By Matin Mosleminternational relations expert

PERSPECTIVE

POLITICALd e s k

S O C I E T Yd e s k

By Seyed Hossein MousavianFormer Iranian nuclear negotiator

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42 1 1 12Seoul hosts Iran’s trade opportunities conference

Hajj pilgrims should be treated respectfully: cleric

Persepolis edges past relegated Esteghlal Ahvaz to remain on top

Cineastes hold workshops at Fajr festival

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

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12 Pages Price 10,000 Rials 37th year No.12534 Saturday APRIL 23, 2016 Ordibehesht 4, 1395 Rajab 15, 1437

“Norfolk” different from its

script: director

TEHRAN — British director Martin Radich whose “Nor-folk” went on screen on the opening day of the 34th Fajr International Film Festival, says the movie, produced under a tight budget, is considerably different from the script.

“Norfolk” starring Denis Menochet and Barry Keoghan is a haunting thriller about a reclusive father and son whose close relationship is threatened when the father’s violent past catches up with them.

In a recent email interview with the Tehran Times, Radich talked about his father-son drama. The following is the full text of the interview:

What was it that enticed you into making the movie considering the fact that the idea behind it came from two photographs, one of which depicts you as a ten-year-old boy and the other a World War II soldier.

A: Often ideas for stories are kick-started by an image. Many years ago I came across a photograph of a soldier from World War II.

I would stare at his face but be unable to figure out his expression. One moment he seemed heroic, the next shell-shocked. His gaze could be both alert and vacant. I liked that idea of people and scenarios being read in two completely opposite di-rections. And then I remembered visiting Norfolk when I was ten years old; how mysterious it seemed to me.

It felt like I was the first person to ever walk these lands and travel down those rivers.

TEHRAN — UN-

HCR Assistant High Com-missioner for Operations George Okoth-Obbo said on Wednesday that there are exactly 960,000 Afghan na-tionals in Iran, but the num-ber of undocumented Af-ghans in the country is much more, numbering about 3 millions.

Visiting Iran as part of his tour to the region to review the situation of Afghan ref-ugees, Okoth-Obbo told re-porters that “last year a total of about 60,000 Afghan ref-ugees returned home from Iran and Pakistan, but 2016 shows a big reduction in the number of refugees going back home; the number so far is 2,000 only which is a very very big drop.”

He said the drop in the number of Afghan refugees going back home “reflects

that the difficult conditions and conflict are still con-tinuing in that country and that more Afghans are ex-pected to leave that coun-try.”

He added, “This also suggests that the number of Afghans going home will be fewer and at least for time being those who are living in Iran and Pakistan continue to remain where they are.”

When asked that Iran is complaining that it is not

receiving enough inter-national support for the refugees it is hosting, the UNHCR official replied, “The first thing I would like to recognize and acknowl-edge is that the greatest investment being made in providing protection, secu-rity, safety, assistance, al-lowing access to healthcare and education for the refu-gees is being made by the [Iranian] government.”

He also said the UNHCR’s budgets have not been cut

for the operation in Iran, but the number of refugees across the world in need of assistance has grown largely while the resources to sup-port them have not been increased.

What should be done is to appeal to the donor countries, NGOs and other partners to enhance their financial support to UN-HCR to enable it to carry out its programs in sup-port of the Afghan ref-ugees in Iran as well as other countries hosting Afghans, he stated.

According to a report is-sued by the UNHCR office in Tehran, Okoth-Obbo also commended Iran for its gen-erosity and exemplary role in relation to refugees. He noted UNHCR’s commitment to con-tinue and further enhance its support towards Iran.

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Undocumented Afghans in Iran outnumber registered ones, UNHCR official says

How Obama can push the Saudis to talk to Iran

Following the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action last year, the United States has

been attempting to assure its Arab al-lies in the Persian Gulf region that this will not open the way to Iranian-U.S. rapprochement. “My view has never been that we should throw our tradi-tional allies overboard in favor of Iran,” President Barack Obama has publicly declared.

Obama visited Saudi Arabia, which hosted a (P) GCC summit, gather-ing the organization’s other member states, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

As the fight against terror remains the highest priority for the world, the United States and the GCC continue to blame Iran for terrorism. However, the reality is that Iran is actively fighting the very terrorist groups that the UN Security Council has defined as con-stituting an “unprecedented” threat to international peace — namely the so-called Islamic State and al-Qaeda. The United States and NATO know very well the source of the ideology and funding of these groups. Obama himself recently told The Atlantic, “In the 1990s, the Saudis heavily funded Wahhabist madrassas, seminaries that teach the fundamentalist version of Is-lam favored by the Saudi ruling family.”

Democratic presidential front-run-ner Hillary Clinton also said at the Brookings Institution last September, “Much of the extremism in the world today is the direct result of policies and funding undertaken by the Saudi gov-ernment and individuals. We would be foolish not to recognize that.”

Vice President Joe Biden, mean-while, has accused U.S. regional allies of supporting extremists in Syria in their eagerness to oust the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In light of this, the sustained knee-jerk support of the United States for some of its region-al allies is bewildering. 9

Arabs taking U.S. national security hostage

President Obama’s foreign policy legacy will have a last-ing impact on the U.S. international security in general and the Middle East in particular for years to come.

Obama opines that warmongering is no longer an option and the U.S. is better off coming to grips with realities and necessities of the modern political era.

The president’s change of tack has some supporters from within American political circles. However, First Lady Michelle Obama certainly will not be happy to hear that we decline to call her Barack “Saint Obama.” Instead, we would like to launch the most scathing attacks on him for not following a clear, strong foreign policy because it has ended in a global community akin to what we wished to distance from after the Bush administration.

In defending his foreign policies and its slow-witted ap-proach, Obama cannot say he is right simply because he has come in for a lot of flak from the conservative Arab caliphs. Obama’s conservatism has resulted in at least two dangerous consequences.

Initially, it has fueled war and insecurity in a region whose serenity is of critical importance for the whole world: the Mid-dle East and the embattled Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. And sec-ondly, Arab countries’ clear intervention and ambitiousness, and finally, their keeping U.S. foreign policy and national se-curity as a hostage. 9

Tehran, Baku sign MOUs on

medicine, car production

Ground broken for building a railway

bridge TEHRAN — Iran and Azerbaijan inked

four memorandums of understandings (MOUs) at the presence of Azerbaijani Economic Minister Shahin Mustafayev and the visiting Iranian Communications and Information Technology Minister Mahmoud Vaezi in Baku on April 21. Officials of Azerbaijani and Iranian rel-evant bodies also attended the signing ceremony, IRNA news agency reported.

The signed agreements include the MOU between Iran’s Darou Pa-khsh Company, Azerbaijan Investment Company OJS, and Azersun Holding MMC on producing 52 kinds of medi-cine in a site near Baku and also a co-operation pact between Darou Pakhsh and Azerbaijan’s Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park MMC on establishing related production unit in the territory of Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park.

Another agreement was inked be-tween Iranian car manufacturer Iran Khodro and Azerbaijani Azevrocar MMC on producing automobile and spare parts in Azerbaijan’s Neftchala Industrial District. 4

TEHRAN — Foreign Minister Mohammad

Javad Zarif has said that the U.S. is “well aware” that Iran “does not rec-

ognize” a ruling by the U.S. Supreme court that says almost $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets be turned over to American families of people killed

in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut and other at-tacks blamed on Iran.

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Zarif says Iran does not recognize U.S. court ruling

See page 12

Iran is appearing on the travel itineraries of an ever-increasing number of British holidaymakers, following a thaw in dip-lomatic relations between the Islamic Republic and the West.

As Air France this week resumed flights from Paris to Tehran for the first time since 2008 – and with British Air-ways (BA) scheduled to do the same in July – a number of tour operators have said that the Middle Eastern country is proving a surprise hit.

“Iran has become our busiest destina-tion for 2016 and we expect the demand to keep growing,” said David McGuin-ness, director of tour operator Travel the Unknown. “We expect about a 50-75 percent increase in passengers this year after a 65 percent increase last year.”

Another operator, Corinthian Travel, said the formerly off-limits destination was now outselling the likes of Oman and Sri Lanka.

Founder Hugh Fraser said that sales had “gone through the roof” and that

demand had “taken [us] by surprise”.Trips by Britons to Iran all but ended

in 2011 when the British embassy was attacked, prompting the Foreign Office to advise against travel to the country.

But political reconciliation has reig-nited interest and the Foreign Office re-laxed its travel advice last summer due to what they described as “decreasing hostility”. The revised advice still warns against travel to border areas with Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, however.

The re-opening of the British Embas-sy has brought further comfort to trav-elers, re-affirming that the country is a safe place to travel. The Iranian Embas-sy in London has also reopened.

British Airways will resume servic-es from London’s Heathrow Airport to Tehran on July 14, offering six flights a week. Currently, the only airline to fly di-rect from London to Iran is Iran Air.

Iran’s appeals include striking archi-tecture, atmospheric markets, rugged scenery and a growing number of art

galleries and museums.Jonny Bealby, founder and manag-

ing director of Wild Frontiers, said: “Our figures have gone from 32 passengers in 2013 to over 400 already booked to travel this year - we’re seeing a huge rise in demand.

“When Rouhani came to power everything started to change. It was always on a political level that this ten-sion existed, there’s always been a big friendship on the ground, but it was purely the political perception that damaged travel.”

The breed of travelers would also appear to be shifting away from Middle Eastern enthusiasts.

“The types of clients starting to go there are becoming more ‘mainstream’, all sorts of people are interested and they’re not scared to go,” said Bealby. “Iran fulfils a cultural need of phenomenal sites of antiquity that are no longer available to be seen in Syria and Libya.”

(Source: Telegraph)

British travelers flock to IranFamilies with 2 or more disabled children to receive houses: minister

TEHRAN — Families who have two or more children with disabilities will get hous-

es by the end of the next Iranian calendar year which falls in March 2018, Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare Ali Rabiei said.

Upon a visit to a family with four children with disabilities, Rabiei explained that the aforementioned housing scheme started in 2015 and is supposed to be fulfilled by March 2018, Tasnim news agency reported.

Families with more disabled children will be prioritized, he added.Some 11,000 families are having two or more children with

disabilities in cities and so far 2,000 of them have received houses, he pointed, adding, “of course great deal of houses will be given to these families this year (March 2016-March 2017).”

Rabiei additionally noted that 32,000 people with disabili-ties have been provided with jobs up to now.

At the end of the visit, the minister pledged to provide a job for the unemployed father and one of the children with two disabled legs.

By Afshin Majlesi EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

ECONOMYd e s k

See page 1 2

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S O C I E T Yd e s k

TEHRAN — Com-mander of the Islamic

Revolution Guards Corps said in a tele-vised interview on Thursday that threats against Iran have become “more serious” after the conclusion of the nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Mohammad Ali Jafari also said unfor-

tunately some officials ignore the revolu-tion’s causes.

On the Western countries’ propa-ganda against Iran’s missile program, the major general said the missile capability is “preemptive” and the West does not want Iran to be powerful in order to exert pres-sure on the country.

He also said the IRGC provides the

government with support in spite of some different views on economic, politi-cal and cultural areas.

Commenting on the crises in the Mid-dle East region, he said that some coun-tries such as Saudi Arabia are following Israel’s policies.

He added the people in the region will foil all the plots through “vigilance” and “resistance.”

By staff and agencyIranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has dis-puted suggestions that Iran now wanted access to the American financial system as part of the nuclear accord.

“We never asked to have access to your financial sys-tem,” Zarif said in an interview with the New York Times published on Wednesday.

He also said that U.S. officials must be “much more proactive” in assuring other countries that they could do business in Iran without risking pen-alties from the U.S.

“What we asked was to implement the nuclear deal, which requires the United States to allow European fi-

nancial institutions to have peace of mind for dealing with Iran,” he said.

Zarif acknowledged that the Treasury, which oversees the complex rules of American financial sanctions, had taken steps to carry out the nuclear agreement, “but I don’t think it’s enough.”

“They need a much more proactive approach to just letting people know that they won’t be punished for dealing with Iran,” he said.

Commenting on relations with Saudi Arabia, he held out little hope for an improvement in relations, accusing the Saudis of fabricating issues with Iran because they saw such a strategy as in their interest.

TEHRAN — Iran-5+1 joint committee held its first round of talks on Friday

in Vienna.It was the first meeting since the nuclear deal, officially

called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), went into force on January 16, 2016.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and EU deputy foreign policy chief Helga Schmid chaired the talks.

Araqchi said that the talks focused on the procedure of the implementation of the JCPOA and actions to be taken in the future.

Iran has said still some European banks are hesitant to do business with Iran, fearing a U.S. punishment. In her recent visit to Tehran Schmid’s chief Federica Mogherini

vowed to help remove banking restrictions on Iran.Araqchi and Schmid held two rounds of talks in Vien-

na on October 19 and December 7, 2015 before imple-

menting the JCPOA.In an interview with IRNA published on Friday, Ara-

qchi also said the recent U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling against Iran runs contrary to international law and is an international “banditry”.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that almost $2bn in frozen Iranian assets must be turned over to American families of people killed in the 1983 bomb-ing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut and other attacks blamed on Iran.

However, Araqchi said that the issue is unrelated to the JCPOA.

Iran and the 5+1 group - the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany - finalized the text of the JCPOA in Vienna on July 14, 2015.

1 The U.S. is well aware that it should be held account-

able if it takes any action regarding Iran’s property, Zarif told IRNA in an interview published on Friday.

Zarif added that the U.S. should return Iran’s prop-erties.

Foreign Ministry: U.S. Supreme Court ruling is ‘theft’ Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi

Ansari also on Thursday condemned the U.S. court’s rul-ing, calling it “theft” from Iran’s properties.

Jaberi Ansari said that the ruling runs against “inter-national law”.

“The ruling shows that the U.S. government is still influenced by the Zionist circles and is taking hostile ac-tions against Iran which will only lead to increase in the Iranian government and people’s distrust in the U.S. hos-tile policies,” he stated.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and Inter-national Affairs Abbas Araqchi has also called the ruling an instance of international “banditry”.

Central bank: Court ruling not in conformity with the spirit of nuclear deal

The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) issued a statement on Friday saying the ruling is not related to the nuclear deal,

however it is not in harmony with the spirit of the agree-ment.

Hamid Ghanbari, director the bank’s department for legal investigations, said such a ruling is proving that the U.S. is one of the most unsafe countries in holding for-eign currency reserves.

“The United States, with this decision, has shown itself as one of most unsafe countries in keeping foreign currency reserves of other countries,” Ghan-bari stated.

He added the ruling is against international law and even the U.S. legal system.

Iran said on Tuesday that it plans to sell as much as 40 tons of its excess heavy water supplies to the U.S. – a major step which is expected to take the country to-ward the commercialization of its nuclear energy program.

Ali Asghar Zarean, the deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO), has been quoted by the media as saying that the landmark sales of heavy water supplies will be made to the US through a third party.

Zarean added that Iran would through this officially join the club of producers of strategic nuclear materials – what he em-phasized will be “a huge national achieve-

ment” and “a victory” for the country.“Six tons of the exported heavy water

will be used in nuclear facilities and the rest in American research centers,” he has been quoted as saying.

The official further emphasized that the planned exports of heavy water to the US will be in line with the IAEO’s strat-egy to commercialize the Iranian nuclear energy products.

On a related front, IAEO Spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi announced also on Tuesday that Iran’s recent impor-tation of 220 tons of yellow cake from Russia was another key milestone in the country’s push toward the trade of the

materials used for production of nucle-ar energy.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said last August that Iran will begin to com-mercialize its nuclear technology after the implementation of the Joint Comprehen-sive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“We will import yellow cake from abroad and we will export enriched UF6,” President Rouhani told reporters.

Iran and the P5+1 group of countries - the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany– agreed over the JCPOA last July. Based on it, Iran will restrict certain aspects of its nuclear energy activities in return for the removal of certain economic sanctions imposed against the country.

The JCPOA also allows Iran to sell its enriched uranium material– called UF6 - and to buy natural uranium or “yellow cake” in return.

(Source: Press TV)

APRIL 23, 2016APRIL 23, 20162 I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

h 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 lN A T I O N

MEDIA MONITOR

TEHRAN — On Wednesday, the Su-

preme Leader strongly denounced Saudi Arabia which with a support by some its allies included some anti-Hezbollah par-agraphs in the OIC final communiqué.

“Let’s suppose a corrupt, sycophantic, hollow regime condemns Hezbollah in a statement with money and petrodollars; to hell with it! How much does it matter?” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a group of students, the Khamenei.ir reported.

The OIC summit was held in Istanbul on April 14 and 14. The OIC statement claimed that Hezbollah is conducting “terrorist activities” in Syria, Bahrain, Ku-wait and Yemen.

Ayatollah Khamenei praised Hezbol-lah, likening it to a shinning sun.

“Hezbollah and its youths are shining like the sun and are a source of pride for the world of Islam,” the Leader noted.

“What [Hezbollah] did, three Arab ar-mies could not do in two or three wars,” the Leader said in a reference to certain Arab countries which lost territory to Is-rael in the 1967 and 1973 wars with Israel. “Hezbollah defeated the Zionist regime, which had become stronger by then, in 33 days,” Ayatollah Khamenei remarked.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Leader said if Iran backs down in the face of U.S. pressure then Washington will become em-boldened and asks the Islamic Republic to abandon research in other scientific fields.

“If we show any leniency toward them,

they will begin playing games with bio-tech, nanotech and scientific issues and make problems,” the Leader remarked.

Despite a nuclear deal between Teh-ran and the West the United States has slapped new sanctions on Iran for its

missile tests. The resolution 2231, which confirmed the nuclear deal between Iran and great powers, does not ban Iran to produce or test conventional weapons.

Under the nuclear agreement all eco-nomic and financial sanctions against Iran must be lifted, however some major banks and insurance companies are hes-itant to do business with Iran, fearing a punishment by the United States.

“One of the most basic motivations which have prompted arrogant powers to square up against us is that a country, without relying on any power, has man-aged to reach the extraordinarily sensitive nuclear stage,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.

The Leader also warned about Ameri-ca’s “soft war” against Iran, saying, “Right now with the issue of the youth, there is a comprehensive soft war between the Islamic Republic of Iran on one side and America and Zionists and their followers on the other side.”

Young students should consider themselves the officers of this war.

“Westerners, especially America, want the Iranian youth to be without faith, cow-ardly, unmotivated, inactive, hopeless, op-timistic toward the enemy and pessimistic toward their own commanders.”

House speaker raps Kerry on Iran’s dollar access

TEHRAN — U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan has criticized Secretary of State John Kerry for leaving the door open for Iran to have access to the U.S. financial system.

The Wisconsin Republican on Thursday criti-cized Kerry for letting Tehran to score what he de-scribes as an unprecedented economic windfall as part of sanctions relief from the landmark nuclear deal, AP reported.Administration officials have said repeatedly Iran will not get access to the dollar.

AP

Iran to severely punish aggressors: commander

TEHRAN — A senior commander has expressed Iran’s readiness to counter all threats with full force, stressing that the Army’s Ground Forces will severe-ly punish aggressors.

Commander of the Iranian Army’s Ground Forces Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan made the remark in a meeting with foreign military attachés in Tehran, Press TV reported on Thursday.

The Iranian Army’s Ground Forces, who pos-sess modern and domestically-manufactured con-ventional weapons, stand ready to counter new emerging threats, firmly repel any act of aggression against the country and severely punish aggres-sors, Pourdastan said.

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South African president to visit Iran soon

TEHRAN — South African President Jacob Zuma will lead a high-level delegation on a state visit to Iran to cement bilateral ties.

The visit, scheduled for April 24-25, is an im-portant structural catalyst in elevating bilateral and economic relations into a substantive strategic partnership and serves as evidence of the friendly relations between the two countries, Xinhua report-ed, quoting the presidency on Thursday.

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Larijani: Iran, Russia to continue nuclear cooperation

TEHRAN — Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani on Thurs-day told Tass that Tehran and Moscow will continue their nuclear cooperation.

“Iran considers as useful cooperation with the Russian Rosatom state company and it will continue cooperation with that company,” he asserted.

He also underlined the importance of the deliv-ery of the S-300 air defense missile system to Iran in view of regional developments.

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Iran, Afghanistan to implement alternative livelihood program

TEHRAN — Iran and Afghanistan have agreed on implementing a pilot program of alternative liveli-hood in border provinces to fight the cultivation of opium, ILNA reported.

Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli met Afghan Minister of Counter Narcotics, Salamat Azimi on Thursday, where they agreed on running the program with the contribution of United Na-tions Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

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TEHRAN — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has won the Strategic Vision Award of the Turkish Asian Center for Strategic Studies.

TASAM Strategic Vision Award was organized in 2006 in order to honor statesmen, politicians, bureau-crats, businessmen, institutions, artists, journalists and scientists who have made serious efforts for carrying Turkey above the level of contemporary civilizations.

Winners of the 9th Strategic Vision Award were announced on TASAM websites on Wednesday.

President Rouhani and Kosovo President Hashim Thaci jointly won the award.

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Rouhani wins TASAM’s Strategic Vision Award

FA

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Hajj pilgrims should be treated respectfully: cleric

TEHRAN — An interim Tehran Friday prayer leader has said that Hajj pilgrims should be treated with respect.

Their security and dignity is part of the pilgrim-age and officials should be aware of that, Moham-mad Ali Movahedi-Kermani said, Fars reported.

Speaking before Movahedi-Kermani, Alireza Zakani, an MP who heads the JCPOA Special Committee, said the nuclear deal has failed to have tangible results.

Ayatollah Khamenei says petro-induced statements of S. Arabia against Hezbollah are worthless

Threats have become more serious after nuclear deal: IRGC chief

Iran not seeking entry to U.S. financial system, Zarif says

Iran, 5+1 hold joint meeting on JCPOA implementation

Zarif says Iran does not recognize U.S. court ruling

Iran to sell 40 tons of heavy water to U.S.

“What [Hezbollah] did, three Arab armies could not do in two or three wars,”Leader said.

POLITICALd e s k

POLITICALd e s k

POLITICALd e s k

Leader: Hezbollah shinning like sun

Amnesty accuses Nigeria’s military over deadly Shia clashesAmnesty International on Friday accused Nigeria’s military of deliberately shooting dead more than 350 Shia Muslims, bury-ing them in mass graves and destroying evidence of the crime.

The rights group also dismissed as baseless army claims that the protesters from the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) group wanted to kill the head of the army before the clashes last December.

The military, which has been repeatedly accused of abuses against civilians in its fight against Boko Haram, has maintained its troops acted appropriately.

Defense spokesman Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar said Amnesty’s report was “unfair” as the military had not been con-sulted before its publication.

“If they have proper evidence let them bring it out for all to see. We cannot confront law-abiding citizens,” he told AFP.

“Whoever we confronted must have been a criminal and en-emy of the state.”

There have been fears the military action against the Shia group in Zaria could trigger another violent uprising similar to that of Boko Haram, whose insurgency has left some 20,000 dead since 2009.

Amnesty’s report -- “Unearthing the truth: unlawful killings and mass cover-up in Zaria” -- comes in the wake of conflicting claims about the violence in the northern city.

Evidence destroyed Amnesty said its investigations indicated the military acted

“unlawfully” by shooting “indiscriminately” at unarmed protes-tors.

“It is not clear why the army launched such a ‘military oper-ation’ in response to a law and order situation,” the report said.

“The Nigerian army has provided no evidence to substan-tiate its claim that IMN protesters attempted to assassinate the Chief of Army Staff.”

It added: “The Nigerian military burned people alive, razed buildings and dumped victims’ bodies in mass graves.”

Most of the evidence was “meticulously destroyed”, Amnesty said, accusing soldiers of trying to cover up the carnage by lim-iting access to conflict sites.

“Bodies were taken away, sites were razed to the ground, the rubble removed, bloodstains washed off, and bullets and spent cartridges removed from the streets.”

Soldiers sealed the areas around Zakzaky’s compound, which was destroyed with a cultural centre and the site of the street protests for several days.

Medical personnel at the Ahmadu Bello University Teach-ing Hospital said the military cordoned off the area around the morgue for two days.

A Nigerian public official said last week that 347 people, in-cluding women and children, were buried in a mass grave un-der military supervision and authorized with a court warrant.

The testimony came at one of several public inquiries set up to investigate the circumstances of the violence, which has led to scores of IMN supporters being charged. (Source: AFP)

Ansarullah, Hadi militias swap prisoners as peace talks beginYemen’s Ansarullah (Houthi) movement and militia-men loyal to fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi have exchanged hundreds of prisoners captured during the House of Saud regime-led war on the country.

The swap involved 71 Ansarullah movement fighters as well as 50 pro-Hadi militiamen.

It occurred in the Yemeni capital Sana’a on Thursday, the same day that United Nations-brokered peace talks between the Ansarullah and the Hadi loyalists began in Kuwait, reports said.

The talks had been planned by the UN to open on Mon-day, but were delayed over accusations of truce violations from the parties to the Yemeni conflict.

Mohammad Ali al-Houthi, the head of Yemen’s Supreme Revolutionary Committee, said before flying to Kuwait that his delegation was going to the talks with the hope that the “bloody aggression” by the Hose of Saud regime would be halted.

On Friday, Saudi military spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Asiri told Al Jazeera TV channel that Riyadh support-ed the peace talks but it would continue its war on Yemen if the negotiations failed.

In January, Asiri admitted that Saudi Arabia was stuck in a “static war” against its southern neighbor.

Yemen has seen almost daily military attacks by Saudi Arabia since late March 2015, with internal sources put-ting the toll from the bloody aggression at more than 9,500.

Hundreds of thousands have also been displaced across the country as a result of the war, which is meant to restore power to Hadi. A staunch ally of Riyadh, Hadi resigned from the presidency last year and then fled to Saudi Arabia.

The House of Saud regime has failed to prevail in Yemen despite its daily bombardments and aid and weapons from the United States and Britain.

In an opinion piece, the British newspaper The Guardi-an described Saudi Arabia as “a regime that fits the definition of extremist if the term has any serious meaning.”

Saudi Arabia “is leading a brutal military operation in which British-supplied aircraft, bombs and missiles are play-ing a major role,” the paper said.

“One side-effect of the chaos resulting from the Saudi campaign is that the local franchises of al-Qaeda and ISIL are now thriving as never before,” it added.

Al-Qaeda in Yemen “as the group’s most dangerous branch, now controls a 340-mile-long mini-state along Yem-en’s southern coast,” according to The Guardian.

(Source: Press TV)

Russian forces in Syria have fired at least twice on Israeli military aircraft, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seek improved operational coordination with Moscow, Israel’s top-selling newspaper said on Friday.

Asked about the alleged incidents, however, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “In this case, Israeli press reports are far from reality.”

But Netanyahu, in remarks published by Israeli re-porters whom he briefed by phone on his talks on Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said “there have been problems” regarding Israeli military freedom of operation in Syria.

He gave no details, but said: “If you don’t deal with the friction, it could develop into something more se-rious.”

The unsourced report in Tel Aviv daily Yedioth Ahron-oth made no mention of dates or locations for the two reported incidents, nor did it give any indication of whether the Israeli planes were hit.

Russia mounted its military intervention in Syria in September to shore Damascus up amid a now 5-year-

old rebellion.Separately, Israel’s Channel 10 TV said a Russian war-

plane approached an Israeli warplane off the Mediter-ranean coast of Syria last week but that there was no contact between them.

An Israeli military spokesman declined to comment. Netanyahu’s office and the Russian embassy in Israel did not immediately respond.

Israel, which says it has carried out dozens of bomb-ings in Syria to foil suspected arms handovers to Leb-anese Hezbollah guerrillas, was quick to set up an operational hotline with Moscow designed to avoid ac-cidentally trading fire with Russian forces.

In Moscow on Thursday, Netanyahu told Putin in tel-evised remarks: “I came here with one main goal - to strengthen the security coordination between us so as to avoid mishaps, misunderstandings and unnecessary confrontations.”

In an apparent allusion to Syria, Putin said: “I think there are understandable reasons for these intensive contacts (with Israel), given the complicated situation in

the region.”According to Yedioth, the reported Russian fire on

Israeli planes was first raised with Putin by Israeli Presi-dent Reuven Rivlin, who visited Moscow on March 15. At the time, Putin responded that he was unaware of the incidents, Yedioth said.

This is not the first report of alleged confron-tations between Israeli and Russian warplanes in Syria.

Last month, the Israeli daily Haaretz said King Abdul-lah II of Jordan had claimed that Jordanian jets helped Israeli warplanes confront Russian aircraft on the south-ern Syrian border at an unspecified time.

Abdullah reportedly made the remarks to U.S. Con-gressmen on January 11 without disclosing the date of the purported confrontation.

“We saw the Russians fly down, but they were met with Israeli and Jordanian F-16s,” Abdullah boasted. “The Russians were shocked and understood they could not mess with us,” he added.

(Source: agencies)

The French foreign minister has confirmed that Paris will host an international meeting on May 30 to tr y to restar t peace effor ts between Pales-tine and Israel - even though both sides will be absent.

Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Friday that Arab nations will be among the 20 countries present, but “for the moment there is no dialogue” between Israel and the

Palestine.Ayrault, speaking on Europe 1 radio, said new efforts

are needed because “we are witnessing desperation, and desperation leads to violence.”

France has pushed to play a larger role in Mid-dle East peace effor ts, dominated by the United States.

(Source: AP)

Saudi ties with the United States have changed forever and would not return to what it was before even un-der a new president, the kingdom’s for-mer intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Fais-al says.

“There is going to have to be, a recalibration of our relationship with America -- how far we can go with our dependence on America. How much can we rely on steadfastness from American leadership. What is it that makes for our joint benefits to come together,” he told CNN.

“And I don’t think that we should expect any new president in America to go back to, as I said, the yesteryear days when things were different,” Faisal added.

Faisal further criticized recent remarks by U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal that low oil prices and high domestic output lessened Washington’s depend-ence on the kingdom.

Saudis “no longer have us in an ener-gy straitjacket,” Blumenthal had told The New York Times.

Faisal said the remarks by the promi-nent senator were an insult to the Saudi monarchy.

“I ’ve always thought that Ameri-

ca and Saudi Arabia wil l ingly came together to under take joint ef-for ts,” said the prince, adding, “If you want to change course and establish new grounds for under-standing, you don’t have to be in-sult ing.”

He criticized U.S. President Barack Obama for calling Riyadh a “free rid-er ” on American policies in the re-gion. “Personally, of course it hurt me,”

Faisal said.Faisal does not currently hold any offi-

cial position in the Saudi leadership, but his views are usually described by insid-ers as often reflecting those of the king-dom’s senior officials.

The remarks came as Obama met with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Salman and other Arab leaders in Riyadh, where he reportedly received a cold and embarrassing reception by Sau-

di rulers. Obama, however, reaffirmed support

for Arab allies of the U.S.Washington, he said, will “use all

elements of our power to secure our core interests in the Persian Gulf region and to deter and confront external aggression against our allies and our partners.”

In recent years, U.S.-Saudi re-lations have cooled over the U.S. fai lure to oust the Syrian gov-ernment, its nuclear agreement with Iran, and a Congress bi l l im-plicating Saudi off icials over the 9/11 attacks.

The Obama administration has prevented the release of a 28-page document that could implicate Ri-yadh in the planning of the Septem-ber 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

Meanwhile, Riyadh has threatened to sell off $750 billion in U.S. assets if Con-gress passes the bill.

The measure would allow Amer-ican citizens to sue the House of Saud regime for any role it may have had in the attacks, which killed 3,000 people.

(Source: agencies)

Syria’s chief negotiator in peace talks plans to resume talks with the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria early next week

Bashar al-Ja’afari, who also serves as Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, made the remarks at a news conference after the government dele-gation’s meeting with UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura on Friday.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Ja’afari once again accused Qatar, Turkey and the House of Saud regime of supporting ter-rorism in Syria.

He also condemned the “illegal coer-cive sanctions” imposed by major pow-ers against his country.

“This includes a boycott of Syrian banks and preventing investment in Syr-ia. It would seem the only investment done in Syria is investment in terrorism, it looks like a winning project,” he said.

Syria peace talks are under way despite the absence of the Saudi-backed oppo-sitions as leaders of High Negotiations Committee (HNC) left the latest round of the peace talks, which began in Geneva on April 13, to protest at what they called escalating violence and restrictions on hu-manitarian access in Syria on April 19.

The move has triggered condemna-tion and doubts about the real intentions of the HNC with the Russian Foreign Ministry accusing it of employing black-mail on April 20.

In reaction to the HNC decision, Syri-an Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Me-kdad also said the opposition’s move proved their lack of seriousness in reach-ing a political solution to the conflict

gripping the country.The previous round of the UN-backed

peace talks for Syria came to a halt on March 24 over disagreements on the role of President Bashar al-Assad in Syr-ia’s future, with the foreign-backed Syrian opposition insisting that Assad must not have a role in the country’s future.

In an interview with Lebanese TV station Al Mayadeen, the Syrian gov-ernment’s chief negotiator, however, said that Assad’s future is not up for discus-sion at peace talks.

U.S. divided over Russia’s military role in Syria: report

Meantime, a new report shows grow-ing division within the United States ad-ministration over Russia’s military role in Syria.

The Reuters report on Friday quoted several unnamed U.S. official as saying that Washington had doubts about Rus-sian President Vladimir Putin’s ‘genuine’ support for a UN-sponsored peace ini-tiative in Syria.

It said despite Moscow’s recent with-drawal of some warplanes from Syria, Russia has actually boosted its forces on the ground there with advanced helicop-ter gunships and airstrikes against what the Americans described as moderate opposition groups. Such militant groups have long enjoyed the backing of the United States and its regional allies.

The officials warned that a U.S. failure to react would be seen by Moscow as a fresh sign of American timidity.

This is while the Pentagon in March acknowledged Russia’s “constructive role” in the Syrian peace process which

might ultimately lead to a “resolution” of the years-long conflict.

“It’s being clear that they have fo-cused more of their military attention on ISIL. We think that is a good thing. We encourage that from the start,” Penta-gon Press Secretary Peter Cook said on March 29.

“They’re playing a constructive role with regard to the cessation of hostilities,” he added.

Now other officials reportedly believe U.S. inaction could encourage Russia to es-calate challenges to America and its allies.

A ceasefire agreement in Syria, bro-kered by Russia and the United States,

entered into force on February 27. The Syrian government accepted the terms of the truce on condition that military ef-forts against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh) and the al-Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) terrorists, who are excluded from the ceasefire, continue.

Syria has been gripped by for-eign-backed militancy since March 2011. According to a February report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the cri-sis in the country has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people and displaced near-ly half of its pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.

(Source: Press TV)

Russian forces in Syria fired on Israeli military aircraft

French minister: Paris meeting for Mideast peace needed

Riyadh-Washington ties irrevocably changed: Faisal

APRIL 23, 2016APRIL 23, 2016 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

Damascus to resume talks with UN envoy on Monday

N E W S

4 I 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 yAPRIL 23, APRIL 23, 20162016

N E W S Tehran, Baku sign MOUs on medicine, car production

ECONOMYd e s k

1 “The signed contracts are a sign of

confidence between the two countries’ private sectors and will pave the way for expansion of mutual cooperation in future,” Vaezi who is also the Iranian co-chairman of the Iran-Azerbaijan Joint Economic Committee said, underlying the vitality of removing the obstacles on boosting the trade ties between Tehran and Baku.

“Bilateral trade volume between Iran and Azerbaijan increased by 53 percent during the first three months of 2016,” the Iranian minister noted.

‘Iran-Azerbaijan rail bridge to develop bilateral economic ties’

During his two-day stay in Baku, Vaezi also attended the ground breaking cer-emony for the construction of a railway bridge over Astara river on Azerbaijan-Iran border.

The bridge is a part of the North-South international transport corridor that con-nects Europe to India by passing through Azerbaijan and Iran, lessening shipment time from 40 to 14 days end-to-end.

Iranian minister said that the railway bridge will play an important role for the development of economic and commer-

cial links between Azerbaijan and Iran, especially expansion of cooperation in cargo transportation.

Mustafayev, for his part, said: “This railway bridge will increase cargo turno-ver between our countries, and will be

completed by end of 2016.”He also stressed Azerbaijan-Iran rela-

tions developed in all spheres. He noted that political wills of their

president, as well as recent mutual visits and meetings play an important role in

the development of the relations. “Azerbaijani president’s visit to Iran

on February 23 and documents signed within this visit are very significant in the development of our relations,” the official added.

Europe says U.S. regulations keeping it from trade with IranWith the completion of the nuclear deal with Iran and the open-ing of its market, European businesses expected a trade bo-nanza.

But three months after the lifting of many sanctions against Iran, there is growing frustration among European politicians, diplomats and businesspeople over the inability to complete dozens of energy, aviation and construction deals with the Ira-nians.

The main obstacle, the Europeans say, is their ally, and the driving force behind the historic nuclear agreement, the Unit-ed States. Wary of running afoul of new sanctions imposed by Washington over Iran’s missile program, European banks are re-fusing to finance any of the deals, effectively perpetuating Iran’s isolation from the global financial system.

Europeans also point to new American visa regulations that make it more difficult for them to enter the United States if they have traveled to Iran. Those financial and travel restrictions, they say, make it nearly impossible to reach agreements with their Iranian counterparts.

The hurdles set up by the United States, Europeans say, are also undermining what they understood to be one of the main goals of the nuclear deal, which was to draw Iran out of its inter-national isolation.

“Europe is being taken hostage by American policy,” said Marietje Schaake, the vice president of the European Par-liament’s Delegation for Relations With the United States. “We negotiated the nuclear deal together, but now the U.S. is ob-structing its execution.”

From the Iranian perspective, the American obstacles are jeopardizing the fulfillment of the nuclear agreement .“The question is, now that the nuclear sanctions are lifted, what status quo will emerge when it comes to doing business with Iran?” said Cyrus Razzaghi, the chief executive officer of Ara Enterprise, a Tehran-based consultancy. “Now everything is ambiguous. If the situation doesn’t change for the better — banking, more deals — for Iran this will be a growing risk for the deal.”

During a recent meeting with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, complained that there had been “no tangible results” from the nuclear agreement. “The Americans,” he said, according to his website, “are frightening other countries from cooperating with Iran.”

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who negoti-ated the nuclear deal, said this week that Iran was not seeking access to the United States financial system but expected help from Washington with the European banks. “What we asked was to implement the nuclear deal, which requires the United States to allow European financial institutions to have peace of mind for dealing with Iran,” he told The New York Times editorial board on Wednesday.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogh-erini, flew to Tehran last week to try to convince Iranian officials that the bloc is doing all it can to “reassure” major European financial institutions that it is safe to work with Iran.

But European banks will still have to contend with American regulatory requirements.

The United States first imposed sanctions against Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis, focusing over the years primarily on dis-rupting its ability to connect to international financing networks. As a result, no foreign credit or debit cards work in Iran, forcing visitors to carry large amounts of cash. Selected European banks were once allowed by the Treasury to use dollars in their deal-ings with Iran. That ended with the nuclear sanctions.

Europe never imposed any trade restrictions on Iran. Until 2006, Germany was its biggest trading partner, and there were dozens of flights between Europe and Iran. Iranian oil was re-fined in the Dutch port of Rotterdam. The European oil giants Royal Dutch Shell and Total were engaged in huge oil projects.

When the European Union joined the American effort to press Iran to halt its nuclear program, the bloc’s main action was to impose a boycott on Iranian crude. European banks, oil companies and producers subsequently abandoned the coun-try after increasingly tough sanctions imposed by the Obama administration.

Despite the obstacles, European officials say they are deter-mined to clear a path for restored commercial relations. “We used to be Iran’s first partner in the field of economy, trade, investment,” Ms. Mogherini told the Tasnim News Agency on Tuesday. “We want to return to those days.”

(Source: New York Times)

TEHRAN — Trade Opportunities Con-

ference of Iran opened in the South Korean capital in the presence of 600 merchants and officials in the eastern Asian country's industrial sector on Thursday, the Shana news agency re-ported.

During the event, which was held with the contribution of Korea Inter-

national Trade Association (KITA) and some other Korean companies, mer-chants and businessmen of South Korea were provided with precise in-formation about Iranian customs, in-vestment laws, Iran's domestic law and various essential legal issues.

It was announced by KITA website on Thursday that lifting of the sanc-tion imposed on Iran has opened the

Islamic Republic’s gate toward other countries, adding that South Korean trade activists should take advantage of the opportunities to prepare them-selves to enter Iranian market.

Tehran and Seoul will sign three agreements for cooperation in energy sector along with the upcoming South Korean President Park Geun-hye’ s visit on the head of a 300-strong traders

and businessmen to the Iranian capital, from May 1 to 3, a top official in Ira-nian Oil Ministry told the Shana news agency past Sunday.

The current volume of trade be-tween the two countries stands at around $9 billion which is expected to be increased to well above $10 billion in the near future, Press TV reported in February.

Oil prices climbed in Asia on Friday, heading for their third weekly gain after OPEC said it was open to fresh talks on freezing output despite the failure to reach a deal at the weekend.

The exporting group's Secretary-General Abdalla El-Badri said it could revive the discussion among members and hold further talks with non-members. OPEC holds its next twice-yearly meeting on June 2.

A much-vaunted gathering Sunday in Doha col-lapsed after Saudi Arabia pulled out blaming rival Iran's refusal to join in output limits. Tehran said it was still in the process of raising production after the re-moval of nuclear-linked Western sanctions in January.

However, while crude prices plunged immediately after the meeting fell apart, it has surged this week thanks to falling U.S. production, a strike in key pro-

ducer Kuwait and signs of a pick-up in key market China.

U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in June was up 45 cents, or 1.04 percent, at $43.63 and Brent crude for June climbed 39 cents, or 0.88 percent, to $44.92.

WTI is up more than eight percent and Brent 4.2 percent from last Friday's close.

"The market is reacting to hopes that there will be more talks to discuss freezing output measures to support oil prices," Bernard Aw, an analyst with IG Markets Singapore, told AFP.

"But in my view, the failure of the previous talks in Doha has damaged OPEC's credibility," Aw said, add-ing he was not hopeful of an agreement in June.

(Source: AFP)

Seoul hosts Iran’s trade opportunities conference

ECONOMYd e s k

Azeri Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev (1st R) and Iranian Communications and Information Technology Minister Mahmoud Vaezi (2nd R) in the ground breaking ceremony on April 20 for the construction of a railway bridge over Astara river on Azerbaijan-Iran border

Oil prices rise, set for third weekly gain

Post-sanction Irish mission to Iran hopes to boost trade

Quality Assessment Announcement for Aids Quality Assessment Announcement for Aids to Navigation Signalsto Navigation Signals

(Tender No: 95/ME/1021)(Tender No: 95/ME/1021)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 Manufacturing and Purchase of 85 Polyethylene Buoys, 77 Marine LED Lanterns, 37 Racon units, 45 RTE units and 5940 m² of Ret Reflect-ing Material 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 Saturday 7th/May/2016.

Place and deadline for submitting the quality assessment documents and completed worksheets: central secretariat of the PMO and to the last working hour on Wednesday1st/ June/2016.

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 Wednesday 18th/May/2016, 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 High-

way, Vanak Sq., Tehran, Iran Fax: (+98) 21-88651066 Tel: (+98) 21-84932351 E-mail: Technical@pmo.ir

The Irish food board, Bord Bia and Ire-land's Department of Agriculture will begin a three day trade mission to Iran this weekend – the first Irish mission since international sanctions were lifted earlier this year.

With an economy expected to grow by 2 percent annually in the coming years, the lifting of the sanctions on Iran is expected to offer Irish food compa-

nies significant new opportunities in the region, particularly in the premium and luxury segments.

Speaking ahead of the visit Aidan Cotter, Chief Executive of Bord Bia com-mented, "As the economy grows and demand for premium food products outstrips domestic supply, Iran is looking to countries like Ireland to supply high quality, safe and sustainably produced

food."Irish companies already had a market

share of €4 million in the country in 2015, but while food was not part of the inter-national sanctions, issues surrounding financial transactions, and dwindling for-eign currency reserves, have previously made for a difficult trading environment in Iran.

Cotter added, "While challenges still

exist for Irish companies supplying into the market, we will work with them during this visit to explore new openings and en-sure that as impediments to trade recede Irish exporters can access the market early, build fruitful relationships and grow their businesses in tandem with economic growth."

(Source: European Supermarket Magazine)

Inflation rate hits 10.8% in Iran

TEHRAN — The Statistical Center of Iran has announced that the inflation rate for the

12-month period ended in the last day of the first Iranian calen-dar month of Farvardin (April 19) compared to the same period in the previous year hit 10.8 percent.

Meanwhile, the center put the point-to-point inflation rate at 7.7 percent in Farvardin, falling from 8.5 percent in its previous month, according to the Mehr news agency.

The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has announced that the infla-tion rate in the past Iranian calendar year of 1394, which ended on March 19, 2016, compared to its previous year stood at 11.9 percent.

On February 20, Iranian Finance and Economic Affairs Min-ister Ali Tayyebnia said that the country’s budget plan for the Iranian calendar year of 1395(which began on March 20) has envisaged an inflation rate of 11.3 percent.

Curbing inflation was one of the major promises by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during his presidential campaign. Un-der the previous administration, inflation skyrocketed to cross 44%.

The CBI aims to lower inflation to single digits by 2017. In October 2015, Iran unveiled a new economic stimulus plan

to promote the economic growth and curb the inflation rate in the country. The stimulus plan will remain in effect for a time span of six months after coming into effect.

Iraq says OPEC, others to meet on oil freeze,

perhaps in MayMajor OPEC and other crude producers will meet in Russia, possibly next month, in a new push to agree on an output freeze to shore up oil prices, Iraq’s Deputy Oil Minister Fayy-ad Al-Nima said.

Iraq sees oil prices rising slowly despite the failure of OPEC and other producers in-cluding Russia to reach an agreement on an output freeze in Doha on April 17, Al-Nima, who assumed the duties of oil minister af-ter Adel Abdul Mahdi suspended his par-ticipation in the cabinet last month, said in a phone interview on Wednesday. There is still no agreement on an oil meeting in May, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said after Al-Nima’s comment.

“Iraq will take part in this meeting,” Al-Nima said. “Iraq’s view is to have a freeze in output for a short period to help protect the interests of both producers and consumers equally by easing the surplus from the mar-ket and improving prices.”

(Source: Bloomberg)

Watching Shakespeare’s plays in Elizabethan EnglandIn September 1599 Thomas Platter, a doctor from Basel in Switzer-land, was in London on a sightseeing tour. Like countless visitors be-fore and since, he was determined to see this world-famous capital city in all its splendor. He visited a cock-fighting venue, and witnessed a “fierce and angry fight between the cocks”, listening politely as the owner explained how it was normal to feed the birds brandy.

But Platter had one real passion: plays. After lunch on 21 Sep-tember, his diary records, he and his friends stepped into a wa-terboat and crossed to the southern bank of the Thames, where “in the house with the thatched roof, [we] witnessed an excellent performance of the tragedy of the first emperor Julius Caesar”. The cast comprised 15 people, Platter wrote, and “when the play was over, they danced very marvellously and gracefully”.

The theatre with the thatched roof was not just any theatre: its name was the Globe, and it had only recently opened for business. Nor was the play about Julius Caesar just any play. Its author was William Shakespeare.

Renaissance menAt the time Thomas Platter visited the Elizabethan equivalent of

Theatreland, the genre we would recognize as Renaissance drama had been around for an astoundingly short time – perhaps 20 years, a shorter period than we have now had access to the World Wide Web. Despite its medieval origins, secular playwriting was an essen-tially modern form, honed in the 1570s and 1580s by overeducated and ambitious young writers such as John Lyly, Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge and Christopher Marlowe, university graduates all, who ended up in London writing for the popular stage. It was a bustling, chaotic and ferociously rivalrous environment, with theatre managers competing for the brightest talent, and a public hungry for everything from Italianate comedies to blood-soaked tragedies.

Though the question of how Shakespeare came to London is one of the biggest mysteries of his career – it’s possible he joined a touring troupe as an actor, then graduated to freelance work editing and fresh-ening old scripts – by the late 1580s he, too, seems to have been in the shark tank of the public theatre, fighting to keep his head above water.

The business he joined was not by any means straightforward. Censorship by the Master of the Revels was strict and enforceable by law; the conservative city fathers took a consistently dim view of plays, backed by any number of puritanical, theatre-detesting preachers. And the shadow of bubonic plague, which swept through London with grim regularity, was omnipresent. Public gatherings were believed to promote infection, and every time plague deaths surged, the authorities scrambled to clamp down on the theatres.

Despite these unforgiving conditions, theatre not only survived but thrived, becoming a hugely popular pastime in London during the 1590s. A businessman named John Brayne is credited with erect-ing the city’s first purpose-built playhouse in 1567, the Red Lion in Whitechapel, but it’s not known how long this survived.

(Source: History Extra)

To many people, visiting Iran seems to be a really big deal.

My friends, family, and every person I’ve ever met, has said the same things about Iran. The comments range between “be careful” and “you’re crazy”. This week, I had one reader contact me, explaining that due to the events in Paris, I should be extra careful in Iran. Fortu-nately, Iran is much safer than Paris.

It’s an insight to the extent of the almost global brainwashing – Iran, a peaceful country who has not been in-volved in a war since the U.S. backed war with Iraq in the 1980’s, is still considered a key member of the “Axis of Evil”.

“Oh, you’re visiting Iran…. hmmm… where is your Visa? And… you don’t seem to have any further flights booked… hmmmm…”

This had happened before. In Malay-sia in 2012, they wouldn’t allow me board the flight to Tehran, visa-less, until sev-eral layers of managers had discussed my “situation”. The conversation ended with “we’ll let you board, but if it doesn’t work out, you must understand you’re on your own”. Of course, it all worked out. Be-cause Iran is a normal country. With ex-ceptionally welcoming people. And they love tourists.

At Sharjah airport, I’d anticipated this same moment. I knew exactly what to say. However, due to the flu and lack of sleep, I couldn’t I think straight. I just explained myself in the most persuasive way possible.

“Don’t worry about me. It’s all cool. We’ll be fine. I will get an Iranian visa on arrival.”

Seriously, I waved my hand across the desk, just like Ben Kenobe.

“OK. It is all cool. You will be fine. They will give you a visa on arrival. Enjoy Iran.”

My luggage was checked, and a boarding-card issued.

Further along, at the Sharjah customs, the veiled girl with the badge gave me the same pause, once she realised I was heading to Iran.

“Oh…. you’re visiting Iran… there is some paperwork you need to complete, especially for you, I’ll just have to get it.”

I waved my hand over the desk.“There is no paper work for me to

complete.”I looked into her eyes.“Um, OK, just wait here, I’ll be back

with the paperwork.”The force was strong with this one.Visiting Iran, is kind of a big deal for

the Sharjah authorities. I completed the “special” form, in duplicate. Ticking boxes that indicated I was aware of the “secu-rity situation” in Iran. I wondered, what exactly was the security situation in Iran. They wanted contact details, preferences for funeral proceedings, and a complete list of the other fifty-eight countries I had previously visited. A lot of questions later, I was cleared through customs. The flu was catching up again, so I headed to the departure lounge to rest, and await the inevitable next-step.

Over the airport intercom, a “special” announcement was made. Just for travel-ers bound for Iran. We were to report to a

different gate than previously advised, for “advanced security processing”. To Shar-jah airport security, travelling to Iran was a big deal. Around an hour earlier than the usual time, we were checked and processed by multiple staff and multiple scanning machines. Then we had to wait in a closed-off section with no option to return to the “normal” part of the airport.

A man was walking around. He was exclusively chatting to tourists bound for Iran. There were four other tourists on this flight. Compared to 2012, an increase of four. That’s a statistically significant 200% increase in tourist numbers to Iran.

“So… you’re going to Shiraz. Do you have a visa? Hmmm. No? Show me your passports……”

I handed them over.“Oh, so you’re going to get a visa on

arrival? Cool. Enjoy Iran.”Yes, he said “cool”, smiled, and returned

our passports. Then he walked away, muf-fled something into his collar about “affirm-ative, target has been contacted, returning to ghost-surveillance mode and awaiting further instructions for… ”

Arriving in Shiraz, the airport bus from plane to terminal confirmed that yes, I was really on the ground in Iran, and so obviously surrounded by Iranians. To understand Iranians, you need to under-stand “Ta’arof”, A specifically Iranian social construct that’s far beyond politeness, chivalry, and civility. Ta’arof permeates Ira-nian society. The rules are unfathomable to a foreigner. In general, you are obliged to offer whatever you have, to all guests. As a guest, you’re equally obliged to po-litely refuse.

This will go back and forth. On a bus that only has eight seats, with about fifty passengers, this was a glorious game of Iranian musical chairs, both fascinating and heart-warming to be a part of.

With Ta’arof, does a young lady strug-gling with a small baby trump a middle-aged lady with a walking stick? Who gets the seat? What about a man who looks

kind of young for his age, clearly very fit, but is probably, I guess, sixty or so… does he get the chair, or, as a guest in Iran, do I trump everyone? It was a maelstrom of “please, take the seat”, “no, I insist, you take the seat”, “no, no, please, you take the seat”. When you mix Ta’arof with the Iranian respect for the elderly, as well as the chivalrous nature of the men, things could get complicated.

Entering the Shiraz terminal, I would soon find out if visiting Iran was a big deal to the authorities – who most definitely do not engage in Ta’arof with visa-less foreigners.

“Hello Sir. I would like a visa.”“What is your purpose for visiting Iran?”“Tourism”“OK!”He smiled, and walked away with our

passports. The next I would see of him, the passports would contain Iranian tour-ist visa’s. No further questions. One small form. A payment of 100 Euro per person, which came with a receipt and a packet of Banana flavored gum. No checking, or even asking, about my accommodation or onward travel plans.

By extension, even the Iranian govern-ment understands what most of the world doesn’t – these days, visiting Iran really is no big deal. But, it remains a nation full of unparalleled experiences – thanks to the Iranian people.

Outside, I caught a taxi straight to the hotel I stayed at here in Shiraz, back in 2012. The man at the front desk recog-nized me.

“Oh my… you have returned! How are you! Have you come straight from Aus-tralia?”

I explained that since staying here 2012, I had continued to travel around the world.

“Mr. Nate, can I say, you are not a normal tourist. Don’t you get tired of so much travel?”

I explained that no, normally, I don’t get tired. But today, I was absolutely ex-

hausted. He giggled. Must be an Iranian thing, laughing at sickness.

“Do you remember what room you were in last time?”

I had kept the receipt from 2012, and checked the room number. Within a few minutes, I was laying down in a familiar bed.

In Iran.Oh, one last thing. The Iran tourist

visa-on-arrival – it’s for 15 days. I asked if I could extend it, and was told yes, for an additional 15 days. So, I asked if I could extend it a third time.

“ohhhh no. No no. Only one exten-sion.”

He must have seen the look of dis-appointment on my face, because he winked, and added…

“unless, say, you were sick…”In my opinion, it was the best travel

opportunity of 2015!(Source: yomadic.com)

HISTORY & HERITAGEh t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m APRIL 23, 2016APRIL 23, 2016 5I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

By Nate Robert

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Located in the heart of Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, Imam Khomeini Mosque dates back to early 18th century. The courtyard is accessed from several parts of the bazaar.

IRNA/Mojtaba Mohammadlu

Why visiting Iran is no big deal these days?

A C L O S E R L O O K

APRIL 23, APRIL 23, 201620166 I 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 / I n t e r n a t i o n a l

Two years ago Secretary of State John Kerry visited the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and publicly called on President Jo-

seph Kabila to respect the country’s constitution and not seek a third term in 2016. In remarks before the African Union last summer, President Obama affirmed the U.S. view that Africa needs no more “presidents for life” but rather new ideas and leadership resulting from elections.

Kabila’s response has been an ongoing cam-paign to undermine the constitution, jail op-ponents and shut down media outlets. These actions have brought this large, strategically im-portant nation in the center of Africa ever closer to the precipice of a major political conflict. To avert a destabilizing political and human rights crisis, and to cement his legacy as a strong ad-vocate for democracy in Africa, Obama should stand firm on his administration’s pro-democracy policy and to do what he can to ensure Kabila follows his country’s constitution and holds na-tional elections.

Kabila came to power in 2001 after the as-sassination of his father. His election to a sec-ond term in 2011 was deeply flawed and widely

criticized by the international community. Cor-ruption has been rampant as the economy has stagnated. Kabila has never said explicitly he would breach the constitution, which he himself spearheaded in 2005, but top U.S. officials are clearly concerned about his intentions and what they might mean for stability in the Congo.

Last month, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Thomas Perriello, the State Department’s special envoy for the Great Lakes Region of Africa, warned, the “DRC could fall into a crisis more violent and destabi-lizing than the current crisis in Burundi,” where President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to seek a third term in violation of the constitution has re-sulted in hundreds of deaths and a refugee crisis.

Derailing systemKabila’s attempts to derail his country’s

fledging democratic system are apparent. In early 2015, he attempted to postpone elec-tions, leading to mass protests in which many people were arrested or killed by government security forces. Shortly after that, a mass grave with 400 bodies was discovered and remains the focus of queries by human rights groups.

Subsequently, he has arrested numerous op-position political leaders and shut down oppo-

sition radio and television stations and newspa-pers. He has weakened his main opponents by redrawing political boundaries and starved the country’s election commission of funds. After deliberately engineering obstacles to scheduled elections, he has now called for a “national dia-logue,” which probably is intended to stall the electoral process and extend his presidency.

While Kabila has been trying to maneuver around the constitution, leaders of political parties once part of the governing coalition have aban-doned him and are standing with millions of Con-golese who insist that the rule of law be honored.

National dialogueThe DRC’s constitution stipulates when his

mandate ends, and lays out the protocols for the transition to a successor. There is no mention of a “national dialogue” or any popular consulta-tion to be held before the next election. Kabila is aware of this but is persisting in his efforts.

There is still time for President Kabila to re-verse course and do the right thing, and the United States and international community should continue to strongly encourage him to move in that direction.

Obama and Kerry should publicly renew their call for Kabila to pledge to uphold the consti-tution and step down. In exchange, the United States should pledge to work with the European Union, the United Nations and the African Un-

ion to provide technical and logistical support, as well as major funding to facilitate free and fair elections.

If Kabila chooses to derail the democratic pro-cess, the U.S. should deny visas to Kabila’s im-mediate family and political cohorts, review all assistance programs that might benefit the presi-dency, and be prepared to undertake financial sanctions aimed at his personal holdings.

The administration should also seek the sup-port of the key western European and demo-cratic allies. With 22,000 UN peacekeepers and personnel in the Congo, the international com-munity should be prepared to speak out in sup-port of stability and continued political progress. Political instability will only exacerbate and pro-long the UN’s work.

Kabila is counting on the United States to continue to monitor the situation, make earnest statements and to move slowly. There is still time to produce a better democratic outcome in the Congo, and the United States should step up its diplomacy and make clear there will be conse-quences for Kabila and those around him if they undermine the constitution and create greater instability in the Congo.

(Source: The Washington Times)

Standing up for democracy in CongoBy James Jones Jr. and Johnnie Carson

While Kabila has been trying to maneuver around the constitution, leaders of political parties once part of the governing coalition have abandoned him and are standing with millions of Congolese who insist

that the rule of law be honored.

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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 APRIL 23, APRIL 23, 20162016 7I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

By Barack Obama

As your friend, let me say that the EU makes Britain even greater

In 1939, President Franklin D Roosevelt offered a toast to King George VI in the White House. “I am persuaded that the greatest single contribution our two countries have

been enabled to make to civilization, and to the welfare of peoples throughout the world,” he said, “is the example we have jointly set by our manner of conducting relations be-tween our two nations.”

Nearly 80 years later, the United Kingdom remains a friend and ally to the United States like no other.

Our special relationship was forged as we spilt blood to-gether on the battlefield. It was fortified as we built and sus-tained the architecture for advancing stability and prosperi-ty in Europe, and our democratic values around the globe. From the ashes of war, those who came before us had the foresight to create the international institutions and initiatives to sustain a prosperous peace: the United Nations and Nato; Bretton Woods, the Marshall Plan, and the European Union. Their efforts provided a foundation for democracy, open mar-kets, and the rule of law, while underwriting more than seven decades of relative peace and prosperity in Europe.

U.S.-UK relationshipToday, we face tests to this order – terrorism and aggres-

sion; migration and economic headwinds – challenges that can only be met if the United States and the United Kingdom can rely on one another, on our special relationship, and on the partnerships that lead to progress.

During my visit to London, Prime Minister Cameron and I will take on the full array of these challenges. We must be resolute and adaptive in our efforts to prevent terrorist attacks against our people, and to continue the progress we are mak-ing to roll back the threat posed by ISIL (the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant terrorist group) until it is destroyed. We must work to resolve political conflicts in the Middle East – from Yemen to Syria to Libya – so that there is a prospect for increased stability. We must continue to invest in NATO – so that we can meet our overseas commitments from Afghani-stan to the Aegean, and reassure allies who are rightly con-cerned about Russian aggression. And we must continue to promote global growth, so that our young people can achieve greater opportunity and prosperity.

I realize that there’s been considerable speculation – and some controversy – about the timing of my visit. And I confess: I do want to wish Her Majesty a happy birthday in person.

But also I understand that there’s a spirited campaign under way here. My country is going through much the same. And ultimately, the question of whether or not the UK remains a part of the EU is a matter for British voters to decide for your-selves.

That said, when President Roosevelt toasted to our special relationship that night, he also remarked that we are friends who have no fear of each other. So I will say, with the candor of a friend, that the outcome of your decision is a matter of deep interest to the United States. The tens of thousands of Ameri-cans who rest in Europe’s cemeteries are a silent testament to just how intertwined our prosperity and security truly are. And the path you choose now will echo in the prospects of today’s generation of Americans as well.

Britain’s global leadershipAs citizens of the United Kingdom take stock of their re-

lationship with the EU, you should be proud that the EU has helped spread British values and practices – democracy, the rule of law, open markets – across the continent and to its periphery. The European Union doesn’t moderate British in-fluence – it magnifies it. A strong Europe is not a threat to Britain’s global leadership; it enhances Britain’s global leader-ship. The United States sees how your powerful voice in Eu-rope ensures that Europe takes a strong stance in the world, and keeps the EU open, outward looking, and closely linked to its allies on the other side of the Atlantic. So the U.S. and the world need your outsized influence to continue – includ-ing within Europe.

In this complicated, connected world, the challenges facing the EU – migration, economic inequality, the threats of terror-ism and climate change – are the same challenges facing the United States and other nations. And in today’s world, even as we all cherish our sovereignty, the nations who wield their influence most effectively are the nations that do it through the collective action that today’s challenges demand.

When we negotiated the historic deal to verifiably prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, it was collective ac-tion, working together with the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, that got the job done. And the EU’s seat at the table magnified the United Kingdom’s voice.

When the climate agreement in Paris needed a push, it was the European Union, fortified by the United Kingdom, that ul-timately helped make that agreement possible.

When it comes to creating jobs, trade, and econom-ic growth in line with our values, the UK has benefited from its membership in the EU – inside a single market that pro-vides enormous opportunities for the British people. And the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the EU will advance our values and our interests, and establish the high-standard, pro-worker rules for trade and commerce in the 21st century economy.

This kind of cooperation – from intelligence sharing and counterterrorism to forging agreements to create jobs and economic growth – will be far more effective if it extends across Europe. Now is a time for friends and allies to stick together.

Together, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union have turned centuries of war in Europe into decades of peace, and worked as one to make this world a safer, better place. What a remarkable legacy that is. And what a remarkable legacy we will leave when, together, we meet the challenges of this young century as well.

(Source: The Telegraph)

Abadi's new technocratic cabinet would have entailed

the resignation of career politicians, including among

Shia politicians.

There is nothing particularly wrong with the fact that there doesn't seem to be a lot of harmony in US- Saudi relations these days, CIA veteran Paul Pillar notes, asking wheth-er Riyadh is doing anything that protects or advances U.S. interests.

United States President Barack Obama arrived last Wednesday to Saudi Arabia to meet King Salman and to attend a meet-ing with leaders of six Persian Gulf Cooper-ation Council (PGCC) countries which took place on Thursday.

There is a definite cooling in U.S.-Saudi relations over Iran's nuclear deal and the Syrian crisis.

Remarkably, Riyadh openly demon-strates its discontent with the Obama ad-ministration's foreign policy. Moreover, CNN reports that President Obama “received a chilly reception from Saudi Arabia's leaders” on his arrival to Riyadh last Wednesday.

Riyadh went even so far as to blackmail Washington, threatening to dump the U.S. dollar if Congress passes a bill which would allow the U.S. to investigate their alleged involvement in the 9/11 case and hold them responsible for it.

Former U.S. congressman Ron Paul re-

marked in his latest Liberty Report, com-menting on the matter:

“They [Saudi Arabia] are threatening [to dump the dollar] and they are capable of it and it shows you how fragile this [the U.S.'] system is and how ridiculous our foreign policy is.”

Indeed, some allies appear to be “like a mouse in the provision bag, a serpent

in one's lap and a fire in one's bosom,” as an old proverb says.

The question then arises: who needs this partnership the most — Washington or Riyadh?

“Whether such relations are good comes down to whether an alliance-type relationship with the particular state has something in it for the United States. It is

a question of whether the other country is doing something that protects or ad-vances U.S. interests, and more specifically whether it is doing it only because it is in an 'alliance' with the United States and would not be doing it for its own reasons anyway,” CIA veteran and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution Paul Pillar writes in his article for The National Interest.

The CIA veteran notes that Riyadh's cur-rent discontent with Washington is caused by the fact that the United States and Saudi Arabia do not share interests on some mat-ters particularly important to Riyadh.

Washington is unwilling to take Saudi Arabia's side in regional rivalries, “especially its rivalry with Iran,” Pillar notes.

“It is the Saudis, not the Iranians, who are supporting rebels trying to overthrow the incumbent regime [in Syria]… it was the Saudis, not the Iranians, who rolled their tanks across the causeway into Bahrain,” Pillar stresses, adding that Riyadh's invasion of Yemen “has been much more destruc-tive” than “anything that can be attributed to indirect Iranian involvement in the form of aid to the Houthis.”

(Source: Sputnik)

Marriage of convenience: Does Washington really need Saudi Arabia as ally?

The political deadlock in Baghdad strengthens Sadr's po-litical re-emergence and undermines ethno-sectarianism in Iraq.

As Iraqi Security Forces secure the environs of Mosul, positioning themselves to challenge ISIL's grip on the city, a political impasse threatens to paralyses the Iraqi gov-ernment, ultimately delaying the final military campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) terrorist group.

As a result of renewed protests led by the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, calling for a new government that can deal with pervasive corruption at the state level, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had attempted and failed to get approval for a new cabinet from a recalcitrant Iraqi par-liament.

The current political standoff represents the first seri-ous attempt by a leader at the top of Iraq's political system to address a problem inherent to the new Iraqi govern-ment since 2003; the quota system that empowers poli-ticians based solely on their ethno-sectarian background.

New Iraqi cabinet In the past week, Abadi has presented a list of techno-

crat candidates to form a new Iraqi cabinet, ranging from new ministers of electricity, finance, oil and water.

It is in ministries such as these where the potential for corruption is the greatest, and it is corruption in these ministries that affects the public services ordinary Iraqis desperately need, such as water and electricity.

Abadi refrained from replacing the Minister of Defense and Interior, given that such a change would damage both institutions' role in the current military campaign against ISIL terrorists.

None of the candidates in Abadi's list came from the major political parties, but were nominated owing to their technical expertise. For example, the qualifications of Abadi's nominee for Minister of Finance, Ali Allawi, in-clude his career in finance, international banking, and in the World Bank.

Allawi is an independent, and thus is not beholden to any of the Iraqi parties. Other candidates for the cabinet had similar technocratic backgrounds.

Nonetheless, a new cabinet of technocrats threatened the power of career politicians already ensconced in cab-inet positions. Those incumbent cabinet leaders rallied their fellow party members in parliament to obstruct the approval of a new cabinet, thus creating the current po-litical deadlock.

Sadr's riseAfter the Iraqi parliament failed to approve this new

technocratic cabinet, a demand of Sadr, he ordered the members of parliament who belong to his Ahrar or Freeborn Faction to boycott any future sessions until this measure is reintroduced.

Sadr also called on protesters loyal to him to continue holding their sit-in outside the Green Zone, the location of Iraq's parliament and where most of Iraq's politicians reside, to pressure them to accede to his demand.

Abadi's new technocratic cabinet would have entailed the resignation of career politicians, including among Shia politicians.

For example, an ISCI party member, Adel Abdul-Mah-di, is Minister of Oil, and he was to be replaced by a Kurd-ish technocrat. Ammar al-Hakim, the leader of the Shia ISCI party, a rival to the Shia Dawa Party, stated: “if we have a totally technocratic cabinet, then PM Abadi must be a non-partisan technocrat or PM Abadi must go”.

Abadi engaged in a political gamble by taking on a measure calling for all parties to relinquish their control over the ministries. ISCI called his bluff by demanding that the prime minister should then resign, given his connec-tions to one of the entrenched parties in Iraq's political landscape, the Dawa party.

The American legacyThe current power-sharing formula in the Iraqi govern-

ment is a legacy of the U.S. attempt to rebuild the state after 2003.

To inaugurate a break from Saddam Hussein’s Arab Sunni-minority rule of Iraq, a political system developed under U.S. tutelage where after each Iraqi election the new government would be “inclusive” of all of the nation's communities.

This notion of inclusivity led to a quasi-mathematical equation where each new Iraq cabinet allocated a pro-

portional percentage of positions to the nation's Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and other minorities, such as Christians, Turkmens, and Yazidis.

Nowhere in the Iraqi constitution does it stipulate that the prime minister must come from the Iraqi Shia Dawa party, the president from the Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and another token position given to an Arab Sunni.

This proportional system affected the allocation of cab-inet positions as well. This distribution of power according to sect and ethnicity since 2003 has simply evolved as a norm owing to U.S. preference.

Abadi's introduction of a cabinet based on a minis-ter's technical skills rather than his ethnic or sectarian background indicates that governing consensus over the muhasasa, or the ethnic and sectarian quota system, is breaking down.

The muhasasa system guaranteed to Iraq's Shia that they would never be ruled by an oppressive minority. However Sadr, himself a Shia, has challenged this system, demonstrating once again that analyzing Iraq's politics as a simple conflict between Arab versus Kurd, and Shia ver-sus Sunni, is reductive at best.

As of 2016, Sadr and his followers, who include Shi-as and other disenfranchised Iraqis, have communicated that a politician's sect or ethnicity is not a prerequisite to administer Iraq.

After years of instability, Iraqis seek leaders who are qualified to rebuild the nation, opposed to career politi-cians looking to safeguard their political careers and pa-tronage networks. (Source: Al Jazeera)

Challenges to Iraq's sectarian politics

According to the CIA veteran “the Saudis need the United States more than the United

States needs them.”

The American military has often put a price on the lives of civilians it has killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. By making so-called con-dolence payments — which range from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands — commanders have sought to compensate victims’ families for dead relatives, injuries and damaged property.

Sometimes wads of cash have been de-livered with an apology. In rare instances, there have also been full accountings of the facts.

The Pentagon, having gone through this grim ritual for so many years, might be ex-pected to carry it out with some measure of fairness and diligence. But so far its treat-

ment of the victims of the air attack in Oc-tober on a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in northern Afghanistan has been wholly inadequate.

After more than six months, the Penta-gon has yet to fully explain what went wrong the night an American AC-130 gunship re-peatedly bombed the hospital in Kunduz, killing 42 people and wounding dozens.

Officials have called the airstrike a case of “avoidable human error,” but they have not said why they struck a facility whose location had been made known to them repeatedly.

Earlier this year, the American military of-fered $6,000 to the families of each person killed and $3,000 to those who were wound-

ed. “We think it’s insulting,” Jason Cone, the executive director of Doctors Without Bor-ders, said in an interview.

Abdul Ghadir, who lost a 12-year-old daughter in the bombing, described feeling powerless as he took the cash. “The money is obviously not enough compared to the life of my daughter,” he told Newsweek. “I had no other choice but to accept what they gave me.”

Adequately compensating the victims is the least the American government can do. Taking stock of the needs of the survi-vors and coming up with a reasonable plan to help them rebuild their lives could have been done in a matter of days.

As Cone points out, many hospital staff members have injuries that are going to af-fect their ability to earn any sort of income.

Compensating victimsThe Pentagon has refused to discuss how

it has compensated the victims “out of re-spect for the privacy of those involved.”

Last month, Gen. John Nicholson Jr., the new top commander in Afghanistan, flew to Kunduz and apologized to the victims. “I grieve with you for your loss and suffering, and humbly and respectfully ask for your forgiveness,” General Nicholson said, deliver-ing an unusually unqualified apology for a wartime commander.

(Source: The NYT)

The Pentagon insults its Afghan victims

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

8I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

N E W S I N B R I E F

M E D & S C I h t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o mAPRIL 23, APRIL 23, 20162016

Minisensor is designed to warn of epileptic seizures For epilepsy patients and attending physicians, it has been a challenge to correctly assess the frequency and severity of epileptic seizures without inpatient recording equipment. A consortium coordinated by the epileptologists of the Univer-sity Hospital Bonn is now developing a mobile sensor that can detect seizures.

A warning signal is designed to summon relatives or at-tending physicians to provide timely help. The project "EPI-tect" will receive about two million Euro in subsidies from the German Federal Ministry of Research (BMBF) over the next three years. 635,000 Euro will go to Bonn. In carrying out the ambitious undertak-ing, the consortium will re-ceive support from the project sponsor VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH.

Epileptic seizures can take very different courses: Some of those affected smack their

lips; others engage in unmotivated fumbling with their clothing; others "go out" completely for a short time; and some actually suffer the muscular twitching that is considered typical. "It is not easy to classify all the symptoms correctly", says Professor.

Dr. Christian E. Elger, Director of the Department of Epileptol-ogy of the University Hospital Bonn. Some of the seizures even occur during sleep; those affected often don't notice anything at all. "We estimate that the patients consciously perceive a maximum of half their seizures", adds Private Docent Dr. Rainer Surges, lead consultant at the Department of Epileptology at the University Hospital Bonn and coordinator of the joint project.

This subjective misperception of the frequency and strength of seizures impedes both the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. The "thunderstorms in the brain" can usually be recorded clearly using electroencephalography, but that requires a hospital stay.

(Source: EurekAlert)

High-fat diets make you feel sleepy during daytimeMen who consume high-fat diets are far likelier to feel sleepy during the day and sleep poorly at night, researchers at Univer-sity of Adelaide, Australia report.

The team studied the dietary habits of 1800 Australian men aged 35-80 over a 12 months period.

“After adjusting for other demographic and lifestyle factors, and chronic diseases, we found that those who consumed the highest fat intake were more likely to experience excessive day-time sleepiness,” says study author and University of Adelaide Ph.D. student Yingting Cao, who is also based at SAHMRI (South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute).

“This has significant implications for alertness and concentra-tion, which would be of particular concern to workers,” Cao says. “High-fat intake was also strongly associated with sleep apnea.”

Of the men who enjoyed a high-fat diet, 41 percent reported daytime sleepiness, while 47 percent had problems sleeping. About 54 percent had mild-to-moderate sleep apnea — a sleep disorder characterized by pauses in breathing or instances of shallow breathing during sleep — and 25 percent had moder-ate-to-severe sleep apnea.

“Poor sleep and feeling sleepy during the day means you have less energy, but this in turn is known to increase people’s cravings for high-fat, high-carbohydrate foods, which is then as-sociated with poor sleep outcomes. So the poor diet-and-sleep pattern can become a vicious cycle,” Cao says.

(Source: ZME Science)

Scientists can now make lithium-ion batteries last a lifetimeResearchers at the University of California at Irvine (UCI) said that's exactly what they were doing when they discovered how to increase the tensile strength of nanowires that could be used to make lithium-ion batteries last virtually forever.

Researchers have pursued using nanowires in batteries for years because the filaments, thousands of times thinner than a human hair, are highly conductive and have a large surface area for the storage and transfer of electrons.

The problem they have encountered, however, is that nanowires are also extremely fragile and don't hold up well to repeated discharging and recharging, known as "cy-cling." For example, in a typical lithium-ion battery, they ex-pand and grow brittle, which leads to cracking.

UCI doctoral candidate Mya Le Thai solved the brittleness conundrum by coating a gold nanowire in a manganese diox-ide shell and encasing the assembly in an electrolyte made of a Plexiglas-like gel. The combination, they said, is reliable and resistant to failure.

Gold nanowires were surrounded by an electrodeposited layer of Plexiglas-like gel called propylene carbonate, which has a thick-ness of between 143 and 300 nanometers. Identical capacitors without the gel show cycle stabilities ranging from 2000 to 8000 cycles. With it, the nanowires stood up to 200,000 recharges.

(Source: Computerworld)

New research on the bursts of radiation that flare off the sun and sometimes dis-rupt life on Earth is helping scientists better understand the physics behind these solar weather events.

By understanding what causes these so-lar flares, scientists someday will be able to predict them and thus give Earthlings more time to prepare.

Solar flares, which can happen as fre-quently as a few times a day, are explosions of radiation that come from the release of energy stored in the sun’s magnetic field.

When this barrage of radiation reaches the Earth – without warning, because it moves at the speed of light – it can dam-age sensitive electronics on satellites and interfere with their transmissions by excit-ing the Earth's upper atmosphere.

Advancing capabilities“We really have to advance our capa-

bilities to predict those (solar flares) in the future,” says Michael Kirk, a NASA solar physicist, in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor. “As a society we don't think

about this most of the time – and that’s OK – but it can really affect our lives,” he says.

Astrophysicists from the U.S. and China report that, by studying images

of a December 2013 solar flare collected by three solar observatories, they have found significant evidence that a predict-ed electromagnetic phenomenon called a “current sheet,” a sliver of electrically charged material at the surface of the sun, actually exists.

If true, this helps support current theo-ries about the forces behind solar flares.

The “existence of a current sheet is crucial in all our models of solar flares,” said James McAteer, an astrophysicist at New Mexico State University and an au-thor of the study, said in an announce-ment. “So these observations make us much more comfortable that our models are good,” he said.

Though solar flares are not unusual, and this isn’t the first time scientists have ob-served a current sheet during a solar flare, this study provides the most comprehen-sive measurement of the physical charac-teristics of a current sheet – such as speed, temperature, density and size, says NASA.

(Source: The CSM)

Schizophrenic patients rarely display symptoms of their mental illness before adulthood. In new research, scientists have found important evidence supporting the idea that a certain subset of those who develop the highly hereditary disease are genetically set on that path before birth.

"When a schizophrenic patient walks into a clinic at 18 (hear-ing voices), you’re seeing what’s already gone wrong," said Kris-ten Brennand, one of the lead authors of the study published Thursday in the journal Cell Reports. "This shows us what goes wrong earlier in life, before symptoms ever develop."

Tiny molecules of microRNAs that control hundreds of genes associated with schizophrenia are under-expressed during fetal development, according to the new study by an international team of researchers. One specific group of these cellular RNA fragments, known as miR-9, were highly under-expressed, making those fetuses particularly vulner-able to developing schizophrenia later in life.

The genes under miR-9's control are important to the growth and maturation of neurons in the human fetal

brain. Their under-expression, say the researchers, means certain brain circuits will likely not be wired correctly during prenatal development.

The team that conducted the research included biologists, neuroscientists, psychiatrists and mathematicians. It also in-

volved a complex laboratory procedure only five years old. Molecular experiment

Most molecular experiments in schizophrenia research are greatly limited because they must be conducted post-mortem, on brain tissue derived from deceased patients. The scientists involved in the new study overcame this problem by engineering fetal schizophrenic neurons.

First, they obtained skin samples from living schizophrenic patients, then they reprogrammed the skin cells into embry-onic-like stem cells before finally coaxing them to develop into human brain cells. These reverse-engineered "schizophrenic neurons," akin to fetal cells in the first or second trimester of a woman's pregnancy, became the basis for the study.

The importance of the discovery was underscored by the fact that these "perturbed" miR-9 levels, which appear responsible for deficiencies in fetal brain development, have not been detected in the brains of schizophrenic pa-tients after death.

(Source: The Washington Post)

Lightning races toward the ground at nearly 300,000 kilo-meters per hour. It can possess more energy than a nuclear reactor.

Although it’s rare, with the odds of getting struck in your lifetime being roughly 1 in 12,000, every now and then a human will provide an attractive target for lightning bolts to unleash their energy. And of the roughly 500 people who are struck by lightning each year, about 90% survive.

Here’s what you should expect if you ever find yourself in the path of lightning.

Although we're still not sure what causes it, scientists be-lieve that ice particles bumping together inside a cloud can cause an excess of negative charge to collect at the bottom of

the cloud. This charge can be so powerful that it repels elec-trons, negatively charged particles, on the ground beneath it, causing the ground to become positively charged.

As an insanely strong electrical field roils in the cloud above, an intense attraction builds between the cloud and the ground. Lightning is the runaway force that discharges this field. It races toward the ground at nearly 300,000 kilo-meters per hour, striking the ground with an energy of 300 kV, up to 150 times more powerful than an industrial shock.

Nuclear reactorThe energy can even exceed the power of a nuclear

reactor. When the lightning hits the ground, it causes a trail of plasma that lights the sky with those telltale zigzags of

blueish white light that we see as lightning.As the lightning strikes and then exits your body, it will

leave you with deep wounds, often accompanied with third degree burns. Your hair and clothing might singe or catch fire. Your clothes might even be shredded by the explosive force of the surrounding air being superheated to up to 50,000 de-grees F (five times hotter than the surface of the sun).

If you happen to be wearing any metal objects, like necklaces or a piercings, they could channel the electric current, superheating and searing your skin. And if the lightning exits through your feet, the force could literally knock your shoes off.

(Source: Business Insider)

The most terrifying part about getting struck by lightning

Some children born with the genetic risk for schizophrenia, scientists say

In one of the largest studies involving people who stay healthy into old age, researchers found some interesting clues behind how they get that way — and

it has little to do with genes for lon-gevity.

Most studies about disease focus on people who are sick, since people with a disease are very likely to show whatever genetic or other biological changes are responsible for their condition.

But researchers are starting to find the flip side to that strategy attractive — studying people, rare though they might be, who have whatever changes are re-sponsible for disease but somehow don’t get sick. Could they provide clues about how they’re able to overcome their bio-logical condition and remain healthy de-spite being dealt a bad biological hand?

That’s the question that Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, and his colleagues wanted to in-vestigate for healthy aging. While certain diseases such as heart problems, cancer, dementia and diabetes are more common with age, there are some people who re-main remarkably immune to their effects and who are able to stay intellectually sharp and physically robust well into their 80s, 90s

and even 100s. Topol and his team enrolled a group of these people they called the Wellderly: those older than 80 years with no chronic diseases and who did not take any medications for chronic illnesses.

Genomes sequencedOf the 1,354 people in the study, 511

had their entire genomes sequenced, and over eight years, the researchers per-formed in-depth analysis of their DNA and compared their results to those from simi-larly aged people who did have the typical chronic diseases associated with aging.

To their surprise, Topol’s group reports in the journal Cell that it wasn’t genes as-sociated with long life that set the Well-derly apart.

In fact, there was little correlation between the genes that had already been identified as contributors to longevity and the genes that distinguish the Wellderly, who live long but are also relatively free of disease.

The “healthy aging really seems to be a separate group that stay free of chronic dis-ease versus the man-made long-lived per-son who may have a heavy chronic disease burden but is being kept alive with modern medicine,” says Topol. “We thought there would be a lot of overlap, but there wasn’t.”

(Source: Time)

Long gone are any moon aspirations for the Chinese, they now have their sights set on Mars. China looks to launch a Red Planet mission by 2021. If they fol-low through, they will just squeak ahead of SpaceX and NASA for their proposed launches.

The China National Space Administra-tion (CNSA) has long been considered a secret branch of the country’s military. Now, they’ve been a bit more vocal in their plans for a Mars mission according to a recent BBC interview. The CNSA has a short term goal of the moon, but that’s hardly anything significant compared to their long-term goal.

The big surprise came to the CNSA’s openness regarding a military-led trip to Mars. According to the agency, they plan to get there by 2020. This could have been done earlier if they weren’t flagging behind the U.S and European agencies. They plan to not only orbit the red planet but also land and deploy a rover, all in one mission. It certainly looks like they will be doing it alone as NASA has no desire to work with China in this case.

Landing on Red PlanetIf the Chinese stick to their proposed

2021 landing on the Red Planet, the Netherlands-based organization Mars One will be beaten. They planned to have a permanent human colony there by 2027. The private project is headed by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp. He first announced the project in 2012 and has since gathered a significant amount of hype.

Scientists, however, don’t necessarily agree with the feasibility of the project nor the ethics. Even if Lansdorp does get by those hurdles, the Chinese will stand in his way.

Last week SpaceX founder Elon Musk popped by a NASA press conference and announced that he will be revealing some interesting news in the near future.

Apparently, SpaceX has the plan to establish a permanent city on Mars. Even Musk chuckled at the lunacy of the idea, but it’s all too serious of one. Since the idea is still in the beginning stages, don’t expect SpaceX to beat China there. That is unless Elon Musk fulfills his destiny to become Tony Stark and morphs SpaceX into the Avengers. Then, and only then, will he have a chance against the empire of China.

(Source: Clapway)

China to be first on Mars, before SpaceX and Mars One

These are the genes behind healthy aging

Can scientists predict dangerous solar flares?

Solar flares, which can happen as frequently as a few times a day, are explosions of radiation

that come from the release of energy stored in the sun’s magnetic field.

ECONOMYd e s k

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 9I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

N E W S

At least nine people have been killed and 25 more injured after a bomb explosion inside a Shia mosque in the Radwaniyah area, southwest of the Iraqi capital Bagh-dad.

Security and medical sources said a bomber detonated his explosive vest at the mosque after Friday Prayers.

No group has so far claimed respon-sibility for the explosion but the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh) terrorist group has been often blamed for such attacks.

The news comes a day after a series of bomb explosions and a shooting at-tack at residential neighborhoods in and around Baghdad claimed the lives of at least eight people and injured more than two dozen others.

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq says a total of 1,119 Iraqis were killed and another 1,561 wounded in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in March.

According to the UN mission, the number of civilian fatalities stood at 575.

Violence also claimed the lives of 544 members of the Iraqi security forces.

A great portion of the fatalities was recorded in Baghdad, where 259 civilians were killed.

Iraqi forces free 200 people from ISIL

Meanwhile, Iraqi army forces have freed scores of people who had been im-prisoned by the ISIL terrorist group near the embattled northern city of Mosul.

The Iraqi Army Brigade 72 and Division 15 of Nineveh Operations Command lib-erated 200 people, including families and children, in the villages of al-Haj Ali and Mahana, which lie around 70 kilome-ters (45 miles) southeast of Mosul and in the vicinity of the town of Makhmour.

The development came on the same day as Iraqi fighter jets struck ISIL po-sitions west of al-Siniya district in the northern province of Salahuddin (Saladin Governorate) as well as the outskirts of the oil-rich city of Baiji, killing scores of the extremists and destroying their ex-plosive-laden vehicles.

Separately, Iraqi army troopers backed by fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units thwarted an ISIL offensive against the city of al-Saqlawiyah, located 50 kilo-meters (31 miles) west of the capital. Sev-eral ISIL terrorists were reportedly killed and a car bomb destroyed in the process.

Also, ISIL terrorist group has execut-ed nearly four dozen of its members in the western province of Anbar on charg-es of fleeing the battlefield.

A local source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said ISIL terrorists killed 45 fellow militants in Mosul by forcing them to sleep in forensic storage refrigerators for 24 hours. ISIL terrorists then placed the victims’ bodies at the entrance of houses across the city.

The source added that the slain ter-rorists were accused of escaping clashes with Iraqi government forces in the city of Hit, which lies 70 kilometers (43 miles) northwest of Anbar’s provincial capital city of Ramadi.

Mines kill dozens as Iraqis head back to Ramadi

Elsewhere, mines laid by ISIL terrorist group have killed dozens of Iraqis return-ing to the liberated city of Ramadi in the western province of Anbar.

UN officials said on Friday that explo-sives still unexploded across Ramadi keep claiming lives in the town four months af-ter its recapture from ISIL.

That comes despite repeated warn-ings by local officials that civilians should take precautionary measures as most of Ramadi remains unsafe. Tens of thou-sands have flocked to their homes mostly following calls by political and religious figures whom the central government accuses of seeking financial gain by launching reconstruction projects before others.

In its latest estimates, the UN said 49 people have been killed and 79 others wounded in Ramadi since the beginning of February.

“The UN is deeply worried about the safety of returning families and the widespread infestation of many neigh-borhoods with unexploded devices and booby traps,” Lise Grande, UN humani-tarian coordinator in Iraq, said, adding that figures provided by the authorities are “almost certainly an underestimation”.

The official demanded the govern-ment to accelerate efforts meant to clear areas in Ramadi as quickly as possible “using the most up-to-date, modern and professional methods”.

Lacking enough expertise for defusing the explosives, Iraq has contracted sev-eral foreign companies, including a U.S. de-mining company, to remove explo-sives and train Iraqis to dismantle the de-vices planted by ISIL terrorists in Ramadi.

Reports by eyewitnesses say ISIL has littered Ramadi’s streets with bombs, while explosives are also planted in res-idences, including under rugs and other fixtures.

(Source: agencies)

16.7 million tons of steel ingots produced

TRHRAN — Iran produced 16.7 million tons steel ingots during the last Iranian

year (ended 19 March), Iranian Steel Producers Association announced.

According to the report of public relations of Iranian Mines & Mining Industries Development & Renovation (IMIDRO), Iranian Steel Producers Association announced that coun-try’s steel producer firms during the last Iranian year pro-duced 16 million and 708 thousand tons crude steel which decreased 0.57 percent compared to the preceding year (18 million and 805 thousand tons ).

Also, during the mentioned period 15 million and 284 thousand tons of steel products (Girder, Rebar, Steel sheets, and other steel products) were produced.

Regarding to the weak demand of the market, steel pro-ducers reduced their production about 7 percent compared to the preceding year.

In the last month of the preceding year (started on 20 February) steel producer firms produced 1 million and 337 thousand tons crude steel and 1 million and 237 thousand tons steel products which compared to the same time of the preceding year increased 1.2 percent and decreased 2 per-cent respectively.

9 killed, 25 injured in Iraq Shia mosque bomb blast

Iraqi forces free 200 people from ISIL south of Mosul

1 As Iran’s Supreme Leader Aya-tollah Ali Khamenei has stated, “Certain powers, the United States in particular, are neither sincere nor serious in the campaign against terrorism.”

Mistrust between Iran on the one hand and the U.S.-GCC on the other has historically been deep — and mutual. Due to the multiple unprecedented crises raging in the region, it will be impossible to secure peace and stability without co-operation among all key regional players —particularly the GCC states and Iran.

One idea that has been floated by the GCC is a possible NATO-GCC partner-ship. This is an imprudent approach. In fact, to pursue such a coalition with the aim of isolating Iran has been proven as a failed strategy.

The GCC is an entity which was de-signed to counter Iranian influence. Meanwhile, the West has for decades also done all it could in terms of coercive pol-icies to marginalize Iran. Indeed, the GCC and Western states supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in 1980, and his use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and civilians. Moreover, Western powers have engaged in covert war and imposed the most draconian sanctions

regime against Iran. Yet the outcome of this has been that Iran has emerged as the most stable and powerful country in the region, while the GCC states are fal-tering in virtually every conceivable way.

Obama has contended that one op-tion to solve regional discord is for Iran and Saudi Arabia to find a way to share the region. “The competition between the Saudis and the Iranians — which has helped to feed proxy wars and chaos in Syria, Iraq and Yemen — requires us to say to our friends as well as to the Ira-nians that they need to find an effective way to share the neighborhood and insti-tute some sort of cold peace,” he recently told The Atlantic. Riyadh has up until now rejected coming to such a settlement with Iran, even as, an Iranian official re-cently told Al-Monitor, the United States has sought to bolster Saudi Arabia polit-ically and militarily in order to encourage it to reconcile with Iran — an approach that the official framed as a major U.S. concession. In a recent op-ed blasting Obama, Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former head of Saudi intelligence, revealed that Saudi Arabia’s goal is in fact to be in a “leadership role in the Arab and Islam-ic world,” an aggressive ambition Faisal

wants the United States to continue un-derwriting. It is clear that Saudi Arabia is not seeking coexistence with Iran. Rath-er, even as it accuses Iran of pursuing a hegemonic regional strategy, it is itself openly seeking hegemony over the en-tire Islamic world — a dream that is dan-gerously destabilizing and impossible to attain or sustain.

A realistic scenario for Obama is to forgo concepts of “hegemony” and “balance of power” and instead work toward establishing a sustainable re-gional cooperation system that includes Iran, the GCC states and Iraq. Such a system could be modeled after the Organization for Security and Cooper-ation in Europe and the integration Eu-rope has experienced since the end of World War II. The mechanism to initiate the process toward realizing this sys-tem already exists. UN Security Council Resolution 598, which was adopted on July 20, 1987, and laid the basis for the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, re-quests of the UN secretary-general “to examine, in consultation with Iran and Iraq and with other states of the region, measures to enhance the security and stability of the region.” By adopting a

new resolution, the UN Security Council can revive this mandate.

Moreover, the model that resolved the Iranian nuclear dispute can be used: negotiations mediated by the five per-manent members of the Security Council plus Germany (P5+1). The foreign min-isters of the P5+1 could negotiate with the foreign ministers of Iran, the six GCC states and Iraq on a new security struc-ture for the Persian Gulf. They would work toward a scenario in which the two re-gional powerhouses — Iran and Saudi Arabia — would engage in cooperation rather than confrontation, to overcome the challenges of the post-Sykes-Picot and Cold War eras. To achieve this ob-jective, greater flexibility in the United States’ relationship with the GCC as well as Iran is essential, and it would not only help end the Saudi-Iran cold war, but also the hot wars elsewhere in the region. A regional cooperation system in the Per-sian Gulf that regionalizes the burden of ensuring security, access to energy sup-plies and freedom of navigation is abso-lutely vital and would greatly benefit the cause of global peace and security. Now, more than ever, is the time for coopera-tion rather than confrontation.

How Obama can push the Saudis to talk to Iran

Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has dispatched forces to the Gaza Strip’s frontier with Egypt in a confidence-build-ing measure aimed at boosting security in the border area, officials say.

Hamas General Hussain Abu Aadrah said on Thursday that four battalions were deployed along the 13-kilometer border “at Egypt’s request.”

The military official added that the measure was aimed at strengthening “positive neighborly relations.”

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri also said the deployment came as part of an agreement reached with Egyptian officials last month.

“This emphasizes the Palestinian stand to tighten security on the border and nothing that harms Egypt will come out of Gaza,” he added.

An Egyptian security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, also said that the deployment was part of an agreement, under which Hamas stops building underground tunnels con-necting the Israeli-besieged territory to

Egypt, and Cairo, in return, reopens the Rafah border crossing.

Hamas-Egypt ties have been tense in recent years as Cairo accuses the Pal-estinian resistance group of backing the militants in Sinai Peninsula, an allegation strongly rejected by Hamas.

The underground tunnels are used by residents of Gaza to transfer essential supplies, including food and fuel, into the Israeli-blockaded coastal sliver.

Israeli and the Egyptian army forces have, however, launched a campaign to destroy the tunnels.

Dozens of people, mostly Palestinians, have lost their lives during the destruction process, which has intensified since Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, Mo-hamed Morsi, was toppled in a July 2013 military coup. The Rafah border crossing, which is Gazans’ only way of access to the outside world free from Israel’s con-trol, has been also shut by Egypt, further complicating the humanitarian situation in the coastal enclave.

Over the past year, Cairo has also

demolished thousands of homes on the Egyptian side of Rafah to create a buffer zone near Gaza.

Israel building new wall near Lebanese border

Elsewhere, Israel is walling off an area in the Upper Galilee near the Lebanese border and the Israeli-occupied side of Golan, citing what it claims are security threats from Lebanon’s Hezbollah move-ment.

Israeli regime officials claim the wall is meant to prevent the potential entry of Hezbollah resistance fighters to con-duct attacks. Israel waged two wars on Lebanon in 2000 and 2006. About 1,200

Lebanese, most of them civilians, lost their lives during the 33-day war in the summer of 2006.

Major General Yair Golan, Israel’s dep-uty chief of staff, said on Wednesday that Hezbollah had developed capabilities that present “unprecedented” threats to Israel.

In 2012, a similar wall was set up by Tel Aviv near the Lebanese town of Metulla. The recent wall construction came two days after the Israeli army started a military drill in the northern occupied territories. The military exercise reportedly involved large numbers of Israeli aircraft, vehicles and army troops. The Israeli army also held a two-day general drill in and around the northern city of Safed on the weekend.

The latest development came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanya-hu on Sunday ruled out any possibility of returning the Israeli-occupied section of the Golan Heights to Syria.

Iran, Germany, the Arab League and the United States joined Syria in rejecting Tel Aviv’s claim over the occupied Golan Heights. (Source: Press TV)

Hamas deploys forces to Gaza-Egypt border

Trump on Clinton: ‘Now I’m going to say she’s not qualified’ United States Republican presidential front-runner presiden-tial Donald Trump on Thursday picked up a recent spat be-tween the Democratic candidates and said he thinks Hillary Clinton is not qualified for the presidency.

At a rally in Harrisburg, Pa., Trump said he would like Bernie Sanders to continue his battle with Clinton over the Democratic presidential nomination.

“He’s been tough on her,” he said. “In fact, I’d like him to keep going. The longer he goes the more I’m going to like it.”

Trump then rehashed a recent clash between the two Democrats over qualifications, first saying that he thinks Clin-ton is qualified for the job and then switching positions.

“[Sanders] said she suffers from bad judgment and she said - now I don’t know, I think she’s qualified, I guess. But that doesn’t mean she’s good,” Trump said. “He said she’s not qualified to be president. Now what he meant is be-cause her judgment is so bad- so Bernie Sanders, not me, said she’s not qualified. So now I’m going to say: She’s not qualified, OK?”

“We have all of the mistakes Hillary made as secretary of State,” Trump continued. “We have a mess. The war in Iraq has been devastating. We have probably spent $4 trillion in the Middle East.”

But Trump said he would prefer facing Clinton in a general election because of her past political subterfuge.

“Now Bernie’s over, I guess,” the Republican presidential front-runner said. “It’s over for Bernie. I don’t want to run against Bernie. I want to run against crooked Hillary Clinton. We are going to beat her so badly. Is there anyone more crooked than this woman?”

Clinton defeated Sanders in New York’s Democratic presi-dential on Tuesday, dealing his Oval Office bid a major blow.

She leads Sanders by just over 1 point nationwide, but boasts 741 delegates more than her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Clinton’s delegate total includes 1,428 delegates and 502 superdelegates, versus Sanders’s 1,151 delegates and 38 super-delegates. At least 2,382 delegates are needed for avoiding a contested Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia next July. Superdelegates (in the Democratic Party) is an unelected delegate who is free to support any candidate for the presiden-tial nomination at the party’s national convention.

(Source: The Hill)

APRIL 23, 2016

Pakistan police arrest alleged al-Qaeda financierPakistani police on Friday said they had arrested an al-Qaeda financier who has been on the United Nations Security Coun-cil sanction lists for four years.

Abdur Rehman alias Abdul Rehman Sindhi, who was ar-rested on Thursday in Karachi, was placed on the UN sanc-tion list in 2012 for providing financial services to al-Qaeda.

Individuals on the list are subject to a freeze on their as-sets, travel ban and arms embargo.

He was arrested during a joint operation of police and in-telligence agencies in a congested residential quarter, Muqa-ddas Haider, a senior police officer told AFP.

Rehman is believed to have met al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden and his successor Ayman al-Zawahiri several times.

He also had close links with Saud Memon, a key suspect in the kidnap and murder of United States journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.

Rehman was a member of various Pakistan-based militant organizations before joining al-Qaeda.

He served as a member of Al-Akhtar Trust, a banned charity, Jaish-e-Mohammed (The Army of Mohammed), and Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (Islamic Jihad Movement), all of which have also been proscribed internationally. (Source: AFP)

1 There are numerous instances to support the above mentioned stance with Saudi Arabia’s reaction to the nuclear deal Iran clinched with Western powers as a case in point.

There is no doubt that the Obama administration struck a best deal with Iran and likewise, President Rou-hani has turned Iran into a unique opportunity in inter-national arena. But Obama’s lack of strict and defined policy towards Arabs after the JCPOA has made them more ambitious over the past two years.

This lapse in Obama’s foreign policy has embold-ened Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir to deliver the

threat to Americans to withdraw a colossal $750-billion investment from the U.S.

Although this is by no means nothing new and U.S. intelligence services already in 2005 and 2006 un-leashed similar reports, the very threatening figure indi-cates unambiguously that how picking up a wrong ally forced the U.S. to bow down to Saudis at the price of Americans’ national security.

Washington has to explain to the world the reason for its silence and secrecy, revealing what else it has kept under its hat when it comes to its ties with Saudis.

It is not yet clear what exactly was on the agenda

during Obama’s Riyadh visit; however, one can be pretty sure it makes no difference. When Arabs are going to attend Obama’s goodbye party in less than 9 months from now, what can be expected from the visit except a genial sitting with the outgoing president?

A senior French diplomat in Berlin once quoted a Saudi official as saying that they will complain to Obama of what he did to Saudis. The French dip-lomat then asked the Saudi diplomat if he is sure the next U.S. president will be better than Obama, in reply to which he had said anybody other than Obama will be OK.

Arabs taking U.S. national security hostage

Every action has a reaction. We have one planet; one chance.

S O C I E T Yd e s k

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

S O C I E T Y h t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m / s o c i e t yAPRIL 23, 2016APRIL 23, 201610

TEHRAN — Top re-ligious scholars in

Qom have commended the Ministry of Health for its good services since Has-san Qazizadeh Hashemi took over the portfolio, asking similar steps by other bodies as well, IRNA reported on Friday.

Grand Ayatollahs Naser Makarem Shi-razi, Lotfollah Safi Golpaygani, Hossein Vahid Khorasani, Abdul-Karim Mousavi Ardebili, Hossein Noori Hamedani, Ab-dollah Javadi-Amoli, Mousa Shubairi Zanjani, Ja’far Sobhani and Mohammad

Alavi Gorgani extended their thanks to Qazizadeh Hashemi during separate meetings for his successful efforts.

Ayatollah Vahid Khorasani appreciat-ed Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as well, stating both ministers have put lots of efforts in bringing the coun-try’s problems under control.

The health minister travelled to the city of Qom on Wednesday afternoon to meet with grand ayatollahs and pay visit to a health center in Jamkaran Mosque.

Grand ayatollahs laud health minister for efficient services

IN FOCUS Tehran Times/ Maryam Qarehgozlou

TEHRAN — On Thursday, the Irani-

an Pediatrics Society praised promi-nent politician, academic, and pedi-atrics specialist Ali Akbar Velayati for 37 years of endless efforts, IRNA re-ported.

Velayati served as the foreign minis-ter for sixteen years from 1981 to 1997. Currently he is a senior advisor to the Supreme Leader.

During a ceremony which was held to pay tribute to late Dr. Mohammad Qarib - a pioneer of pediatrics in Iran - Velayati was also honored for his life-time achievements.

Velayati, who was doctor Qarib’s student, also presented his article on the role of vitamin D in prevention and treatment of tuberculosis.

The article is the result of a 2-year research conducted on 73 children in Tehran’s Masih Daneshvari Hospital.

Velayati praised for 37 years of endless efforts

Air quality index shows great improvement with 10 days of excellent and 21 days of good air quality in the first Iranian calendar month of Farvardin (March 21-April 20) compared to the same month in the past four years.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking. Marcus Aurelius

Settle for

Meaning: accept something not quite satisfactory For example: I was hoping for a better proposal but I’ll

settle for the amount you offer.

P H R A S A L V E R B

E N G L I S H P R O V E R B

QUIZ OF THE DAY143) One word is missing in the sentence below. Find this word.You shouldn't live memories of your childhood.(Quiz No. 142 missing word is: *The* young boy)

Clothes don’t make the man Explanation: appearances can be deceiving

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TEHRAN — Twins, triplets, and oth-er multiples from across the coun-

try will come together for the sixth consecutive year to hold a celebration in Tehran’s Azadi stadium on May 12.

The great and joyous celebration will be concur-rent with setting a Guinness World Record for the biggest assembly of twins and other multiples.

The gathering will be attended by celebrities and all multiple births either identical or fraternal

from all aging groups are welcome to participate nationwide.

Those who are interested can refer to the website irtwins.com to find more information and register to join the celebration.

Iranian twins, multiples to hold 6th annual celebration

1 Citing numerous examples of the generosity of the Iranian government, Okoth-Obbo said, “For over 30 years, Iran has demonstrated a humanitarian commit-ment to protect millions of refugees. This is heart-warm-ing, particularly at a time when 60 million people are forcibly displaced worldwide.”

During his mission to Iran, Okoth-Obbo met with senior officials of the ministries of foreign affairs, interior, educa-tion, health, and labor. He also had the opportunity to inter-act with Afghan communities, key partners and the diplo-matic community and visit refugee centers, schools, health centers and other facilities that provide services to refugees.

Okoth-Obbo praised the high quality of healthcare offered to refugees on par with Iranian nationals. He not-ed that the inclusion of refugees in Iran’s Universal Public Health Insurance scheme is exemplary. He called for efforts to stabilize this initiative and committed UNHCR’s support to the government towards this scheme.

In relation to education of refugees, he commended the Iranian government for providing refugee children’s access to Iranian schools. In particular, he recognized the critical importance of the Supreme Leader’s decree that allowed for children of undocumented families to attend

schools in the country. Okoth-Obbo pledged UNHCR’s support in easing the

pressure that the educational system will face as they enroll even more children.

He stressed that refugees can be an asset to their host country, while recognizing that the government and UNHCR have provided vocational training and created jobs to ensure that refugees, especially vulnerable wom-en, become self-reliant.

He added that these skills would help them through-

out their lives, in Iran and also when they return back to their country.

In this context, he reaffirmed UNHCR’s commitment to Iran and the Afghan refugees, saying the Solutions Strat-egy for Afghan Refugees (SSAR) - the quadripartite re-gional framework between the governments of the Islamic Republics of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran together with UNHCR – continues to be the main framework for joint interventions aimed at facilitating voluntary return and sustainable reintegration of Afghan refugees in Afghani-stan while simultaneously providing assistance to refugee hosting communities.

Okoth-Obbo also thanked the government and people of Iran for the support provided to some 30,000 Iraqi ref-ugees who have been residing here for decades, and for ensuring they have access to services in the country.

Expressing his appreciation for his visit to Iran, the UN-HCR official said, “I remain confident that the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue providing asy-lum space to the refugees and with the existing good re-lationship between the government and UNHCR, they will do the necessary to best overcome the existing challenges and address the protection issues related to the refugees.”

Undocumented Afghans in Iran outnumber registered ones, UNHCR official says L E A R N E N G L I S H

Training Salespeople Our company brought in a consultant to do sales training for our store. For some reason, we’d been getting some com-plaints from customers. Consultant: My job in this training is to help your store improve its customer satisfaction, so that it can attract and retain more customers. When you interact with customers, you repre-sent this store. It is very important that, from the get-go, cus-tomers are greeted in a friendly and positive way. Employee: Sometimes, people are really rude. They don’t even say “hello” back. Consultant: That may be true, but it’s still your job to make them feel welcomed. Each customer should feel that a salesperson is attentive and trying to meet their needs. Employee: Some of them don’t even know what they want. They wander around and waste our time. Consultant: Part of your job is to help them define their needs, offer them options, and lead them to a decision. I know that you’re not working on commission, but this is a very important part of your job. Employee: You mean I have to hold their hand the whole time they’re in the store? Who am I, their mother? Consultant: I can see that we have a lot of work to do. Let’s get started.

(Source: eslpod.com) Words & phrases

consultant: someone whose job is to give advice on a particular subjectsales training: coaching in sales methods, product knowledge, and account handling given to a sales representative by another more experienced salesperson, a sales manager or a specialist sales trainercomplaint: a statement in which someone says that they are an-noyed, not satisfied, or unhappy about something or someoneretain: to keep something or continue to have somethinginteract: if people interact with each other, they talk to each other, work together etc.represent: to show or ?describe something or someonethe get-go: the very beginninggreet: to say hello to someone or welcome themrude: speaking or behaving in a way that is not polite and is likely to offend or annoy people; impoliteback: if you do something back, you do it as a reply or reaction to what someone has said or doneattentive: making sure someone has everything they needmeet somebody’s needs: provide something that people want or needwander around: to stroll or amble around without any purpose evident; to roam arounddefine: explain, describecommission: an extra amount of money that is paid to a person or organization according to the value of the goods they have sold or the services they have provided

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TEHRAN — 2,800 dental care centers

will get off the ground by March 2017, Health Minister Hassan Qa-zizadeh-Hashemi said on Wednes-day.

“By setting this plan in motion the dental care coverage will be expanded up to 25 percent,” he was quoted by IRNA news agency as saying.

“Besides, 8 million elementa-ry schoolers will be provided with cavity preventive measures which will last up to high school,” the minister added.

Mentioning high costs of den-tal care services, he regretted the

fact that merely 7 percent of the services in this sector are covered with insurances while 80 percent of surgical and other health care services are being done in public hospitals.

TEHRAN — Irani-an Hekmat Pajouhan

Company and South Korean ViroMed Company inked a memorandum of under-standing to boost cooperation on tradition-al medicine, Tasnim news agency reported.

Iran’s government fully supports tra-ditional medicine and aims to commer-cialize it, said Mahmoud Khodadoust, director general for Islamic-traditional medicine office of the Health Ministry during a meeting with Professor Kim Sun-Young of Seoul National University and the founding CEO of ViroMed.

Professor Kim also delivered a speech on botanical products and their functions with the universities chairmen in attendance.

Hekmat Pajouhan Company is a

knowledge-based firm affiliated with Teh-ran University of Medical Sciences.

ViroMed, a leading biopharmaceutical company focusing on the development of innovative medicine, was established in 1996 and is headquartered in Seoul.

Iranian, Korean firms ink MOU on traditional medicine

2,800 dental care centers to kick off by March 2017, says health minister

The health minister is paying visit to Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi (right)

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Okoth-Obbo commended the Iranian government for

providing refugee children access to Iranian schools. In particular,

he recognized the critical importance of the Supreme Leader’s decree that allowed

for children of undocumented families to attend schools.

Kim Sun-YoungMahmoud Khodadoust

Persepolis football team edged past rele-

gated Esteghlal Ahvaz in the in the 27th week of Iran Professional at Ahvaz’s Takhti Stadium on Friday.

Honduran Jerry Bengtson scored twice to guarantee the three points for the red giants. He scored the first in the 55th minute with a great header then he made it 2-0 from the penalty spot in the 86th minute.

Persepolis remains on top with 51 points while Esteghlal Ahvaz relegation to the Azadegan league confirmed.

Elsewhere, Esteghlal Khuzestan held to a goalless draw against Gostaresh Foolad in Tabriz, Malavan beat Saipa 3-2 and Rah Ahan beat Padideh 3-1.

This week’s competitions will continue on Saturday with three games on Sun-day. Zob Ahan hosts Saba in Isfahan, Siah Jamegan meet Tractor Sazi in Mashhad while Sepahan will take on Naft in Tehran.

Terek Grozny Iranian defender Milad Mohammadi believes that he will trans-

fer to Europe’s top leagues in two years.“Team’s head coach believes in me and put me in the

starting lineup for our last game in the league. I’m trying hard in the trainings as my ultimate goal is to play for big teams in Europe. I think I need one or two years to improve then I will be playing in Europe’s top leagues,” Mohammadi said.

The Iranian international lauds Team Melli coach Car-

los Queiroz as he invited him to national team for the first time.

“Queiroz is a brilliant coach who could bring glory for us. He first gave me the chance to play for Team Melli and I believe if he remains as Iran coach we can qualify for the World Cup. Iran has drawn in a tough group in World Cup qualifying and we need to work hard in order to book a place in Russia, he added.

Mohammadi signed a three year contract with Terek Grozny in February 2016.

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) extends its deep-est sympathies to the family and friends of Iranian football player Mehrdad Oladi who passed away on Tuesday at the age of 30.

Oladi started his career at Persepolis in 2003 before transferring to Dubai club Al Shabab for a season.

He also plied his trade for Iranian Pro League giants Naft Tehran and Esteghlal, with the latter releasing him in 2014 before he joined Malavan.

Oladi made his debut for the IR Iran senior team against China, going on to amass 13 caps for Team Melli,

scoring his solitary goal against Bahrain in the 6th West Asian Football Federation Championship.

Players of Iranian clubs Zobahan and Foolad Mobar-akeh Sepahan will wear a black armband as a mark of respect for the late Oladi during their AFC Champions League Group Stage matches against Saudi Arabia’s Al Nassr and Al Ittihad respectively on Wednesday evening.

The thoughts and prayers of the AFC and the rest of the Asian football community are with the family and friends of Oladi.

(Source: AFC)

Cesc Fabregas has said that he "forgot how to play football" in the final months of Jose Mourinho's reign as Chelsea manager.

Mourinho left Stamford Bridge for the second time in December, having presided over a disastrous first half of the season and what technical director Michael Emenalo described as "palpable discord" between the players and management.

Fabregas was forced to publicly deny reports that he had actively worked to undermine Mourinho in the manager's final weeks, and was one of several play-ers booed by Chelsea supporters during a 3-1 home win over Sunderland days after the manager's sacking.

Earlier this week Fabregas said that he remains on good terms with Mourinho, and he insists that his poor performances from August to December were the result of a

crisis of confidence."There was a moment after the

Bournemouth game where I was in bed. I was so disappointed, so sad, and I said to my wife: 'I just forgot how to play foot-ball,'" Fabregas told Goal.

"It wasn't me out there. You have the ball

and you don't know what to do with it."Those two or three months were hard. I

wasn't feeling confident at all."Fabregas has come closer to redis-

covering his best form since the arrival of interim manager Guus Hiddink in Decem-ber, and the Spain international says he is far more satisfied with his performances in recent months.

"Thank God everything changed," he added. "The last three or four months I've been playing very well.

"The most important thing is not how low you get, it's how you stand up to it and how strong you can be to get back to your best. Hopefully I can be even better from now until the end of the season."

Hiddink has committed to giving op-portunities to younger players as Chelsea see out the final weeks of the most disap-

pointing season of the Roman Abramov-ich era, with top academy prospect Ruben Loftus-Cheek starting the Blues' last three Premier League matches.

Fabregas is impressed with Lof-tus-Cheek's physical maturity and shares Chelsea's optimism that the 20-year-old is capable of maturing into a key figure at Stamford Bridge.

"Only he can say that he can become a big player and he can show it by proving he is good enough," Fabregas told Goal.

"He has the quality for sure. He is strong -- he doesn't seem to be physically 20, he seems like he's 28 physically.

"So now he just has to show technically how he is capable of playing and show his qualities on the pitch -- but definitely he can be one to look out for in the future."

(Source: ESPN)

I will be playing in Euorpe’s top league in two years, says Milad Mohammadi

AFC condoles passing of Iran’s Mehrdad Oladi

Chelsea's Cesc Fabregas: I forgot how to play football during Mourinho reign

S P O R T Sh 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 s APRIL 23, 2016APRIL 23, 2016 11I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

F O O T B A L LIran’s path to Russia: An analysisTeam Meli’s path to Russia was drawn up last Tuesday in Kuala Lampur at the Asian Football Confederation’s headquarters. The results left many, if not most Team Meli fans quite pleased with the draw which seemingly avoided much more “non football re-lated/off the field issues” (as head coach Carlos Queiroz would put it) by not falling into the same group as Saudi Arabia.

The group looks very similar to the group Iran topped in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers – 3 of the 5 opponents Team Meli will face (Korea Republic, Uzbekistan, and Qatar) were grouped with Iran on their road to Brazil.

Following the draw, the coaches of the 12 teams shared their thoughts on the challenges they will face go-ing forward and who they see as the favorites to qualify. Anyone familiar with Carlos Queiroz was not surprised to hear him dub Korea Repub-lic and Qatar as the favorites ahead of Iran. The former Real Madrid and Portugal manager is known for being a bit too humble at times with an inten-tion to create a mind game.

While Queiroz wouldn’t admit this himself, it is clear that his agenda is to manipulate the opposition, alleviate pressure from his team, while at the same time putting pressure on the Irani-an Football Federation to create better conditions for the team, players, and staff – an ongoing problem Queiroz has voiced over the last 5 years he’s spent in Iran. Meanwhile, Qatar head coach Jose Daniel Carreno, Korea Republic head coach Uli Stielike and China assistant coach Ou Chuliang all acknowledged Iran as one of the favorites to advance. Not really a surprise comment to be made about the #1 ranked Asian team, however, World Cup qualification has always been a tricky thing for Team Meli to han-dle – no matter the route they’re faced with.

The 5 opponents will all present different challenges in dif-ferent environments over the course of the next 18 months and as proven in the past, Team Meli will have to be on top of their game if they hope to advance to Russia. With the growing level of competition in Asian football, easy 3 points is becoming a harder thing to come across and not as easy for fans to demand.

Korea Republic – one of the most intense rivalries in Asian football has been between Iran and Korea Republic, especially over the last 20 years. The two sides had a very heated exchange en route to Brazil when Choi Kang-Hee came out accusing Iran of being bad hosts for not providing their team with better training pitches, hotel, services, etc. during their trip to Tehran in October of 2012 – falling 1-0 to Iran in Azadi stadium. He followed up his criti-cisms by saying he had hoped that Uzbekistan qualify for the world cup instead of Iran. Iran would go on to win 1-0 again, this time in Ulsan, and qualify for the 2014 world cup in Brazil as the top team in their group (only the second time in Iran’s history that they were able to qualify as the first placed team in their group).

Korea Republic looked for redemption when they came back to Tehran in late 2014 prior to the Asian Cup and lost by that seemingly reoccurring 1-0 margin yet again. While it is clear that Iran has created a little winning streak, it is certain that Korea has been growing hungrier and hungrier for a victory against the #1 ranked team in Asia and is the most likely opponent to cause problems for Team Meli on their journey to Russia.

Most South Korean fans will say their team went through a bit of a rough patch in the 2014 world cup qualifiers and the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, however, Uli Stielike’s team looked re-juvenated in Australia last January when the Koreans finished as runner up in the 2015 Asian Cup. Expectations may be high given Iran’s recent dominance, however, any rational Team Meli fan would probably agree that 3 points over the two matches is probably most likely what they’ll walk away with, anything more would be a great success.

Players to watch out for: Son Heung Min (Tottenham), Ki Seung Yung (Swansea), Kim Shin Wook (Jeounbuk Hyundai)

Uzbekistan – Similarly to Korea, the White Wolves will be very hungry for a victory against Team Meli. A dramatic home loss and an encouraging away win against Iran in the 2014 edition of world cup qualifiers proved Uzbekistan to be a tough side that plays to win, always going for the 3 points. The two sides last met in June of 2015 in a friendly match which Iran won 1-0 thanks to a stoppage time goal from Mehdi Torab in the dying moments of the game.

The team has a good track record of scoring a significant por-tion of their goals on set pieces and has no shortage of players capable from converting their chances when given open space around the 18. That being said, the Team Meli defense will need to be very tight against the Uzbeks who will give it everything they’ve got to go for the 3 points both in Tehran and in Tashkent. Any out-come in these two matches are realistic – Team Meli fans should be happy if they can manage to come away with 4 points, although 3 may be just as likely between the two matches.

Players to watch out for: Odil Akmedov (FC Krasnodar), Serv-er Djeparov (Lokomtiv Tashkent), Vitaly Denisov (Lokomtiv Moscow)

Qatar – In the 2014 qualifiers they managed to hold Iran to a 0-0 draw and made it very hard for Team Meli to pull out a 1-0 win in Doha in their second encounter of the final qualifica-tion phase. The Persian Gulf country looked to be even hungri-er for a win during the 2015 Asian Cup tournament and again made it very difficult for Iran to scrap the 3 points from them – it took a moment of brilliance from Sardar Azmoun to defeat Qa-tar in their group A clash in Australia.

While their domestic league (and as well as their national team) has had the luxury of having boat loads of money invest-ed into it with top of the line facilities, high-profile foreign players & coaches, and many naturalized citizens brought in to play for their national team, they have still failed to assert themselves as a top Asian side. Despite the lack of accomplishments Qatar may have, they certainly always make it difficult for Iran to come away with 3 points – something Queiroz is more than aware of. We can surely expect a cautious approach to these matches similar to what we have seen in the past. 4 to 6 points should be attain-able between the two matches against Qatar in the final phase.

Players to watch out for: Sebastian Soria (Al Rayyan), Has-san Al-Haidos (Al Sadd), Mohammed Kaola (Al Sadd)

(to be continued tomorrow)

S P O R T Sd e s k

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S P O R T Sd e s k

Persepolis edges past relegated Persepolis edges past relegated Esteghlal Ahvaz to remain on topEsteghlal Ahvaz to remain on top

Iran’s wheelchair basketball team has been drawn along with USA in Group B of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

Iran was drawn with London 2012 Paralympic bronze medallist and 2014 World Championship runner-up the USA, host Brazil, Britain, Germany and Algeria.

In the 12-team men’s tournament,

Spain has been drawn with defend-ing Paralympic champion Canada, Paralympic silver medallists and back-to-back world champion Australia, Turkey, the Netherlands and Japan in Group A.

The event will take place on Sep-tember 7-18 at the Olympic Training Center and the Rio Olympic Arena.

(Source: Tasnim)

Sepahan football team has appointed

Qasem Zaghinejad as the care taker un-til the end of the season.

Sepahan coach Igor Stimac resigned from his post after suffering a 4-0 loss to Saudi Arabian Al Ittihad on wednesday.

The Iranian football team was defeat-ed against Saudi Arabian Al Ittihad 4-0 in the AFC Champions League Group

A at the Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium in Doha, Qatar.

Sepahan was knocked out of the competition.

Stimac replaced Hossein Faraki in November but was forced to withdraw from Isfahan-based team after a poor run of results.

Titleholder Sepahan is 11th in the Ira-nian Professional League.

Sepahan appoints Stimac’s assistant as the caretaker

Iran Wheelchair Basketball Drawn with USA at Rio 2016

b

No. 18, Bimeh Lane, Nejatollahi St., Tehran, IranP.o. Box: 14155-4843

Zip Code: 1599814713

I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Yh t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m / c u l t u r e

We, who are parts of Adam, heard with himThe song of angels and of seraphim.Out memory, though dull and sad, retainsSome echo still of those unearthly strains.

Rumi

Poem of the day

SINCE 1979Prayer Times

1 These two images became the two main characters in

the film - the father and son. What was the toughest part about making

“Norfolk” and what was the most rewarding?A: Without question, the toughest part is realizing

that the tiny budget you have cannot make the film that you’ve written.

I am incredibly proud of the script but when I glance back at it I am reminded of all the wonderful scenes and characters that we had to let go of. That is tough.

I always knew the budget, I thought I wrote the script knowing the budget, but I was naive in regards to the costs of shooting on the water and how many days we would actually get to shoot the film.

Always the greatest pleasure is being on set with the actors. Your words on paper come to life before your very eyes. This is very exciting.

How did the project change from your orig-inal idea to the final production?

A: As mentioned previously, the film is considerably different from the script. I wrote a script that was seventy pages long but the scene count was astronomical.

We had only twenty-two days to shoot something like six or seven or eight scenes per day. Something had to give.

How did your film find its way to the official section of the 34th Fajr International Film Festi-val?

A: I believe our international sales agent sold the film

to Iran at the European Film Market and, as a conse-quence, it was selected for Fajr.

What clear message do you expect the audi-ences receive after watching your film?

A: That simply communicating with one another is the key to understanding one another. Keeping thoughts and emotions locked inside leads to colossal misunder-standings. This might seem like an obvious point to

make but somehow it’s forgotten the world over. With all of your knowledge and experience,

what is the one lesson you would share with the novice filmmakers?

A: If you can’t please your soul then you can’t please yourself… Stay true to who you are. Do not mimic other filmmakers. Do not bend to fashion. This way your work will be unique. That is something special.

TEHRAN — A number of workshops were held at Tehran’s Charsu Cineplex

on Wednesday and Thursday, the first and second day of the 34th Fajr International Film Festival.

Filmmakers Majid Majidi and Asghar Farhadi, actor Reza Kianian, and cinematographer Mahmud Kalari held their workshops as part of the six-day workshop program entitled “Dar ul-Funun”, the Iranian polytechnic school established in 1851.

Over 100 students from Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Iran have registered for the workshop.

The workshop by Majidi began with screening part of the events that took place behind the scenes during the production of his blockbuster “Muhammad (S), the Messenger of God”, organizers of the festival reported in a press release on Friday.

He called the workshop a very good idea that helps discover young talents and proposed to the young film-makers that they should not surrender their thoughts and works.

“If you believe in your thoughts and use them on your own path, you will get connected to God and a new path will open up in front of you. When ‘Children of Heaven’ was seen (Iran’s first Oscar nomination in 1999), there was increased trust and I was able to make films more easily and leading to the production of ‘Muham-mad (S)’”, he told the participants.

Addressing the first-time filmmakers, Kianian in his workshop said, “If you have dominance over what you are doing and what you are saying, and before making

your film, you have formed it in your mind, with the con-fidence you have, no one can harm you as a first time filmmaker, since you are like a person who knows his house well. So even if (Thomas) Edison says the lamp of this house is not there, you will not agree since you know your house and exactly where the light switch of the house is located. But if you do not know what is going to happen, you will be afraid of every dark corner.”

Also in his workshop Kalari regarded photography a main factor of growth in different cinematic fields, and said, “The students of cinema must seriously follow pho-tography and need to seek their goals in entering the world of cinema.

“By taking photos, part of your mind will become more active and help train your mind to transfer three- dimensional images into two-dimensional virtual imag-es. This mind strengthening will be achieved in a hard

way, if you have not practiced. Therefore you need to go after photography, this way you will get something more than technical points.”

Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi also in his workshop recommended that the filmmakers should not make a film they do not like, even if they will be given the best world award. “We all have a short life and you should know what type of filmmaker you want to be. Do you want to enjoy filmmaking or you enjoy being a filmmaker. If you decide to enjoy being a filmmaker, then you will enjoy when your film appears on screen and receives awards.”

In addition, Claire Dobbin, the Australian script ad-visor/editor attended a meeting held at the Faculty of Cinema and Theater on Thursday.

Dobbin, who is working on screen projects based in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the Middle East, said that she believes the Middle East is part of the world that enjoys telling lots of stories. “For me the Middle East is of great significance because of its female screenwrit-ers.”

She added that the world is amazed by the cinema of Iran and Iranian films, and they are being paid due attention for they portray simple stories.

Addressing the students, she said that local stories are not heard anywhere and possess their own attrac-tiveness. She suggested that the students have confi-dence and narrate the stories rooted in their lives and countries in their own personal way, assuring them suc-cess.

The festival runs until April 25.

TEHRAN — Ali Na-sirian who portrayed

Masht Eslam in Iranian director Dariush Mehrjui’s acclaimed 1969 drama “The Cow”, has said that the crew’s motivation for creativity made the film a success.

Speaking before a screening of a re-stored version of the movie at the 34th Fajr International Film Festival on Wednes-day, Nasirian, 82, said none of the mem-bers of the cast, which was mostly hired from stage actors, signed any contract for the project.

“We all were young at that time and we wanted to work in cinema, and what led us our work was our sensation and excite-ment,” he stated.

“The Cow”, which is a forerunner of the Iranian New Wave cinema, is about Masht Hassan, who owns the only cow in a re-mote and desolate village.

While he is away, his cow, whom he treats as his own child, dies. Knowing the relationship between Masht Hassan and his cow, the villagers hastily dispose of the corpse, and when Masht Hassan returns, they tell him that his cow ran away. Dev-astated by the news, Masht Hassan starts to spend all his time in the barn eating hay and slowly begins to believe that he has become the cow.

Actor Reza Kianian, who is also the director of the convention center for the festival, spoke about the emergence of the Iranian New Wave cinema.

“In the 1970s, a great event occurred in Iranian cinema and it was the birth of the Iranian New Wave cinema,” he said.

“Of course, several films had been made in this genre and maybe we should call their producers the main fathers of the Iranian New Wave cinema, but the major current of the cinema began in the early years of the 1970s,” he added.

He said the filmmakers of the new wave could hire the actors of the Iranian cinema who were only able to play certain

characters.“Thus, they began to hire stage actors

who had the capability to appear in vari-ous roles,” he noted.

A poster for this year’s Fajr Internation-al Film Festival featuring a scene from “The Cow”.

The film won the International Federa-tion of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) Prize of the Venice Film Festival in 1971. It was the first award the Iranian motion picture industry ever received in an international event.

Noon:13:03 Evening: 20:03 Dawn: 4:49 (tomorrow) Sunrise: 6:20 (tomorrow)

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A scene from “Norfolk”

Fajr festival unveils bibliography of foreign books on Iranian cinema

TEHRAN — Iranian author and translator Hossein Laleh’s book “A

Bibliography of Foreign Works on Iranian Cinema” was unveiled during a meeting on the sidelines of the 34th Fajr International Film Festival on Thursday.

“The bibliography covers over eighty percent of the foreign publications about the Iranian cinema,” Laleh said at the meeting.

He expressed hope that some 200 more interna-tional dissertations and theses will be added to the next edition of the book.

The festival bringing together a vibrant lineup of movies, documentaries and shorts from around the globe will be running at Tehran’s Charsu Cineplex until April 25.

Asian cinema is focus of Fajr festival: official

Fajr festival to pay tribute to Farajollah Salahshur

Iranian kamancheh virtuoso to perform in Belgrade

Iranian Quran reciter honored at Kuwaiti competition

Moscow book exhibit explores 200 years of Russian Iranology

TEHRAN — Cinema Organization of Iran Director Hojjatollah Ayyubi

has said that the current edition of the Fajr International Film Festival turns the spot-

light on productions from Asian filmmakers. Ayyubi made the comments during a visit to the

Iranian Film Market on Wednesday and added, the festival’s selecting board chose films close to the view of Iranian cinema.

The festival’s Eastern Vista screens films from Asian and Muslim nations. Fifteen movies, including “Solo-mon” by Zaza Khalvashi from Georgia and “My Sister, the Pig Lady” by Jang Moon-il from South Korea, are competing in this category.

The Iranian Film Market running on the sidelines of the festival offers over 30 films from the latest Iranian productions.

TEHRAN — The 34th Fajr Inter-national Film Festival plans to

commemorate Farajollah Salahshur, the director of the TV series “Prophet Joseph (AS)”, who died of lung cancer in February, during a ceremony at the Charsu Cineplex on Sunday.

Indian actor Javed Jaffrey, who is a jury mem-ber of the Eastern Vista section of the festival, will deliver a speech.

TEHRAN — Iranian kamancheh virtuoso Shervin Mohajer is sched-

uled to perform today at Todo Mundo 5, an interna-tional music festival in Serbia.

The festival, which opened at the Belgrade Youth Center last Tuesday, will run until April 25.

Musicians from Portugal, Lebanon, Austria, Mac-edonia, Hungary and Bosnia are participating in the festival.

TEHRAN — Iranian Quran reciter Ebrahim Fallah Tabasom-Chehreh

won the third prize at the 7th Kuwait Competition for Memorization and Recital of the Holy Quran, the or-ganizers announced on Wednesday.

Quran reciters from 55 countries competed in the contest, which opened April 13.

TEHRAN — An exhibition display-ing books and articles published by

Russian Iranologists over the past two centuries is cur-rently underway at the Margarita Rudomino All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow.

Iranian cultural attaché Reza Maleki delivered a speech during the opening ceremony on Wednesday, the Persian service of IRAN reported.

The exhibit entitled “Iranology in Reflection of Books” runs for a month.

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Iranians observe Sadi National Day

TEHRAN — A large number of Iranian lit-

erati, aficionados of Persian literature, and some cultural officials came to-gether during a meeting held at the mausoleum of Persian poet Sadi in Shiraz on Wednesday to commemo-rate the Sadi National Day.

The meeting was highlighted by a concert by vocalist Alireza Qorba-ni, some short speeches, and several poem recitations.

Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, the government spokesman, also attend-ed the meeting.

A number of Iranian and Tajik litera-ti paid tribute to the highly celebrated poet during another program, which was held at the Tajikistan Academy Theater of Lakhuti in Dushanbe con-current with Iran’s Sadi National Day.

Sheikh Muslih od-Din Sadi Shirazi (C. 1213-1291) is one of the greatest figures of classical Persian literature, famous worldwide for his Bustan (The Orchard) and Gulistan (The Rose Gar-den).

“Norfolk” different from its script: director

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Cineastes hold workshops at Fajr festival

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Motivation for creativity made “The Cow” a success: actor

“The Cow” star Ali Nasirian speaks before a screening of the acclaimed 1969 drama by Iranian director Dariush Mehrjui during the 34th Fajr International Film Festival at Tehran’s Charsu Cineplex on April 20, 2016. (IRNA/Marzieh Musavi)