Ending hunger in our lifetime despite a changing global climate16 October is a date on which the glob-al community commemorates every year World Food Day. As depicted by its title, this day has been designated to raise awareness of the significance of food security in enabling individuals to lead healthy and productive lives as well as for the well-being of societies as a whole.

Over the past decades, its com-memoration has provided an oppor-tunity for profound reflection on the plight of the hundreds of millions of people who are afflicted by hunger and malnutrition across the world.

Notwithstanding the efforts that have been undertaken to address the debilitating and often pernicious scourge of hunger, a substantial pro-portion of the earth’s vulnerable pop-ulation continues to succumb to this bane.

The question that many pose is whether food security can be ensured for all in our lifetime. Can we enhance the level of agricultural productivity to meet the needs of an ever growing glob-al population that will practically dou-ble over the course of the twenty-first century whilst redressing the threats of depleting natural resources and the ten-uous strains of environmental degrada-tion being prompted by, amongst other factors, climate change?

In responding to this question, this year’s world food theme (“Climate is changing. Food and agriculture must too”) has sought to delve into the need for promoting sustainable agricultural practices that factor in the adverse im-pacts of climate change.

Strengthening agricultural produc-tivity from a quantitative perspective must be coupled with methodological-ly innovative ‘climate smart’ approach-es that can safeguard sustainable food security applied in the light of ever growing global food demand. 1 3

TEHRAN — An Iranian entrepreneurship fund

called Omid (literally meaning hope), has allotted some 50 billion rials (nearly $1.5 million) with the aim of saving wetlands nationwide, ISNA news agency reported.

In a ceremony held on Saturday the Department of Environment (DOE) and Hope entrepreneurship fund signed a memorandum of understanding to create

job opportunities which can replace the current water reliant jobs such as farming for people living in the proximity of the 12 wetlands such as Urmia and Hamoun.

DOE Chief Masoumeh Ebtekar ex-pressed hope that the newly signed agreement would help local people to stay in their home towns and at the same time help restore the wetlands and save them from getting drier.

TEHRAN — The Iranian air

force is set to start a three-day drill on October 17 in Isfahan province, where one of the most sensitive nuclear sites, the Natanz enrich-ment facility, is located, Mehr news agency reported on Sunday.

Interceptor, bomber, cargo, and reconnaissance aircrafts will fly during the drill, according to Second Brigadier General Rouz-khosh.

Also, unmanned aerial vehicles will be used, the drill’s spokesman added.

Serge R. Nakouzi The FAO Representative to Iran and to ECO

PERSPECTIVE

124 15 16Tehran to host environment-oriented megacities management conference

Kianersi appointed NITC’s new managing director

Iran football team to play Iraq in friendly

“Starless Dreams” crowned best at London filmfest

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 Araqchi says aircraft deliveries dependent on talks with Airbus, Boeing

16 Pages Price 10,000 Rials 38th year No.12673 Monday OCTOBER 17, 2016 Mehr 26, 1395 Muharram 15, 1438

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Iran will begin taking applications on Mon-day for an unspecified number of energy projects, the oil ministry’s news agency Shana reported on Sunday, as the country moves to

launch exploration and production contracts after the lifting of sanctions.

State-run National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said “reputable and eligible explora-

tion & production (E&P) companies” should fill the applications for upstream oil and gas projects which will be made available on its website nioc.ir. 4

Iran to start bidding for oil, gas projects on Monday

Iranian entrepreneurship fund allots $1.5m to save wetlands

TEHRAN — Head of Iranian Privatization

Organization (IPO) Abdollah Pouri-Hos-seini announced on Saturday that 200 state-run companies will be transferred to the private sector by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2017), Shana news agency reported.

Since its establishment, i.e., during the past 15 years, IPO has sold shares of 1,111 government companies to the private sector, he added.

IPO transferred 5.760 trillion rials (about $162.34 million) worth of Iranian state-run shares to the private sector from the

beginning of the present Iranian calendar year (March 20, 216) to September 13, Tasnim news agency reported.

Some 1.987 trillion rials (about $56 million) of the mentioned shares have been offered to the private sector via Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE), 511 billion rials (about $14.4 million) via Iran’s over-the-counter (OTC) market, known also as Iran Fara Bourse (IFB), and 3.262 trillion rilas (about $91.9 million) have been di-vested through holding tenders.

T E H R A N — Wikile-

aks has revealed a speech by Democratic presidential can-didate Hillary Clinton in 2013 on the Iranian nuclear issue during which she said that Is-

rael is “not capable of causing substantial damage” to Iran’s nuclear program.

In a speech delivered in front of the finance com-pany Goldman Sachs in 2013, Hillary Clinton spoke

of Israel’s military abilities against the Iranian nuclear program, Jerusalem Online reported.

During the speech, she said that “the Israelis’ esti-mate is even if we set their

program back for just a cou-ple of years, it’s worth doing and whatever their reaction might be is absorbable. But they [the Israelis] couldn’t do much damage them-selves.”

Iran to privatize 200 state-run companies by March 2017

Clinton said Israel can’t harm Iran: Wikileaks

Iranian air force commences three-day drill

The Representation of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in the Islamic Republic of Iran on Sunday (October 16) observed the World Food Day 2016 at a commemoration ceremony at Vahdat (Roudaki) Hall in Tehran.

The nationally – focused event was conducted in col-laboration with the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, the Ministry of Jihad and Ag-riculture, and the Federation of the Iranian Food Industries Association, focusing on FAO’s

global message for World Food Day 2016 which is “Climate is changing. Food and agriculture must too.”

Mr. Serge Nakouzi, the FAO Representative to Iran referred to the message promulgated by the United Nations secretary-gener-

al for the World Food Day and underscored the need to adopt integrated and innovative ap-proach to ensure food security for all amidst a rapidly growing global population and serve ad-verse environmental impacts aris-ing from climate change. 1 3

FAO highlights impacts of climate change on food security

‘Renewed dynamism’

between Iran, Italy to revive good old

days: envoy

TEHRAN — Strained for years by the West’s nuclear-re-lated sanctions on Iran, now all-encompassing relations between Tehran and Rome are beginning to resemble good old days with the nuclear deal providing the impe-tus, Italian Ambassador to Tehran Mauro Conciatori told the Tehran Times.

Still, the way forward is to press ahead with dialogue so as to lay the groundwork for ties to flourish, he added.

In what follows, a transcript of the interview has been given.

What is your current assessment of the relations between Iran and Italy and how different the ties are from the pre-JCPOA era?

A: I have the privilege to serve as an Italian Ambassa-dor in Tehran in an extraordinary moment. At the recent UN General Assembly, President Hassan Rouhani and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi met for the fourth time in one year.

At the beginning of my mis-sion, two years ago, the negoti-ations for a nuclear agreement paved the way for the strength-ening of our bilateral dialogue. Italy was at the forefront in up-grading its relations with Tehran, also with the aim of supporting the dynamics towards a positive conclusion of the negoti-ations in Vienna.

By Ali Kushki, Negar Asadi EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

See page 2

See page 12

Official elaborates on

Iran’s programs at Frankfurt and Belgrade

book fairs

TEHRAN — Deputy Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance for Cultural Affairs Seyyed Abbas Sale-hi elaborated on Iran’s programs at the Frankfurt Book Fair and Bel-grade International Book Fair (BIBF) in a press conference held on Sun-day.

“Iran will have active participation in the two international events with a good collection of books and a variety of programs,” Salehi said.

Iran has been selected as the guest of honor for the Belgrade International Book Fair (BIBF) running from October 23 to 30.

“We believe this is a good op-portunity to exchange experience with the world’s publishers and learn more from them. We have also made it possible for more writers, publishers and reporters to attend and cover the news,” he remarked.

A number of sessions and meet-ings with publishers, writers and visitors have also been arranged on the side section to provide more chances to seek future opportuni-ties, he said. 1 6

Iran’s economy grew 5.4% in spring: CBI

TEHRAN — Iran’s economic growth rate stood at 5.4 percent in spring,

which corresponds to the first quarter of the current Iranian calendar year, according to the governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Valiollah Seif, ISNA reported on Sunday.

As Seif previously announced in early March, Iran ex-pects economic growth of more than 5 percent in 2016, after emerging from the years of international sanctions over the country’s nuclear program.

“Iran’s economic growth slowed down in 2015 but domes-tic and international predictions both indicate that growth in 2016 would be beyond 5 percent,” CBI governor said at the time.

However, President Hassan Rouhani said earlier in April that his country needed 8 percent economic growth in order to deal with inflation and unemployment.

Bob Dylan’s memoirs translated into Persian

TEHRAN – “Chronicles: Volume One”, the first part of Bob Dylan’s planned 3-volume

memoirs, has recently been translated into Persian by Seyyed Mohammad Ali Borqai.

Published in 2004, the book covers selected points from the long career of Dylan, the American songwriter, singer, art-ist and writer.

Dylan was announced as the 2016 Nobel Prize winner in Literature last week. He is the first mu-sician to win the award.

“Chronicles: Volume One” spent 19 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list for hard-cover nonfiction books.

The book was one of five finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award in the Biography/Autobiography catego-ry for the 2004 publishing year.

Donya-e Eqtesad Publications in Tehran is scheduled to publish the book in the near future.

2

Pre-Qualification Public AnnouncementFor Iran Oil and Gas Upstream Projects Tender rounds

National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) intends to hold tender rounds for some of Iran’s oil and gas E&P projects. It hereby invites interested, qualified and reputable E&P or integrated oil companies for pre-qualification. The projects that will subsequently be tendered will be awarded under Iranian laws, rules and regulations.

Pre-qualification documents and related information such as procedures, criteria and evaluation mechanisms, will be available at www.nioc.ir as of October 17th 2016. Applicants shall provide a hard copy as well as electronic files of all required documents and information to the following address up to November 19th 2016:

Address: Room 501, 6th NIOC Hq., No. 671, Hafez St. (before Hafez Bridge), Tehran, Iran.Email Address: ipc@nioc.ir

The final list of pre-qualified applicants will be published on December 7th 2016 at www.nioc.ir

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TEHRAN — Irani-an Foreign Minister

Mohammad Javad Zarif held separate meetings on Sunday with Côte d’Ivoire’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Albert Toike-usse Mabri and the Beninese president’s special envoy Abdoulaye Bio Tchane.

During the meeting with Mabri, Zarif called for cooperation between the two countries in fighting drug trafficking and ideology of terrorism.

He also highlighted the importance of continued cooperation at global stage.

For his part, Mabri said that Iran can be an important partner of Côte d’Ivoire

in energy sphere.He also called for close cooperation

in areas of science, banking, agriculture, and human rights.

Elsewhere, he called Iran a “great power ”, especially in terms of econo-my and politics. He also described the nuclear agreement between Iran and the 5+1 group (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) as a great achieve-ment.

Zarif and the Beninese official also dis-cussed cooperation in areas of politics, economy and also campaign against ter-rorism.

OCTBER 17, 2016OCTBER 17, 20162I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

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MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS

1 In July 2015, the JCPOA provided a new opportunity to step up our efforts. We didn’t miss it. Five Italian Ministers trav-elled to Tehran in few months, along with very huge business delegations.

Then, the so-called implementa-tion-day gave even more impetus. Pres-ident Hassan Rouhani chose Italy for his first official visit as a President in a West-ern Country; he spent 3 days in Rome at the end of January. Only 2 and a half months later, our Prime Minister Matteo Renzi reciprocated that visit and met in Tehran the highest authorities of the Is-lamic Republic. The solemnity of the pro-tocol that President Rouhani reserved to him confirmed the exceptional level of re-spect between our two countries and the friendship among our leaders.

In Rome, the visit of President Rouhani showed the world that Iran was no longer close to business. Then, in Tehran, our Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said that It-aly wants to revive a strategic partnership between our countries that has a great historical tradition. He suggested three main areas for our renewed dynamism: culture, politics and economy. Two weeks ago, in New York, both leaders confirmed their engagement in order to strengthen the bilateral partnership.

What practical steps have been taken to implement agreements signed during Prime Minister Renzi’s visit to Iran and President Rouhani’s visit to Italy?

A: In order to promote a strategic economic partnership, many MOUs were finalized in the presence of the Leaders, both at the Roman Capitol in January and at the Saadabad Palace in April. Oth-er important texts were signed in May, at the Iran Health Summit. Immediately after the signatures, the involved Italian groups and their Iranian counterparts started working very hard on the imple-mentation: they passed from MOUs to road maps and feasibility studies. Now they are moving towards contracts, due to be signed in the next few weeks or months.

But let me observe that the strength-ening of our bilateral economic partner-ship requires an action on three different levels: trade, joint ventures and cooper-

ation on major Iranian projects, whether in infrastructure or in productive revival in the strategic sectors. The strengthen-ing of trade has already begun, but only on high-quality products; while on the others the Iranian high tariff barriers and domestic competition will hamper any spectacular development.

As for joint ventures, our SMEs with strong technological capabil-ities can help revive Iranian fac-tories that want to increase their competitiveness both on the domestic and on external mar-ket. It’s a kind of cooperation that is particularly suitable for Italians and Iranians. It does not re-quire large capital but spirit of initiative and willingness to share. With Italian updated technol-ogies, modern management, es-tablished brands, you can upgrade the Iranian do-mestic production in crucial sectors also in order to substitute import, fully in line with the so called ‘’Re-sistance Economy’’, that means a more sustainable econ-omy.

As to the stra-tegic projects, the path will necessar-

ily be longer. As I said, we have already passed from the stage of the MOUs to that of the shared road maps and then to the feasibility studies. We are reach-ing the final step, under which the Irani-an side will award big contracts to Ital-ian companies on the basis of financial plans to be agreed in the coming weeks

or months. It’s clear that this was a longer route in comparison with trade or SME’s joint ventures. But it is proceeding with the pace that it was reasonable to predict from the outset. We’re not late,

even on this third level.And in general, it is absolutely not true that the re-launch of

our economic partnership lies at square one.

An Iranian human rights delegation vis-ited Italy to exchange views with Italian of-ficials. What was on the agenda and is the meeting in line with Iran’s readiness to hold bilateral hu-man rights talks with the European Union? Any outcomes? Any future plan to recip-rocate the visit?

A: The bilateral dia-logue on human rights was initiated in Decem-ber 2013 by Minister Zarif and former Italian FM Emma Bonino, dur-ing the latter ’s visit to

Tehran. Italy was the first EU Country to resume a dialogue on human rights with Iran. Three seminars at a technical level, involving judges, law professors and dip-lomats have been organized by the Ira-nian High Council for Human Rights and by the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences (ISISC) based in Siracusa (Sicily) in 2014, 2015 and 2016. The third meeting on “the Protection of Human Rights in the Criminal Justice Sys-tem” took place in Rome three weeks ago. As in the previous occasions, the delega-tions were headed by the Secretary Gen-eral of the High Council for Human Rights, Dr. Mohammad Javad Larijani, on the Ira-nian side; and by Prof. M. Cherif Bassiouni, Honorary President of ISISC, on the Italian. The Italian delegation is looking forward to receive an invitation to a fourth bilateral seminar next year, to be hosted by Iran.

This dialogue deals with the issues of human rights in the legal systems of our two countries without any prejudice and on an equal footing. Using a theoretical approach, it studies the different cultural backgrounds and different traditions of the two systems. It has come to the con-clusion that there is a nucleus of concerns and values that are common to both sys-tems. And on this basis, it can also tackle more concrete and more specific issues.

There has been a plunge, accord-ing to the Iranian Customs Adminis-tration data, in trade between the two countries over the past two years and this is ironical considering the JCPOA deal. What are the reasons?

A: Not to my knowledge. According to Italian data, our business has been growing since 2013: 1.2 billion Euros in 2013; 1.58 in 2014; 1.67 in 2015. Also in the first six months of 2016 we register an increase of 5.4% over the first half of last year. Maybe some partial data could be different. But the trend is clearly growing. I am convinced that progress on the two tracks we mentioned - joint ventures and investments in large projects - will soon allow further improvement. As I said, spectacular progress in trade flows is hampered by high Iranian tariff barriers in many areas. But I think that in 2-4 years we will return to the levels of pre-sanc-tions interchange. 13

‘Renewed dynamism’ between Iran, Italy to revive good old days: envoy

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

TEHRAN — A group of Iranian lawmakers have prepared a mo-

tion to impeach Minister of Science, Research and Technology Mohammad Farhadi.

Hossein-Ali Haji, a lawmaker, said on Sunday the MPs will submit the motion to the parliament’s pre-siding board, Mehr reported.

A sufficient number of lawmakers have endorsed the motion to be proposed at the parliament.

One case of the impeachment is the minister ’s failure to implement a bill passed by the Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution.

MPs seek to impeach science minister

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TEHRAN — Mohsen Rezaee has been given a new position at the

Supreme National Defense University of Iran.In his new position, Rezaee will oversee theoriz-

ing sessions attended by critics and arbiters, make plans for theorizing discourses in defense and security fields, oversee the evaluation of scientific proposals at the university, etc., Fars reported on Sunday.

Rezaee, now the secretary of the Expedien-cy Council, was the IRGC chief during Iraq’s war against Iran in the 1980s and after.

Mohsen Rezaee given new post at Defense University

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Government lauds Leader’s election guidelines TEHRAN — The government has praised the major election

policies set out by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Majid Ansari, the vice president for legal affairs, said on Sunday that the guidelines provide a “valu-able opportunity for all,” ILNA reported.

Mohammad Hossein Moqimi, the interior min-ister ’s deputy, said the policies “obviate previous concerns.”

Interior Ministry spokesman Salman Samani said the ministry will “make plans to actualize the entire articles” in the Leader’s guidelines, adding that the policies will improve the behavior of political entities.

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Russia to remove visa requirement for Iran

TEHRAN — Head of Russia’s State Agency for Tourism Oleg

Safonov said on Saturday that Moscow has started working toward abolition of visa requirements for Iran and India.

Russia would take quick steps in simplifying visa procedures, Safanov said, adding they are willing to increase Iranian and Indian tourists in Russia, ISNA reported.

Iran is among the first 20 countries for visits paid by its nationals to Russia. Russia issued 35,000 visas for Iranians in 2015.

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

Zarif meets Côte d’Ivoire FM, Beninese special envoy

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Italy and Iran have passed from MOUs to road maps and feasibility studies. Now they are

moving towards contracts, due to be signed in the next few weeks or months.

From 24 to 26 of October next, a seminar on renewable energies, water treatment and waste

recycle will take place in Tehran in close cooperation between the Italian Ministry of Environment and

the Iranian Department for Environment.

Foreign Minister Zarif (R) shakes hands with Côte d’Ivoire’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Albert Toikeusse Mabri.

TEHRAN — Abbas Araqchi, Iran's deputy

foreign minister, said on Sunday that new aircraft deliveries to Iran depends on the ongoing talks between Iran Air and two airplane manufacturers Airbus and Boe-ing.

The negotiations are underway and Iran has not reached an agreement with the two aircraft manufacturers, Araqchi said.

Following the implementation of the last year ’s nuclear accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), between Iran and six world powers, Airbus and Boeing re-ceived permission, less than a month ago, from the U.S. government to sell

aircraft to Iran.European airplane manufacturer Air-

bus announced the license from the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Con-trol on September 21, followed by Boe-ing’s announcement later in the day.

Describing the aircraft deals as detailed and complex, Araqchi said the Islamic Re-public expects to receive the airplanes in the near future.

The senior diplomat also

said the United States must not allow any new nuclear sanc-tions or the old ones under new names to be imposed on Iran.

“If Congress tries to impose new nuclear sanctions against Iran, the U.S. president is obligated under the JCPOA to veto the new sanctions,” he ex-

plained. Republican lawmakers have been

pushing to kill the nuclear deal. Following Boeing’s announcement

that it was concluding a major deal to sell Iran commercial aircraft, Congress intro-duced at least seven bills aimed at killing the deal.

Three of the bills would prohibit the Treasury Department from issuing export licenses for the aircraft.

However, the U.S. President Barack Obama has on numerous occasions threatened to veto any attempt by Con-gress to undermine the nuclear deal with Iran, saying that the historic accord was the best available option to prevent an-other war in the Middle East.

Araqchi says aircraft deliveries dependent on talks with Airbus, Boeing

TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi con-

demned on Sunday terrorist attack against the Egyptian security forces.

Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack which took place at a checkpoint in North Sinai province. 12 Egyptian soldiers killed in the assault.

“The increasing spread of violence, terrorism and increase in terrorist and extremist crimes which tar-get both military forces and civilians can only be countered by the governments’ unity, internation-al determination and the regional people’s aware-ness,” Qassemi stated.

He said that Iran strongly condemns terrorism and

extremism which undermine security and stability in the countries.

According to Press TV, Daesh claimed that it had killed more than 20 soldiers while suffering no losses itself, but the Egyptian military said 15 assailants died in Friday’s gun battle at the check-point.

Iran condemns terrorist attack in Egypt

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Iranian Navy flotilla leaves for Baku

TEHRAN — An Iranian Navy flo-tilla has left the country’s north-

ern waters for an overseas mission to Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, as a symbolic friendly act.

The Iranian flotilla including the home-made Damavand destroyer and a missile-armed vessel, dubbed Joshan departed from the Caspian port city of Bandar Anzali on Sunday morning, Trend reported.

The visit comes amid a plan by the Iranian navy to boost friendly maritime ties between the Caspian littoral states.

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

U.S. worried about failure of terrorists in Syria: MPTEHRAN — The chairman of the Majlis National Security and

Foreign Policy Committee said on Sunday the U.S. is mainly worried about the strengthening of the resistance movement in Syria and the weakening of terrorist groups.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi said the U.S. has always pursued policies in the Middle East that serve its own interests, Press TV reported.

He said the recent talks on Syria in Lausanne failed mostly due to the U.S. insistence on its po-sition in Syria.

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

Zarif called for cooperation between Iran and Côte d’Ivoire’s in fighting drug trafficking and

ideology of terrorism.

Montenegro's ruling party faced a tough test in national elections on Sun-day, hoping its promise to bring the country into NATO and closer to the European Union will outweigh opposi-tion allegations of corruption.

Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, 54, has presented the vote as a choice be-tween continuing Western integration under his Democratic Party of Socialists or being reduced to a "Russian colony" under the opposition. But the oppo-sition say his regular accusations that they are funded by Moscow are false and a smokescreen to cover for the cul-ture of cronyism and organized crime that they say he has allowed to flourish over his quarter-century of dominance.

NATO invited the tiny Balkan coun-try of 620,000 to join last year, partly out of concern at Russian influence in Montenegro, which has strong cultural and commercial links to its traditional Orthodox Christian ally.

Supporters of the move say it will bring greater security and prosperity. But it remains divisive - NATO bombed Mon-tenegro when the alliance intervened in 1999 to end a campaign of ethnic cleans-ing in Kosovo by Serbia, with which Mon-tenegro was then in a state union.

A lack of reliable polls makes the

election hard to call, but long-term al-lies have deserted Djukanovic, suggest-ing that the message from opposition parties may have traction.

Voter Vojislav Grujovic, a stocky manual laborer in his 50s, declined to say who he had chosen on Sunday. "I have voted without worries, because everyone pledged a better life and prosperity ... We can't lose," he joked.

The former Yugoslav republic's economy has grown at a brisk 3.2 per-cent a year for the past decade, thanks mainly to foreign investment, much of it from Russia as well as China and Italy, targeting energy, mining and tourism in a country famed for its spectacular mountains and sea coast.

At an opposition rally in the capital Podgorica on Saturday, hundreds of backers of the Democratic Front (DF), an alliance of pro-Serb and pro-West-ern parties, waved Serb, Russian and Montenegrin flags, chanting their cam-paign slogan "Us or Him".

"Djukanovic, step down peacefully on Sunday if you love Montenegro?," said Nebojsa Medojevic, a pro-Western politician and one of the DF's leaders.

Polling stations close at 1800 GMT, with first partial results expected an hour later. (Source: AP)

Russia said all participants in talks in Lausanne had agreed Syrians should decide their own future through in-clusive dialogue and that the country should remain whole and secular, after the meeting ended without a break-through.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that in order for a U.S.-Rus-sian ceasefire agreement to succeed and to facilitate humanitarian aid de-liveries, Syria's moderate opposition must separate from Jabhat Fatah al Sham, previously known as the Nusra Front, and other "terrorist groups" af-filiated with it.

"At the same time, it should be un-derstood that operations against ter-rorists of ISIL and the Nusra Front will be continued," the ministry said.

Saturday's talks, convened by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in the Swiss city, failed to agree on a common strategy with Russia to end the conflict in Syria, now in its sixth year.

Kerry hosted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and seven foreign ministers from the region - from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt - weeks after the collapse of a painstakingly crafted U.S.-Russian ceasefire plan

that many saw as the last hope for peace this year.

Western powers have accused Russia and Syria of committing atrocities by bombing hospitals, kill-ing civilians and preventing medical evacuations in Syria's largest city Aleppo, as well as targeting an aid convoy with the loss of around 20 lives. Syria and Russia say they are only targeting militants.

Europe was not represented at the Lausanne meeting. But France's Foreign Ministry confirmed that Kerry and for-eign ministers of like-minded nations planned to meet in London on Sunday to discuss Syria.

A source in the German Foreign Ministry said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke to Kerry on Sunday about the results of talks in Lausanne as well as the next steps that need to be taken.

The source said both ministers agreed that despite the tough initial situation, every effort must continue to be made to bring about a new humanitarian ceasefire, to get aid supplies safely to eastern Aleppo and to create the conditions for a new ceasefire.

(Source: Reuters)

Russia: All talks participants agreed Syrians must decide own future

NATO, Russia overshadow Montenegro vote

Turkey-backed militants seize Dabiq from ISILTurkish-sponsored militants have reportedly taken control of a symbolically important town in Syria’s northwestern prov-ince of Aleppo from the ISIL (Daesh) terrorist group.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights an-nounced on Sunday that the militants had captured Dabiq, located about 40 kilometers northeast of Aleppo and around 10 kilometers south of Syria’s border with Turkey and the nearby village of Soran.

Dabiq holds great value to Daesh because of a prophecy, which the extremists feature heavily in their propaganda. It states that the town will be the site of an apocalyptic battle.

Elsewhere in the province, the Syrian army troops and their allies engaged foreign-backed terrorists, killing dozens of them.

Syria’s official SANA news agency reported on Sunday that 29 terrorists were slain during the fighting in the Aleppo neighborhoods of Majbal Barij and Masaken Ibrahim, adding that the clashes also left 37 people wounded.

Similar clashes also broke out elsewhere in Aleppo Tarab, leaving a military commander with the Harakat Nour al-Din al- Zinki terror outfit dead. The officer was identified as Omar al-Sheikh, also known as Abu Aush.

Meanwhile, the Syrian army said that it had managed to wrest control of a hill and a cemetery in the northern edge of Hama. (Source: SANA)

North Korea missile launch fails at liftoff: U.S.U.S. military sources claim that North Korea has unsuccess-fully fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile.

The United States Strategic Command’s systems detect-ed what is believed to have been a Musudan missile launch, which failed in liftoff near North Korea’s northwestern city of Kusong, the Pentagon said in a statement on Sunday.

The U.S. military said the launch would not have posed a threat to North America.

South Korean military sources also reported the failed lift-off of the missile at 0333 GMT on Saturday. Seoul did not speculate on the reason for the failed launch, either.

The reported incident coincides with the last day of the joint military drills between South Korea and the United States.

The five-day joint naval drill called “Invincible Spirit 2016” kicked off on Monday (October 10) in the waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula, according to the South Korean De-fense Ministry.

The USS Ronald Reagan nuclear-powered aircraft carrier took part in the military drill.

North Korea has been testing different types of missiles at an unprecedented rate this year, and the capability to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile is especially worrying for its neighbors South Korea and Japan, as well as the United States. (Source: AP)

Blasts rip through Gaziantep in southern Turkey Bomb explosions have occurred in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, killing three people and injuring eight others.

The explosions rang out through an area mostly popu-lated by university students after a police raid targeted the militants hiding somewhere in the area.

The fatalities have been identified by hospital sources as police officers.

It is not clear yet what terror outfit were the militants af-filiated to. Some reports say, however, that the raid had tar-geted a safe house used by militants belonging to the ISIL (Daesh) Takfiri terror group.

On Friday, at least two rockets hit the southern Turkish holiday resort region of Antalya.

The rockets, fired by unknown assailants, struck a fish store and open ground near a resort town in the province of Antalya in southern Turkey on Friday.

Back in August, an attacker tied to Daesh struck a wed-ding in the city, killing 57 people, including 34 children.

Ankara is accused of providing logistical support and safe passage for Daesh terrorists since 2014, when they unleashed their campaign of terror against neighboring Iraq and Syria.

(Source: Hurriyet)

Explosion leaves multiple casualties in Iraqi capitalA massive explosion targeting a mourning procession in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad has killed at least six people dead.

According to the Arabic-language al-Sumaria TV net-work, a bomber detonated the explosives among the partici-pants in the mourning congregation on Sunday, also injuring 21 people.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the Sunday blast.

It came just a day after a similar incident claimed the lives of over 50 people in al-Sha’ab district, north of Baghdad. The ISIL (Daesh) terrorist group said it was behind the Saturday bombing.

Iraq has been the scene of a campaign of terror by Daesh.Last week, at least nine people lost their lives after a

bomber set off his explosives in the east of the Iraqi capital.The Takfiri group unleashed its campaign of death and

destruction against the country in 2014, seizing the northern city of Mosul and declaring it as its so-called headquarters. A large and multi-faceted operation is due to liberate the city.

(Source: Press TV)

INTERNATIONALh t t p : / / 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 3I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

The British Government says it will con-sider the terms of its lucrative arms ex-ports to Saudi Arabia after its ally admit-ted responsibility for killing more than 140 mourners at a funeral in Yemen.

Air strikes that targeted the gather-ing in the capital of Sana’a on 8 October have renewed international condemna-tion of the UK’s controversial weapons trade with Saudi Arabia.

A report by the Saudi-led coalition’s Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JIAT) admitted responsibility on Saturday but blamed “wrong information” from allies of the Yemeni government, which it is supporting in the country’s civil war.

“A party affiliated to the Yemeni Pres-idency of the General Chief of Staff wrongly passed information that there was a gathering of Houthi leaders in a known location in Sana’a, and insisted that the location be targeted immediate-ly,” investigators said in a statement.

More than 500 victims were also in-jured in the bombing, for which the Saudi military initially denied responsibility be-fore launching a probe into the “regret-table and painful” attack.

The JIAT’s report claimed the Air Op-eration Centre in Yemen directed a “close air support mission” to target the funer-al hall without approval from the coali-tion’s commanders, adding: “JIAT has found that because of non-compliance with coalition rules of engagement and procedures, and the issuing of incorrect information, a coalition aircraft wrongly targeted the location resulting in civilian deaths and injuries.”

Investigators called for a review of the rules of engagement and for com-

pensation for families of the victims, who had gathered to mourn the death of the father of rebel interior minister Jalal al-Rowaishan.

The JIAT, which was set up by King Salman in May, also said “appropriate ac-tion” should be taken against those who caused the incident, without elaborating further.

Welcoming the report, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it was awaiting further detail on the attack in a future report to be released by the JIAT.

“Our consideration of the reports will

be used to contribute to our overall view on the approach and attitude of Saudi Arabia to international humanitarian law, as part of all the information available to us,” a spokesperson added.

“This, in turn, informs the risk assess-ment made against the arms export cri-teria.”

Tobias Ellwood, the Middle East minis-ter, repeated his call for peace talks and a truce between all sides in the Yemeni civil war.

“I stressed this in meetings with Yeme-ni and Saudi leaders, including President

Hadi and Foreign Minister al-Jubeir, in Saudi Arabia this week,” he added. “We are considering the Saudi investigation report in detail.”

Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, formally raised concern over the funeral strike on 9 October and Mr. Ellwood trav-elled to Riyadh for high-level meetings with Yemeni and Saudi leaders on Thurs-day, but no details from the closed talks have been released.

Britain sold £3.3bn worth of arms be-tween April 2015 and March 2016 alone – the first year of the Saudi-led coalition’s deadly bombing campaign in Yemen, where it intervened against Houthi at fugitive President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi’s request.

Ministers have repeatedly rejected calls for a pause in weapons sales amid frequent reports of war crimes and the Government refused to give MPs a vote on the issue, despite the American Senate holding a debate on U.S. exports.

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, said the Government's prom-ise to "consider" the terms of its ex-ports showed it has “finally woken up to the fact British arms sold to Saudi Ara-bia may have been used for the horrific and indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Yemen".

“Our consideration of the reports will be used to contribute to our overall view on the approach and attitude of Saudi Arabia to international humanitarian law, as part of all the information available to us,” a spokesperson added.

“This, in turn, informs the risk assess-ment made against the arms export cri-teria.” (Source: Independent)

Britain to review arms sales to Saudi Arabia

OCTOBER 17, 2016OCTOBER 17, 2016

Commenting on U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s statement on the possibility of cyber-attacks against Russia, Vladimir Putin said it’s the first time that Wash-ington has admitted involvement in such actions.

Putin noted that U.S. threats of hack attacks do not correspond to the norms of international relations.

"The only novelty is that for the first time, on the highest level, the United States has admitted involvement in these activities, and to some extent threatened [us] – which of course does not meet the standards of international communica-tion,” the Russian leader said.

“Apparently, they are nervous,” he added.

“One can expect just about anything from our American friends. After all, what did he (Biden) say that we didn’t already know? Didn’t we know that U.S. author-ities are spying and eavesdropping on everyone?”

These activities are “well known to everyone, it’s no secret,” Putin added.

In portraying Russia as an enemy, the United States wants to divert attention

from its own domestic problems. “There are many problems [in the US], and in these circumstances, many choose to resort to the tried and tested system of diverting voters’ attention from their own problems. That’s what we are cur-rently witnessing, I think.”

One can distract attention from domestic problems by cre-ating an enemy, in order “to unite the nation in the fight against this enemy.”

“Portraying Iran and the Iranian nu-clear threat as an enemy didn’t work. [Portraying] Rus-sia [as an enemy] seems more inter-esting. In my opin-ion, this particular

card is now being actively played,” Putin said.

“Too bad that based on the current [U.S.] internal political problems, Rus-sia-U.S. relations are being sacrificed.

This actually destroys international relations in general,” Putin noted.

Russia does not want con-frontation with the U.S., but it is up to our partners to decide, he said.

“We do not know what will happen after the U.S. elections, but welcome everyone who wants to work with us,” he said.

Speaking about the U.S. election campaign, Putin noted that it is

“harmful and counterproductive” to “sac-rifice U.S.-Russian relations in the course of internal political events in America.” This has all happened before, Putin not-ed.

Snowden ridicules Joe Biden's cy-ber threats

Whistleblower Edward Snowden has made fun of U.S Vice President Joe Bid-en's announcement to respond to hack attacks, allegedly conducted by Russia, with a crafty counterstrike.

Speaking to the host of NBC's "Meet the Press" earlier this week, Biden said that "at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances that will have the greatest impact," Washington would exact revenge against Moscow for its alleged interference with the upcoming U.S. elections.

Such revelations about the kind of op-eration that is conventionally kept secret prompted the former NSA contractor to suggest that the top US official sim-ply doesn't know how such things work. "I get the feeling nobody told VP Joe Biden what "covert operation" means," Snowden tweeted. (Source: RT)

Putin on Biden cyber threat: First time U.S. admits such thing on highest level

“Portraying Iran and the Iranian nuclear threat as an enemy didn’t work. [Portraying] Russia [as an enemy] seems more interesting. In my opinion, this particular

card is now being actively played,” Putin said.

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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 h t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m / e c o n o m yOCTOBER 17, OCTOBER 17, 20162016

Kianersi appointed NITC’s new managing director

Iranian oil prices hike $5 per barrel in a week

TEHRAN — The price of Iran’s exported oil in

the week ending October 7, witnessed a $5 increase per barrel, IRNA reported on Sunday.

The price of Iran’s light oil in the said period witnessed a $5.24 rise per barrel to reach $47.85.

According to the report, Iran’s heavy oil price in the same week experienced a $5.79 growth per barrel to stand at $46.55.

After major oil producers’ meeting in Algiers on September 28, which ended in a preliminary accord on capping OPEC

members’ oil production level, crude oil prices have experienced an increase.

As predicted, in case of a final deal to freeze oil output, international oil prices would surpass $50 and will swing up to $60.

TEHRAN — The board of directors of

National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) decided on Saturday to replace Ali-Ak-bar Safaei with Sirous Kianersi as the new managing director, Shana reported.

Safaei has been the managing direc-tor of National Iranian Tanker Company since 2013.

Heading the crude oil export plan-ning in National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC)’s international affairs depart-ment, also being NIOC’s representative in Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO),

NIOC’s representative in China office, managing director and board of direc-tors’ chairman in Paad Energy Develop-ment Co. (a subsidiary of the state pen-sion fund) are among Kianersi’s previous positions.

NITC, which operates the largest tanker fleet in the Middle East and has the world’s largest fleet of super tank-ers, transports Iranian crude and also acts as an independent entity in con-tracts with foreign concerns for crude oil transportation based on prevailing inter-national freight rates.

TEHRAN — Platform 17B of Iran’s South Pars gas field (in the Persian

Gulf ) will be loaded at Bandar-Abbas yard tomorrow for delivery to its designated offshore spot, accord-ing to the Shana news agency.

The 2,300-ton structure is the last platform of South Pars phases 17 and 18 of development and has the capacity of producing 500 million cubic feet (around 14.5 million cubic meters) of gas per day.

Hassan Boyeri, the operator of phases 17 and 18, said that the platform is scheduled to be installed on November 10 and will start operation before the be-ginning of the Iranian last calendar month of Esfand (February 19, 2017).

Development of phases 17 and 18 will be com-pleted by putting this platform into operation, he added.

The mentioned phases are set to produce 56 mil-lion cubic meters of sweet gas, 80,000 barrels of gas condensate and 400 tons of sulfur per day in addi-tion to one million tons of ethane and 1.05 million tons of propane and butane per annum.

South Pars gas field, which Iran shares with Qa-tar in the Persian Gulf, is estimated to contain a sig-nificant amount of natural gas, accounting for about eight percent of the world’s reserves, and approxi-mately 18 billion barrels of condensate.

The field is divided into 24 standard phases, of which phases 1-10, 12, 15 and 16 are fully opera-tional. Each standard phase is projected to produce

50 mcm of gas per day. Phases 17 and 18 as well as 19 are operating at half capacity.

Iran moves to woo foreign investorsThe Iranian government has invited a prestigious group of interna-tional investors that includes the Heinz Family Office, Capital Group and Fidelity to visit the country following the relaxation of trade bar-riers between Iran and the west in January.

The 20-20 Investment Association, a group of influential investors overseeing $7 trillion of assets, received the invitation from Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, after the implementation of a land-mark nuclear agreement between the country and six leading pow-ers at the start of the year.

James Donald, head of emerging markets at Lazard Asset Man-agement, the U.S. fund company that oversees $174 billion of assets, and a board member of the 20-20 association, said the invitation reflected the Iranian government’s desire to attract more foreign in-vestors.

The global agreement involved Tehran committing to scale down its nuclear activities in return for the removal of sanctions that pre-vented foreign companies from investing in Iranian businesses.

Mr. Donald said: “The group at this stage has not accepted the in-vitation. An awful lot of large government pension plans have restric-tions on Iranian investments and [on] any company that does busi-ness in Iran. There is talk of [the remaining sanctions being removed]. I think there would have to be a federal law change [for banks and asset managers to move en masse into the Iranian market].”

The nuclear deal was expected to trigger a sharp increase in for-eign investment into the Middle East’s second-largest economy, but U.S. sanctions are still in place, limiting U.S. citizens’ ability to invest there. As such, western banks and asset managers remain wary of working with Iranian companies. Few big western companies have signed contracts with Iran since the nuclear agreement was put into force earlier this year.

Jan Dehn, head of research at Ashmore, the emerging markets-focused asset manager, said: “We are looking closely at Iran. I was there recently. The current government is reformist and keen to show progress. Iran needs funding and wants to attract foreign capital.

“While sanctions have been reduced, there are still major obsta-cles that make investment difficult. The goalposts have been shifting frequently when it comes to regulation. We find that even if invest-ments are permitted according to the law, there is a growing reluc-tance [among] banks to get involved in any transactions that could become subject to changing interpretations of existing laws.”

A number of European investors have already started to increase their exposure to Iran.

Charlemagne Capital, the frontier markets-focused asset man-ager, set up an Iran-focused fund at the end of 2015. It has raised €50 million from European private wealth managers and family of-fices, according to Dominic Bokor-Ingram, portfolio adviser at the company.

The Norwegian oil fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, with $830 billion of assets, also received permission from the Norwegian ministry of finance at the start of the year to invest in Iranian bonds.

In a bid to attract more foreign investors, the Tehran chamber of commerce helped to organize a roadshow of companies to London in December to meet European asset managers, sovereign wealth funds and pension funds.

Ahmad Khonsari, a German partner of Iranian origin at Watson Farley & Williams, the law firm in Hamburg, said the “high-profile” London conference demonstrated the country’s desire to “obtain foreign investment”.

He added: “We see vast interest in investing in Iran. I am doing al-most nothing else than working on Iran-related matters. The country has a lot of potential.”

Mr. Donald said a relaxation in the rules around U.S. investors’ ability to invest in the Islamic republic would be a welcome develop-ment. He said: “I would love to go there. Iran has always interested me. It has a very literate and knowledgeable population. Any change [in the rules around whether U.S. citizens can invest in Iran] would be a very interesting opportunity.”

The Iranian government and the Tehran chamber of commerce did not respond to requests for comment. (Source: Financial Times)

South Pars phases 17, 18 last platform to be loaded tomorrow

ECONOMYd e s k

ECONOMYd e s k

ECONOMYd e s k

Italy’s Renzi pushes tax cut, investments as referendum looms

Quality Assessment Announcement for Purchase of Quality Assessment Announcement for Purchase of

three Search and Rescue (SAR) Helicopter units three Search and Rescue (SAR) Helicopter units

(Tender No: No.95/AE/1054)(Tender No: No.95/AE/1054)Ports and Maritime OrganizationPorts and Maritime Organization

This is hereby to announce that Ports & Maritime Organization (PMO) of I.R.Iran intends to proceed with Purchase of three Search and Rescue (SAR) Helicopter units for operation in the Persian Gulf, Oman Sea and Caspian Sea regions based on the quality assessment procedure and through A two-phase public international tender.*Therefore, in order to carry out the quality assessment, all experienced manufacturer companies of the captioned equipment are invited to refer either to the central secretariat of the PMO, at the below mentioned address and upon presenting an introduction letter and the original bank receipt of 500,000 Iranian Rials paid to the Siba account No. 2176459001009 by Bank Melli Iran to receive a CD containing the Quality Assessment Forms and tender documents or the relevant website, IETS.MPORG.IR , maximum till Wednesday 2016/OCT/26. *Place and deadline for submitting the quality assessment documents and completed worksheets: central secretariat of the PMO and to the last working hour on Wednesday2016/Nov/16.

It should be emphasized that the relevant receipt against submitting the said documents and forms must be received and kept for further steps.

*The first question & answer session will be held at 10 A.M on Saturday 2016/Oct/29, at the PMO Directory General for Equipment Supply & Maintenance office and attendance of the informed technical and commercial representatives of all manufacturer companies of the aforementioned equipment which are willing to participate in quality assessment of tender is obligatory (together with a written introduction letter).

* The tender winner shall pay for newspaper advertisement costs.

*Address of the announcing organization: Ports and Maritime Organization, No.1, Dr. Shahidi St., Haghani Highway, Vanak Sq., Tehran, Iran.

*Fax: (+98) 21-88651194 Tel: (+98) 21-84932351 *E-mail: Technical@pmo.ir

China’s President Xi Jinping warned Sunday that the global economy remained in a precarious condition as leaders of the BRICS group of nations tried to find ways to fire up growth in the troubled bloc.

Speaking at a summit in the Indian state of Goa, Xi told his host Narendra Modi and the leaders of Russia, Brazil and South Africa that the club of emerging powers had been undermined by both domestic and international woes.

But the leader of the world’s second largest economy said the long-term forecast for BRICS members was positive as he called for more confi-dence-building measures.

“The global economy is still going through a treacherous recovery,” Xi said in a statement at the summit on India’s west coast.

“Because of the impact of both internal and external factors, BRICS countries have somewhat slowed down in economic growth and have faced a number of new challenges in development.”

BRICS was formed in 2011 with the aim of using members’ growing economic and political influence to challenge Western hegemony.

The nations, with a joint estimated GDP of $16 trillion, set up their own bank in parallel to the Washington-based International Monetary Fund and World Bank and hold summits rivalling the G7 forum.

But the countries, accounting for 53 percent of world population, have been hit by falling global

demand and lower commodity prices, while several have also been mired in corruption scandals.

Russia and Brazil have fallen into recession re-cently, South Africa only just managed to avoid the same fate last month and China’s economy has slowed sharply.

India by contrast is now the world’s fastest-grow-ing major economy in an otherwise gloomy envi-ronment.

Modi said it was vital that the BRICS nations found ways of increasing their levels of coopera-tion. He called for the dismantling of trade barriers,

promotion of skills and infrastructure development.“Promoting economic and commercial engage-

ment has been a foundational impulse in creation of BRICS,” he said.

Modi, who came to power two years ago, said his government’s policy of opening up the Indian economy had achieved results and offered valuable lessons.

“In India, we have undertaken substantial re-forms in the last two years to streamline and sim-plify governance, especially doing business in India,” said the Indian prime minister.

“The results are clearly visible. We have moved up in almost all global indices that measure such performances.

“We have transformed India into one of the most open economies in the world today.”

Xi said there was no reason why the bloc’s mem-bers should not flourish as he called on a group made of business leaders from BRICS nations “to take concrete actions to boost confidence”.

“The potential and strength of BRICS countries in terms of resources, market and labour forces have remained unchanged,” he said.

“The long term... of BRICS development is still positive.”

Modi has also been using the summit to attempt to isolate India’s arch-rival Pakistan following a surge in tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

(Source: Dailymail)

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s cabinet passed a budget law that includes a corpo-rate tax cut and measures to boost invest-ments in an effort to revive political support and economic prospects ahead of a key constitutional referendum in early December.

“Italy isn’t going well yet, but after two and a half years it’s going a bit better than before,” Renzi told reporters in Rome Sat-urday, after the cabinet approved the 2017 law that must pass the Italian parliament by year-end. The tax cuts “are very important for small companies” and the money “isn’t going to bankers, it’s going to small and me-dium businesses and artisans.”

As he faces a Dec. 4 referendum that could mark the end of his government, Ren-zi needs to maintain the budget discipline requested by the European Commission while pushing through measures to restart economic growth. To do so, he set a defi-cit target of 2.3 percent of gross domestic product, lower than this year’s 2.4 percent, though higher than previous estimates.

It’s a compromise to appease the Eu-ropean Commission which will review the budget and wants Italy to control its deficit. Renzi said the extra flexibility on deficit will cover spending related to migrant flows and a recent earthquake in central Italy.

The budget law includes, among other measures, a reduction of corporate tax Ires to 24 percent from 27.5 percent, a boost to public investment, increases to lower pen-sions, and extra money for towns willing to host migrants. The government targets 1 percent economic growth next year.

Growth targetOn Thursday, the country’s central bank

called on the government to pass budget-law measures aimed at ensuring that its growth targets for 2017 are viable. Ear-lier this month its Deputy Director General Federico Signorini told lawmakers that the Treasury’s economic goal for next year is

“very optimistic.”“The effects of the government’s intend-

ed measures will depend on what interven-tions are taken and how they are imple-mented,” the Bank of Italy said in its quarterly economic bulletin. The Rome-based bank also urged the government to contain pub-lic expenditure in order to finance public investments.

Italy’s debt, the second-biggest in the euro region as a percentage of GDP, fell to 2.22 trillion euros ($2.46 trillion) in August, after reaching a record high of 2.25 trillion euros the previous month.

(Source: Bloomberg)

Global economy in precarious state, Xi tells BRICS summit

1 Interested companies will have

until November 19 to submit their qualifications, and the government will publish a list of eligible bidders on December 7, according to Shana.

The announcement marks an ac-

celeration in Iran’s effort to rejuvenate its energy industry since economic sanctions were eased in January. OPEC’s third-largest producer is seek-ing to attract investors with a revised oil investment contract to boost out-put at fields it shut when exports were

restricted. The country wants to at-tract more than $100 billion in invest-ment to increase its oil production by one million barrels a day by the start of the next decade.

NIOC wants to sign new devel-opment contracts with foreign and

domestic companies during the cur-rent Iranian calendar year, which runs through March, Mehr News Agency reported on September 17, citing Ali Kardor, a deputy oil minister and NIOC managing director.

(Source: agencies)

(From left) Brazilian President Michel Temer, Chinese President Xi Jingping, Indian PM Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and South African President Jacob Zuma in Goa on October 15, 2016

Iran to start bidding for oil, gas projects on Monday

ADVERTISEMENTSh t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m OCTOBER 17, 2016OCTOBER 17, 2016 5I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

By John Rentoul

OCTOBER 17, 2016OCTOBER 17, 20166I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

INTERNATIONAL h t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m

By Moustafa Bayoumi

By Thitinan Pongsudhirak

The U.S. just bombed Yemen, and no one’s talking about it

We need answers from the candidates on how they would deal with a deadly conflict in one of the Middle East’s poorest countries. We’re not

getting them.What if the United States went to war and nobody here

even noticed? The question is absurd, isn’t it? And yet, this almost perfectly describes what actually happened this past week.

While many Americans, myself included, were all hypnotized by the bizarre spectacle of the Republican nominee for president, a U.S. navy destroyer fired a barrage of cruise missiles at three radar sites controlled by the Houthi movement in Yemen. This attack marked the first time the U.S. has fought the Houthis directly in Yemen’s devastating civil war.

The cruise missile salvo ramps up the already significant U.S. military involvement in deeply divided and desperately poor Yemen. While it’s true that the U.S. has launched drone strikes on al-Qaida targets in Yemen for years, sometimes killing civilians and even U.S. citizens, this particular military engagement has the potential to drag the U.S. straight into a protracted and escalating conflict. And, as everyone knows, America has an uncanny ability to enter protracted and escalating military conflicts.

Yet we’ve heard absolutely nothing about this from our presidential candidates.

If we investigated, we would find that the Pentagon justified this attack as retaliation. Last week, missiles were fired on two separate occasions at another navy destroyer off of Yemen’s southern coast. Those missiles fell harmlessly into the water, but they were enough of a provocation that the navy responded with its own bombardment.

An apparent war crimeBut we would also find that immediately prior to those

incidents, on Saturday 8 October, a 500lb laser-guided U.S.-made bomb was dropped on a funeral procession by the U.S.-sponsored Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis. This bomb killed more than 140 people, mostly civilians, and wounded more than 525 people. Human Rights Watch called the incident “an apparent war crime”.

That heinous attack led to a strong rebuke from the U.S., which has sold the Saudis $110bn worth of arms since Obama assumed office, and recently approved the sale of $1.15bn more. The U.S. also supplies the Saudis with necessary intelligence and logistics to prosecute its war. According to Reuters, the U.S. government is also deeply concerned that it may be implicated in future war crimes prosecutions as a result of its support for the Saudi-led coalition.

This worry might ex-plain why National Secu-rity Council spokesman Ned Price stated that “in light of this and other re-cent incidents, we … are prepared to adjust our support so as to better align [the Saudi-led coalition] with U.S. principles, values and interests, including achieving an immediate and durable end to Yemen’s tragic con-flict”. Sounds good. Then again, the U.S. bombed Houthi posi-tions days later.

The situation in Yemen is already catastrophic and largely out of view. Since the conflict began 18 months ago, more than 6,800 people have been killed. Both the Houthis and the regime have committed atrocities, though most of the dead are civilians and most have been killed by Saudi-led airstrikes. Almost 14.4 million people are now “food insecure”, according to the UN’s World Food Program, and 2.8 million people have been displaced. In 2015, there were 101 attacks on schools and hospitals. After two Doctors Without Borders hospitals were bombed resulting in 20 deaths – one in Taiz on 2 December 2015 and the other in Abs on 15 August this year – the humanitarian group was forced to withdraw from its six hospitals in northern Yemen. And the latest news is a cholera outbreak.

The Trump show has managed to bump all the serious and necessary policy debates not just off the table but out of the room. Presidential foreign policy discussions, for example, are now basically limited to who hates ISIL more.

It’s not enough. All the current polls point to Hillary Clinton winning the presidential election, and there’s a desperate need for substantive answers regarding her policies. Will she merely continue Obama’s Yemen strategy, which has not only failed to end the war but could also soon escalate it? The prevailing wisdom among many Democrats has been to focus first on defeating Donald Trump before moving on to what’s next, but that’s no longer fair to voters nor, really, to the people of Yemen. We need to know not only what we’re voting against, but what we’re voting for. As the last few days have shown, the world doesn’t stop spinning while the U.S. holds elections.

(Source: The Guardian)

Theresa May cannot do what the Remainers want her to do, name-ly to set out the kind of deal she

hopes to reach with the European Union when we leave. Last week there were two debates in the House of Commons on Brexit – David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, made a statement last Monday, and La-bour used one of its opposition days to debate it last Wednesday.

On both occasions, the two opposition parties, Labour and the Tory Remainers (led by Kenneth Clarke, Anna Soubry, Nicky Morgan and Dominic Grieve), demanded that the prime minister put her negotiating stance to the Commons for scrutiny and possibly even a vote.

Four freedomsThere is no way that she could

contemplate doing something so stupid. Suppose she said, for example, that the Government wanted Britain to remain a member of the single market but with an emergency brake on immigration. Suppose, further, that she didn’t get what she wanted. Which she wouldn’t, because Angela Merkel, François Hollande, Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk have all said that the “four freedoms” are inviolable. One of those is freedom of movement.

Never mind that Norway and Liechtenstein, to name two countries that are members of the single market but not of the EU, have some kind of exemption from freedom-of-movement rules, the EU’s leaders are not going to give the UK an opt-out. If they did, as some of the more open German politicians have said,

everyone would want one. (“We cannot give them any concessions because others will then demand the same,” said Thomas Oppermann, parliamentary leader of the Social Democrats, Merkel’s coalition partners, in July.)

We went through this with David Cameron’s renegotiation in February. He wanted an emergency brake; Merkel made it clear privately she wouldn’t give it to him; so he didn’t ask for it. In the closing stages of the referendum campaign, as he panicked about losing, he thought of asking for it again as a last-minute concession that would keep Britain in the EU. But he decided not to – for the same reason that May won’t ask for it now. He thought Merkel would still say no; his request would be leaked; he would be humiliated. That, he calculated, would be more damaging than failing to try. And he was right. Merkel confirmed to him afterwards that she wouldn’t have given him the brake. Maybe she was just trying to make him feel better about losing the referendum, but I don’t think so.

So Theresa May cannot announce to Parliament that she is aiming to get x or y in her Brexit negotiations. If she doesn’t get them, she will look foolish or weak. The most she can do, as Cameron did, is to try to sound out European capitals and Brussels bigwigs privately to see what sort of deal they might be prepared to accept. Even that is fraught. Just on the simple question of when she is planning to trigger Article 50, the formal two-year process for leaving the EU, various private conversations have leaked.

In the end, as the Tory Remainers pointed out last week, she didn’t even

consult the Cabinet before making the announcement at the Conservative Party conference that she would trigger Article 50 by the end of March. This is not a constitutional outrage, it is a fact of modern politics. If she had told the Cabinet – no one is so naive as to imagine that Cabinet could have had an open-ended discussion about such a subject – it would have leaked.

The hardest of BrexitsThe prime minister has to manage

expectations. She has to prepare the nation for the hardest of Brexits so that any tariff-free access to the single market, any agreement on common standards, or any reduction in our contribution to EU funds, can be presented as a negotiating triumph.

Paradoxically, the EU’s leaders share Theresa May’s interest in playing down expectations of the Brexit nego-tiations. They cannot allow the skeptical peoples of Denmark, Sweden, the Czech Republic and even the Netherlands to think that the grass might be greener outside the EU. Hence Donald Tusk, the EU President, showing that he has quite a neat turn of English phrase in his speech last Thursday, made fun of Boris Johnson’s “cake philosophy”. To all who believe in it, he said, “I propose a simple experiment. Buy a cake, eat it, and see if it is still there on the plate.” In his opinion, “the only real alternative to a ‘hard Brexit’ is ‘no Brexit’”.

EU leaders have obviously decided that they cannot be seen to be rewarding the UK for leaving the club, but when it comes to the negotiations there are – as the Leave campaign pointed out during the referendum – the interests of German

car makers to consider. So May and Tusk both start the talks

next year by assuming that Britain will be out in the coldest trade tundra – any mutually beneficial agreement will come as a bonus to be trumpeted over here and to be played down in front of an EU audience.

This lowering of expectations gives Labour a great opportunity. I said last week that Keir Starmer’s appointment as shadow Brexit Secretary would be the making or breaking of him. On The Andrew Marr Show last Sunday and in two Commons debates, he made an impressive start. He aligned Labour with the Tory Remainers’ demands for parliamentary scrutiny of Brexit without quite admitting that Labour’s position was similar to the Government’s. He said immigration should be reduced, which rules out Britain being part of the free-movement area, and he said the result of the referendum had to be respected. In Tusk’s terms, then, Labour chooses “hard Brexit” rather than “no Brexit”.

But the advantage of being in opposition is that Starmer can offer the softest Brexit imaginable and berate Theresa May for failing to achieve it. He can say, much as John Smith did in the Commons debates on the Maastricht Treaty, that the Government should have achieved six impossible things in negotiations and that he is disappointed that it failed to do so.

What will happen in 2019 is that May will get a better deal than seems possible now, but that Labour will say it’s not good enough. That is an argument that Labour can win.

(Source: indenpendent)

According to Reuters, the U.S.

government is also deeply concerned

that it may be implicated in

future war crimes prosecutions as

a result of its support for the

Saudi-led coalition.

The EU’s leaders are not going to give the UK an opt-out. If they did, as some of the more open German politicians have said, everyone would want one.

The passing of King Bhumibol Adulyadej brings to a close a defining chapter in Thailand. During his seven-decade rule, the monarch presided

over Thailand’s climb from a village backwater to a modern nation.

His glorious reign was enabled by conditions and circumstances uniquely suited to his leadership. He has left behind a grieving and grateful nation that must now chart its own path into an uncertain and unknown future.

For all concerned in the country and beyond, the new Thailand must be based on a spirit of compromise and accommodation.

Worldwide audiences often are bewildered by the in-tense affection the Thai people harbored for King Bhu-mibol. When he celebrated his 60th year on the throne in June 2006, hundreds of thousands of Thais lined Bangkok’s thoroughfares to catch a glimpse of the mon-arch and to celebrate the milestone with him.

Near the end, many Thais flocked to his hospital to pray and pay their last respects. They shed many tears when Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha announced the King’s passing. Thais knew this day would come, but they wanted to delay it as long as possible.

The Thais’ treatment of their collective “father” can seem like god worship, characteristic of born-again evangelicals, or the type of manufactured adulation common in North Korea.

This reverence and respect for the monarch derived from the Cold War era when Thailand had to go it alone as the last domino withstanding communist expansion-

ism in Southeast Asia.In rapid succession during April and May 1975, Cam-

bodia fell to the Maoist Khmer Rouge, Saigon to the North Vietnamese army and Laos to communist insur-gents. On Thailand’s western front, Burma -- now Myan-mar -- became reclusive and autocratic after 1962.

At home, Thailand was poor, beset with regular black-outs, unreliable waterworks and unpaved roads in most places. In these early years of economic development,

King Bhumibol exerted efforts beyond the call of duty and built an indelible bond with his people. He traversed far-flung corners of the land, at some risk as the local communist insurgency was making headway, to pro-mote agricultural production, irrigation, infrastructure construction and myriad public good.

Country’s immense potential As a core component of the Thai national identity,

the late King lived a modest life when he could have been lavish. He endured hardship when comfort was available and gave Thais a unifying, rallying symbol to thwart external threats and to believe in their country’s immense potential.

These points are not invalid, but Thailand would not be where it is today without King Bhumibol, a force of personality who led by example with unsurpassable moral authority. His achievement is self-evident in view of the harsher times that befell Thailand’s neighbors over the same period.

By virtue of his success, the late monarch has left be-hind a modern country that now has to come to terms with his passing. While the military junta plays an instru-mental role in the transition to a new monarch, elections and democratic rule ultimately cannot be denied, and popular voices have been heard time and again calling for a more collective self-determined future.

The monarchy that King Bhumibol rebuilt will not be the same under his successor. The imperatives of demo-cratic rule require a 21st-century kind of monarchy within a renegotiated constitutional order. Brokering and insti-tutionalizing this compromise is Thailand’s way forward.

(Source: CNN)

King Bhumibol leaves behind a grateful nation

For all concerned in the country and beyond, the new

Thailand must be based on a spirit of compromise and

accommodation.

Theresa May will probably get a good Theresa May will probably get a good Brexit deal, but nobody can say so Brexit deal, but nobody can say so

There is no way that the prime minister could contemplate doing something as stupid There is no way that the prime minister could contemplate doing something as stupid as setting out in Parliament what she hopes to obtain in Brexit negotiationsas setting out in Parliament what she hopes to obtain in Brexit negotiations

Fire and smoke rise after a Saudi-led airstrike hit a site be-lieved to be one of the largest weapons depots on the out-skirts of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, on Friday.

A N A L Y S I Sh t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m OCTOBER 17, OCTOBER 17, 20162016 7I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

New chapter of ties between Iran, Vietnam At a time when world’s doors are open to Tehran after the landmark nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Ac-tion), a suitable opportunity has been provided for consolidation of relations between Iran and the regional states.

Indisputably, the consolidation of relations between Iran and Asian states, especially regional economic powers, would mark a new chapter in Iran’s further prosperity.

In an indication of fostering ties between Iran and regional countries, Asian in particular, President Hassan Rouhani launched his three-nation East Asian tour early October 5 aimed at enhancing relations with the south-eastern Asian states.

President Rouhani’s visits to Viet-nam, Malaysia and Thailand which started on October 5 with his arrival in Hanoi.

As the government of President Rouhani has so far been playing a pivotal role in promoting mutual re-lations between Tehran and other countries of the world, the visit would pave the ground for more coopera-tion between Iran and the southeast-ern Asian states.

During his visit to Hanoi, he held talks with President Tran Dai Quang and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong.

Two agreements on IT and remov-al of visa for special and service sec-tors appliers were also signed during Rouhani’s visit to the country. The two countries also agreed to hold Joint Iran-Vietnam Commission in Tehran soon.

Other agreements on boosting economic, banking, financial, tourism

and commercial cooperation were also inked during the trip.

Expansion of Iran-Vietnam Trade

President Rouhani believes that his visit to Vietnam would be considered as a turning point for Tehran-Hanoi relations.

In a meeting, President Rouhani and his Vietnamese counterpart agreed to raise the value of mutual transactions to more than two bil-lion dollars and pave the way for the central banks of the two countries to sign a deal for promotion of banking relations.

As long as Iran and Vietnam enjoy ‘very close’ stances on certain key in-ternational issues, President Rouhani stressed that “Tehran and Hanoi are seeking peace and stability for the Middle East and East Asia regions.”

Citing Vietnam as “a strong nation who opposes foreign aggression, fa-vors independence, supports devel-opments and is hardworking,” Iranian President said both sides believed that there are very extensive grounds for bilateral economic and commer-cial relations, especially in the field of investment, and their economies can be complementary to each other.

According to President Rouhani, there is “a very good opportunity available” in the field of energy for export of oil, LNG and petrochem-icals from Iran to Vietnam, tourism, parliamentary domain, exchange of professors and students, technolo-gy, water transfer, road and highway construction, technical and engi-neering services, culture and modern industries and Vietnamese companies are ready to invest in the Iranian oil and gas projects.

Promotion of PeaceVoicing Vietnam’s supports from

President Rouhani’s WAVE initiative for elimination of extremism and vi-olence at the international level, he added Iran and Vietnam support pro-motion of peace both at regional and international levels.

Dai Quang also hoped that Teh-ran and Hanoi would cooperate for establishment of peace and peaceful settlement of differences in the region and for restoring peace which is a requisite for economic development.

Tehran-Hanoi Visa Waiver Program:

Iran and Vietnam also have signed an agreement for lifting visa issuance for special and servicing purposes as

holders of such passports will have no problem with visiting in either coun-try.

The document was signed by Ira-nian Foreign Minister Mohammad-Ja-vad Zarif and his Vietnamese coun-terpart Phạm Bình Minh.

The two countries established re-lations in 1973 and since then the two countries have increased political and economic cooperation through exchange of visits by senior officials from both sides.

Iran opened an embassy in Hanoi in 1991 and Vietnam opened its em-bassy in Tehran in 1997.

Following up Previous Mu-

tual Agreements:In a meeting between President

Rouhani and Phuc, the two sides agreed to follow up the agreements previously inked between the two capitals.

Rouhani underscored that rein-forcement of relations with Southeast Asian countries, and specifically Viet-nam, has always been a top priority for Iran.

Iran believes that Vietnam could

become a base for Iran’s trade activi-ties in the region. To the same effect, the Iranian president added, Vietnam can access a market of 400 million people through Iran.

Rouhani said the removal of sanc-tions against Iran has already pre-pared the grounds for the two coun-tries to enhance their economic ties. He added that Tehran and Hanoi need to strengthen their banking rela-tions first in order to facilitate any step toward the expansion of commercial relations.

Phuc, for his part, emphasized that his country is determined to increase the level of trade with Iran to above $2 billion.

He added that Hanoi wants to expand relations with Iran in all ar-eas and that it is prepared to move toward the establishment of a mutual free trade mechanism between the two countries.

Successful Mutual Coopera-tion:

President Rouhani in a meeting with Fu Trong described the broad-ening of mutual cooperation be-tween Iran and Vietnam as success-ful.

The Iranian president reiterated that the grounds are properly paved for the further expansion of relations between the two countries, especial-ly in the post-sanctions era which expedite the deepening of economic cooperation.

President Rouhani said that broadening of cooperation between the Iranian and Vietnamese private sectors, especially in energy, modern technologies, banking, agriculture and fishery fields is being heeded to.

He underlined the need for devel-oping banking relations in pace with political and economic relations, and said, ‘Preferential trade and then free trade can create good grounds for bringing about economic develop-ment in the interest of the two na-tions and the region.

Tehran and Hanoi are seeking peace and stability for the Middle East and

East Asia regions.

There is “a very good opportunity available” in the field of energy for export of oil, LNG and petrochemicals from Iran to Vietnam.

Citing Vietnam as “a strong nation who opposes foreign aggression, favors independence, supports developments and is hardworking,” Iranian President said both sides believed that

there are very extensive grounds for bilateral economic and commercial relations.

By Mina Ahmadi

OCTOBER 17, 2016OCTOBER 17, 20168I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

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Cybersecurity researchers at Symantec spotting a sudden surge in Windows Script Files (WSF) used to distribute ran-somware.

WSF files are opened by Windows Script Host (WSH) and are designed to al-low a variety of scripting languages to mix within a single file. What makes files with the .wsf extension appealing to cyber-criminals, hackers, and other ransomware pushers is that they're not automatically blocked by some email clients and can be launched like a standard executable file.

Having realised that WSF files are less likely to be blocked by anti-malware programmes, ransomware campaigns using the extension type have massively jumped in recent months.

Symantec researchers say 22,000 emails containing malicious .wsf files were blocked in June and that figure had mul-tiplied by almost 100 times by July to 2 million. The figure has remained steady since then, with 2.2 million malicious .wsf files blocked in September.

Groups who spread malware through spam campaigns frequently change the format of the malicious attachments used. As security vendors improve their defenses against certain malicious file

types, attack groups will switch to alter-natives in the hope that more emails will slip through defenses.

For example, Locky spam campaigns are sent by an affiliate that is also used by the Dridex group. The spamming opera-tion had previously used attached Word

documents containing a malicious mac-ro (W97M.Downloader). Earlier this year, it moved to using malicious JavaScript attachments (JS.Downloader). It now ap-pears to have shifted to using WSF files instead of pure JavaScript (also detected as JS.Downloader).

In a constantly shifting threat land-scape, organizations need to remain vigilant and aware that threats can come from new and unanticipated sources.

Tips on protecting yourself from ran-somware

1- Regularly back up any files stored on your computer. If your computer does become infected with ransomware, your files can be restored once the malware has been removed.

2- Always keep your security software up to date to protect yourself against any new variants of malware.

3- Keep your operating system and other software updated. Software up-dates will frequently include patches for newly discovered security vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers.

4- Delete any suspicious-looking emails you receive, especially if they con-tain links or attachments.

5- Be extremely wary of any Microsoft Office email attachment that advises you to enable macros to view its content. Un-less you are absolutely sure that this is a genuine email from a trusted source, do not enable macros and instead immedi-ately delete the email.

(Source: Symantec/zdnet)

This is the newest tactic cybercriminals are using to deliver ransomware

10 hot titles of IT world

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

Twitter stock crashed once again after Salesforce backs out it from acquisition.

CEO Marc Benioff made it clear that they had gotten the memo as well and won't be making any advances on Twitter.

He tweeted: "In this case we’ve walked away. It wasn’t the right fit for us. I wish Jack very well."

Note 7 owners want to keep Gear VR because it works with other Samsung devices.

After Note7’s discontinuation, users have to refund all ac-cessories that were purchased for the Note7.

The HTC web browser will be discontinued on No-vember 30.

This android browser will be removed from the Play Store and will no longer receive any future updates.

Qualcomm sues Meizu in the U.S., Germany, and France following patent infringements.

Qualcomm claimed that Chinese smartphone maker Mei-zu refused to negotiate a license agreement in good faith and its sales and distribution of infringing products around the world.

The new record from Chinese company: Huawei celebrated shipping more than 100 million smart-

phones in 2016, two months before the year ends.Huawei shipped 100 million smartphones for the whole

2015 year, so clearly growth has been achieved.The new 12-inch Samsung Galaxy TabPro S Gold Edition with 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD is priced

at $999.99.The Nike+ edition of the Apple Watch Series 2 will be out on October 28. You get exclusive Nike

watch faces, and a Nike+ Run Club complication.Google, IBM and Dell have announced a specifi-cation for a technology aimed at boosting server

performance by up to 10 times.A consortium of tech giants has developed a techni-

cal spec they say is needed if datacenters are to cope with the demands of machine learning and other data-intensive workloads.

Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 won't be able to fly. Fli-ers who evade the ban will be subject to criminal

punishment. Google revealed it received a secret FBI subpoena.

The secret subpoena is known as a national se-curity letter and, as The Intercept notes it does not require court approval.

Iran claims 2nd global place in online census: ICT minister

ICT Minister Mahmoud Vaezi said that with more than 20 per-cent national participation in the online census, Iran won the second place in the world following Japan with 35 percent.

Visiting Statistical Center of Iran on Saturday, Vaezi de-scribed the metropolis residents’ participation in the web-based survey as pale, adding, “people in cities such as Mashhad, Tehran, Isfahan, Karaj, Ahvaz, Qom as well as Arak partook less to the web-based census project compared to other cities.”

Stating the project as the first serious national plan carried out tasting National Information Network, the minister noted that there was no damage to the network by foreign portals.

Statistical Center of Iran lately suggested providing two GB free Internet to the participants, a suggestion welcomed by certain firms, according to Vaezi.

“In our country, the Internet bandwidth was initially used by the users mostly for correspondences and photos and vid-eo files were added later. They also do part of their conver-sations using the Internet platform,” the minister maintained.

If Apple is searching for another reason why its share of the PC market has recently declined -- besides aging hardware -- it should take a look at the Windows competition. While those lap-tops may lack the cache of the Mac name, they've clearly caught up in the look-and-feel department.

At that time, HP touted the Spectre as the world's thinnest notebook. Fast forward to October, and Acer is claiming to steal that title away with its new Swift 7 laptop family. The company has managed to shave 0.2 inches off the height of its chassis, though at 2.48 pounds, it still is slightly heavier than Apple's MacBook (as is the Spectre).

Like the Spectre, the Swift 7 is clearly targeting the up-scale with its features and design. It may not be as flashy as the Spectre, but Acer's offering has a matte black aluminum exterior with a gold interior. The first available Swift 7 mod-

el, the SF713-51-M90J, includes a Core i5-7Y54 Kaby Lake processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB solid-state drive, and a full HD 13.3-inch protected by Corning Gorilla Glass. It also comes with MU-MIMO 802.11 ac Wi-Fi for what Acer says is three times faster wireless performance, and the company claims up to 9 hours of battery life for the Swift 7.

In addition to being ever-so-thinner, the Swift 7 is slight-ly less expensive than the similarly spec'd Spectre. The Spectre starts at $1,169.99, and the Acer laptop is now available at $1,099.99. (source: zdnet)

Acer launches Swift 7, thinnest laptop on the market

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U.S. bans all Samsung Galaxy Note 7s from flights

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is no longer flight ready.

A group of U.S. regulators on Friday banned of the device from all flights to, from or within the country, describing the phone as a "forbidden hazardous material" under federal regulations.

The ban, which goes into effect on Saturday at noon Eastern Time, is a significant expansion of a previous restriction on Note 7s. Beforehand, people were allowed to bring the phones onto planes but were told to power them down and to not use, charge or stow them in checked bag-gage.

The ban is another blow to the troubled device and Samsung. On Thursday, Samsung and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Com-mission issued a second recall on the phone, following dozens of reports of overheating and exploding Note 7s. Samsung has end-ed production of the phones and expects to take billions of dollars in losses stemming from the devices.

"We recognize that banning these phones from airlines will inconvenience some passen-gers, but the safety of all those aboard an aircraft must take priority," Transportation Secretary An-thony Foxx said in a statement. "We are taking this additional step because even one fire inci-dent inflight poses a high risk of severe personal injury and puts many lives at risk."

The ban was announced by the U.S. De-partment of Transportation, with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. It affects all Note 7s, not just devices from the first recall in September. (Source: cnet)

Google Android Wear smartwatch to be released soonGoogle is planning to release its own smartwatch to take on the Apple Watch soon, according to leaks.

The company will make two of its own watches, according to new leaks. They’re expected to be released at the begin-ning of 2017.

The leak follows Google’s launch of the Pixel and Pixel XL phones. Those are the first that Google made itself – and as such bake in an artificially intel-ligent assistant that isn’t availa-ble to any other Android users.

The watch will include the same technology, according to the leaks. It will aim to put that Google Assistant – which at the moment is only availa-ble in Google Home and the new phones – on people’s wrists so that they can talk to it at any time.

Google has long made a watch version of its operating system, called Android Wear. But that has only been available on smartwatches made by other companies, such as LG and Sony.

Now Google appears to be taking the same approach that it has with its phones. Until this year, it had tended to help out with the design of its own Android phone as well as making the operating system for others to use – but the new Pixels are built by Google and include special features that aren’t available on other hardware. (source: independent)

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A third of elderly patients may be being prescribed unnecessary medication, put-ting them at needless risk of side-effects and costing the NHS millions, a study has shown.

A review of 1,800 over 75s at NHS Croydon found that the average patient had been prescribed six different drugs.

But after a reassessment hundreds of prescriptions were cancelled, with up to one third of patients taken off at least one drug.

Hundreds of prescriptions were stopped because they were no longer ef-fective and dozens because the patients were experiencing side effects or drug reactions.

Further reviewA further 121 patients were sent to

their GP for further review, and 89 pa-tients had their dose reduced.

The most common drugs which were stopped were the blood-thinning drugs warfarin and clopidogrel, aspirin, alen-dronic acid for osteoposrosis, cetirizine for hay fever and allergies, laxido for con-stipation, omeprazole for gastric reflux and adcal-d3, a drug to boost calcium and vitamin levels.

The research, carried out by phar-maceutical consultants Interface Clinical Services, predicted that the changes would save the NHS around £192,000 a year. However there are more than 5 million over 75s in Britain, which suggests

that the cost savings across the country if everyone was similarly assessed could amount to millions.

Caroline Abrahams, Charity Direc-tor at Age UK, said: “We know that the more medications you take, the greater the risks, such the risk of giddiness and of falling. This is because of what happens

when different drugs interact and in the worst cases older people can even end up in hospital.

Population ages“This will be an increasing problem

as our population ages, with as many as three million older people expected to be regularly taking multiple medicines by

2018.“It is therefore extremely important

that it becomes routine for older people to have their medication reviewed regu-larly, and the more drugs they are taking the more important this is.”

Katherine Murphy, Chief Executive of The Patients Association, added: The “Patients Association has been aware for some time about the problem of patients being prescribed too many different medicines, often with one medicine be-ing prescribed to reduce the symptoms of another.

The “lack of any regular review of a patients medication sometimes over sev-eral years, is concerning, particularly for vulnerable older people who may feel unable or are unwilling to challenge this aspect of their care.

“We welcome any initiative to improve this situation in the interests of patient safety. The research highlights that med-ication is often not required, may have limited benefits and can be unnecessarily expensive.”

Four out of five people aged 75 or over now take at least one prescribed medication, and patients on multiple medications are more likely to suffer drug side effects and adverse reactions. Adverse reactions and side effects from drugs account for between five percent and 17 percent of all hospital admissions.

(Source: The Telegraph)

The “lack of any regular review of a patients medication sometimes over several years, is concerning, particularly for vulnerable older people who may feel unable or are unwilling

to challenge this aspect of their care.

‘Iranian women are less active than their male peers’

TEHRAN – Around half Iranian population is insufficiently active that is 53.8 percent

women versus 35.6 percent men, according to the head of the department of prevention and combating diseases at Iran University of Medical Sciences.

Iranian women are less likely to get engaged in physical activities than their men, IRNA quoted Ali Golmohammadi as saying on Saturday.

“Iranian women are less active than their male peers.”Out of 47.8 percent overweight Iranian population, the

doctor said 15.3 percent is considered obese; this is while ex-cess weight is also affecting a large number of primary school students.

Calling on Iranians to take charge of their diet, Golmo-hammadi stressed the importance of consumption of fresh produce and said over 80 percent of the Iranian don’t match the daily recommended servings of fruit and vegetables.

He indicated the average sodium chloride intake of the nation is 10.7 grams; however, “by 2025, salt consumption of the country should drop by 30 percent.”

‘Non-contagious diseases claim 38 million lives annually’

Approximately 38 million lives are lost to non-contagious diseases every year worldwide, as the disease shows a grow-ing trend globally.

Out of the perished population to the disease, 28 millions are from the developing countries, while the remaining figure comes from the developed nations.

Statistics show that in 2010, 70.4 percent of Iranians died of non-contagious diseases while the figure approximates to 65.5 in the world, he explained.

Golmohammadi went on to say that heart failure takes 17.5 million lives each year, second to traffic accident fatali-ties, while cancer claims 8 million.

China to launch manned space mission Shenzhou 11 todayChina will launch a two-man space mission, Shenzhou 11, today, officials with the space program said, taking the coun-try closer to its ambition of setting up a permanent manned space station by 2022.

President Xi Jinping has called for China to establish itself as a space power, and it has test-ed anti-satellite missiles, in addition to its civilian aims.

China says its space program is for peaceful purposes, but the U.S. Defense Department has highlighted its increasing capabilities, saying it was pursuing activities aimed to prevent adversaries from using space-based assets in a crisis.

After Monday’s launch at 07:30 A.M. (2330 GMT) in the remote northwestern province of Gansu, the astronauts will dock with the Tiangong 2 space laboratory, where they will spend about a month.

“This mission is characterized by its longer duration and more tests,” Chen Dong, the junior astronaut on the mission, told reporters in a televised news conference. “We will focus on improving our ability to handle emergencies in orbit, medical first aid, mutual rescue capabilities and space experiments.”

Shenzhou 11 will be the third space mission for Jing Hai-peng, who will command the mission and pass his 50th birth-day in space.

The spacecraft, whose name translates as “Divine Vessel”, will also carry three experiments designed by Hong Kong middle school students and selected in a science competi-tion, including one that will take silk worms into space.

China launched its second experimental space lab Tian-gong 2, or “Heavenly Palace 2”, last month.

While China to date has focused on near-Earth space ex-ploration, future missions will be bigger and go farther than 400 km (249 miles), said Zhang Yulin, an official with the space program and the Central Military Commission.

(Source: Reuters)

Spidey sense: Jumping spiders can hear a shriek from across the roomIn a spider’s world, visuals and vibrations reign. These ar-thropods keep an eye out – or eight, in the case of jumping spiders – for predators and prey. They also sense how close another animal is from how its movement vibrates the floor, wall, or web where the spider rests.

Scientists thought spiders were only able to pick up on noises within just a few feet of their bodies. But new research suggests one species of jumping spider, Phidippus audax, can actually hear sounds from as far away as 10 feet.

“These animals that we’ve lived with for the entire exist-ence of humanity, there’s now this new thing that we didn’t know that they could do,” the study’s first author Paul Sham-ble, now a biologist at Harvard University, tells The Christian Science Monitor in a phone interview. “Now when you see one of these creatures in your house or in your garden, just know that they can hear you.”

(Source: The CSM)

S C I & M E Dh t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m OCTOBER 17, 2016OCTOBER 17, 2016 11I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

S C I E N C Ed e s k

Elderly put at risk by needless medication, study finds

For more than 15 years, a lone scientist in southern Fin-land has spent countless winter nights among the snowy fields and frozen lakes around his village, in pursuit of one of the most ephemeral mysteries of the heavens: the faint, almost phantasmagorical sounds heard during intense displays of the aurora borealis, or northern lights.

The epic study by acoustician Unto K. Laine includes the first audio recordings of the muffled crackling or popping sometimes heard overhead during spectacular aurora displays.

Over the years, the sounds of the northern lights have been explained as illusions, imagination, inebria-tion or even voices from the spiritual world.

But Laine has shown the sounds are real, and he thinks he has found what causes them: sparks of elec-tricity discharging beneath the aurora in an inversion layer of the atmosphere that can form in clear and calm weather conditions.

Auroral acousticsLaine became interested in the phenomenon of so-

called auroral acoustics about 25 years ago, when he and his friends heard sounds from an aurora after a nighttime music gathering in Finnish Lapland, in the far

north of the country.“This experience never left me. We had to concen-

trate — we did not move or talk at all,” he said. “A few of us did not hear it, because at that time, the aurora wasn’t very strong, and it was a very low-intensity sound. I could never forget this experience; it was so strange.”

In 2000, Laine started to keep a careful watch on space weather forecasts for reports of intense solar flares that could supercharge auroras over the following nights. Auroras are caused by charged particles from so-lar flares interacting with the Earth’s magnetic field and raining into the upper atmosphere, where they excite the nitrogen and oxygen atoms of the air to create the dramatic and colorful light shows.

“During all these years, I have checked the space weather two to three times a day, so not to miss any au-rora events — and always, when the weather conditions are good, I go,” he said.

Laine’s solitary hunt for the elusive sound of the northern lights demanded great patience. There have been few intense auroras over Finland in the past 16 years, thanks in part to the “solar minimum,” a period of decreased activity in the sun’s natural 11-year solar cy-

cle. Between 2004 and 2007, the sun experienced a lull in activity, according to NASA, which meant fewer solar flares and fewer auroras.

In 2011, as solar activity ramped up, Laine started using a VLF loop antenna to measure magnetic fields and a microphone array to triangulate the locations of crackles and pops in the ever-changing sounds from the aurora.

(Source: Live Science)

In 2007, data showed that a young star about 400 light years away from our Solar System was blinking. It was being covered, uncovered and covered again in what astronomers call a “series of complex eclipses.”

The eclipses told astronomers that something was or-biting the young star, and that the something was very large.

Eric Mamajek first saw the 2007 data on Dec. 11, 2010, when he was a young professor of physics and

astronomy at the University of Rochester. “It was one of those great times one enjoys as a scientist where one realizes that one is seeing something new and bizarre that no person has seen before,” he told NPR via email.

It was an enormous ring system swirling around a planet.

“This planet is much larger than Jupiter or Saturn, and its ring system is roughly 200 times larger than Saturn’s rings are today,” Mamajek said at the time.

Mamajek and his co-author on the 2012 paper, Mat-thew Kenworthy of the University of Leiden in the Neth-erlands, created an animation showing how the massive ring system, called J1407b, could eclipse the star, unro-mantically named J1407.

But there were still many questions about the ring

system, one of which had to do with its enormous size. Last year, Mamajek and Kenworthy published another paper that showed the system consists of more than 30 rings, each of them tens of millions of kilometers in di-ameter.

That led some astronomers to wonder how some-thing so large could hold together as it swung around its star.

The answer might have something to do with spin, according to a new paper by Kenworthy and a colleague in Japan, Steven Reider, published last week in the jour-nal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Orbits are circlesAccording to the paper, the key to why spin is so

important begins with orbits. Not all orbits are circles. The Earth, for example, takes a slightly oval-shaped path around the sun, which means in January, the two are at their closest point.

The same is true of J1407b — because it doesn’t orbit in a circle, there is one point when the massive spinning disc of debris that makes up its rings comes closest to its star.

But it doesn’t break apart, and the reason, the au-thors of the new paper think, is that J1407b is spinning

backward. Don’t worry, you don’t have to try to imagine it — Reider made a video simulation of their theory.

Beware, about 15 seconds into the video, things get wild and destructive in the right panel.

As you can see, when the rings spin clockwise around the planet, they are torn apart as the system passes the star. But when the rings spin counterclockwise, they sur-vive.

(Source: npr.org)

Some of the most troubling images of the opioid crisis involve parents buying or using drugs with their children in tow. Now new research offers a glimpse into the addicted brain, finding that the drugs appear to blunt a person’s natural par-enting instincts.

Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsyl-vania scanned the brains of 47 men and women before and after they underwent treatment for opioid dependence. While in the scanner, the study subjects looked at various images of babies, and the re-searchers measured the brain’s response. The brain scans were compared with the responses of 25 healthy people.

What the study subjects didn’t know was that the photos had been manipulat-ed to adjust the “baby schema,” the term

used to describe the set of facial and oth-er features like round faces and big eyes that make our brains register babies as irresistible, kicking in our instinct to care for them. Sometimes the babies’ features were exaggerated to make them even more adorable; in others, the chubby cheeks and big eyes were reduced, mak-ing the faces less appealing. Studies show that a higher baby schema activates the part of the brain called the ventral stria-tum, a key component of the brain re-ward pathway.

Effects of opioidsCompared with the brains of healthy

people, the brains of people with opioid dependence didn’t produce strong re-sponses to the cute baby pictures. But once the opioid-dependent people re-ceived a drug called naltrexone, which

blocks the effects of opioids, their brains produced a more normal response.

“When the participants were given an opioid blocker, their baby schema became more similar to that of healthy people,” said Dr. Daniel D. Langleben, one of the researchers. “The data also raised in question whether opioid med-ications may affect social cognition in general.”

The study, among the first to look at the effects of opioid dependence and how its treatment affects social cognition, was presented last month at the Europe-an College of Neuropsychopharmacolo-gy Congress in Vienna. While the study was small, addiction researchers say it provides insights into the parenting be-havior of addicts.

Recently, a number of startling im-

ages have shown opioid addicts putting children at risk. A photo posted by the police in East Liverpool, Ohio, shows two parents passed out in the front of a car as their 4-year-old sits in the back seat. A video shows a young mother who had overdosed lying unconscious on the floor of a store in Lawrence, Mass., as her 2-year-old cried and tugged at her arm.

Kimberly Renk, a psychologist and the director of the Understanding Young Chil-dren and Families laboratory and clinic at the University of Central Florida, said this study and other research have been try-ing to understand why the neurocircuitry responsible for a parent’s attachment to children is the same one involved when parents use opioids.

(Source: The NYT)

How one scientist decoded the mysterious sounds of the northern lights

Spin to survive: How ‘Saturn on steroids’ keeps from self-destructing

Opioids may interfere with parenting instincts, study finds

By Farnaz Heidari

ENVIRONMENTd e s k

ENVIRONMENTd e s k

ENVIRONMENTd e s k

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

E N V I R O N M E N T h t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m / E n v i r o n m e n tOCTOBER 17, 2016OCTOBER 17, 201612

IN FOCUS Tehran Times/ Mohammad Moheimany

Fishing season in the Caspian Sea started on October 10. Those whose living are mostly dependent on the sea will go fishing until early April next year.

TEHRAN — The second national conference on metropolises manage-

ment with environmental approaches will open in Teh-ran on November 14.

The two-day event will be held in the Department of Environment, revolving around new environmental challenges arise by increasing urbanization and immigration to the metropolises, ISNA reported on Sunday.

Environmental challenges are of key significance in urban life and the consequences that will ensue would be a threat to both citizens’ life and health and almost all their activities in urban areas.

The first metropolises management national conference was held last year in December in association with ministries of interior, energy, industry, mine, and trade, health, agriculture, Iran’s Cultural

Heritage Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, Tehran’s city council, Tehran’s Municipality, and many of the universities.

What was achieved last year at the conference in addressing environmental predicaments in urban areas has prompted the officials to hold the conference once again this year and make it an annual event.

In general the conference is aiming at enforcing the existing environmental regulations, setting national and regional strategies for environmental management, evaluating the current environmental policies and strategies, determining the governmental and non-governmental organizations role concerning environmental management, proposing new policies to promote environmental values and discussing ways to implementing such policies.

Tehran’s new crisis: 7 streets collapse in 4 months

TEHRAN — Tehran is facing a new crisis as for the last four months seven streets

in different districts of the city have collapsed, Mehr news agency reported. City councilor Abolfazl Ghena’ati be-lieves that the recent collapses are all pertaining to de-pletion of groundwater resources.

The collapses might have been triggered by various reasons such as gas ex-plosion, subway tunnel excavation or water pipe breaks but ultimately they are resulted from deplet-ing ground water resourc-es, Ghena’ati warned.

Meanwhile, Mohsen Tabatabaei-Mozdabadi, secretary for Iran Urban Economics Scientific As-sociation (affiliated with Science Ministry), has said “although compared to the natural disasters such

as flood and earthquake such collapses do not seem as much of a hazard, due to Tehran’s dense population mostly in central and southern districts the collapses might become a major threat to the capital.”

He further said that such collapses are the inevitable outcomes of ignoring environmental factors.

Urban development and building boom has turned the aquifers into hallow whole which may collapse at any time, he said, adding, another issue is soil liquefac-tion (where soil substantially loses strength and stiffness causing it to behave like a liquid).

Additionally, he pointed, Tehran’s old water supply network can intensify any imminent collapse.

Tabatabaei-Mozdabadi further warned about Tehran’s impending earthquake saying “we cannot deny Tehran’s earthquake which may or may not happen at an un-known future but an earthquake coupled with collapses can double the damages to the city.”

Lack of coherence in urban management eventually re-sults in a city which is not safe from disasters, he regretted.

Two-headed turtle hatches out in Yazd

TEHRAN — A two-headed turtle hatched out in Khatam city, central province of

Yazd, IRNA news agency re-ported Sunday.

The city’s department of environment confirmed the news, with its director Saber Afkhami saying the turtle is pretty healthy.

The turtle hatched out simultaneously with anoth-er turtle which is completely normal, Afkhami added.

He further expressed hope that researchers would find out the reason as to why such a rare phe-nomenon happened and to

guarantee the animal’s survival.

Tehran to host environment-oriented megacities management conference

The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is now listed as Least Concern (LC) by In-ternational Union for Conservation

of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). The Eurasian Lynx has a very broad distri-bution and occurs along forested moun-tain ranges in southeastern and Central Europe and from northern and eastern Europe through the Boreal forests of Rus-sia, down into Central Asia and the Tibet-an plateau.

Currently six subspecies of the Eurasian Lynx are proposed. Eurasian lynx or (Lynx lynx dinniki) subspecies also occur throughout the Caspian Forests of Alborz range and in northwestern Iran, usually in the highest elevations. Eurasian lynx also recorded in the Zagros range in Dena Protected Area.

But in Europe, it was probably absent from some of the larger islands such as Ireland and Sicily and from countries with few forests. In fact, the Eurasian lynx was almost extinct around 1900, but has been slowly recovering in Europe since then. Larger populations persisted in Fennoscandia, the Baltic States, and European Russia. Lynx have been released in several countries of Europe in an effort to bring back this elusive predator, including in Switzerland, Slovenia, Italy, Czech Republic, Austria, Germany and France. It is now well established in Switzerland and the Czech Republic, but they do not live in large parts of their

former range in Germany. Where are the best habitats?

Take a look to the following map, red areas show permanent and grey areas are sporadic current ranges of Eurasian lynx at Europe. At this map, you can see two question marks which shows undetermined areas and six blue signs that refers to possible reintroduction areas. Do you know which regions of Germany are suitable for lynx reintroduction?

The simplest way to answer this question is to describe the present lynx habitat in Switzerland and the Czech Republic and look for similar habitats in Germany. German ecologists found that the best lynx habitat contains connected forest areas within a radius of 5 km, the size of a female lynx home range in Switzerland. By analyzing satellite images of Germany, the researchers concluded that about 24,000 km2 (8% of the country’s land area) is suitable for lynx reintroduction. That amount of habitat could support about 370 lynx.

What is the habitat suitability model?

From the ecological viewpoint, questions like this will be answer by habitat suitability models. We know, if the suitability of a habitat for a particular species can be defined, it should be possible to predict the average density the species could reach in that habitat.

With this knowledge, we should be able to manage endangered and economically important species better. For example,

before American reintroduce species such as the wolves into an area, they need to know if the area still contains suitable habitat in spite of changes human have made to the area.

Defining habitat suitability has been a goal of wildlife and fisheries management agencies for the past century and has led to the creation of many habitat suitable models. A habitat suitability model is a mathematical model that explains quantitatively how specific ecological factors affect the abundance of a species. By habitat suitability models, ecologists used base on the assumption that species live only in suitable habitats.

However, this does not necessarily mean that a habitat is unsuitable for a species just because that species is not presently found there. If the distribution of a species is limited by dispersal, there may be large areas of suitable habitat that are not occupied. Scientists. At 2002 assumed that key potential sites for reintroduction lynx in Germany include the Harz Forest, the Black Forest and the Alps. Black rectangles in the map enclose areas where lynx have been studied intensively by European ecologists.

Successful reintroduction to the wild

Conservationists have been releasing zoo-bred Eurasian lynx in Germany’s Harz Mountains in the past decade with the goal of returning them to their natural habitat. But what was the reason of declining population in Germany?

The Eurasian lynx population in Germany declined because of hunting by hunters who threatened their farm animals and local game. Eurasian lynx, disappeared from the region nearly 200 years ago as mentioned before. Most of the 7,000 to 8,000 Eurasian lynx now living in Europe are found in the Nordic countries, with scattered populations in western and central Europe. The plan of reintroducing Eurasian lynx to the nature of Germany still meets with initial resistance by some local farmers and individual hunters, meanwhile most locals are celebrating the return of Eurasian lynx because they are cashing in on lynx appeal to tourists.

Eurasian lynx is not so shy in front of the camera. But seeing a lynx in the wild is extremely difficult, although numerous sightings are reported within the Harz Mountains each year, and can be tricky even at the wooded enclosure in the Harz. Spiegel online in the first day of October, 2010 had an interview by Andreas Kinser, a forestry expert with the German Wildlife Federation. He said at that time: “The lynx population in the Harz Mountains is between some 50 to 60 animals. In Bavaria, the estimates run from 50 to 100, according to officials with the Bavarian National Park.”

The recent studies show that the Eurasian lynx living permanently in 11 population groups across 23 European countries, of which only five were native populations, indicating the success of reintroduction efforts.

Reintroduction is not just a dream

MINISTRY OF ENERGY

GUILAN REGIONAL ELECTRIC COMPANY GILRECExtension Invitation for Prequalification, International Tender No 9512003

Guilan Regional Electric Company (GILREC), intends to prequalify bidders for engineering, procurement and finance of a package of projects comprising Transmission and Sub Transmission Substations, Dispatching Center and Trans-mission Lines and Underground Cables at 63 and 230 kV voltage levels, during 18 calendar months and through a limited two stage tender.Interested applicants can receive prequalification documents, with due consideration of the following points:1- The proposed finance shall be approved by Central Bank of Iran (CBI).2- The law of maximum use of Iranian Technical Engineering, Manufacturing, and Industrial and Executive Capability,

shall be observed.The eligible applicants may obtain documents on the submission of a written application during working office hours from Oct. 17th, 2016 to Oct. 31th, 2016 in the following addresses:1- Guilan Regional Electric Company, office of the finance deputy managing director, Imam Khomeini Ave. Ghods

Crossroad, Rasht, I.R.Iran2- Ghods Niroo Engineering Company, No. 82, Motahari Ave., Tehran, I.R.IranMeanwhile, the above information is available at: Internet web sites of Guilan Regional Electric Company: www.gilrec.co.ir or Tavanir Company: www.tavanir.org.ir and National database portal of Iran tender’s information at: http://iets.mporg.ir.

Applications for prequalification received in soft copy shall be filled in, printed and signed and sealed and be submitted in sealed envelopes to the above address item 1, against a written receipt, up to sunday Dec. 25th, 2016 2:00 P.M (14:00) and be clearly marked as: “Engineering, procurement and finance (EPF) of Transmission and Sub Transmission Substations, Dispatching Center and Transmission Lines and Underground Cables at 63 and 230 kV voltage levels”.Note that: applications received after that date will be considered disqualified. Guilan Regional Electric Company will scrutinize the received documents in accordance with rules and regulations and will conduct prequalification of the applicants through procedures and qualified firms will be invited to receive tender documents.It shall be taken for granted that providing and presenting above mentioned documents will grant no rights to the applicants to be invited to tender. The cost of this tender notice shall be borne by successful bidder.

Guilan Regional Electric Company

The Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, has issued a decree to dissolve the country’s parliament, setting the stage for an early election.

The official KUNA state news agency made the an-nouncement on Sunday after an emergency govern-ment meeting.

The emir said “given the circumstances in the re-gion ... and the security challenges” he had ordered the 50-member legislative body dissolved. The statement did not elaborate.

The move came less than 24 hours after parliament speaker Marzouk al-Ghanem called for snap elections in the face of security and economic challenges.

Members of parliament earlier filed three requests to grill ministers over a decision to hike petrol prices and over alleged financial and administrative violations, in a clear sign of tensions between the government and parliament.

No date was set for the fresh polls. But according to the constitution, elections should take place within two months after the parliament is dissolved.

Kuwait, a major oil producer, held its last parliamen-tary election in 2013.

The country sits in a strategic position between Saudi Arabia and Iraq and across the Gulf from Iran.

But the drop in global oil prices has squeezed this major OPEC member to the point of cutting

back on the country’s many subsidies, stirring dis-sent.

Recently, Kuwait has also faced the threat of attacks since the rise of the armed group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

On October 8, an Egyptian driving a garbage truck loaded with explosives and ISIL papers rammed into a truck carrying five US soldiers in Kuwait, wounding only himself in the attack.

In 2015, ISIL claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing targeting a Shia mosque in Kuwait City, killing 27 people and wounding scores.

Earlier Kuwaiti news reports about the government dissolving focused entirely on economic issues.

The price of oil has been halved from heights of over $100 a barrel in the summer of 2014.

Kuwait has been ruled by the Al-Sabah dynasty since 1750, but the opposition has repeatedly said it is chal-lenging the constitutional system and not Al-Sabah rule per se.

(Source: Al Jazeera)

Iran and Italy are both touristic countries. Has there been any move to increase touristic visits and share experiences in this sector? If yes, what are the details?

A: Indeed, the cooperation in the field of tourism is growing. The number of Ital-ian tourists who refer to Iran as the main destination for their vacation is increas-ing. Iran and Italy share two of the richest cultural heritages in the world. Traditions and history are ingredients that attract a growing flow of tourists on both sides. Direct flights and visa facilitations help bi-lateral tourism relations. The Italian carrier Alitalia is investing on Iran, a daily flight to Rome is successfully operating on regular basis. Moreover, Iran is working to improve the quality of its touristic offer. Technical ex-pertise is needed to protect and preserve the national cultural heritage, as well as to increase the number of available accom-modation. It is also important to improve and renovate the transport net in order to match with the growing demand of servic-es from tourists. Italian Universities, Italian Museums and specialized Italian business community are present to play a significant role in this context.

Iran has been complaining that European banks have shown reluc-tance to enter partnership with Irani-an counterparts. Is that the case with the Italian banks, as well? Have you been in contacts with Italian banks over the issue?

A: Italy plays a pioneering role also in this field. Many Italian primary Banks ac-companied Prime Minister Renzi during his two-day visit in Tehran last April, and regular contacts have been intensifying. Our Ministries of Finance, our two central banks, as well as private banks, have a close dialogue to reach the most suitable frame-work of cooperation. Our two Ministers of Finance, Prof. Padoan and Dr. Tayyeb-Nia, met in Washington last week. Many Italian banks are now working in Iran through a

wide net of local correspondent banks. Some of them are negotiating basic fi-nancial agreements. They already perform a variety of services, which, together with the reopening of SACE (the Italian Export Credit Agency), represent a fundamental in-strument for the business to grow and catch the opportunities offered by the economy of the Islamic Republic. Once some strategic texts on financial agreements and sovereign guarantees will be finalized, the ongoing dia-logue will also pave the way for the financing of many Iranian priority projects.

On September 5, an Italian mil-itary delegation visited Iran. Does it mean the start of closer military ties? If yes, in what areas?

A: The staff talks held in September in Tehran enrich political dialogue between Italy and Iran on a new component. It was a first contact, on a purely technical level, after many years and it has been carefully prepared. It enabled a first exchanges of information on institutional issues. The two sides also called for new symbolic gestures. And in fact, from 24 to 27 September, the Italian military ship “Euro” was a guest in the Port of Bandar Abbas. In any case, in this area we have agreed to proceed gradually. This is a subject in which time is not an en-emy but a partner.

Have any steps been taken to implement the agreement signed be-tween Iran and Italy on environmental protection?

A: Environment is one of the main subjects of cooperation between us. The MOU in this field is the very first of a se-ries of bilateral agreements signed even before the lifting of sanctions. Italy is well aware of the challenges and commit-

ments of the Islamic Republic in the envi-ronmental sector and is ready to provide any type of expertise needed to reach those objectives. In 2016, the bilateral Environment Steering Committee has gathered twice, and the Italian Govern-ment has granted 3 million euros for pro-jects to be developed in Iran. From 24 to 26 of October next, a seminar on renew-able energies, water treatment and waste recycle will take place in Tehran in close cooperation between the Italian Ministry of Environment and the Iranian Depart-ment for Environment. Then, a delega-tion from Tehran will represent Iran at the important, international event known as “Ecomondo”, scheduled to happen in the city of Rimini on November the 8th and 9th next. A second visit to Iran of the Italian Minister Galletti could take place early next year. In this framework, I can also mention the dialogue established with the Iranian Agency responsible for the development of renewable energies (SUNA) within the Ministry of Energy, and the great interest shown by Italian private sector in this field.

Oil and gas sectors are one key area for the expansion of ties. What is the prospect, particularly in the light of the agreement between the Italian Eni and National Iranian Gas Company?

A: Energy is a key sector for Iran, and the Italian business community is ready to play its role in an evolving environ-ment. The complementarity of our coun-tries is undoubtedly an asset. ENI has a long history in Iran and it always main-tained an active office in Tehran. I believe that ENI will seriously evaluate the terms of the new IPC and further expand its ties with Iran if the new terms will allow. Oth-

er major Italian companies have shown great interest for the opportunities of the Iranian market. ENEL opened talks with Iranian counterparts, while strong per-spectives of cooperation emerge in the field of renewable energies as well as in the vast spectrum of services that Italian companies can provide to energy sector.

Our last question has to do with cultural ties. How do you see the way forward?

A: We have not yet talked about cul-tural relations. In the case of Italy and Iran, they are a crucial aspect, not an accessory, of the bilateral partnership. Not surpris-ingly, in Tehran the President Renzi always mentioned them before any other aspect. He always explained that between two so ancient Peoples, everything flows from the mutual understanding; from our skills for cultural mediation; from our deep curiosity for what is different, for what is “other”.

Our cultural relations are develop-ing very quickly and this trend will soon strengthen. During the last months, our Embassy has been facilitating a lot of joint cooperation between prestigious Italian and Iranian cultural institutions: for example, the exposition in Milan, then in Tehran, of the Penelope of the 5th c. BC owned by your National Museum, to-gether with her 3 Roman copies owned buìy Italian Museums. Or the recent con-cert in the Vahdat Hall of “Solisti della Scala”, three weeks ago, in cooperation with the Roudaki Foundation.

Next May, Italy will be guest of honor at the Tehran International Book Fair. In close contact with our Iranian counter-parts, we are preparing a rich program, both for the Fair itself and for the preced-ing months. In fact, we will organize a number of events to better introduce the Italian culture in its different aspects to the Iranian public: from November onwards, this path will end in the May event. Those activities will mark a further upgrading of our cultural relations.

WORLD IN FOCUSh t t p : / / 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 13I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

Emir of Kuwait dissolves parliamentTrump turns focus to issues of drugs, criminal justice reformWhat began with an unfounded allegation that Hillary Clin-ton was on drugs during their last debate ended with Donald Trump rolling out a new policy on drugs and criminal justice reform — his latest attempt to shift the campaign’s focus with less than a month before Election Day.

Standing in the sun in the back lot of a Toyota car deal-ership here, Donald Trump suggested Clinton was on drugs during the last debate in St. Louis and proposed that, like athletes, the candidates should take a drug test before they face off for the third and final time Wednesday in Las Vegas.

“Why don’t we do that?” Trump asked, saying Clinton was likely “getting pumped up” as she prepared for the debate with days off the campaign trail.

“We should take a drug test prior cause I don’t know what’s going on with her,” he said. “But at the beginning of last debate, she was all pumped up at the beginning and at the end it was like, oh take me down. She could barely reach her car.”

Trump, for his part, said he is “willing to do it.”His surprising claims mimicked a pro-Trump super PAC

Make America Number 1 ad from last week that proposed a drug test for candidates, interspersed with sound of Clinton’s coughs and imagery of her stumbling to her van on 9/11.

The group is bankrolled by Trump backer Robert Mercer, who donated $2 million to the PAC in July.

The unprecedented accusation that his opponent could have been doping before debates turned into a conversation Saturday about drugs and sentencing reform in a state with a raging heroin epidemic that Trump has taken note of be-fore but never delved into deeply.

In fact, prior to Saturday’s remarks, Trump had never gone further than to say that New Hampshire’s idyllic terrain and landscape make it look too beautiful to be the home of a drug epidemic — nor had he ever outlined any plans for criminal justice reform. Fewer than 25 days out from Election Day — and with no warning that a new policy was coming — Trump dove head first into the conversation.

His drug plan, outlined for the first time Saturday after-noon, promised to stop drugs from coming into the Unit-ed States by implementing his immigration plan, including a southern border wall, and closing shipping loopholes. He also said he would press the Food and Drug Administration to approve abuse-deterring drugs more quickly, complaining that they were “too slow” to approve these medications.

Trump would also seek to reduce the number of pre-scribed opioids, like oxycodone, methadone, and fentanyl, in the United States. (Source: NBC News)

Britain sends new military training mission to Tunisia to counter ISILBritain has sent 40 military personnel to Tunisia to provide training aimed at helping the North African country prevent the spread of ISIL terrorist group fighters from neighboring Libya, the British defense minister said on Saturday.

The training will focus on operational planning, intel-ligence, surveillance and mobile patrolling and is the third mission of its kind by British troops in Tunisia since 30 British holidaymakers were killed in a beach attack there.

The massacre in June last year at a hotel in Sousse on the Mediterranean coast was the biggest loss of British lives in such an incident since the July 2005 bombings in London.

“We are determined to support our Tunisian allies to de-fend against Daesh (ISIL) terrorists who slaughtered innocent Britons on a beach there last year,” Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said in a statement.

“Our training will help Tunisian forces strengthen their bor-der security and stop the spread of Daesh along the coast.”

The training will be delivered to around 200 Tunisian army personnel at various locations. Two previous training missions took place in February and late last year.

(Source: Reuters)

FAO highlights impacts of climate change on food security

1 “The world’s poorest - many of whom are farmers, fishers

and pastoralists - are being hit hardest by higher tempera-tures and an increasing frequency in weather-related disas-ters,” he said during his opening remarks on the impacts of climate change on local livelihood.

The FAO envoy elaborated that currently climate change, manifested in higher temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and increased incidence of extreme weather events such as droughts and floods, has endangered agricultural production in the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region, with effects being particularly noteworthy in Iran.

“Agriculture must therefore transform itself if it is to feed a growing global population and provide the basis for eco-nomic growth and poverty reduction” he noted.

Each year, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) celebrates World Food Day on 16 Oc-tober to commemorate the founding of the Organization in 1945. Events are organized in over 150 countries across the world, including Islamic Republic of Iran, making it one of the most celebrated days of the UN calendar.

These events promote worldwide awareness and action for those who suffer from hunger and for the need to ensure food security and nutritious diets for all.

World Food Day is also an important opportunity to send a strong message to the public: we can end hunger in this lifetime and become the Zero Hunger Generation, but everyone needs to work together to achieve this goal which has been enshrined in the Second Sustainable Development Goals endorsed last year by the global community to end hunger in the world by 2030.

OCTOBER 17, 2016

1 As the global population increased from 1.6 billion in

1900 to 7.3 billion in 2016 and is projected to reach 9 billion by 2050, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that agricultural production will have to increase by 60 percent by 2050 to satisfy the expected demands of food. To meet such a heavy demand, agriculture and food systems will need to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change and become more resilient, productive and sustainable.

By forging the concept of ‘Climate-smart Agriculture’, FAO is advocating an appropriate framework to devel-op the technical, policy and investment conditions to achieve sustainable agricultural development for food security under adverse climatic changes.

The magnitude, immediacy and breadth of scope of climate change on agricultural systems create a compel-ling need to ensure comprehensive integration of these effects into national agricultural planning, investments and programmes.

Although this predicament is certainly global in na-ture, the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practic-es is particularly pertinent for a country such as Iran.

Such practices should assist the nation in effective-ly confronting the complexity of the dynamics of the environmental changes it is progressively facing. Such an approach is deemed critical in the light of the acute ramifications of the forecasted environmental degrada-

tions such as water scarcity, land degradation and sig-nificant rises in temperature. In order to address these intertwined challenges effectively, food systems have to become both more efficient and resilient at every level, ranging from the farm national level.

Securing the efficient utilisation of natural resources has to be secured, comprising in terms of reduction in surface water use, land use as well as the use of inputs, so as the country can become more resilient to these changes and the resulting shocks.

The World Food Day commemoration in the country this year allowed for substantive deliberations on the in-tricate linkage between sustainable agriculture and the impacts being ushered by the variations in the climate and the consequent changes being felt. Engagement in this dialogue has fostered heightened awareness amongst a broader group of stakeholders at the nation-al level, ranging from educational institutions to govern-mental and private sector fora.

There is no doubt that in order to effectively tackle the pestilence of hunger and malnutrition, a myriad of interventions and programmes are required from differ-ent perspectives.

A number of institutions are extensively involved in such efforts that range from school feeding pro-

grammes such as the one being promoted by the World Food Programme to the community-based activities being carried out by ‘Action contre la faim’.

These complementary initiatives are both necessary and essential. Equally significant is the need for integrat-ed interventions aimed at reinforcing the institutional technical capacities at the national level, which embrace on the one hand enhanced productivity yet safeguard the country’s natural resources.

FAO, together with the support of a range of stakehold-ers concerned from the various sectors and the participa-tion of interested partners, will be engaged to promote the institutionalisation of the aforementioned approaches that will reinforce agricultural productivity and at the same time safeguard the country’s natural resources.

Such collective efforts will undoubtedly contribute to enabling the Islamic Republic of Iran to sustain its nation’s food security in the face these challenges and to meet the second Sustainable Development Goal of ending hunger and malnutrition by 2030 to which it ha subscribed last year.

Iran can undoubtedly play a pivotal role in demonstrat-ing to other nations how a country can effectively address the twin challenge of embedding sustainably food security and managing the adversities of climate change.

Ending hunger in our lifetime despite a changing global climate

‘Renewed dynamism’ between Iran, Italy revives culture, politics and economy: envoy

By forging the concept of ‘Climate-smart Agriculture’,

FAO is advocating an appropriate framework to

develop the technical, policy and investment conditions

to achieve sustainable agricultural development for food security under adverse

climatic changes.

Iran can undoubtedly play a pivotal role in demonstrating

to other nations how a country can effectively

address the twin challenge of embedding sustainably food security and managing the

adversities of climate change.

As for joint ventures, our SMEs with strong technological capabilities can help revive

Iranian factories that want to increase their competitiveness both on the domestic and on

external market.

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 h t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m / w o r l d s p o r tOCTOBER 17, 2016OCTOBER 17, 201614

Martinez: In football, you have to be able to adaptIt took Roberto Martinez fewer than ten years to become one of the most respected managers in the English Premier League, after his commendable work with Swansea City, Wigan Athletic and Everton. Since the beginning of August, the 43-year-old Spaniard has been revelling in his new role as coach of the Belgium national team, the reins of which he picked up following the departure of Marc Wilmots, the day after Les Diables Rouges were surprisingly knocked out of the quarter-finals of UEFA EURO 2016.

“Talent is not enough,” Martinez explained to FIFA.com in an exclusive interview. That phrase, which his predecessor had previously used when talking to FIFA.com in December 2014,

sums up the eternal Belgian “problem”: finding the right balance, as well as that little extra mentally, that will enable the diminutive nation to win the major tournament their fine play deserves.

If anyone can manage to achieve that goal, it is Martinez. In just a couple of months, the tireless tactician has got Belgium back on track, helping them to get off to the best start of any team competing in the European qualifying campaign for the

2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™, securing three victories, and scoring 13 goals while conceding none.

He provided an initial assessment of his team, its youth set-up and his assistant coach to FIFA.com.

FIFA.com: Roberto, were you surprised when the Belgian Football Association contacted you?

Roberto Martinez: It wasn’t a question of being surprised or not. It was more about trying to understand the project that the FA’s new committee wanted to work on. Once all that became clear in my head and I understood their vision, my enthusiasm rose. I was excited about working with this current generation of players.

What did you know about the team prior to that?There were Premier League players that I knew well,

especially Romelu Lukaku, Marouane Fellaini and Kevin Mirallas, who I worked with at Everton. I also knew the Italy-based players very well. However, I didn’t know the players who play their club football in Belgium – I’m still getting to grips with that, and I’ve been watching as many matches as possible. I’m really blown away by the quality of young Belgian players, and I’m going to offer them opportunities to establish themselves in the senior team. I’m also keen to get to know my players better, not only from a footballing point of view, but also what kind of person they are and how they got to where they are today.

How did you find the team spirit when you took over? The players have known each other for a long time. They

grew up together and are happy to get together and spend time with each other. That’s a huge advantage for me and makes my job a lot easier, on top of all the individual skills that facilitate my preparatory work and training sessions. This generation of Belgians are also extremely proud to represent their country. The demands and standards at big European clubs are so high that sometimes national teams end up taking a back seat, but these players are always hugely enthusiastic when they attend our camps. All of these aspects make my work very enjoyable.

You have world-class players at every position, something very few clubs can say they possess.

The talent is there, but as everybody knows, talent is not enough. You have to find the right balance; otherwise you can easily find yourself getting into difficulties. You have to also have the right mentality to achieve the kind of goals that have never been achieved before by Belgian football. Lots of countries have had exceptional teams in the past that never won a major tournament. That’s going to be an important thing to work on.

How did you judge Belgium’s performances at EURO 2016, where they were eliminated by Wales in the quarter-finals?

I’m not the kind of person to look back to the past. I prefer to deal with the present to see where we can go next. During my first match as national coach against Spain (a friendly match that Belgium lost 2-0 in September), I saw lots of emotion and sadness from the players as well as from the fans. It was very clear to me that the disappointing performance at EURO 2016 had had an affect and that we would have to overcome that. I want a team that is focused on our goals and I don’t want the past to interfere with what we need to do. When I look at our first three qualifying matches, I feel proud because we were able to approach them with cool heads, concentration and a great state of mind.

Thierry Henry is known for being a walking football encyclopaedia, and a hard-working, meticulous person. Is he the ideal assistant coach?

Absolutely. He’s a real fan, is very knowledgeable about the game and has an eye for detail. Football is his life. But what has impressed me the most is his ability to pass on his experience to the players. That’s very important. Not all great players have that ability, but for Thierry, it comes naturally. My staff and I try to meet all of our players’ needs, and he brings a high level of knowledge to the table, because he knows what it means to win a World Cup or a European Championship. He also knows what it means to accomplish something that previous generations weren’t able to do. Thierry is a psychological weapon that we use as much as possible.

How did this partnership come about?I didn’t really know him but I felt a connection with him

when I was in charge of Wigan and Everton, and he was doing commentary work on English TV. I could see from his analyses that we shared the same way of looking at the game. Finally, we met through acquaintances we had in common, and we had a good chat. I was looking for someone who could share their experience with my players. And he knows all the players in the Premier League pretty well. Thierry struck me as the ideal person for the job, and everything fell naturally into place.

(Source: FIFA)

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has admitted that he was not keen on a move to Manchester United a year ago -- but the arrival of Jose Mourinho at the club changed his thinking.

United went on to finish fifth last season under previous manager Louis van Gaal, meaning the club are not in the Champions League this season, but Mourinho still man-aged to persuade the Swedish striker to change his mind.

Ibrahimovic said: “There were talks about me coming to United one year ago, that is correct. But I didn’t believe in it then because it was not the right moment.

“Then they get the Special One and, when the Spe-cial One calls you and when he starts to talk to you, you are already convinced. He didn’t need to talk a lot

to convince me.“It was only enough to call me and say, ‹Listen, I’m wait-

ing for you in Manchester,’ and I was coming.”The 35-year-old had already tasted success while work-

ing with Mourinho when they were at Inter Milan, securing the title during the 2008-09 season, and he feels they share a winning mentality.

Ibrahimovic said: “I believe 50 percent of this sport is in your head, it’s a mental thing. Prepare mentally, you make it easier.

“It’s not only about how good your skills are. If you don’t have the mental part, you’re not ready for this world.”

(Source: ESPN)

Gary Neville has said he will turn his back on coaching for at least the next five years.

The former Manchester United right-back took his first foray into manage-ment with a troubled four-month spell at Valencia last season, while he was also Roy Hodgson’s assistant with Eng-land, a position he relinquished in the wake of a dismal Euro 2016 campaign.

Neville says he is not looking to get back into the industry any time soon, instead continuing in his punditry role with Sky Sports while focusing on a number of business projects, including his joint-ownership of National League North side Salford City.

“I’ve committed now. I put two or three things on hold while I was in Va-lencia and in the summer,’’ he told the Mail on Sunday.

“And obviously, after the summer I was, Right, these projects go and we go with them now.’ And they’re going. And I’m too integrated into them and at the forefront to go and do something else.’’

On a potential return to coaching, he added: “You can never say never but I think it is unlikely you’ll see me step back into a coaching role, certainly in the next five years. So the reality is that I probably am consigning myself to no coaching position, unless in five years I wake up and say, ‹Actually, I’d like to do something locally’ and something happens.

“But, honestly, at this moment I can’t see it at all. I’m far more passionate about those things I’m doing and Sal-

ford City than I am about coaching.”Despite England’s poor showing

at Euro 2016, Neville insists the team was going in the right direction under Hodgson, though he accepts their position was untenable after the Ice-land defeat.

“Absolutely, and unless you don’t qualify, you’ll only ever be judged on a tournament,’’ he said.

“And the sadness for me watching in the last couple of months and since the tournament is that it definitely was the right direction. But when you lose a game like Iceland, you lose the right to have a say any more.

“The reality, what people will work out in time, is that the direction of trav-el was correct, the identification of the right players was correct, the system and the style of players was correct, but not always the end result.’’

(Source: Soccernet)

Paris Saint-Germain captain Thiago Silva is shocked by how much of the French champions’ day-to-day affairs gets leaked to the press and suggested “may-be it is a player” who is passing the in-formation on.

Suspicions of a “mole” within Les Pa-risiens’ squad are nothing new and it is something that predates the arrival of Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) in 2011.

New coach Unai Emery learned of “the mole” recently when news of an exchange between the Spaniard and certain key players over the team’s pre-ferred style of play hit the headlines.

Silva, 32, did not deny the exchange took place and stated “speaking togeth-er is important” before calling the player, or member of staff, leaking the informa-tion “unintelligent.”

“What is said in the dressing room must stay there,” Silva told journalists in the mixed zone after PSG’s 2-1 win away at AS Nancy-Lorraine on Saturday. “It is incredible so much of this sort of thing gets out in the press.

“Maybe it is a player who speaks with you [the press], maybe it is somebody else. Either way, it is unintelligent.

“The meeting was important but sometimes we speak with our families at home too, yet you do not portray us badly for doing that. Speaking is im-portant, as well as listening; doing this makes progress. As we can see, results have been better since.”

Silva played the full 90 minutes as PSG made light of Nancy’s synthet-ic pitch, six important absentees, and

the usual problems posed in the first match back after a demanding inter-national break.

Lucas Moura and Edinson Cavani’s goals inside the first 20 minutes of the match were enough to secure the three points but Silva conceded he and his teammates “did not play well” at Stade Marcel Picot and thought Nancy’s syn-thetic pitch was “difficult” and “dangerous for the players.”

“We did not play well but the result was the most important thing,” Silva said. “We needed to win to build confi-dence ahead of Basel next Wednesday. Even if there were changes here, I think other players will have recovered by Wednesday.”

PSG welcome Basel to Parc des Princ-es in the Champions League on Wednes-day before bitter rivals Marseille travel to Paris for Le Classique on Sunday.

(Source: Soccernet)

Ex-Valencia boss Gary Neville: I won’t coach again for at least five years

Thiago Silva upset by level of Paris Saint-Germain information leaked

Zlatan Ibrahimovic: I rejected Man United under Louis van Gaal

Andy Murray nears Novak Djokovic’s world No1 spot with Shanghai win Andy Murray was not thinking about replacing Novak Djokovic as the world No1 at the start of the year. Now, after winning his sixth title of 2016 thanks to a comfortable 7-6 (7-1), 6-1 victory against Roberto Bautista Agut in the Shanghai Masters final on Sunday, it is a realistic target.

Back when Djokovic crushed Murray in the Australian Open final in January, before meting out similar treatment in the French Open in June, the Serb looked untouchable. But it hardly needs to be pointed out that nothing lasts for ever – after all, last week began with Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal dropping out of the top four for the first time in 13 years – and while Djokovic has found it impossible to shake off the physical and mental dip that started with his shock defeat to Sam Querrey at Wimbledon, Murray has been in the form of his life in recent months, inching ever closer to his great rival at the top of the rankings.

The Wimbledon and Olympic champion’s win against Bautista Agut, who stunned Djokovic in their semi-final on Saturday, cut the deficit to 915 points. Murray has adjusted his target. “My goal wasn’t to finish No1 at the end of this year but in the early parts of next year there is an opportunity – 900 points doesn’t seem like loads,” the Scot said.

Murray’s determination to keep expectations at a realistic level was understandable, although there is a chance that he could overtake Djokovic on 7 November, with the ATP World Tour finals in London still to come. The complex nature of the ATP rankings system means that victories for Murray in Vienna this week and the Paris Masters next month, combined with Djokovic failing to reach the final in Paris, would see him become No1 for the first time in his career.

For now, however, Murray is urging caution, pointing to Djokovic’s outstanding record in indoor tournaments. Djokovic is the defending champion in Paris and he is unlikely to let go of his London title without a fight. “Novak will win matches,” Murray said. “He is the best player in the world.”

That last point was debatable given recent results. Murray has played some wonderful tennis since impressing during the clay season, winning his second Wimbledon with a composed victory over Milos Raonic and defending his Olympic singles title with an epic victory against Juan Martín del Potro in Brazil. There have been disappointments, the quarter-final defeat to Kei Nishikori at the US Open and losing his rubber against Del Potro when Argentina beat Great Britain in the Davis Cup semi-final last month, but Murray has mostly been impeccable.

“In the last few months, I have won a lot of matches and made improvements,” Murray said.

“I have been moving forward better and changed the direction of the ball better. I have also come up with some bigger serves when I have needed them.”

He was far too strong for Bautista Agut, the world No15, despite a brief wobble at the business end of the first set. Having broken in the seventh game, Murray’s concentration faltered when he served for the set at 5-4, wasting three set points and allowing Bautista Agut to break back.

However he blew the Spaniard away in the tie-break, allowing him only one point, and he was ruth-less in the second set, racing away with it despite dropping his serve when he led 2-0. He responded by win-ning four successive games, overpowering Bautista Agut with his groundstrokes, to claim his third Shanghai ti-tle without dropping a set throughout the tournament. The same impressive feat he produced to win his first Chi-na Open title the week be-fore.

It is all building up to a fascinating finale. The momentum belongs to Murray at the moment. But the Scot knows better than anyone else never to write off Djokovic, who has proven beyond doubt that he is the ultimate fighter.

Heather Watson and Naomi Broady were beaten 6-3, 6-1 by sisters Chan Hao-ching and Chan Yung-jan in the doubles final at the Hong Kong Open.

Reviving a partnership that saw them win through two rounds at Wimbledon this year, Watson and Broady enjoyed a strong week in the doubles after

early singles exits. It was their first final together, but the long-standing friends found their

experienced opponents too strong.The Chan siblings collected their third

trophy of the year, cementing their place among the world’s elite doubles players.

Broady said on BT Sport: “I want to congratulate our opponents. You’ve had a fantastic year, you’re in the top five in the world for a reason and you were too

good for us tonight so well done.“I want to thank my partner. We’ve been

best friends since we were about nine years old so to arrive at a final together on the same side of the net is just awesome, and I really enjoyed playing with her.”

(Source: Guardian)

S P O R Th t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m / s p o r t OCTOBER 17, OCTOBER 17, 20162016 15I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

The Week in Quotes“Just because we are the leaders, that does not mean that this position is guaranteed. It gives us confidence and we were consistent again, but it was just another step.”

Brazil national team coach Tite ?takes a cautious approach after A Seleçao jumped to the top of the South America Russia 2018 qualifying table

“Messi isn’t better than Cristiano Ronaldo and vice versa. I like watching Neymar because despite getting kicked 200 times he always continues to dribble at opponents. I like that Zidane wins because he is contradicting the theories of a lot of other coaches.”

Diego Maradona gives Marca his take on Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Zinedine Zidane the manager

“There are some great names in the Premier League top 20, but without a doubt, for his goal tally and lead over everybody else, Alan Shearer deserves to be on the podium. That said, there are a number of other players I admire. I’d say it’s a matter of taste or playing style because the Premier League has hosted many of the greats – and still does: Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney and Thierry Henry to name just a few. But as my personal favourite, I’d like to choose Frank Lampard, who in spite of not being necessarily a striker, stands among the top 10 goalscorers. That deserves praise.”

Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero tells the club’s official website that Frank Lampard is his favourite Premier League top ten goalscorer

“Maybe I have already decided that 2018 in Russia will be my final tournament. But only in the case of a [successful] world title defence.”

Bayern Munich and Germany defender Jerome Boateng hints at international retirement speaking with Bild

“A regret? That I never played for Manchester United. I’d have liked that. The transfer was never on the table though, there was only Chelsea [interested in me]. I liked the generation of Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, whom I admired. I was a little bit jealous of Karel Poborsky, who played in Manchester and experienced great matches. I know he still feels that love. In terms of team-mates, I’ve had a lot and I don’t want to offend anyone. If I had to pick one [as the best] though, I’d say Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He’s a striker who can cut through defences. He has scary power and height, as well as excellent technique. That said, when he came to Juventus, he couldn’t finish. What you see today is mainly down to the fact Fabio Capello took him for a half-an-hour of shooting practice after every training session.”

Former Czech Republic midfielder Pavel Nedved gives insight on various aspects of his career in an interview with Idnes

“We’d already agreed to do it if I scored. I put away the penalty and then I stretched my arms out like a plane and ran, and the girls all copied me. I’m sure it looked great, and we hope to get the chance to repeat it in our upcoming matches.”

Korea DPR midfielder Kim Pom-Ui talks about her team’s coordinated goal celebration during their 2-1 quarter-final win over Ghana at the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup

“Griezmann did a great job last season. But you have to consistently show performances like that if you want to be world class. People are so quick to say someone is a fantastic player and deserves to win the Ballon d’Or after just one good year. I disagree with that. For me, you have to prove yourself over ten, 12 or 15 years if you want to be among the best. Do that and then I will congratulate you. I might have been out for nine months or so due to injury, but I have almost always been playing at the highest level over the past ten years or so.”

Bayern Munich winger Franck Ribery speaks with Sport Bild about fellow countryman Antoine Griezmann and his potential

“We are, as they say, football sisters. She’s such a complete player. She has everything you want from a forward, and I thank God for giving her those skills.”

Nayluisa Caceres and Sandra Luzardo sing the praises of their Venezuela team-mate Deyna Castellanos after their 2-1 victory over Mexico in the quarter-finals of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup

“Rooney is a goalscorer and a threat. A situation like this can happen in a long career. From my side he’s a world class player. I am manager as Liverpool FC so I know it is not allowed to like United players!”

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp talks about Wayne Rooney in a press conference ahead of his side’s Monday night match against Manchester United

“I did not know him personally, but he goes crazy when he does not score goals. It’s in his nature. I remember a match where we were both on the bench and he did not have any nails left in the end. He told me that he simply had to score when he came on. It’s the only thing he thinks about. I remember van Nistelrooy was just like that. They are among those players who were simply put on this world to score goals. Those who cannot sleep if they do not score. And that’s perfect for Juventus.”

Juventus defender Patrice Evra compares team-mate Gonzalo Higuain with Ruud van Nistelrooy, in an interview with UEFA.com

“It has been amazing. We’ve got a lot of world-class players in the team, especially in the forwards like Zlatan and Wayne. For the young lads, we can’t ask for anything better. The likes of me, Anthony and Jesse – watching these forwards play and how they train, their mentality, is so important. You can’t ask for more. Zlatan is very easy to speak to and he’s easy to get along with. The way he approaches every game is about winning. He wants to win, regardless of the opponent, whether we are home or away, whatever the odds, he always wants to find a way to win. That mentality is what you need to be at the top level. That is where he is and where he has been for years.”

Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford speaks with Inside United, the club’s official magazine, about the influence veteran striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic has had on his career so far

(Source: FIFA)

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S P O R T Sd e s k

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho says it will be “difficult” for Anthony Taylor to referee the club’s match away against Liverpool on Monday -- and he believes the official has been put under pressure “with intention.”

Taylor has been selected as the referee for Monday’s match even though he was born around six miles away from Old Trafford in nearby Wythenshawe, leading to an outcry from sections of Liverpool’s support.

Former referees’ chief Keith Hackett described the deci-sion to appoint Taylor as “grossly unfair” on the official, and the Man United manager agreed.

Mourinho told the Sunday newspapers: “I think Mr Tay-lor is a very good referee but I think somebody with inten-tion is putting such a pressure on him that I feel it will be

difficult for him to have a very good performance.“I have my view but I understood and I learned a les-

son by being punished so many times for some words so I don’t want to say anything [more] about it.”

Liverpool have history of questioning a referee’s origin, as former manager Brendan Rodgers complained and was then fined £8,000 after a 2-1 defeat against Manchester City in 2013.

Rodgers criticised the appointment of Lee Mason, of Bolton, saying: “Hopefully we don’t have another Great-er Manchester referee again on a Liverpool-Manchester game.” Mourinho has recently attracted the FA’s attention over comments on referees’ mindsets, having been fined £50,000 and given a one-game stadium ban for saying officials were

“afraid” to give Chelsea penalties in October.On the pitch, the Portuguese is confident his play-

ers can retain their cool and not cause Taylor any ad-ditional issues.

“That’s what we are doing all season,” he added. “Our disciplinary record is really, really good. We don’t have problems at all at this level.

“We are a team that plays with discipline, that is fol-lowing everything that was told to us in the meetings that we had with the representatives of the Premier League and the referees.

“We don’t press referees, we behave on the touchline so that’s a point that we are very comfortable with.”

(Source: ESPN)

Jurgen Klopp believes only hard work will ensure Liverpool a successful season and urged the need to focus on themselves and not their rivals.

Liverpool can go joint-top alongside Manchester City and Arsenal if they beat Manchester United at Anfield on Monday following an excellent start to the campaign that has seen them win five of their seven fixtures, but the German knows there is still a long way to go.

“It is really good to hear about nice things, but we must remember that football is not the most serious thing in the world,” Klopp said.

“Of course, as human beings we all have our expectations, and at this moment there is still a positive atmosphere in and around Liverpool.

“That is good. But it doesn’t mean the

season is finished when we get another three points. We wont say ‘stop, as we are in the position we want to be.’ To keep this good situation we need to work.

“I don’t care what people do around me. A lot of good teams are around and the good times will not just come back just because we wish them. “It is positive that we had all these great personalities, coaches and players in the past. But it doesn’t help us now.”

Klopp also shrugged off the idea that United’s spending power had given them an advantage over Liverpool.

Jose Mourinho spent a reported £150 million adding Eric Bailly, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Paul Pogba to his squad while Klopp turned a £16m profit.

“I don’t care about how much money

another club can spend,” he said. “I don’t think about it for one second of my life. Absolutely not. Having more money, or all the money in the world is not in my dreams for the manager’s job.

“I have never thought about this. So I’m completely fine with this situation. I am completely fine with what we could spend and what we did spend -- and

that was not nothing.”Liverpool go into the game against their

north-west rivals on the back of four wins, while United have only won once in that time, but that doesn’t give them an advantage.

“Going into this game against Manchester United everyone seems to have the feeling that we are in a good way and they are not in a good way, but if you look at the league table there is only a three-point difference,” Klopp said.

“That’s absolutely nothing. We don’t feel we are in a good way and they are not, we only think about their quality, and they have big quality. If you have one second where you don’t concentrate, you can lose the game in that second. That’s how it is. There’s not a big difference between the teams.”

(Source: ESPN)

Jose Mourinho: Manchester-born Anthony Taylor put in ‘difficult’ spot

Jurgen Klopp: Liverpool must work hard to bring the ‘good times’ back

Iran notched a tough 38-34 win over Japan to continue their unbeaten run at

the Kabaddi World Cup at the TransStadia Arena on Saturday.Iran survived a scare against Japan to emerge eventual

winners and remain on top of Group B with 20 points from four outings. Japan, on the other hand, are second with 10 points from three games.

Team Melli has been scheduled to face Poland

on Monday.The third edition of the Kabaddi World Cup has brought

two-time defending champion India, two-time finalist Iran, twice third-place finisher Bangladesh, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, England, Kenya, Poland, USA, Argentina and Australia together in Ahmadabad, India.

They are divided into two pools of six teams each, with the top two from each pool advancing to the semi-final.

Iran earns fourth successive win at Kabaddi World Cup

Iran’s Petrochimi came third at the FIBA Asia Champions Cup after defeating Al Ahli of

UAE on Sunday. The basketball team may has fallen short of giving Iran its

sixth FIBA Asia Champions Cup title, but it still managed to finish on the podium after a pulsating 100-74 win over the Emirati team.

Foreign reinforcement James White put up a nice dou-ble-double line to lead the way for Petrochimi, which bounced back from a loss in the semi-final to host China Kashgar last night.

The Iranian club was able to withstand a huge scoring game from Al Ahli import Samuel Young, who netted 43 points and 10 rebounds. Behnam Yakhchali stepped up for Petrochimi with 22 points on the back of 4 three-pointers, while Gerald Robinson tallied 21 points and 7 assists.

Big man Mohammad Hassanzadeh also proved to be effec-tive, scoring 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting on top of 8 boards.

For Al Ahli, only Khalifa Salem score in double-figures out-side of Young. The UAE club finished its campaign with a 4-win, 3-loss slate and just missed going on the podium.

Al Ahli did a good job on defense, forcing 21 Iranian turnovers, but Petrochimi compensated by outrebounding its foes, 53-34, and employing better ball movement, which resulted in 22 assists compared to a paltry 5 for the UAE quintet, fiba.com wrote.

James White saved his best performance for last, dropping 22 points on 8-of-15 shooting, including 2 triples. The 2.01m forward also grabbed a personal-high 19 rebounds together with 4 assists, 1 steal and 1 block to spearhead Petrochimi’s charge on the final day.

Iranian female taekwondo practi-tioner Kimia Alizadeh underwent left ankle and knee surgery on Sat-urday.

She participated in the 2016 Rio Olympics with injuries.

Alizadeh became the first Ira-nian woman to win an Olympic

medal, taking bronze in a taek-wondo event.

The 18-year-old finished in third place after beating Sweden’s Nikita Glasnovic 5 - 1.

Alizadeh will be fit for the 2017 World Taekwondo Championships.

(Source: Tasnim)

Iran’s Kimia Alizadeh undergoes knee surgery

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Iran national football team will play a friend-

ly match with Iraq in early November.Iran was originally scheduled to play

Thailand but the match was called off fol-lowing death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand. The Iranian football federa-tion has announced that Team Melli will

play Iraq on November 6 in Tehran.Iran is preparing for the match against

Syria in the 2018 World Cup qualifier which has been scheduled for November 15.

Iran leads the way in Group A of the 2018 World Cup qualification with 10 points from four matches.

Syria sits fourth with four points.

Iran to play Iraq in friendly

Iran third at FIBA Asia Champions Cup

b

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TEHRAN — Iranian director Mehrdad Oskui’s “Starless Dreams”

won The Grierson Award for the best documentary at the 60th BFI London Film Festival, which was held in the British capital from October 5 to 16.

“Starless Dreams is the story of young women in a juvenile detention center in Iran. By that description you’d imagine a dark film exploring a bleak world of broken young lives. This film was the very opposite of that.” Jury member and International Emmy-winner Louise Osmond commented at the award-giving ceremony.

“It took us into a world none of us knew anything about - the street kids, thieves and children of crack addicts of Iran – and showed us a place full of humor, life and spirit. Beautifully paced with great characterization and a very strong sense of place, director Mehrdad Oskouei captured the fears and friendships of these teenagers with such humanity.” She said.

“It’s a film that stays with you for a very long time.” The British documentarian added.

“Starless Dreams”, which has been acclaimed at several international events, shows young women in an Iranian juvenile detention center reflecting on the crimes they have committed and the harsh circumstances that have shaped their lives.

In the other sections of the festival, the best film award went to Kelly Reichardt’s “Certain Women” from the U.S. while the best first feature award was given to Julia Ducournau’s “Raw” from France.

Over 240 films from 74 countries went on screen

at this edition of the festival.In addition, “Starless Dreams” also won the best

international documentary award at the 25th edition

of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, which was held in Arkansas in the U.S. from October 7 to 16.

TEHRAN — “Malaria” by Iranian director Parviz Shahbazi won the

grand prix of the 32nd Warsaw Film Festival, the organizers announced on Saturday.

Starring Saghar Qana’at and Saed Soheili, the film tells the story of a young woman who elopes with her boyfriend to spend her time in the company of a band of street musicians in Tehran.

Afterwards, she plans to hoodwink her father and brothers by claiming that she has been kidnapped and wants them to promptly send the

ransom money.The award for best director was presented to

Guomundur Arnar Guomundsson for “Heartstone”, a joint production of Iceland and Denmark.

Actor Ahmad Thaher received the special jury award for his portrayal of Ahmad, a construction worker in “Blessed Benefit”, a comedy drama by Mahmoud al Massad from Jordan, Germany, the Netherlands and Qatar.

In addition actor Baldur Einarsson won an honorable mention for his role in “Heartstone”.

NEW YORK (AP) — Mixed reviews greeted Ang Lee’s long anticipated “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” at the New York Film Festival on Friday night, casting further doubts over the promise of Hollywood’s latest technological savior: high-frame rate filming.

The premiere was one of the fall movie season’s most closely watched events because Lee’s drama, an adaptation of Ben Fountain’s 2012 novel, was made with a faster frame rate than any previous wide release. Aside from being in 3-D and 4K resolution, Lee shot the film - about an Iraq War hero on a victory tour at an

NFL game - at 120 frames-per-second, five times the traditional 24 frames per second.

It’s a gambit Peter Jackson tried at a mere 48 frames per second with “The Hobbit” trilogy, earning bad reviews in the process. James Cameron has hailed it as the future, and has said he will use it in “Avatar ” sequels. But the technology is nascent. Lee’s film, which Sony Pictures will release Nov. 11, is so new that there are only two North American theaters (one in New York, one in Los Angeles) that will be able to project it as crafted. Other theaters will screen different versions.

For the film’s New York Film Festival

debut, festivalgoers were transferred across the street from Lincoln Center to a multiplex that was specifically outfitted for the premiere. Lee didn’t try to hide his nerves.

“I’ve done this a lot but you can see I’m nervous,” Lee said before the screening. “I feel like I’m exposed to the high-frame rate, 3-D, high-resolution camera. I can sort of feel for our actors.”

The effect of the format is a hyper-realness that can look, despite its clarity, like video. Backgrounds are so visible that they can appear artificial, while the closeness with the actors can create an unfiltered intimacy. The cast

(led by British newcomer Joe Alwyn as the title character, along with Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Steve Martin, Chris Tucker and Vin Diesel) performs largely without makeup.

“There’s nothing more we’re craving for than studying each other ’s faces,” Lee said. “They deserve this kind of look.”

Lynn’s previous film, “The Life of Pi,” became a global blockbuster ($609 million worldwide at the box office) that left audiences marveling at his use of 3-D. “Billy Lynn” is also unusual in that it’s part war film, part character study - not the kind of movie usually outfitted with digital wizardry.

Noon:11:50 Evening: 17:44 Dawn: 4:50 (tomorrow) Sunrise: 6:14 (tomorrow)

PICTURE OF THE DAY Tasnim/Amir Hesaminejad

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“Starless Dreams” crowned best at London filmfest

A Muslim cleric reads a prayer beside the new zarih (outer sarcophagus enclosure) for the holy shrine of Imam Hadi (AS) and his son, Imam Hassan Askari (AS), on display at a workshop in Qom on October 16, 2016. Iranian artisans used over 10,000 kg of teakwood, 4,500 kg of silver, 70 kg of gold, and 3,000 kg of copper to make the zarih over the past four years. Following a ten-day showing, it will be transferred to Iraq on October 26 to be installed in the shrine of the two Imams in Samarra.

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OCTOBER 17, 2016

Iran’s “Malaria” wins grand prix at Warsaw Film Festival

Christie’s puts spotlight

on Iran’s Saqqakhaneh art

TEHRAN — Christie’s is celebrating its

250th anniversary in Dubai sales of Modern and Contemporary Art on October 18, putting the spotlight on art of Saqqakhaneh, an artistic movement that began in Iran during the 1960s.

A number of artworks created in the Saqqakhaneh style of works are on display in a-two-day exhibit at the Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel from October 16 to 18, the organizers have announced on the website.

Works by Parviz Tanavoli, Farhad Moshiri, Faramarz Pilaram and Nasser Ovissi are among the highlights of the auction.

Artists believe that paintings of Saqqakhaneh (public drinking place) show people’s traditional beliefs and reveal old feelings about religious places.

Works by artists from Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and Saudi Arabia will also go under the hammer at the auction.

Official elaborates on Iran’s programs at Frankfurt and Belgrade book fairs 1

“Five major organizations active in the publication of books in addition to eleven publishers and one literary agency will be offering their latest products at the Frankfurt fair,” added Iran Cultural Fairs Institute Director Amir-Masud Shahramnia, also attending the conference.

“Frankfurt Book Fair is regarded as the world’s largest trade fair for books. Iran will display a total of 1550 books in a pavilion measuring around 200 square meters. About 10 writers have also been invited to attend the fair that will be held from October 19 to 23,” he said.

“Iran’s Day will also be observed during the fair with writers, Iran’s ambassador in Germany and other cultural figures in attendance,” he

added.He also noted that Iran has named one day as the

children’s literature day in which author Farhad Hassanzadeh has been invited to attend.

Hassanzadeh has been nominated to represent Iran at the 2018 Hans Christian Andersen Awards, the highest international recognition given to an author and an illustrator of children’s books.

Mehrdad Agahi, an official in charge of art and cultural programs of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization (ICRO), also attending the conference, said that the Belgrade International Book Fair enjoys a high number of visitors every year, some of whom come from Serbia’s neighboring countries.

“Iran’s pavilion in BIBF will be in an area covering around 300 square meters with several publishers offering their books at the fair. A special section has also been dedicated to Iranian illustrations and a number of illustrators, miniaturists and calligraphers have been invited to attend and create works at the pavilion during the fair,” Shahramnia added.

In addition, an Iranian film screening program has been arranged on the side section of the fair, in which five films are due to be screened.

“Track 143” (Narges Abyar), “Mazar-i-Sharif” (Hassan Barzideh), “Crazy Castle” (Abolhassan Davudi), “Today” (Reza Mirkarimi) and “Five-Star” (Mahshid Afsharzadeh) are the Iranian films to go on screen during the program, Sharamnia said.

“Filmmaker Abyar and film critic Mehrzad Danesh are expected to attend the program,” Shahramnia concluded.

Saed Soheili (L) and Saghar Qana’at act in a scene from “Malaria”.

A scene from “Starless Dreams”

Iranian docs to go on screen at Amsterdam festival

TEHRAN – Two Iranian docu-mentaries will go on screen at

the International Documentary Film Festival Am-sterdam (IDFA), which will be held in the Dutch city from November 16 to 27.

“Death Tolls Experience” directed by Ali Eslami will go on screen in the IDFA DocLab Competition for Digital Storytelling while “The Rock” by Hamid Jafari will be screened in the Panorama section of the festival.

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N E W S I N B R I E F

Ang Lee unveils his hyper-real “Billy Lynn” to mixed reviews

Amazon to fund follow up to “Deutschland 83” Cold War dramaNEW YORK (Reuters) — Amazon Prime Video said on Friday it will fund a second season of the award-winning German Cold War drama “Deutschland 83” under the sequel name “Deutschland 86,” with filming to start next year.

The eight episodes of the first television series tracked an East German spy under cover in the West German army and focused on the threat of nuclear war and German pop culture in the 1980s.

The new show will premiere on Amazon in 2018, the company said in a statement.

It is set three years after the first season, with the East German agent Martin Rauch once again recruited by his aunt Lenora to fight for Communism in cities such as Johannesburg, Paris and West Berlin at a time when Europe is facing a series of terrorist attacks.

The first season, which debuted at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival, was aired to great success by European broadcaster RTL Group in German markets and, with subtitles, in Britain and the United States.

“Deutschland 83” won numerous prizes in Germany and was recently nominated for the international Emmy award.