialogs between philosophical traditions. All of this points to new opportunities to build upon our collective knowledge and ways of thinking about existence.

In terms of analyzing the different branches of phi-losophy and questioning the role of philosophy in oth-er fields, there are a number of individual thinkers that one could point to, typically originating from continental Europe. Alain Badiou offers a range of considerations from cinema, poetry, and aesthetics to politics and eth-ics. Another important voice is Giorgio Agamben who touches on religion, history, and the philosophy of lan-guage, in particular, while opening up to contemporary questions and thinking through the relevance of tradi-tion to these questions. Lastly, Peter Sloterdijk provides powerful analyses in his work. The Critique of Cynical Reason remains a very important work pertinent to un-derstanding some of the apathy in the West, while Nei-ther Sun Nor Death more directly addresses the world of today and the questions broached by posthuman-ism and some of the newer branches of philosophy to emerge in the past few decades. All the while Sloterdijk makes innovative use of thinkers from the traditions that he has inherited, displaying an ability to negotiate the past and the contemporary, while thinking about the future.

The Syrian military said Israel fired rock-ets early on Friday that hit near a major military airport west of Damascus that was used to attack the militants.

In a statement carried on the official news agency SANA, the Syrian military said several missiles were launched just after midnight from an area near Lake Tiberias in the third such attack recently, triggering a massive fire.

The rockets fell in the vicinity of the Mezzeh military airport on the western edge of the Syrian capital. Residents of Damascus reported hearing several ex-plosions that shook the city.

The Mezzeh airport compound, locat-ed on the southwestern edge of the cap-ital, had been used to launch attacks on militant-held areas near Damascus and has come previously under terrorist fire.

The Syrian army said Israel, through its attacks, is assisting “terrorist groups” fighting the Syrian government.

“The Syrian army command and armed forces warn the Israeli ene-my of the repercussions of this bla-tant attack and stress it will continue its war on terrorism,” the statement said.

The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates also has strongly con-demned the recent Israeli missile attack against a military airport near the capital, Damascus, blaming Western countries and their regional allies for the Israeli re-gime’s continued aggression against the country.

The ministry, in two separate letters addressed to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and rotating President of the United Nations Security Council Olof Skoog, denounced the fresh Israeli aggression against the Mezzeh Military Airport, less than eight kilome-ters southwest of Damascus, in the early hours of Friday.

“The new Israeli missile attack on Mezzeh military airport comes within a long series of Israeli attacks since the beginning of the terrorist war on the sovereignty, territorial integrity and in-dependence of Syria,” the two identical letters said.

They added that the ongoing Syr-ia conflict was “planned by Israeli, French and British intelligence agencies and is

being pursued by their agents in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and other countries that want to impose their hegemony on Syria and the [Middle East] region.”

Last month, Israel fired surface-to-sur-face missiles that also struck near the Mezzeh airport. A week earlier, SANA said Israeli jets fired two missiles from Lebanese airspace toward the outskirts of Damascus, in the Sabboura area.

Israel has repeatedly attacked Syri-an military targets elsewhere in what is viewed as an attempt to prop up terror-ist groups in the face of the army ad-vances.

Last September, an Israeli lawmak-er said Tel Aviv was directly aiding the terrorist group formerly known as the al-Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) in the battles on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.

The group has recently changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (Front for the Conquest of the Levant) after alleg-edly splitting from al-Qaeda. Russia has

also accused the United States of sup-porting the terrorist group.

In a status posted on his Face-book page and quoted by the daily Haaretz, Knesset member Akram Ha-soon said Jabhat Fateh al-Sham was bombing the Druze village of Khadr with Israeli minister of military affairs Avigdor Lieberman’s support and protection.

The Israeli attack on Friday coincided with a powerful explosion that ripped through the southwestern Kafr Sousa neighborhood of Damascus in which at least eight people lost their lives.

The attacks came as United Nations envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said five villages in Wadi Barada had reached agreements with the government to stop hostilities.

On Thursday, as many as 500 civilians and militants evacuated the area as part of a reconciliation agreement between the armed groups and the government.

Damascus is pushing for more recon-

ciliation deals in order to secure civilian lives there, and send in engineers to re-pair the facilities.

In recent months, hundreds of mili-tants have laid down weapons and sur-rendered to the Syrian army under such reconciliation agreements.

The Syrian government says Takfi-ri militants in Wadi Barada, including those from the Fateh al-Sham terrorist group, are deliberately cutting water supplies to the capital and its surround-ings.

Water crisisMeanwhile, the Syrian army has retak-

en a village in the strategic Wadi Barada area in the countryside of Damascus, which hosts water supplies to the capital and its surroundings.

Syrian government workers entered a formerly rebel-held area near Damascus on Friday to begin restoring water to the capital after weeks of shortages, state media reported.

A local governor said a deal had been reached for the army to take control of the area northwest of the capital and work was underway to restore the water supply as soon as possible.

Mains water from the Ain al-Fijeh spring in the Wadi Barada region has been cut since December 22, after fight-ing damaged key pumping infrastruc-ture, leaving 5.5 million people facing shortages.

“We have halted military operations in Ain al-Fijeh and started reconciliation with the militias there,” said provincial governor Alaa Ibrahim, speaking to re-porters from an area near the spring.

“God willing, the pipe will be fixed within three days... rapid measures will be taken to get water to Damascus tomor-row,” he added.

Ibrahim said that any rebel fighter in Wadi Barada willing to give up his weap-on would do so, adding that those who refuse or belonging to Fateh al-Sham would be offered passage to opposi-tion-held Idlib province on buses arriving later on Friday.

“All of Wadi Barada will be secured within hours,” he added.

“Water will not be cut off to the city of Damascus again.”

(Source: agencies)

Israel attacks Syria after Damascus water secured

Trump’s Pentagon choice: U.S. needs to be ready to confront Russia

Specialized branches of philosophy emerged out of post-Renaissance culture: professor

“The Syrian army command and armed forces warn the Israeli enemy of the

repercussions of this blatant attack and stress it will continue its war on terrorism,”

the statement said.

West, regional allies responsible for Israel aggression against Syria: Damascus

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 JANUARY 14, 2017JANUARY 14, 201714

Chelsea boss Antonio Conte has been named the Premier League manager of the month for December, becoming the first coach to win the award in three consecutive months.

Conte led Chelsea to victories in all six of their matches last month, the last of which completed a run of 13 wins to equal Arsenal’s Premier League record for consecutive wins in one season.

Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp, Man-chester United’s Jose Mourinho and Mauricio Pochettino of Tottenham Hotspur were also shortlisted for the award. Only United, with 16 points, came close to Chelsea’s perfect haul over the month with the West London club now sitting five points clear at the

top of the table.“This award shows we’re working

very well,” Conte said. “December was a great month for us. It was important for the table and for our confidence.”

The Blues started December with a 3-1 win at Manchester City before go-ing on to record three points against West Brom, Sunderland, Crystal Palace, Bournemouth and Stoke City. Their fine run finally came to an end on Jan. 4 with defeat at Tottenham Hotspur.

Chelsea scored 13 goals in the month -- only Liverpool and Spurs scored more with 14 -- and had the joint-best defensive record with three goals conceded.

(Source: ESPN)

Arsène Wenger has insisted that his own future will not form the “main part” of Mesut Özil’s decision as to whether to ex-tend his contract with Arsenal.

The Germany midfielder is, alongside Alexis Sánchez, one of two key Arsenal players whose contracts at the club have 18 months left to run. The renewal of any deal has been the subject of much debate this season and Özil gave an interview in Ger-many this week in which he said his future would depend on whether Wenger himself stayed at the club. On Friday the Arsenal manager played down the remarks.

“I think [the interview] has been a bit mis-interpreted,” Wenger said. “He would like to know what happens on the managerial front of course, but I don’t think that is the main

part of his decision. It is part of it, but it’s not the only thing. There are many other ingre-dients in any negotiation and hopefully we will find a conclusion very quickly with him.”

In other transfer news, Wenger reject-ed out of hand reports that Arsenal had bid for the Italy striker Andrea Belotti. He denied Arsenal had made a bid, adding “that is what you call today fake news”. He did, however, concede that the full-back Carl Jenkinson could leave the club, with Crystal Palace the most likely destination.

“It’s a possibility that Carl will move in the next two or three days,” Wenger said. “It’s possible that it’s just a matter of time but I can’t tell you any more because we haven’t come to any conclusion yet.”

(Source: Guardian)

Mesut Özil’s Arsenal future does not depend on mine, says Arsène Wenger

Chelsea boss Antonio Conte named manager of month for third time

Andy Murray is seeking his first Australian Open after five defeats in the final while there are some famous dark horses lower down in the seedings.

Top five

1. Andy MurrayBack for more and as hungry as ever, whatever he might

say about the possibility of his knighthood quenching his thirst for success, the 29-year-old will be confident of claiming his first Australian Open title after the relentless winning run that lifted him to the top of the rankings for the first time in his career last year. Yet, despite holding off Novak Djokovic in London to finish 2016 as the world No1, the Wimbledon and Olympic champion has been a beaten finalist on five occasions in Melbourne. For all of Murray’s outstanding play in this tournament down the years, he is still carrying some mental baggage.

2. Novak DjokovicThis time last year, it was unthinkable that the Serb would

not begin 2017 as the world No1. But after completing the career slam with victory in the French Open in June, a shock early defeat at Wimbledon shook Djokovic to the core. His mood darkened, his form nosedived, there were allusions to problems away from the court and Murray overtook him. But Djokovic, who parted company with Boris Becker at the end of the season, looked close to his best again during his recent victory against Murray in Doha and the defending champion’s history in Melbourne means he is the slight favourite to win a record seventh Australian Open title.

Previously written off as too onedimensional to threaten the top players, the Canadian has emerged as a serious threat after making huge strides in 2016. He pushed Murray hard despite losing their Australian Open semi-final in five sets and reached his first grand slam final when he fought back to defeat Roger Federer at Wimbledon. Murray was too strong in the final, but Raonic is clearly on the right path and his challenge is to play with more belief in the key moments. No longer so reliant on his monstrous serve, he has become more rounded, developing his game by attacking the net more aggressively. He is capable of going all the way.

4. Stan WawrinkaOne of the most unpredictable players on the tour,

Wawrinka’s inconsistency is his greatest strength in a way. While there are times when it looks as though he has never picked up a racket before, he has the ability to blow his opponents away with sustained spells of blistering tennis when he explodes into life. The former champion won his third major when he beat Djokovic in the US Open final last year and, although he struggled with injuries and fatigue at the end of last season, the 31-year-old possesses an array of fearsome weapons that could carry him to his second Australian Open title.

5. Kei NishikoriSkilful and elegant, the 27-year-old’s cerebral game

makes him one of the most watchable players around. The Japanese star is a former US Open finalist who has beaten Murray and Djokovic at slam level and he knows this is the year when he has to push on. Nishikori has often cracked under the strain of keeping up with the grinding physicality at the top. A hip problem that threatens to undermine his chances in Melbourne will only fuel the argument that he is too brittle to make the most of his vast talent.

Roger Federer (No17 seed)Strange though it seems to introduce the greatest

player of all time as the world No17, it can be seen as a sign of the times that Federer finds himself in his lowest ranking since 2001. Yet it says much for Federer’s unwavering belief in his talent that the 35-year-old decided not to retire after missing the second half of last year with a knee injury and it should not be forgotten that he began 2016 as the world No3. He remains dangerous at the highest level. However, his low seeding means that he is likely to face a tough draw and that could hold him back given his lack of match practice.

Marin Cilic (No7 seed)The powerful Croatian possesses

a big game and a fine pedigree given that he is a former US Open champion. Yet while he qualified for the ATP World Tour Finals in November, it will be interesting to see how he has recovered from the disappointment of Croatia’s defeat to Argentina in the Davis Cup final. Victory was in sight for Croatia when Cilic led Juan Martيn del Potro by two sets in the fourth rubber in Zagreb, only for the Argentinian to force a decider after a stirring 6-7, 2-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-3 victory. Argentina won the tie 3-2 and Cilic will do well to bounce back from that setback.

Dominic Thiem (No8 seed)A debutant at the World Tour Finals after a breakthrough

campaign, the exciting young Austrian’s immense promise shone brightly last year. His run to the semi-finals at Roland Garros was one to cherish, along with victories against Federer in Rome and Stuttgart. The 23-year-old still has plenty of room for improvement, however, after receiving a couple of harsh lessons at Wimbledon and the US Open. Bearing in mind how his form dipped at the end of 2016, he will be determined to make a statement of intent in Melbourne. He is yet to make it past the first week, though.

Others to watchGranted, Rafael Nadal is not the most inspiring of picks

as a dark horse given that he is the owner of 14 slams. Looking beyond Del Potro would have been difficult if he had been ruled out by injury again, while intrigue

surrounds Nick Kyrgios, Gaël Monfils and Lucas Pouille, and maybe even Grigor

Dimitrov if he discovers greater focus. But it will be fascinating to see how Nadal fares after the world No9’s return from injury. Time has taken its toll on the 30-year-old’s weary frame and he has not reached the last eight of a slam since the French Open in 2015, but he has spoken positively about his hopes of

returning to his former heights.(Source: Guardian)

Kawhi Leonard poured in 31 points in just three quarters of play, and four of San Antonio’s starters scored in double figures as the Spurs demolished the Los Angeles Lakers 134-94 at the AT&T Center on Thursday.

San Antonio’s total was a season-high, as were the 72 points scored by the Spurs in the first half and the 40-point margin of victory.

Pau Gasol added 22 points for San Antonio, while LaMarcus Aldridge and Tony Parker added 13 each, all in just three quarters of the lopsided game.

The Spurs also got 12 points from Jonathon Simmons, 10 from Dejounte Murray and a game-high 12 rebounds from Dewayne Dedmon.

All 13 players who took the floor for San Antonio scored, and the Spurs (31-8) outshot Los Angeles 60.5 percent to 41.2 percent.

The Lakers (15-28) were led by Julius Randle’s 22 points,

but the rest of their starters managed just 20 total points.Reserves Jordan Clarkson and Lou Williams added 14

and 10 points respectively as the Lakers lost to San Antonio for the ninth straight time.

The Spurs hit 14 of their 24 field-goal attempts in the first quarter on the way to a 36-24 lead after 12 minutes.

Leonard was 5-of-5 from the floor in the period (including all thee from three-point territory) and led all scorers with 14 points while staking San Antonio to a 36-19 lead before he went to the bench.

The Lakers took advantage to finish the period on a 5-0 run to cut the San Antonio advantage to 36-24 at quarter’s end.

A 7-0 run by Los Angeles capped by a steal and a dunk by Randle cut the Spurs’ lead to 45-41 at the 7:04 mark of the second quarter.

However, there was no panic from San Antonio, which promptly pushed its advantage back to eight points on

layups by Parker and Leonard.The Spurs outscored Los Angeles 23-13 over the rest

of the quarter, including three free throws by Leonard after he was fouled by D’Angelo Russell attempting a shot from beyond half court with 0.3 seconds remaining.

The result was a 72-54 San Antonio lead at intermission.San Antonio poured it on in the third quarter, pushing

its lead to 106-75 on a Simmons running one-hander to beat the buzzer to end the period.

The Spurs were relentless inside -- Gasol had six points in the quarter, including a thumping dunk -- and out, as even Aldridge poured in a three-pointer.

The Spurs outshot Los Angeles 65 percent to 35 percent in the quarter, with 18 of their 34 points in the period coming in the paint. With the game all but decided, both teams played mostly reserves in the fourth.

(Source: Reuters)

Leonard inspires Spurs to thumping win over Lakers

Australian Open men’s form guide: Australian Open men’s form guide: the players to watch in Melbourne the players to watch in Melbourne

rmer US Open finalist who has vic at slam level and he knows as to push on. Nishikori has ain of keeping up with the top. A hip problem thats chances in Melbourne t that he is too brittle to talent.17 seed)

ms to introduce the greatestorld No17, it can be seen as derer finds himself in his lowestys much for Federer’s unwavering 35-year-old decided not to retire alf of last year with a knee injury

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ed)possesses pedigree US Open qualified Finals in esting to d from the a’s defeat to p final. Victory hen Cilic led Juan o sets in the fourth

the Argentinian to force -7, 2-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-3 victory. and Cilic will do well to bounce

o8 seed)d Tour Finals after a breakthrough ung Austrian’s immense promise

His run to the semi-finals at o cherish, along with victories and Stuttgart. The 23-year-old r improvement, however, after sh lessons at Wimbledon and n mind how his form dippedwill be determined to make a elbourne. He is yet to make it h.

Looking beyond Del Potro would have been difficult if he had been ruled out by injury again, while intrigue

surrounds Nick Kyrgios, Gaël Monfils and Lucas Pouille, and maybe even Grigor

DiD mitrov if he discovers greater focus. But t itit will be fascinating to see howNadal fafarer s after the world No9’s return frommmmmmmmmm ini juj ry. Time has taken its toll on the 3030333033030003030-year-old’s wearyframe and he has nnotot reached the last eight of a slam since ttheh French Open in 2015, but he has spopoken positively about his hopes oof f

returning to his former heights.(Source: Guardian)

Siamand Rahman shortlisted for 2017 Laureus AwardSix Paralympians who, between them, won 22 medals at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games have been shortlisted for the prestigious 2017 Laureus Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability Award.

This shortlist includes Belarussian S13 swimmer Ihar Boki who left Rio 2016 as the most decorated athlete after winning six golds and one bronze medal. Boki is joined on the shortlist by fellow swimmer Sophie Pascoe who won three gold and two silvers in Rio to become New Zealand’s most successful Paralympian of all-time.

The world’s strongest male and world’s fastest female Paralympians also make the final six.

Iranian powerlifter Siamand Rahman made history at Latin America’s first Paralympics by becoming the first athlete to lift over 300kg. Cuba’s Omara Durand also rewrote the record books on her way to three gold medals, lowering the 100m T12 world record to 11.40 seconds.

The Swiss “Silver Bullet” Marcel Hug is also shortlisted after winning his first Paralympic titles in Rio and then going on to become the first man to complete the marathon Grand Slam after wins in Boston, London, Chicago and New York.

The sixth nominee is Italian teenager Beatrice Vio who on her Paralympic debut in wheelchair fencing won individual gold and team bronze.

The shortlist was decided by the IPC Governing Board following nominations from IPC members. The winner will be decided by members of the Laureus World Sports Academy and announced on 14 February at a glittering awards ceremony in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

The six shortlisted athletes are: Ihar Boki (BLR)

The S13 swimmer finished Rio 2016 as the most decorated athlete after winning six gold medals and a bronze.

His demanding programme of 14 races, including heats and finals, in nine days saw him top the podium in the 50m, 100 and 400m freestyle, 100m backstroke, 100m butterfly and 200m individual medley. The bronze came in the 100m breaststroke.

Along the way he broke the world record in the 100m butterfly and men’s 100m backstroke events and lowered the Paralympic record in eight of his other races.

Omara Durand (CUB)The T12 athlete firmly established herself as the world’s fastest

female Paralympian wining Rio 2016 gold in the 100m, 200m and 400m. In the 100m she lowered the Paralympic record twice on her way to the final where she eventually clocked 11.40 seconds to break her own world record. Over 200m she lowered the Paralympic record in the heats and final, running 23.05 to take the gold. In the 400m semi-finals she lowered the world record to 52.90 before running a staggering 51.77 in the final to take her third gold in as many events.

Marcel Hug (SUI)Hug had a year to remember in 2016 winning his first two

Paralympic titles and becoming the first man to complete the marathon Grand Slam.

In his fourth Paralympic Games, and after multiple attempts, he finally won gold not once, but twice winning the 800m and marathon T54 events. In Rio he also won silver in the 1,500m and 5,000m.

He won the inaugural Abbott Marathon Majors title with wins in Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York.

Sophie Pascoe (NZL)Pascoe contested five swimming events in five days in Rio

winning three gold and two silver medals. Along the way she set one world and three Paralympic records. Her best performance came in the 200m individual medley SM10 an event she won for the third Games in a row. Her world record time of 2:24.90 was six seconds ahead of her nearest rival.

Her performances in Rio saw her enter the record books as New Zealand’s most decorated Paralympian with nine gold and five silver medals.

Siamand Rahman (IRI)Rahman produced arguably the best performance of Rio

2016 when he lifted a world record 310kg to take gold in the men’s over 100kg powerlifting event. In becoming the first Paralympian to lift over 300kg, Rahman made global headlines for Paralympic sport. His final lift of 310kg was the equivalent of lifting a large Siberian tiger.

Earlier in the year, Rahman had broken his own world record by 1kg with a lift of 296kg at the 7th Fazza 2016 IPC Powerlifting World Cup.

Beatrice Vio (ITA)At London 2012, Vio was a 15-year-old torchbearer

representing future Paralympians. In Rio she achieved her dream of not just competing in the Games but also making the podium twice.

In 2015/2016, following 11 undefeated IWAS Wheelchair Fencing World Cups, Vio qualified for Rio 2016 as the highest ranked fencer in her category. In Rio, she came out of the pool stage undefeated, winning her five bouts on 5–0. The final saw her beat China’s Jingjing Zhou to earn the Paralympic gold. She also led the Italian team to a bronze medal victory in what was to become known as one of Rio 2016’s most memorable celebrations.

Previous winners of the awards have included Brazilian swimmer Daniel Dias, the USA’s track star Tatyana McFadden and France’s 11-time alpine skiing world champion Marie Bochet.

(Source: Paralympic.org)

S P O R TJANUARY 14, 2017JANUARY 14, 2017 15I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

Carlos Queiroz opens up on Iran, World Cup qualifiers and Branko IvankovicIran have been the top-ranked Asian nation, according to FIFA, for four years. They were unbeaten in 2016 and sit on top of Group A in the final round of qualification for the 2018 World Cup, well-placed to secure back-to-back finals places for the first time.

But coach Carlos Queiroz has just resigned and the situation surrounding the national team is febrile. Not for the first time, in either case. This is different, however, insists the coach who took the job in 2011.

The former Real Madrid and Portugal boss accuses the Iranian Football Federation (IFF) of failing to implement a preparation program for World Cup qualification that was agreed upon in 2016. His resignation letter, submitted on Saturday, was rejected by the federation on Monday.

IFF president Mehdi Taj said that Queiroz will continue to work as coach. “I talked with Queiroz and I have to insist that the national team is our priority,” he said. “In order to support the squad; their commitment to Queiroz has caused our disagreement with his resignation. We are in a crucial time and have to do our best to reach the World Cup.”

For Queiroz, though, that is irrelevant. “That does not answer the key issues,” he told ESPN FC. “The question is not about the resignation, I don’t want to discuss that anymore. The promises have been blown up, it is all delay and postponements and ‘next time,’ but in football, there is no next time. The game is tomorrow.”

According to Queiroz, after Iran had progressed past the second round of qualification for Russia 2018, he was asked last June to submit a preparation plan for the 10 games in the final stage. One was rejected as unworkable, but what he calls “Plan B” was approved by the federation, coaches, players and clubs.

However, cracks have emerged in the alliance, with the main problem being Queiroz’s deteriorating relationship with Branko Ivankovic. The Croatian led Iran to the 2006 World Cup, and is now in charge of the country’s biggest club, Persepolis. He has voiced his concerns about losing his players to national team training camps.

The latest exchange came with the national team in the United Arab Emirates during the first week of January.

“We are going to prepare our team in the midseason but Queiroz has invited our key players to the training camp while Persepolis should prepare for the AFC Champions League,” said a furious Ivankovic to local media. “If we cannot qualify for the next stage, Queiroz will be responsible for that.”

Though seven Persepolis players did return to their club, Queiroz rejects Ivankovic’s accusation out of hand.

“He says it will be my fault. The Champions League starts on Feb. 23,” Queiroz said. “Many countries that have a winter break have training camps for local-based players. It is about trying to help them.”

A report last week suggested that Ivankovic, who was previously linked with a return in 2010 and again last year, would be a leading candidate to take over as coach. The Croatian has not denied his interest in a second stint in charge and Queiroz says the whole situation is detrimentally affecting the national team.

“Coincidentally or not, this is a man who was promised the job after I resigned before,” Queiroz said. “He is jealous and frustrated and he has insulted me. He can’t use the national team as an excuse for his own mistakes. Why is he making these issues? He should have more respect.

“I went to the president of the federation and he said that he did not have the authority to implement the program that had been approved,” Queiroz continued. “If the federation is not strong enough to defend its own national team, that’s it. What am I doing here?”

Queiroz insists he has no idea of what happens next. On the field, Iran take on Qatar and China in March in the next games of qualification. Given their performances so far, which include a 1-0 win in Tehran against rivals South Korea in October, it would be a surprise if “Team Melli” do not make it to Russia, though the 63-year-old insists that there is still much work to be done.

“This is all about World Cup qualification. It is not easy,” Queiroz continued. “Everyone should know that the Iranian national team have faced huge difficulties due to sanctions. It is important to remind people that it is hard to arrange friendly games. We don’t have the money to play good teams or hold good camps. We don’t need each other to be opponents,we have enough of those outside.”

Queiroz’s trump card is the fact that he has delivered before. He may continue to clash with IFF officials but the fans don’t care; he is Iran’s most successful coach of all-time.

Not only is he close to taking Iran to a second successive World Cup but, once there -- depending on the draw -- Iran could offer Asia’s best chance of a place in the knockout stage. This is a younger team than that which almost gave Argentina a shock in Brazil but has more talent and international experience.

“We have made real progress. We have 11 players in Europe now, which has never happened before,” Queiroz said. “We have been the No. 1 team in Asia for four years. This does not mean we are always the best, but it is still a hard thing to do. We have good young players and top of our group. What more do they expect?”

(Source: ESPN)

S P O R T Sd e s k

S P O R T Sd e s k

Iran football team maintained its position as Asia’s best ranked team following the release of the latest FIFA World Ranking on Thursday.

Iran and Korea Republic’s rankings remained unchanged at 29th and 37th respectively, while Australia (44th) overtook Japan (46th) as the third best ranked side in Asia, while Saudi Arabia moved up six ranks to 48th.

All of Asia’s top 10 teams are currently contesting in the third round of qualifying for the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018, with unbeaten Iran leading Group A and Saudi Arabia edging out Japan to sit atop Group B.

The Maldives are the best Asian movers in the latest rankings, climbing up nine spots to 145th globally, while India and Nepal moved up six spots

to 129th and 175th respectively.Asia’s Top 10 (global rankings in brackets)Iran (29th)Korea Republic (37th)Australia (44th)Japan (46th)Saudi Arabia (48th)Uzbekistan (61st)United Arab Emirates (64th)China PR (81st)Qatar (85th)Syria (96th)The next FIFA World Ranking will be released on

February 9.(Source: the-afc)

Iran remains Asian top team in FIFA rankings

S P O R T Sd e s k

Iranian international striker Karim Ansarifard has joined the Greek giants

Olympiacos from Panionios on a three-and-a-half year contract and a reported fee of €400,000 on Friday.

The 26-year-old who made a name for himself in Greek Super league with Panionios after scoring 11 goals in 36 appearances in all competitions last season, had offers from AEK, PAOK FC, Feyenoord and Olympique de Marseille.

Olympiacos is currently on top of Greek Super League with 37 points from 14 games under tutelage of Portuguese coach Paolo Bento who was appointed in August 2016.

Olympiacos has qualified for the round of 32 in

UEFA Europa League and they will take Turkish side Osmanlispor in a two-leg clash.

Although it was initially reported that Ansarifard would remain at Panionios until the end of the 2016-17 season, the contract he eventually signed is effective from the January 2017 transfer window.

Karim started his professional career in 2007 with Saipa before moving to Iranian league giant Persepolis in 2012. After 2014 World Cup Ansarifard moved to Spanish Segunda division Osasuna where he was mostly used as a bench-warmer.

A move to Panionios in the summer of 2015 saved his career as his good performance caught the eye of big teams and finally Olympiacos signed him.

Iran’s Karim Ansarifard joins Olympiacos

Record-breaking Iran midfielder Saeid Ezatolahi has apparently decided his future lies in Germany rather than at Stoke City.

Ezatolahi made headlines when he became the youngest player to appear in the Iranian Pro League and, at international level, he went on to be the youngest person to score for his country. He ended up at Rostov in Russia via Atletico Madrid but, at 20, he has been keen for more game time.

The Persian press now claim he is set to move on again to join Hamburg,

having considered an offer from the Potters in the Premier League.

Varzesh3 write: “The national team player will most likely join Hamburg in January. An agreement has been reached.

“He also had offers from Stoke City but preferred to go to a club where Iranians have a lot of history. Mehdi Mahdavikia and his brother Hadi Mahdavikia, Vahid Hashemian and Rasul Khatibi have all been in the service of Hamburg – and so may one of Iran’s next big players.”

(Source: stokesentinel.co.uk)

Rising star Saeid Ezatolahi turns down Stock City for Hamburg

Iran football 5-a-side captain Behzad Zada-liasghari is among Ones to Watch for 2017.

Zadaliasghari was outstanding for the Iranian team at Rio 2016 as the team became the first Asian country to win a football 5 medal at the Paralym-pic Games.

Selected in partnership with International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA) the Ones to Watch athletes are individuals who have the potential to make the headlines in football 5 during the next Paralympic cycle ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.

The International Paralympic Committee

(IPC) started the process of announcing Ones to Watch athletes for all 22 Paralympic summer sports for 2017, beginning with archery and wheelchair rugby.

With one eye on the next Paralympic Games, many of this year’s Ones to Watch are young athletes who will develop be-tween now and Tokyo 2020. Others are Paralympic and world medallists looking to stay at the top of their game.

Between now and 19 January, the IPC will announce Ones to Watch athletes in two sports each day.

(Source: Paralympic.org)

Iran’s Behzad Zadaliasghari among one to watch

Persepolis remains top of Iran Persepolis remains top of Iran Professional League tableProfessional League table

TEHRAN — Persepolis football team defeated Saipa 1-0 here

to stay top of Iran Professional League (IPL) table. Mehdi Taremi was on target for the Reds in

the 47th minute with an acrobatic kick.Persepolis was reduced to 10 men in the 55th

minute after referee Hossein Zahedifar showed a straight red card to Farshad Ahmadzadeh due to preventing Saipa striker from a real goal scoring opportunity.

Shortly after, Saipa put 10-man Persepolis under pressure but failed to score.

Persepolis moved top of IPL table with 35 points, two points ahead of Tractor Sazi.

“I want to congratulate my players for the great game they played since we were playing a man down for more than half an hour. Our main goal is winning the title at the end of the season,” Branko Ivankovic said in the post-match news conference.

Earlier on the day, Zob Ahan edged past Siahjamegan thanks to Yaser Feyzi’s 67th minute goal.

Machine Sazi and Foolad played out a goalless draw in Tabriz and Padidieh drew 1-1 with Sepahan in Mashhad.

On Thursday, Esteghlal defeated Naft Tehran 1-0, Paykan and Gostaresh finished 1-1 and Tractor Sazi beat holder Esteghlal Khuzestan 1-0 in Ahvaz.

Igor Kolakovic’s chance of appointing as head

coach of Iran national volleyball team has increased.

After Bulgarian coach Radostin Stoychev and Italy’s Andrea Anastasi rejected Iran Volleyball Federation’s

offer to replace Raul Lozano, the former Montenegro coach is a strong candidate to take charge of the team.

Under Lozano, the world-class Iran finished fifth in the 2016 Olympic Games.

Carlos Javier Weber, former Argentina coach, and Mauro Berruto, ex-Italy coach,

are also candidates to be appointed as Iran coach.

Kolakovic was the coach of the Serbia men’s national volleyball team and led the team at the 2006 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship and 2014 FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship.

Igor Kolakovic close to Iran’s volleyball hotseat

b

No. 18, Bimeh Alley, Nejatollahi St., Tehran, IranP.o. Box: 14155-4843

Zip Code: 1599814713

I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Yh t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m / c u l t u r e

Do good, O man, and consider life as a good fortune, The more so, as when a shout is raised, a man exists no more.

Poem of the day

SINCE 1979Prayer Times

TEHRAN — The 32nd Fajr International Music Festival opened

in Tehran on Friday with performances by several celebrated international musicians.

The Rembrandt Frerichs Trio from the Netherlands, sitar player of Hindustani classical music Shahid Parvez Khan, Armenian duduk virtuoso Djivan Gasparyan, the composer of acclaimed album “The Soul of Armenia”, were among the musicians who performed on the opening day of the weeklong festival at Milad Tower, Vahdat Hall and Rudaki Hall.

French composer and saxophonist Guillaume Perret will be giving his performance at Vahdat Hall on Tuesday January 17.

Also on Jan. 17 Vahdat Hall will be hosting several other performances including a performance by Spanish flamenco guitarist Diego del Morao.

According to the schedule, the Japanese Drum Group SAI will perform Wa-Daiko, a Japanese traditional percussion instrument, at Vahdat Hall on Wednesday Jan. 18.

Also on Wednesday Antonio Zambujo, an internationally acclaimed Portuguese guitarist and singer of fado, a music genre that can be traced back to the 1820s in Portugal, is scheduled to give his performance at Vahdat Hall.

Among other events on Wednesday is a performance by Davlatmand Kholov, a musician and singer from Tajikistan.

Ukrainian-born pianist Yegor Shevtsov and cellist Yann Merker accompanied by the Iranian Shahrzad Ensemble will give their performance at Vahdat on

Thursday.Iranian musicians and groups will also have their

performances during the event which comes to an end on Friday.

Madame Tussauds unveils Amitabh Bachchan waxwork for Delhi opening

Hollywood’s gender pay gap is ‘crazy’: Natalie PortmanLONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) — New complaints of discrimination have hit the film awards season after Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman slammed the gender pay gap as “crazy” – and said it was even worse in Hollywood than in other jobs.

In a magazine interview, Portman revealed that she was paid three times less than her male co-star Ashton Kutcher for her role in the 2011 romantic comedy “No Strings Attached”.

“Compared to men, in most professions, women make 80 cents to

the dollar,” Portman told Marie Claire. “In Hollywood we are making 30 cents to the dollar.”

The 35-year-old star – who won a best actress Oscar in 2011 for her role in “Black Swan” and plays Jackie Kennedy in a forthcoming biopic about the former U.S. First Lady - said the pay disparity was “crazy”.

The World Economic Forum, a non-profit foundation, predicts the global gender pay disparity may take up to 170 years to close. The average global gap stood at 59 percent in 2016, it said in a report released last October.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) — Madame Tussauds unveiled a waxwork of Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan on Thursday ahead of the museum’s opening later this year in the Indian capital of New Delhi.

Bachchan, 74, is one of Indian cinema’s most revered and influential actors and has been a mainstay on screens for five decades.

“We looked at the culture and of course, we have a lot of Indian visitors in our existing attractions as well. Their feedback is so positive ... that we said we need to be there,”

Marcel Kloos, Merlin Entertainments’ director of new openings in emerging markets said.

Guests at the unveiling photographed themselves alongside Bachchan, as well as with a waxwork of American pop star Lady Gaga.

The Delhi branch above the city center ’s famed Regal Cinema is India’s first Madame Tussauds, the museum’s twenty-third globally and its ninth in Asia, where a growing middle class are prepared to pay to see wax figures of their favorite stars.

TEHRAN —Celebrated Iranian

stage director Mohammad Rahmanian is holding a series of workshops that focus on the growing phenomenon of selfie photography that has become an irritating habit in Iran.

The first session of the workshops titled “Twenty Short Performances about Selfie” was held at Tehran’s Aftab Theater on Thursday, the organizers announced in a press release on Friday.

“Theater cannot cause a decline in social problems,” he told the Persian service of IRNA on Friday. “However, it

can remind the relevant officials about them.”

“Addiction, unemployment and poverty are our main social problems and it is theater ’s responsibility to bring the problems into the public eye,” he mentioned.

A cast of 24 actors has been selected from the acting classes held by Rahmanian and his wife, Mahtab Nasirpur, for the plays being performed during the workshops.

Padideh Jamalha, Alireza Fuladshekan, Mehran Nasirpur and Mahmud Zohrevand are in a group

of directors contributing to these workshops.

Rahmanian is mostly famous for staging plays that give a real insight into Iranian society in various periods of time.

He staged “My Cinemas” in four episodes at Tehran’s Charsu Theater Complex during spring 2015. The play reviewed the history of Iranian cinema and the condition of some movie theaters in Tehran over the past 50 years.

Last week, he was honored for his “The Horses” with an Ostad-Mohammad Medallion that is presented to works promoting Iranian cultural elements.

Noon:12:13 Evening: 17:33 Dawn: 5:45 tomorrow) Sunrise: 7:13 (tomorrow)

PICTURE OF THE DAY Honaronline/Saeid Rabiei

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A picture is on display in an exhibition of jewelry at Tehran’s Aria Gallery on Jan. 12, 2017. The exhibit will run until Jan. 24 at the gallery located at No. 10 Zarrin Alley, near Beheshti St., Vali-e Asr Ave.

JANUARY 14, 2017

Fajr theater festival

announces intl. lineup

TEHRAN — The 35th Fajr International

Theater Festival announced the lineup for the international competition on Friday.

Ten foreign groups along with 19 troupes from Iran will compete in the festival.

“One” by Judith de Joode from Netherlands, “Choir of the Orphans” by Jerzy Zon from Poland, “I, Sisyphus” by Veselka Kuncheva from Bulgaria, “The Lower Depths” by Davit Duishvili and “Psychosis” by Maka Natsvlishvili, both from Georgia, are among the foreign plays.

“You’re Not a Fish After All” by Mihran Tomasyan from Turkey, “Loan” by Amer Abolheil from Iraq will also be performed along with works by troupes from Norway, Japan and France.

The 35th Fajr International Theater Festival will be held in Tehran from Jan. 20 to 31.

Fajr filmfest to honor Farhad Tohidi, Turaj Mansuri

TEHRAN — The organizers of the 35th Fajr Film Festival will

honor screenwriter Farhad Tohidi and cinematographer Turaj Mansuri with lifetime achievement awards at the opening ceremony on January 31.

The festival will be running in Tehran and several other Iranian cities until February 10.

N E W S I N B R I E F

Painting An exhibition of paintings by Maryam

Hosseinzadeh is currently underway at Dena Gallery.

The exhibition entitled “An Uncertainty among Colors” will run until Jan. 18 at the gallery located at 4 Sussan Alley off

Qarani St. A collection of paintings by Fariba Rajabpur

is on display at Persian Idea Gallery.

The exhibition named “Sometimes Hidden Sometimes Obvious” runs until Jan. 18 at the gallery located at 28 Azar Alley,

Kolahduz St., Shariati Ave. An exhibition of paintings by a group of

students from the Islamic Azad University is underway at Farda Gallery.

Paintings by Maral Ardalan, Shima Imani, Qasem Bakhshi, Mahya Rezai, Mojgan Kazemi and Ebrahim Rabbani have been selected for the exhibition

entitled “Payk.An Youth”.The exhibit will run until Jan. 19 at the gallery

located at 2 Arabi Alley, Hosseini St., off Karim Khan Ave.

Did Gallery is playing host to an exhibition of paintings by Turkish artist Havva Marta.

The exhibition named “Simorgh and the Things” runs until Jan. 24 at the gallery located at No. 18 West 19 St., Ettehad St.

in the Tehran Pars neighborhood.

Watercolor Negar Salimian is showcasing her latest

watercolor collection featuring portraits of a number of famous Iranian musicians in an exhibition at Iran Art Gallery.

The exhibit will be running until Jan. 18 at the gallery located at 19

Khark St., Enqelab Ave.

Photo Photos by Arash Akbari-Seneh are currently

on display in an exhibition at Elaheh Gallery.

The exhibit titled “I Am the City” will run until Jan. 23 at the gallery, which can be found at 47 Golfam St., off Africa Ave.

Sculpture Sculptures by Parmis

Pursamimi are on display at Naqsh-e Jahan Gallery.

The exhibit will be running until Jan. 18 at the gallery located at 9 Ayatollah Mahmudi St. in the Niavaran neighborhood.

Fajr music festival lit up with performances by foreign artists

This file photo shows Armenian duduk virtuoso Djivan Gasparyan during a solo performance.

A R Td e s k

A R Td e s k

WHAT’S IN ART GALLERIES

C U L T U R Ed e s k

Theater workshops by Mohammad Rahmanian spotlight selfie photography

Writer/director Mohammad Rahmanian holds an Ostad-Mohammad Medallion that he received for his play “The Horses” at Tehran’s City Theater Complex on Jan. 7, 2017. (Mehr/Masud Saki)

A R Td e s k

A R Td e s k

Iranian films win awards at Jaipur festival

TEHRAN — Three Iranian films were honored in various sections of the 9th

Jaipur International Film Festival (JIFF), which was held in the Indian city from Jan. 7 to 11.

“Inversion” won the Red Rose best feature film award as well as the best screenwriter award for director/writer Behnam Behzadi.

“Inversion”, which stars Ali Mossafa and Sahar Dowlatshahi, is about three siblings, and masterfully features Tehran’s air pollution.

“Arvand” by Puria Azarbaijani won the best war and peace film award.

The film is about the 175 Iranian divers, most of whom are believed to have been buried alive in scattered mass graves in Iraq during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

The award for best short film went to “Kech” by Mehrdad Hassani.

“Kech”, which means daughter in Kurdish, tells the story of a nurse who sacrifices herself to save a child from a warzone.