EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos (L) meeting Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli in Tehran on Monday

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E C O N O M Yd e s kIran urges UN, EU to help Afghan refugees go home after 4 decades

Syed Zafar MehdiJournalistfrom New Delhi

A R T I C L EReza Simbar

Professor of International Relations - University of Gilan

A R T I C L E

Adjustment of European package with Iran national interests

The Islamic Republic expects the Eu-ropean Authorities to put forward their package of proposals to save the

nuclear agreement between Tehran and the P5+1 from which the U.S. has withdrawn. Given the European Union’s promises on preserving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), it is necessary for the Iranian officials to examine the EU package of proposals carefully to see if it is in agreement with the national interests of our country. Given the extensive sanc-tions against Iran imposed by the United States, these proposals should be able to fulfil our interests, especially in cases like selling oil and petrochemical products.

Obviously, if the European govern-ments declare that they are not able to manage their companies on having trade relations with Iran, we can no longer speak of preserving the JCPOA by European governments.

The truth is that even before Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran, EU had not been able to meet our interests, let alone this time on which there remains but a name of the JCPOA. However, we’re still waiting for the Eu-ropean countries’ package of proposals to be reviewed by the experts.

One of the reasons that the European countries constantly change their decisions on JCPOA is that they’re commercially dependent on the United States. The fact is that the volume of trade relations between the U.S. and Europe is really high, while this volume between Europe and Iran is not so remarkable. Europeans are never going to choose us over the United States if they are to take side in this equation. They will definitely go to Washington, and their decision is based on their own interests. Another point to be regarded here is that Trump can’t accept that Eu-rope has more trade relations with Iran in the post-JCPOA period than that with the United States. Therefore, the U.S. President, in addition to other aspects, looks at this issue from the economic perspective. Trump intends to redefine sanctions by reaping more economic, commercial, security and political ben-efits from Iran. 1 3

By Farzad Farhadi

By Jalal HeiranniaTEHRAN — Political analyst Yuram Abdullah Weiler says Trump “is a man that sees no problem with taking advantage of someone in financial straits; a man that appears to completely lack the smallest iota of compassion for any human being outside of his family circle.”

“The pattern for Trump seems to be closer to Reagan: deregulation, higher military spending and tax cuts, particularly for the rich,” Weiler tells the Tehran Times.

This is the text of the interview: Is “Trumpism” a movement, or a school of

thought in the United States? Can the current president of the United States produce a political or philosophical doctrine in the area of American social and foreign policy?

A: To me Donald Trump has to be the most repugnant character so far to hold the U.S. presi-dency. Following his election and for quite some

time afterwards, I found it impossible to think of him as “president,” so I would simply refer to him as “the current occupant of the Oval Office.” Yet despite my revulsion, I forced myself to read Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal, in order to gain some insight into this flamboyant bully who now, to the alarm of most, is commander-in-chief of the world’s most lethal military.

As Trump discloses in his book, he loves to make deals for the sake of making deals. His entire life seems to revolve around this concept of making a deal, which for him seems to be more than making money. It is a strict zero-sum game where he wins and the others lose, but in the process, he is able to make the loser feel like it is a worthwhile bargain. This is a man who has evicted poor people from their apartments and converted the buildings into opulent, luxurious palaces for the ultra-rich. He is a man that sees no problem with taking advantage of someone

in financial straits; a man that appears to com-pletely lack the smallest iota of compassion for any human being outside of his family circle.

What kind of movement can such a man lead or what political doctrine can he leave behind? Perhaps looking at Trump’s deal on the former Commodore Hotel in New York in the late 1970s can yield insights for his handling of the presidency. Owned by the cash-strapped Penn Central Railroad, the famous hotel next to Grand Central Station in midtown Manhattan had deteriorated considerably from its heydays, and young Trump saw an opportunity to make a mint. Being close to then New York City mayor Abe Beame, Trump managed to get promises for huge tax breaks from the city even before he was able to come up with the cash to secure his option to buy the hotel from the bankrupt railroad. To date, Trump has received some $400 million in tax breaks for a hotel that only cost about $100 million to build in 1980. 7

Trump seems to be closer to Reagan: U.S. analyst

TEHRAN — The British Foreign Ministry has issued a statement warning of an attack on the UAE, calling on its citizens to be wary.

“Public media reported that there might be attempts to launch missiles at the UAE. In any case, you should consider the local media report and follow the advice of local authorities. You must take precautions to protect yourself and your property,” said the published statement.

Referring to this threat, Rai Alyoum newspaper wrote: “When the British government warns its citizens in UAE that it is aware of the existence of

a threat to them and advises them to be extremely alert, this warning is not futile and is based on reliable security intelligence, especially as this country is the United Arab Emirates.”

The British Foreign Ministry has officially warned all its nationals in the UAE or those intending to travel to its cities, in particular Dubai and Abu Dhabi, to receive information on the nature of the threat against the UAE, most notably the possibility of Yemeni ballistic missiles.

This sudden and dangerous threat will cer-tainly be harmful for the UAE for its security and economic implications. It will have a negative

impact as the UAE it is one of the most stable countries in the Middle East, with significant economic prosperity and investment and tourism from all over the world.

The unprecedented warnings coincide with the escalation of the Yemen war in al-Hudaydah on the western Yemeni coast after the Emirates decided to attack the city. This port receives more than 70 percent of Yemen’s imports. The British government knows Yemen very well and has infor-mation that the current conflict in al-Hudaydah is not limited within its borders and may extend even to the UAE, with missiles, as it has already to Saudi Arabia. 1 3

London alarmed by threats to UAE

UN report opportunity for India, Pakistan to reboot Kashmir policy

A fortnight ago, the United Nations released its first ever report detailing human rights violations in Kashmir,

across the Line of Control (LoC), high-lighting a situation of chronic impunity for violations committed by security forces. The exhaustive 49-page report, which urged all the parties to end the cycles of violence and ensure accountability for past and present abuses, has generated palpable buzz in both India and Pakistan.

The political dimensions of the dis-pute between India and Pakistan have long been centre-stage, noted the report, but this is not a conflict frozen in time. “It is a conflict that has robbed millions of their basic human rights, and contin-ues to this day inflict untold suffering,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, urging the UN Human Rights Council to consider establishing a commission of inquiry to conduct a comprehensive, independent international investigation into allegations of human rights violations in Kashmir.

The main focus of the report is the human rights situation in Indian-con-trolled-Kashmir between July 2016 – when there was a mass uprising following rebel commander Burhan Wani’s killing – and April 2018. Indian security forces, the report notes, used “excessive force that led to unlawful killings and a very high number of injuries”, condemning the use of ‘pellet guns’ and calling for abrogation of draconian legislations like AFSPA, which prohibits prosecution of security forces for any human rights violation.

The report also highlights issue of ‘enforced disappearances’ and ‘chronic impunity for sexual violence, citing the case of Kunan-Poshpora mass rape 27 years ago, in which justice has been “denied and blocked over the years at different levels’.

The grave human rights violations in Pakistan-controlled-Kashmir are also high-lighted in the report, which are of “different magnitude and of more structural nature”. The restrictions on freedom of expres-sion, peaceful assembly in Pakistan-con-trolled-Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan “have limited the ability to obtain information about the situation.” 6

Nuclear deal ‘hanging by a thread’, Iran has told EU

TEHRAN — Mahmoud Alavi, the

intelligence minister, said on Monday that Iran has told the Europeans that the 2015 nuclear deal agreement is “hang-ing by a thread” now that the U.S. has withdrawn from the pact.

The intelligence chief said now if the other signatories to the agreement – the European Union especially the EU trio, China and Russia – back away from their commitments under the agreement Iran will resume nuclear activities with a greater speed. 2

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Rouhani congratulates Erdogan on re-election

Shamkhani: Iran backs Iraqi nation’s decisions

Prehistoric Persian jar head to auction at Christie’s 10

Astana festival of ethnic music to host Iranian orchestra 16

Erdogan wins re-election in historic Turkish polls

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won Tur-key’s key presidential vote, electoral officials have said, in a result that will allow him to keep his seat with increased powers and become Turkey’s first exec-utive president.

With 99.2 percent of ballots count-ed, Erdogan received on Sunday more than half the votes required to secure an outright victory, Sadi Guven, the head of the Supreme Election Committee (YSK/

Yüksek Seçim Kurulu), told reporters in the capital, Ankara.

Earlier, state-run Anadolu news agency had reported that Erdogan’s share of the vote stood at 52.5 percent.

“Our democracy has won, the people’s will has won, Turkey has won,” Erdogan told a crowd of enthusiastic supporters in the capital, Ankara, thanking the Turkish citizens who cast their ballots in an election that saw a record turnout of 87 percent. 3

Iran to create secondary currency market by next week

TEHRAN — Iran will set up a secondary cur-

rency market by the next week, Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Governor Valiollah Seif announced on Monday.

The decision was made as the Iranian rial plunged to a record low against the U.S. dollar in the unofficial market on Sunday, Tasnim news agency reported.

A detailed plan has been prepared for

creation of this market, the CBI governor remarked, adding that this market will prevent the creation of indefinite rates of-fered by unauthorized brokers.

The official also announced that a system will be established to identify all commodities that have been imported us-ing U.S. dollars at a rate of 42,000 rials, so that importers of those goods cannot sell them at higher prices.

Selling arms and talking of peace in Yemen are conflicting: Iran

TEHRAN — Hossein Jaberi Ansari, the Ira-

nian foreign minister’s special assistant for political affairs, said on Monday that Western countries cannot talk about peace in Yemen and at the same time sell billions of dollars of weapons to aggressors.

Jaberi Ansari made the remarks in a

meeting with the ambassadors of Italy, Britain, France and German charge d’af-faires at the Foreign Ministry.

“One cannot talks about political solu-tion, peace and human rights but simul-taneously ink billion dollars agreement with countries participating in the war against Yemen,” the special assistant to the foreign minister remarked. 2

16 Pages Price 10,000 Rials 39th year No.13142 Tuesday JUNE 26, 2018 Tir 5, 1397 Shawwal 12, 1439

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TEHRAN — Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said on Monday

that the United Nations and the European Union should provide the ground and help the Afghan refugees return to their country voluntarily.

The Afghan refugees were the relic of the Soviet invasion of their country in the 1980s. Iran has been home to 2 to 3 million Afghan refugees, who have been receiving edu-cation and healthcare services, and almost monopolized the labor market in the construction sector.

“The United Nations and the European Union are expect-ed to make efforts to provide living situation for Afghans [in Afghanistan] in a way that they return to their coun-try voluntarily and also provide them with humanitarian aid in areas of education and medicine while they reside in Iran,” he told reporters after a meeting with Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner for migration and home affairs, in Tehran.

Rahmani Fazli noted that Iran is ready to cooperate with the EU in helping the refugees.

Elsewhere, he said that as a neighboring country to Afghanistan, Iran has been harmed the most in fighting drug trade and also preventing trafficking of drugs to Europe.

He called for expanding cooperation with the EU in fighting drug trafficking. The interior minister also said that Iran and Europe will expand cooperation in countering terrorism.

UN: Ayatollah Khamenei’s order to grant refugees education was extraordinary

An order by Ayatollah Khamenei, Leader of the Islamic Revolution, to grant refugees education was “extraordinary”, Nicolas Oberlin, the deputy regional director of the United Nations World Food Program, told ILNA news agency in an interview published on Monday.

“The policy of supporting refugees is growing in Iran and we are happy to see how well Iran is doing its job regarding refugees,” Oberlin said.

The UN official added that besides the Leader’s decree on education for refugees, Iran’s healthcare and insurance services for refugees has “turned Iran into a leading country regarding refugee affairs”.

Iran’s policy to collect documents over groups who had no identification documents is another noteworthy policy, he pointed out. “This process has started recently and is a very positive policy. We try to help Iran reach its goals more and more effectively.”

In late 2016, Sivanka Dhanapala, the then UNHCR representative in Tehran, said the Islamic Republic has been hosting refugees for almost four decades.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran generously hosts one of the largest and most protracted refugee situations in the world. Estimates from the Government of Iran indicate that 951,142 Afghan refugees and 28,268 Iraqi refugees reside in Iran, in addition to 620,000 Afghans who hold Afghan passports and Iranian visas. The government also estimates that there are approximately 1.5-2 million un-documented Afghans also living in Iran,” Dhanapala said.

In May 2015, Ayatollah Khamenei issued a decree to the Ministry of Education allowing all Afghan children of school age, regardless of documentation status, to attend primary and secondary school education, resulting in over 350,000 Afghan and Iraqi children being enrolled in the 2015-2016 school year. In addition, all refugees of school-age are now exempt from paying costly refugee-specific tuition fees, which encourages even vulnerable and economically challenged families to send their children to school.

1 The United States and certain Western countries including Britain and France are the main arms suppliers to Saudi Arabia and the UAE which are fighting Yemen. However, Germany has stopped the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia due to human tragedy in Yemen.

‘Failed policy’The Iranian foreign ministry official called

the Saudi-led military actions against Yem-en a “failed” policy, saying continuation of military attacks against Yemen has brought about no “political achievements” for the invaders and soon or late they must realize

the realities on the ground and seek their in-terests through dialouge. He reiterated Iran’s long-held policy that the Yemeni crisis can only be settled through inter-Yemeni talks.

Since the beginning of the Saudi-led ag-gression against Yemen in March 2015, the country has been grappling with a humani-

tarian disaster.The Saudi-led coalition backed by the U.S.

started the war on Yemen with the aim of reinstating ousted president Mansour Hadi. The war has led to famine and spread of chol-era in the poor country. The UN is calling it “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”

1 Under the agreement, officially called the Joint Com-prehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and went into force in January 2016, Iran was tasked to put limits on its nuclear activities in exchange for termination of economic and fi-nancial sanctions.

“If the other sides decide to accompany the U.S. and leave the JCPOA, the Islamic Republic of Iran can return to the pre-JCPOA situation and even bring the nuclear industry to more sensitive and advanced points in a short period of time based on the Iranian scientists’ valuable achievements,” he told reporters after visiting the Fordow nuclear plant.

On June 4, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah

Ali Khamenei ordered the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) to get preparatory steps to increase ura-nium enrichment capacity up to a level of 190,000 SWUs (separative work units) if the remaining sides fail to honor their obligations.

“The Atomic Energy Organization is required to swiftly make due preparations for 190,000 SWUs, for the time being, within the JCPOA framework,” the Leader said.

Ayatollah Khamenei also said, “Statements made by some European states indicate that they expect the Irani-an nation to both endure sanctions and to abandon their nuclear activities, which is the undoubtable future need

of the country, and to live on with the restrictions already imposed. Let me tell these states that such disturbed dreams will not come true.”

In an open reference to the Trump administration, In-telligence Minister Alavi said, “Those who reneged on their promises will see that what they have done will be more harmful to themselves rather than Iran. Iran should move based on its determination because the foreigners do not take a step which is beneficial to Iran.”

On May 8, President Donald Trump officially withdrew the U.S. from the UN-endorsed nuclear agreement and threatened Iran with worst sanctions.

Seeing them home safelyIran urges UN, EU to help Afghan refugees go home after 4 decades

Selling arms and talking of peace in Yemen are conflicting: Iran

Nuclear deal ‘hanging by a thread’, Iran has told EU

MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS

TEHRAN — Behrooz Kamalvandi, spokes-

man for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said on Monday that Europe should decide about preserving the 2015 nuclear deal by the end of June now that the Trump White House has walked away from the multilateral agreement.

Kamalvandi said Iran was fully pre-pared to resume its nuclear activities with a greater speed prior to the nuclear agree-ment to compensate for the time that it had put caps on its nuclear program for termination of sanctions.

“We are ready to compensate for re-stricted action [in nuclear program] im-mediately,” Kamalvandi told reporters.

On May 8, President Donald Trump officially withdrew the U.S. from the UN-endorsed nuclear agreement and reintroduced unilateral sanctions on Iran.

Iran has repeatedly warned that if its interests are not guaranteed under the nuclear agreement it would resume its

nuclear activities with a greater speed.Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas

Araqchi said on Saturday that the three Eu-ropean signatories to the JCPOA alongside with the European Union had promised to offer a package of practical steps that would fulfill Iran’s demands under the nuclear agreement. He said the package will include Iran’s oil sales, payments for its oil and transportation.

Europe should decide on nuclear deal by end of June: Iran

TEHRAN — Today’s threats to Iran are from

trans-regional sides to each of which the country has a practical plan to respond, a senior Iranian military advisor said on Sunday evening.

There has been no military danger to Iran from the neighbors since the end of the 1980-88 Iraqi war on the country, Major General Seyyed Yahya Rahim Safavi, the senior military advisor to Ayatollah Khamenei, said at a local meeting in Shiraz.

Having a growing geopolitical foothold in the region, Iran has the final say on regional issues whether the enemies like it or not, Rahim Safavi said.

No regional issues can be solved without Iran’s participation, the for-mer IRGC chief added.

He predicted that West Asia will turn into the most turbulent area in the world in the next 12 years, Rahim Safavi said the Islamic Republic as a

regional power will then play a leading role in resolving the political, defense and security issues in the region.

About current regional developments, the official said the Iraqi and Syrian gov-ernments have asked for Iran’s help and “we went to help them just like what the country does to support the oppressed Palestinians in the occupied lands.”

Military advisor: Iran has practical plan for any trans-regional threats

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Nuclear deal still ‘firm’ despite U.S. illegal exit, FM spokesman says

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Interior minister due in Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday

TEHRAN — Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli was expected

to start an official visit to Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday in a bid to boost bilateral relations in diverse fields, security in particular.

Heading a high-ranking delegation, the interior min-ister was due to leave Tehran for the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek to hold talks with senior officials of the Central Asian country, Tasnim reported.

During his two-day trip, Rahmani Fazli is set to hold separate meetings with Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Jenish Razakov, Emergency Situations Minister Major General Nasser Boronov, and his Kyrgyz counterpart Colonel Kashkar Junushaliev.

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Police officers being equipped with body cameras

TEHRAN — Officers in all of Iran’s po-lice stations are being equipped with body

cameras, a commander said on Monday, Tasnim reported.General Mohammad Sharafi, commander of an Iranian

police department tasked with prevention of crimes, said the process of equipping police officers with body worn videos (BWV) will be finished by the end of summer.

Mounted onto the officers’ uniform, the body cameras record footages during the operations which can be moni-tored online from a central department.

Police officials say evaluation of footage from the body cameras would help optimize operational tactics in dealing with crimes.

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New body to fight corruption to be formed: MP

TEHRAN — Hassan Norouzi, a spokes-man with the Majlis Legal and Judicial

Committee, said on Monday that a new organization with the aim of fighting economic corruption is set to be formed.

Norouzi said the plan was discussed with the presence of Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani. Under the plan, an in-dependent organization headed by one of the most experi-enced judges will be formed, which will operate under the Judiciary, he added, IRNA reported.

The organization, he said, will act separately from other judicial bodies and will handle economic cases that involve over 50 billion rials (nearly $1,176,000).

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Rouhani congratulates Erdogan on re-election

TEHRAN — President Hassan Rouhani on Monday offered his congratulations

to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on his re-election in Sunday’s presidential elections.

In a letter to Erdogan, the Iranian president expressed the hope that the mutual “friendly and brotherly relations” between Iran and Turkey would develop further during Erdogan’s new term by building on cultural, historical and religious affinities between the two neighboring countries.

Rouhani also hoped that Iran and Turkey would estab-lish closer cooperation and pave the way for finding rapid solutions to regional problems.

Erdogan won a new five-year term after securing out-right victory in the first round of a presidential poll. He got nearly 53% with almost all votes counted. His closest rival Muharrem Ince was on 31%.

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Zarif, Lavrov discuss nuclear deal on the phone

TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his Russian

counterpart Sergei Lavrov in a telephone conversation on Mon-day discussed the latest developments surrounding the 2015 nuclear deal and the next summit of the Caspian Sea states.

According to Sputnik news, Zarif and Lavrov talked about a comprehensive bilateral roadmap to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the official name for the nuclear agreement.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the conversation revolved around Iran and Russia’s mutual cooperation as well as some regional and international issues with the focus on the JCPOA and the next summit of the five Caspian Sea nations.

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Shamkhani: Iran backs Iraqi nation’s decisions

TEHRAN — The Iranian government will stand alongside Iraqis and support

their decisions, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said on Monday.

Shamkhani made the remarks in a meeting with Iraq’s National Security Advisor Falih al Fayyadh, as the two sides discussed bilateral relations and regional develop-ments, Fars reported.

The remarks by Shamkhani comes as Iraqi political parties and factions are seeking to form a new coalition government following the recent parliamentary elections.

Shamkhani also lauded the Iraqi nation’s resilience and the Iraqi army’s bravery in the fight against terrorism.

TEHRAN — Foreign Ministry spokesman Bah-

ram Qassemi has said he regards the 2015 nuclear deal a “firm” agreement, which is still in place despite the U.S. government’s “illegal” withdrawal from it.

It came days after Deputy Foreign Min-ister Abbas Araqchi said the deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is in the intensive care unit (ICU), and that he doesn’t see bright prospects for the deal.

“I have my own opinion… and it does not contradict with the opinion of other officials,” Qassemi said on Monday at his weekly press conference in Tehran.

On May 8, U.S. President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the JCPOA, which was achieved in Vienna in 2015 after years of negotiations among Iran and six world powers.

Following the U.S. action, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khame-nei stated that any decision to keep the JCPOA running without the U.S. should be conditional on “practical guarantees” from the Europeans.

Despite the U.S. exit from the JCPOA, all other signatories to the deal are trying

to preserve it, Qassemi said. All five countries – namely Russia, China,

France, Britain and Germany – are obligated and have responsibilities regarding the im-plementation of the nuclear pact, he stated.

Talks with EU on missiles ‘not strange’, Qassemi says

On talks with the European Union (EU)

about Iran’s missile program, the spokesman said holding talks with the EU about Iran’s missiles is “not something strange”.

Recently, Federica Mogherini, the Eu-ropean Union foreign policy chief, said the EU had held talks with top Iranian officials about Tehran’s “ballistic missiles, regional issues and human rights.”

Pointing to recent talks between the representatives of Iran and the EU to save the JCPOA, Qassemi said it is possible that the subject of the Iranian missiles has been raised in the talks.

“I have not heard what [Mogherini] said exactly, but the idea of such a dialogue is not unnatural,” he remarked.

“In spite of the commonalities and rela-tions that we have with European countries, there may be disagreements over some is-sues,” he added.

‘Iran in contact with other coun-tries to reduce sufferings of Yemenis’

On the Yemeni crisis, Qassemi Iran is in contact with the regional and European gov-ernments in order to find a way to send relief aid and other humanitarian assistance to Yemen.

He called on the international commu-nity to intervene and stop the Saudi war on Yemen, where an ongoing offensive against the Mediterranean port of Hudaydah has put the country on the brink of famine.

“The international community should understand the Yemeni people’s difficult conditions and the international organiza-tions and the UN should make enough effort to end the aggression against the oppressed Yemeni people,” he added.

EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Cit-izenship Dimitris Avramopoulos (L) meeting Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli in Tehran on Monday

1 The 64-year-old also declared victory for the Peo-ple’s Alliance (Cumhur gttifakg), a bloc between his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP/Adalet ve Kalkgnma Partisi) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP/Na-tionalist Action Party/Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi), saying they had won a parliamentary majority in the legislative elections, also held on Sunday.

Before heading to capital Ankara, Erdogan, who has governed Turkey for more than 15 years as prime minis-ter and president, had also addressed a crowd of cheering, flag-waving supporters from the top of a bus in the country’s largest city and tourist hub of Istanbul.

Erdogan’s closest rival, Muharrem Ince, of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP/Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi), received 30.6 percent of the votes, according to Anadolu.

He was followed by Selahattin Demirtas, of the pro-Kurdish Democratic People’s Party (HDP/Halklargn Demokratik Partisi), at 8.4 percent and debutante right-wing IYI Party’s (Good Party) Meral Aksener, at 7.3 percent.

At a press briefing on Monday, Ince conceded defeat, however, called the elections “unjust” and the executive presidential system a dangerous “one-man rule”.

“I accept these election results,” Ince said, adding Erdogan should “represent 80 million” and be “president for us all”.

But Ince, who had faced limited airtime on television in the campaign and a near boycott by state media, said the run-up to the election had been unfair.

“This election was unjust until the results were announced,” he told a news conference at CHP headquarters after ordering out crews from state-run TRT (Turkish Radio and Television Corporation/Türkiye Radyo ve Televizyon Kurumu) over their campaign coverage.

Ince vowed to “continue our fight until Turkey is a Turkey for everyone”, expressing alarm over the powers Erdogan assumes under the new system which he described as “a one-man regime”.

All three major opposition parties accused Anadolu of manipulating the results and releasing them selectively, a claim dismissed by the government.

“I hope nobody will try to cast a shadow on the results and harm democracy in order to hide their own failure,” Erdogan said in his speech.

Official results are to be announced in a few days.More than 56 million voters were eligible to cast their ballots

in the elections, which were brought forward by more than 18 months by the AK Party-controlled parliament in April.

Twin pollsThe voting marked the first time Turkish voters cast their

ballots in simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elec-tions, in line with the constitutional changes approved in a referendum last year that will transform the country’s par-liamentary system to an executive presidential one.

The new system is set to hand the next president sig-nificant executive powers, as well as abolish the prime ministry and remove the monitoring role of parliament, among others.

In the new era, the presidential office will have the power to appoint vice presidents, ministers, high-level officials and senior judges. The president will also be able to dissolve parliament, issue executive decrees, and impose a state of emergency.

On the parliamentary front, Erdogan’s AK Party got 42.4 percent of the votes, while its far-right MHP secured 11.2 percent.

The two parties are predicted to claim 293 and 50 seats in the 600-member parliament respectively, with almost all of the ballot boxes opened, according to Anadolu. Erdogan was their joint presidential candidate.

A majority of 360 votes in parliament are required to take a constitutional change to a referendum in the new

executive presidential system.The opposition CHP and IYI parties, along with the ul-

traconservative Felicity Party (SP/Saadet Partisi), formed the diverse Nation Alliance (Millet gttifakg) to challenge Erdogan in the parliamentary polls.

According to Anadolu, the CHP acquired 22.7 percent of the ballots, while its ally, IYI Party got 10.1 percent. They are expected to have 146 and 45 seats in parliament.

The pro-Kurdish HDP set to secure 67 seats after re-ceiving 11.1 percent.

Erdogan entered the race in the face of a depreciating lira and straining relations with the West amid an ongoing state of emergency.

The state of emergency has been in place since July 2016 following a failed deadly coup, which the government blamed on the movement of Muhammed Fethullah Gülen Hocaefendi (Hoca Efendi/respected teacher) - a United States-based self-exiled religious leader.

Turkey’s Western allies have repeatedly condemned the Turkish government’s detentions and purges after the coup attempt.

Local and international rights groups accuse the govern-ment of using the coup bid as a pretext to silence opposition in the country.

Erdogan’s government says that the purges and detentions are in line with the rule of law and aim to remove Gulen’s supporters from state institutions and other parts of society.

Erdogan, neo-Ottoman foreign policyErdogan born on 26 February 1954 is a Turkish politician

serving as the current President of Turkey, holding the position since 2014. He previously served as Prime Minister from 2003 to 2014 and as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. He founded the AKP in 2001, leading it to general election victories in 2002, 2007 and 2011 before standing down upon his election as President in 2014. Coming from an Islamist

political background and as a self-described conservative democrat, he has promoted socially conservative and liberal economic policies in his administration.

Erdogan played football for Kasgmpaga before being elected in 1994 as the Mayor of Istanbul from the Islamist Welfare Party. He was stripped of his position, banned from political office, and imprisoned for four months, for reciting a poem that promoted a religious point of view of government during a speech in 1998. Erdogan abandoned openly Islamist politics and established the moderate conservative AKP in 2001. Following the AKP’s landslide victory in 2002, the party’s co-founder Abdullah Gül became Prime Minister, until his government annulled Erdogan’s ban from political office. Erdogan became Prime Minister in March 2003 after winning a by-election in Siirt.

Erdogan’s government oversaw negotiations for Turkey’s membership in the European Union, an economic recovery following a financial crash in 2001, changes to the constitu-tion via referenda in 2007 and 2010, a Neo-Ottoman foreign policy, and investments in infrastructure. With the help of the Cemaat Movement led by Gülen, Erdogan was able to curb the power of the military through the Sledgehammer and Ergenekon court cases. In 2016, a coup d’état was un-successfully attempted against Erdogan and Turkish state institutions. This was followed by purges and an ongoing state of emergency.

Following a split with Gülen, Erdogan promulgated sweeping judicial reforms he insisted were needed to purge Gülen’s sympathizers, but which were criticized for threat-ening judicial independence. A US$100 billion corruption scandal in 2013 led to the arrests of Erdogan’s close allies, and incriminated Erdogan. His government has since come under fire for alleged human rights violations and crackdown on press and social media.

(Source: agencies)

JUNE 26, 2018 INTERNATIONALI N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

Erdogan wins re-election in historic Turkish polls

Supporters of a prominent Shia cleric in Bahrain who has lost his citizenship and is under house arrest say he has been taken to a local hospital.

Sheikh Isa Qassim was taken to the hospital on Sunday night after suffering hip and leg problems that are making it difficult for him to walk.

Sheikh Maytham al-Salman of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights said on Monday Qassim needs further medical care.

Bahrain’s rulers are cracking down on all dissent on the Shia-majority tiny Persian Gulf island, imprisoning or forcing politicians and activists into exile.

Thousands of anti-regime protesters have held demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis ever since a popular uprising began in the country in mid-February 2011.

They are demanding that the House of Khalifah dynasty relin-quish power and allow a just system representing all Bahrainis to be established.

Manama has gone to great lengths to clamp down on any sign of dissent. On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were deployed to assist Bahrain in its crackdown.

Scores of people have lost their lives and hundreds of others sustained injuries or got arrested as a result of the House of Khalifah regime’s crackdown.

On March 5, 2017, Bahrain’s parliament approved the trial of civilians at military tribunals in a measure blasted by human rights campaigners as being tantamount to imposition of an undeclared martial law countrywide.

Bahraini monarch King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah ratified the constitutional amendment on April 3 last year.

(Source: agencies)

Bahrain prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim hospitalized

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says the United States is using the issue of chemical weapons as a pretext to carry out an attack against the Syrian army.

Assad said in an interview with Russian television channel NTV on Sunday that such allegations were being used as an excuse for an intervention.

“The story with chemical weapons is a pretext for a direct military intervention and attacks on the Syrian army,” the pres-ident said, adding, “We fully eliminated chemical weapons. We haven’t had them in Syria since 2013.”

The Syrian government surrendered its stockpile of chemical weapons in 2014 to a joint mission led by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which oversaw the destruction of the weaponry.

Washington and its allies have often pointed the finger at the Syrian government over chemical attacks. Damascus has consistently denied the claim.

“These provocations have nothing to do with reality. This is the result of their own imagination, and that of the media, and something ... invented by their mass media is further disseminated across the world through the Internet and other media. That’s why it is impossible to prevent this provocation. Americans constantly lie and attack immediately,” the Syrian president stated.

“When there is no respect for international rules, when there are no efficient UN bodies, you may not speak about preventing provocations and the world lives upon the jungle law,” he said.

In June, the Russian Defense Ministry said the U.S. Special Forces were aiding militants to engage in “chemical attack prov-ocation” via chlorine gas to provoke Western airstrikes against Syrian forces.

Assad also said in the same interview that Syria would not accept any Western money to help rebuild the country.

“We have enough strength to rebuild the country. If we don’t have money, we will borrow from our friends, from Syrians liv-ing abroad.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Assad said that the Syrian army would regain control of the country’s north by force if militants there refused to surrender.

“We have chosen two paths: the first and most important one is reconciliation... The second path is to attack terrorists if they don’t surrender and refuse to make peace,” Assad said in the interview. “We will fight with them (militants) and return control by force. It is certainly not the best option for us, but it’s the only way to get control of the country.”

Damascus recently said it rejected the presence of Turkish and the U.S. forces around the northern Kurdish town of Manbij. The United States and its allies have been bombarding what they call positions of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh) terrorists inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a United Nations mandate. The strikes have on many occasions result-ed in civilian casualties and failed to fulfill their declared aim of countering terrorism. The Israeli regime, one of the United States’ top allies, has even set up field hospitals to treat wounded militants evacuated from Syria. Furthermore, the Syrian army has repeatedly seized huge quantities of the U.S. and Israe-li-made weapons and advanced military equipment from the foreign-backed militants inside Syria.

(Source: Press TV)

U.S. using chemical weapons as pretext for intervention in Syria: Assad

PA: U.S. ‘working hard’ to topple Mahmoud AbbasA senior Palestinian negotiator has accused the United States of trying to topple the gov-ernment of Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, insisting that Washington has dis-qualified itself from any possible role in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

Saeb Erekat’s comments on Sunday came after Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and White House envoy Jason Greenblatt held meetings with the leaders of Israel, Jordan, Qatar, Egypt and the House of Saud regime during a weeklong trip around the Middle East.

In an interview published in the Arabic language al-Quds newspaper on Sunday, Kushner said the U.S. administration will soon present its Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, with or without input from Abbas while also questioning the Palestinian Authority president’s ability to make a deal.

“Mr. Kushner’s interview further clarified that the United States administration of President Trump has actually moved from the squares of negotiations to the squares of dictations. They are determined to dic-tate a solution,” Erekat told reporters in Ramallah.

“They are working and trying to work hard in a regime change, because Pales-tinian leadership under the leadership of President Abbas wants genuine, lasting, comprehensive peace, based on interna-tional law,” Erekat added.

Abbas cut communications with the Trump administration after it recognized al-Quds (Jerusalem) as the capital of Israel in December 2017.

The Palestinian leadership see East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as their future capital, insisting the status of the disputed city is an issue to be negotiated between them and the Israelis.

Kushner interviewTrump has called peace between Isra-

el and the Palestinians the “ultimate deal” and has tasked Kushner with formulating a plan to that end.

In his al-Quds interview, Kushner said they were “almost done” preparing the plan. He offered, however, few details, saying only the White House would present an economic plan to promote “massive investments” in the Palestinian territories and the region.

In his rare interview, Kushner questioned the ability and willingness of Abbas to make concessions for a peace agreement with Israel.

“President Abbas says that he is com-mitted to peace and I have no reason not to believe him,” Kushner said. “However, I do question how much President Abbas

has the ability to, or is willing to, lean into finishing a deal,” he added.

“He has his talking points which have not changed in the last 25 years. There has been no peace deal achieved in that time.”

“To make a deal both sides will have to take a leap and meet somewhere between their stated positions. I am not sure President Abbas has the ability to do that.”

Kushner said the Palestinian leadership is “scared” that the Palestinian public may approve of the U.S. peace initiative and called on Palestinians to not “let your leadership reject a plan they haven’t even seen”.

Deal of the centuryHis comments were met with a fierce

response from Erekat, who said the U.S. administration believes “there will be a

better economic situation by pulverizing the political rights” of Palestinians.

“This is an attempt to push forward a plan that consolidates Israel’s colonial con-trol over Palestinian land and lives while telling the Palestinian people that money will compensate for our inalienable right,” he added.

Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina meanwhile said on Saturday that U.S. efforts, which “ignored” Pales-tinian positions on issues such as al-Quds (Jerusalem), statehood and refugees, were doomed to fail.

Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett, reporting from West al-Quds (Jerusalem), said that the Palestinian leadership’s reaction made it clear that there was “no prospect at this stage” that they want “anything to do with the U.S. administration or its plan, even ahead of its publication”.

While the details of the so-called “deal of the century” have not officially been released, leaks have suggested that the Palestinians would initially control the Gaza Strip and less than half of the occupied West Bank, while a Palestinian capital would be cre-ated from villages surrounding al-Quds (Jerusalem).

The Israelis would retain security con-trol over the Jordan valley and have total control over Palestinian travel between the West Bank and Gaza, while a corridor will be created between Palestinian territory and Jerusalem’s holy sites.

It appears meanwhile that Palestinians would have to surrender the principle of the right of return of Palestinian refugees expelled during the creation of Israel, while the future of illegal Israeli settlements and the final border between Palestine and Israel would be decided at a later date.

(Source: Al Jazeera)

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

JUNE 26, 20184 E C O N O M Y

TEHRAN – Iran’s first international gas

exhibition (IRGS 2018) is due to be held at Shahr-e-Aftab Complex in Tehran during September 1-4.

In this regard, attended by a number of officials and over 100 journalists a press conference was held at Espinas Hotel in Tehran on Monday to promote and introduce the exhibition.

Speaking at the press conference, Nasrollah Seifi, former managing director of Iran Fuel

Conservation Company (IFCO), mentioned providing a stage for introducing Iran’s gas industry and its potentials, facilitating communication among Iranian and foreign companies active in this area, attracting foreign investment and improving Iran’s position as an energy hub in the region as well as technology transfer as some of the exhibition’s main goals.

According to the official, such events and exhibitions could pave the way for foreign companies and investors to enter Iran’s lucrative gas industry and therefore facilitate

growth and development in this area.“Iran has 15 neighboring countries and

this gives Iran a significant strategic and geopolitical significance in the region; Iran could be the main gas hub in the region,” Seifi told Tehran Times.

IRGS 2018 will cover 12 specialized sectors including drilling and exploration, gas supply, storage, distribution and transmission,

technology and training, detection and evaluation, health, safety and environment and etc. and over 80 subsectors for products and services.

According to the Iranian Oil Ministry, the country’s proved natural gas reserves are about 1,201 trillion cubic feet (34.0 trillion cubic meters) that is about 17.8 percent of the world’s total reserves.

140 companies to attend intl. electricity expo in Isfahan

Digging operation of 43 oil, gas wells conducted in 3 months

TEHRAN — National Iranian Drilling Com-

pany (NIDC) dug and completed digging operation of 43 oil and gas wells dur-ing the first quarter of current Iranian calendar year (March 21-June 21), ac-cording to an official with the NIDC.

Hamidreza Khoshayand, the deputy managing director of NIDC, said some 57,418 meters of digging has been con-ducted for the mentioned onshore

and offshore wells, IRIB reported on Monday.

Banks have failed to make enough progress on their Brexit preparations and should not expect “miracle” public intervention to help them, the European Union’s banking watch-dog said on Monday.

While Britain and the EU have agreed in principle on a transition deal lasting from Brexit next March to the end of 2020, it is part of a broader divorce settlement that has yet to be formally adopted.

Banks’ preparations for the potential departure of Britain from the EU without a ratified withdrawal agreement are inadequate, the European Banking Authority (EBA) said in a statement on Brexit.

“This should be a wakeup call. Time is running out, in some cases it has run out, and don’t assume there will be a transition period,” said Piers Haben, EBA director of banking markets, innovation and consumers.

Banks in Britain are submitting applica-tions for licenses to set up or expand op-erations in the EU to ensure continuity of service after March. UK branches of banks from the EU need permission to continue serving customers in the United Kingdom.

“Big banks can’t assume they can put off the full application process,” Haben said.

The EBA said banks must have enough staff at new operations to manage risks from

the first day after Britain’s withdrawal on March 29, 2019, and financial stability must not be put at risk because lenders want to avoid costs.

The EBA - itself relocating from London to Paris by March due to Brexit - said prepara-tions by banks must advance more rapidly in a number of areas without further delay.

No miracle comingLenders in Britain and the EU should

quantify exposures to counterparties in each other’s jurisdictions, including the billions of euros in cross-border derivatives contracts.

The Bank of England (BoE) has said UK and EU legislation is needed to ensure con-

tinuity in contracts that span many years in some cases. The EU has shown no willingness to legislate, and the EBA said no public solu-tion may be proposed or even agreed in time.

The European Central Bank and BoE are in talks on how to keep markets orderly around Brexit Day next March, raising expectations that some public action will take place.

“There is widespread perception there will be a public policy miracle. I don’t think banks can rely on a general, catch-all public intervention,” Haben said.

The watchdog sets out a “sequence” of tasks banks must complete.

(Source: Reuters)

Japan is seeking an “early” exemption from the U.S. on sanctions against Iran to facilitate oil shipping arrangements, a Japanese government source said Monday.

The source declined to comment on the outlook for securing the U.S. sanctions waiver or if Washington had asked Japan to stop its Iranian oil imports.

Petroleum Association of Japan President Takashi Tsukioka said Friday that Japanese importers of Iranian oil would need U.S. sanction waivers by November 4 to continue imports because the U.S.

aims to shut down Iranian exports.“We will have to take certain measures

if things move because the U.S. wants to take [Iranian oil] to zero,” Tsukioka told a news conference in Tokyo.

Tsukioka said refiners’ purchases of Iranian oil imports in August could be “the last” without securing waivers as oil loaded after September would be subject to U.S. sanctions. He added that October-loading barrels would be paid for in November.

“This means it will be difficult for us to gain a clear overview of all these

developments in the next month and a half,” he added.

Japan’s largest refiner JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy said Monday it is aware of reports about the U.S.’ request to slash Iranian oil imports to zero but said it had not received any guidance from the Japanese government over the imports.

“We will closely monitor and ascertain the situations,” a company spokesman said, declining to comment on its impact on Iranian oil imports and possible alternative supplies. (Source: Platts)

The majority of top managers, who took part in a recent survey by Baker & McKenzie, have complained that they have not been properly consulted about the trade conditions of the UK-EU divorce deal amid the current talks.

Every second business has cut its investment in the UK as the country’s departure from the bloc, scheduled in less than a year, approaches. According to Baker & McKenzie, especially German companies think that Brexit is bad for business.

The majority of 800 executives, involved in the survey, also claimed that they had not been consulted and their position had not been taken into an account by EU negotiators, who have been striving to forge the post-Brexit trade deal. Ninety-six percent of the respondents have slammed attempts to “punish” the UK for leaving the union rather than working out preferable terms for post-Brexit trade, while around 75 percent of them insisted on concessions from Brussels for the sake of a prefer-able business environment.

Over half of the businesspeople also advocated for a free trade agreement; the support of a customs union has not exceeded 45 percent of the poll’s participants.

The survey involved 800 top managers of companies with annual sales starting from $330 million, based in France, Ger-many, Sweden, Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands.

British trade secretary Liam Fox recently said that the UK has remained Europe’s number one destination for international investment, despite a slowdown in GDP growth, and a simul-taneous acceleration of economic expansion on the European continent. According to him, investors are still confident in the UK due to the structural strength of Albion’s economy, and its

brighter economic prospects.Meanwhile, thousands of people took part in an anti-Brexit

rally in London this weekend, exactly two years after the his-toric Brexit vote. The protests were organized by the “People’s Vote” campaign, which has been calling for a new referendum on the divorce deal.

On June 20, Prime Minister Theresa May won a vital vote in Parliament, defeating Tory rebels that could have potentially acquired the power to stop Britain from leaving the EU without a deal. The PM promised that more details of UK-EU post-Brexit links would come soon.

Britain’s departure from the European Union is scheduled for March 29, 2019. A transition period, which will see the UK remain in the single market and customs union, is to last until the end of 2020.

(Source: Sputnik)

German business confidence ebbed in June to its lowest in more than a year, suggesting the mood among company executives in Europe’s biggest economy is darkening as the world edges towards a full-blown trade war.

Activity in all four economic sectors measured by the Munich-based Ifo institute in Monday’s survey - manufacturing, services, trade and construction - fell, adding to signs the economy is cool-ing after a boom last year.

Ifo said its business climate index fell to 101.8, the lowest level since May 2017. The reading was slightly stronger than predicted in a Reuters consensus forecast of 101.7.

“The tailwind enjoyed by the German economy is (easing),” Ifo chief Clemens Fuest said.

But economists ruled out a recession and predicted the economy would continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace than last year’s 2.5 percent.

“The modest fall reaffirms our ...narrative of an economy slowing

to a normal growth level,” Uwe Burkert of LBBW bank wrote in a note. “This is however no downturn and certainly no recession.”

Much of the German data published this year has pointed to a cooling economy.

Industrial activity and exports were weak in the first four months, and U.S. President Donald Trump is now threatening to impose hefty tariffs on car imports from Europe - a trade that Germany dominates - on top of unilateral duties on metals.

German business leaders are also worried that a parallel trade confrontation between Washington and Beijing could harm exporters that rely on the world’s two largest economies for growth.

“The boom is over. The German economy is heading towards normalisation,” Ifo economist Klaus Wohlrabe told Reuters.

“The discussion about a trade war, unleashed by Trump, is weighing on the mood. Uncertainty has increased slightly.”

(Source: Reuters)

TEHRAN — The 9th International Biennial

Exhibition of Electricity Industry of Iran is to be held on June 27-30, 2018 at Isfahan International Exhibition Fairground with participation of 140 domestic and foreign companies, ILNA reported on Monday.

Companies, producers and indus-trialists from Iranian electricity sector besides their foreign counterparts will showcase their latest equipment, machin-

eries, parts, and services in the exhibition, the report said.

COMMODITIES

CURRENCIES

STOCK MARKET

USD 42,510 rialsEUR 49,544 rials

GBP 56,371 rials

AED 11,578 rials

TEDPIX 115174.5IFX 1317.34

WTI 68.89/b

Brent 74.25/b

OPEC Basket 70.94/b

Gold $1,269.50 /oz

Silver $16.43/oz

Platinium $875.05/oz

Sources: tse.ir, Ifb.ir

Source: mehrnews.com

Sources: oilprice.com, Moneymetals.com

E C O N O M Yd e s k

Iran’s 1st intl. gas exhibition slated for early Sep.

E N E R G Yd e s k

E N E R G Yd e s k

E N E R G Yd e s k

Expansion of economic co-op discussed between Iran, Georgia

TEHRAN— In a meeting between the members of Iran-Georgia parliamentary

friendship group and Iranian Finance Minister Masoud Karbasian in Tehran on Sunday, the two sides stressed

expansion of bilateral economic ties and cooperation.

In the meeting, Karbasian said that some good agreements have been signed by Iran and Georgia on customs cooperation, double taxation avoidance, and attracting and supporting investment making in both countries; adding “We are ready to negotiate about cooperation in other economic

sectors with the Georgian officials”, Shada news agency reported.

EU watchdog tells banks to speed up Brexit preparations

Japan seeks to secure ‘early’ U.S. exemption for Iran oil imports: source

Half of major EU companies’ investments in UK shrink as Brexit looms: poll

German business morale hits lowest in more than a year

Second Announcement

INTERNATIONAL TENDER NO. 97-03/127Tender Holder: ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN BROADCASTING (IRIB)

Subject of Two-Stage Tender: Supplying Audio Equipment for HD Making Channels 1, 2 and 3 (Tehran IRIB Center) according to the tender documents

Deadline of Receiving Documents: As of publishing second announcement of advertisement latest by the business hour dated on Monday June 25, 2018.

Place of Receiving Documents: Secretariat of Tenders’ Commission, Technical Purchasing (KALA) Dept., Media Technology and Development Deputy Office, Bldg. No. 2, IRIB, Jam-e Jam St., Vali-e Asr Ave., Tehran

Type and Amount of Guarantee for Participating in Tender: The amount of USD 121,055 which should be in the form of extendable bank guarantee

Time and Place of Delivering Priced Bid:The sealed A, B & C packages/envelopes should be submitted within one main envelope marked with tender number no later than 15 p.m. on Wednesday August 1, 2018 and submitted to the Secretariat of Commission of Tenders.

Time and Place of Opening Envelopes The date of opening envelopes A&B is at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday August 5, 2018 in the office of Vice President of IRIB Planning and Financial Resources and opening of envelope C will be after technical evaluation. It should be noted that bidders should hold license from the authorized bodies.

For more information, please contact the following phone numbers: 0098-21-22166313It is obvious that cost of publishing two advertisements shall be borne by the winner of tender.

Public Relations Dept. of IRIB

IN THE NAME OF GOD ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN BROADCASTING

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

E N E R G YJUNE 26, 2018

Oil prices fell on Monday as traders factored in an expected 1 million barrels per day (bpd) output increase in the wake of an Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting in Vienna last week.

Despite this, analysts said global oil markets would likely remain relatively tight this year.

Brent crude futures were at $74.25 per barrel at 0636 GMT, down 1.7 percent from their last close.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $68.42 a barrel, down 0.2 percent, supported more than Brent by a slight drop in U.S. drilling activity and a Canadian supply outage.

Prices initially jumped after an OPEC deal to increase output was announced late last week as it was not seen boosting supply by as much as some had expected.

OPEC and non-OPEC partners including Russia have since 2017 cut output by 1.8 million bpd to tighten the market and prop up prices.

Largely because of unplanned disruptions in places like Venezuela and Angola, the group’s output has been below the targeted cuts, which it now says will be reversed by supply increases, especially from OPEC leader Saudi Arabia. Although analysts warn there is little space

capacity for large-scale output increases.After officially meeting on Friday, OPEC

gave a press conference on Saturday that implied a bigger increase in supply.

“Saturday’s OPEC+ press conference pro-vided more clarity on the decision to increase

production, with guidance for a full 1 million bpd ramp-up in 2H18,” Goldman Sachs said in a note on Sunday.

“This is a larger increase than presented Friday although the goal remains to stabilize inventories, not generate a surplus,” the U.S.

bank added.Dutch bank ING said “the 1 million bpd

increase announced gives us confidence in our view for lower prices.”

Edward Bell, commodity analyst at Dubai’s Emirates NBD bank said, when the Vienna agreement was priced into the market, he expected prices “in a range between $65-$70 per barrel for Brent for the remainder of the year”.

In the United States, U.S. energy companies last week cut one oil rig, the first reduction in 12 weeks, lowering the total rig count to 862, Baker Hughes said on Friday.

That put the rig count on track for its small-est monthly gain since declining by two rigs in March, with just three rigs added so far in June. However, the overall level remains just one rig short of the March 2015 high from the previous week.

Goldman Sachs also warned that an “outage at Syncrude Canada’s oil sands facility could leave North America short of 360,000 bpd of supply for all of July”.

It added that this “will exacerbate the current global deficit, making the increase in OPEC production all the more required”.

(Source: Reuters)

The latest OPEC meeting ended in some confusion on Friday with different numbers quoted for the planned production increase. It appears that a target increase of 1m barrels per day has been set but that some countries will be unable to meet that level, making a net increase of about 700,000 barrels per day coming largely from Saudi Arabia the most likely result.

The outcome of the meeting, however, does nothing to address two uncertainties that will shape the oil market over the coming months and years.

The first is the situation in Venezuela, which has gone from bad to worse over the past two months. In the short term, the situation remains the greatest uncertainty hanging over the oil market. The country’s production of crude oil fell to 1.36m barrels

a day in May, 600,000 b/d down from its level a year ago. The International Energy Agency has raised the possibility that output could fall to 800,000 b/d next year. Given the dramatic collapse in Venezuelan living standards, it is hard to imagine that the government can remain in power. But so far predictions of political change have not been fulfilled.

The second, and potentially more desta-bilizing, issue in the longer term is the pros-pect of a sharp increase in the production of so-called “tight oil” from shale rocks in the U.S. Tight oil production is now running at more than 5m barrels a day and will this year lift total U.S. oil output to over 11m b/d — the highest figure for almost 50 years. The growth in shale production over the past 10 years has been profoundly disruptive, first

for the gas market and then for oil. The U.S. is now an exporter of both oil and gas and is no longer dependent on imports from the Middle East — a shift with major political implications.

But that, it seems, is just the prelude. Ac-cording to an authoritative study from IHS Markit — a leading industry consultancy with access to detailed data sources — the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico, which is now the core of the U.S. shale business, is about to deliver even more.

On the IHS Markit projection, by 2023 the Permian is likely to be producing an ad-ditional 3m b/d of oil, along with an extra 15 bcf of gas. For the U.S. economy this news is positive. America will have a secure source of supply that, through its production, dis-tribution and consumption, will generate

significant economic activity across the country. The volumes involved will further reduce the unit of production, probably to below $25 a barrel. The study estimates the total investment needed to deliver the new supplies will be some $300bn.

For the global oil market the effect will be dramatic. The U.S. will become a significant exporter. The IHS Markit paper suggests that by 2023 the country will be exporting around 4m barrels a day. That will absorb much of the expected growth in demand. The ambitions of countries such as Kuwait, Iraq and Iran to increase their output could be constrained. Continued management of supply by OPEC and other producers such as Russia will be needed to avoid another sharp price fall.

(Source: Financial Times)

Oil prices drop on OPEC’s output deal, but markets to stay tight

EU challenges China on solar tech, ‘developing market’ status The future of European solar manufacturers hangs in the balance this summer, with two separate but overlapping policies on Europe-China climate policy under review by delegations from the EU and China.

Representatives from both sides will meet in Brussels this week to try and resolve disagreements over China’s status as a “develop-ing” country in the Paris climate agreement. This matter of status is a significant one because it could require partner countries, like Germany, to transfer valuable technology to China.

As the world’s preeminent solar producer, China is already selling hi-tech, low-cost solar panels that have been slapped with import controls which allow European solar manufacturers to remain com-petitive in their home market.

The European Commission has also begun a review of those import controls this week, and may extend them beyond September, when they would have originally expired. The controls, which went under review at the request of EU manufacturers, sparked tension with Beijing in 2013.

By the end of summer, the two separate policies will determine the path forward both for Europe’s solar manufacturers and for the EU-China partnership at the center of the Paris climate agreement.

Developing or developed?The Paris climate agreement currently relies on a 1992 United

Nations Framework to distinguish between developed and devel-oping countries. The climate accords now list six of the world’s ten richest countries as “developing,” China included.

The agreement requires developed countries to help finance green energy projects. China already does that, mainly through the Belt and Road Initiative. But the agreements also require developed countries to share technology with developing countries. And for Germany, that means sharing innovation with a direct competitor to its own solar industry. German solar manufacturers would share new technology with companies that, at present, can price them out of their own market.

Forced technology transfers have been a longstanding complaint made by foreign companies operating in China. But in this case, Chinese companies would enjoy access to foreign technology while operating overseas rather than from its own domestic market.

Alex Shoer, the CEO of Shanghai-based Seeder Clean Energy, which offers advisory services for foreign companies seeking re-newable energy procurement inside China, says that the label of “developed” or “developing” could both apply to China.

“I don’t think China personally cares about the label as much as the practical outcome,” Shoer said.

Question left unansweredAt the initial Paris agreement talks in 2015, this distinction of

what constituted a developing or developed country was left open to further discussion.

Since U.S. President Donald Trump announced America’s with-drawal from the accord in June 2017, a coalition of 130 middle- to low-income countries, centered around China, South Africa, India and Brazil, has gained momentum and drafted new language to amend the agreements. The addition of sharper distinctions between a country’s income levels and their responsibilities to the agreements would need to be ratified this year. (Source: Forbes)

Issues beyond OPEC will drive oil prices in coming years

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By Seyed Zafar Mahdi

JUNE 26, 20186I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

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Raza Rumi is a leading Pakistani journalist, political analyst, and author, currently based in the U.S. He is the editor of Daily Times, Pakistan and the Visiting Faculty at Cornell Institute for Public Affairs, U.S. and Scholar in Residence at Honors Program, Ithaca College, U.S.

In his hyperbolic New Year tweet, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to withhold military aid to Pakistan for not doing enough to dismantle terrorist sanctuaries. Some political leaders and analysts in Pakistan believe the U.S. President needs a scapegoat (Pakistan) to hide America’s failures in Afghanistan. Do you agree with that argument?

A. It is indeed the case that the U.S. war machine has found a convenient scapegoat in the shape of Pakistan. The truth is that the Afghan war is the longest engagement that the U.S. has had in a foreign country in its recent history. Its strategy and aims have been shifting and a disregard for Afghan history has brought things to such a pass. Ad-mittedly, Pakistan has also kept its security concerns over and above its relationship with America but it is after all a smaller power and the primary responsibility of U.S. failures must be borne by U.S. war strategists.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have worsened in recent years with both countries accusing each other of sponsoring cross-border terrorism. Afghan government accuses Pakistan of sheltering Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network, an accusation also made by some U.S. officials. What’s your take on this?

A. Every nation state has to keep its interests in view while dealing with external actors. Pakistan’s security para-noia is linked to Indian efforts to gain greater influence in Afghanistan. Keeping that in view, the strategy to support the Haqqanis has its own logic. However, there are voices within Pakistan that have urged the state to find alterna-tive allies within Afghan political spectrum. As a tit-for-tat policy, the Afghan authorities have also tolerated the havens of Pakistani Taliban who attack Pakistani state as well as its people. In addition, Pakistan also complains that the Baloch separatists find support within Afghanistan. So this is a pretty complex scenario that can only be resolved with a larger settlement between Pakistan, Afghanistan, the U.S. and regional actors like Iran and India.

Recently the UN human rights body published its first report on Kashmir, urging both India and Pakistan to stop human rights abuses and work towards conflict resolution. Do you think the peace process between the two countries could be resurrected and the issue of Kashmir can be resolved?

A. Absolutely. There is an urgent need to address the issue of Jammu and Kashmir as a means to normalize relations between India and Pakistan but more importantly to give reprieve to the people of Kashmir who have been suffering for years. Truth be told that headway was made under former Pakistan President Parvez Musharraf?s tenure but

the process has been stalled for a decade. Recent gestures by the Pakistan Army have been encouraging wherein a readiness has been shown to open up dialogue with India.

The elections are fast approaching in Pakistan. Which party do you think has maximum chances of forming the government? How strong is Imran Khan’s party PTI at the grassroots level?

A. The elections are bitterly contested. And the results are expected to throw up a hung parliament. Imran Khan’s party is expected to do better but it is not likely to get an absolute majority. The good thing is that this will be a third democratic transition in the coming years.

Pakistan and Iran share deep historical, cultural and diplomatic ties. How do you see the future of Iran-Pakistan relations?

A. This is one relationship which despite so many setbacks has survived rather well. But it needs to improve

at a cultural and economic level. Pakistan and Iran need to trade more. They also have common interests of sta-bility in Afghanistan and enhancing economic ties with Central Asia. It is time that both the countries work to deepen this historic relationship.

China seems to have quietly replaced U.S. as Pa-kistan’s top ally, with Beijing’s massive investments in Pakistan. Do you think Americans should be worried with this growing proximity between Islamabad and Beijing?

A. There are few policy quarters within Pakistan who view this as a zero sum game. But the reality is that Paki-stan needs to maximize on its long standing relations with both the countries. There is no question that Pakistan is in a long-term, economic engagement with China and this relationship is growing and giving Pakistan more confi-dence to handle its foreign affairs. In terms of economic future, this is a positive development.

U.S. war machine has found a convenient scapegoat in the shape of Pakistan to hide its failures in Afghanistan

There is an urgent need to address the issue of Jammu and Kashmir as a means to normalize relations

between India and Pakistan but more importantly to give reprieve to the people of Kashmir who have been

suffering for years.

1 While Pakistan’s permanent representative in the UN Farukh Amil welcomed the recommendations made in the report to form a Commission of Inquiry to investigate human rights abuses in Indian-controlled Kashmir, India reacted sharply to it, terming it “fallacious, tendentious and motivated,” a lodging a formal complaint with the world body. Taking the higher moral ground, Pakistan offered to facilitate the UN inquiry on Pakistan-controlled-Kashmir provided India was ready to allow access to the UN team to Jammu and Kashmir.

The report should be seen as a ‘wake-up call’ for all the parties. If they are indeed serious about resolving this long-standing dispute, which has become a nuclear flashpoint between them, they need to welcome the UN report and fa-cilitate inquiries in their respective areas, keeping aside their parochial ‘national interests’. India, by rubbishing the report and terming it “fallacious”, is simply liv-ing in denial.

The situation in Kashmir has alarm-ingly deteriorated in recent years, which

is evident from the number of educated Kashmiri youth that have taken up arms

and abandoned their dreams. Hospitals today are filled with young boys who have been blinded by pellet shotguns. Funerals of young Kashmiri rebels killed in encoun-ters come alive with thunderous slogans of ‘Azadi’ (freedom) almost every day. If that is ‘fallacious’, then what is the truth?

Pakistan also needs to address lo-cal grievances in Pakistan-controlled-Kashmir and play a constructive role in the resolution of Kashmir dispute. Both parties must realize that their obstinacy and self-interest has wreaked havoc in Kashmir and claimed thousands of in-nocent lives over the years. They need to immediately revive the dialogue process and make the people of Kashmir ‘primary stakeholders’ in the dispute.

The UN report provides an oppor-tunity to both the parties to do some soul-searching and reboot their flawed Kashmiri policy. Taking into account the aspirations of Kashmiris, New Delhi and Islamabad must shun their obduracy and work towards the final settlement of this dispute.

UN report opportunity for India, Pakistan to reboot Kashmir policy

In a bid to avoid Ameri-can economic sanctions

on Iran, India is planning to revive a rupee trade mechanism to settle part of its oil payments to Iran, according to Indian government sources.

During Iranian President Hassan Rou-hani’s historic visit to India in February, the two sides had agreed on ‘rupee-rial mechanism’ to evade banking problems caused by the U.S. sanctions.

“We are looking at reviving a rupee mechanism… we have to prepare our-selves,” a source told Reuters, adding that after meeting French, German and UK bankers, an Indian delegation found that it would be “almost impossible to use European banks for payment to Iran.”

“So far we don’t know what we are expected to do. We have not asked re-finers to cut imports,” the source said, referring to the situation that is likely to arise when India’s oil imports from Iran could potentially be hit from August 2018.

During a meeting with her Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif late last month, Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said her country would ignore U.S. eco-

nomic sanctions against Iran and go ahead with the mutually agreed plan.

In the wake of new economic sanctions, Iran has been looking for alternative sources of financing its energy projects. According to Petroleum Minister Bijan Zanganeh, almost 75 percent of the $200 billion Iran needs for its oil and gas production were expected to come from foreign investments. The U.S. decision to quit the nuclear deal and re-impose sanctions on Iran have complicated matters.

Some sanctions take effect after a 90-day ‘wind-down’ period ending on August 6, and the other sanctions, mainly affect-ing the petroleum sector, come into force on November 4, after a 18—day period.

Now, Iran plans to issue bonds to fund its oil projects both in national and foreign currency-denominated bonds.

Iran remains India’s third-largest oil supplier, with both private and public Indian oil refiners heavily dependent on Iranian crude. Indian refiners bought a record 27.2 million tons of Iranian crude during the previous financial year, which ended in March 2018, marking a massive 114 percent jump.

India mulls rupee payment for Iran’s oil, to avoid U.S. sanctions

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Campaigning for general elections kicks off in Pakistan

Top ISIS leader in Afghanistan killed in an operation

Bangladesh with UN to establish global peace

Indian PM Modi pitches for double-digit GDP growth

Ahead of general election, intense cam-paigning by different political parties kicked

off in Pakistan on Sunday. Pakistan Muslim League (N), led by Nawaz Sharif, was set to start its electoral campaign from the port city of Karachi while Pakistan Tehreek Insaaf (PTI), led by Imran Khan, was to kick off its campaign in Mianwali.

The election is taking place amid simmering political tension following the ouster of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from office. Sharif was the 15th Prime Minister in Pakistan’s history to be ousted before finishing his term. This election will pit Sharif’s PML (N) with its main rival Khan’s PTI.

According to political observers, Khan-led PTI has emerged as a powerful force in recent years and is expected to better its tally in this election. In a statement, cricketer-turned-politician Khan said his party would transform Pakistan according to the vision of the country’s founding fathers Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Iqbal and root out cor-ruption by strengthening institutions of governance.

Khan, a firebrand politician, has been scathing in his criticism of American drone attacks inside Pakistan and has often criticized Donald Trump administration for its flawed regional policy. While he has been embroiled in many contro-versies, his popularity among Pakistani youth is astounding.

A senior leader of the Islamic State group’s offshoot ISIS Khorasan, who was reportedly

involved in the recent attacks in Jalalabad city, was killed during an operation of Afghan intelligence.

Identified as Adam Khan, the ISIS-K leader was killed on Saturday night in the vicinity of Chaparhar district in Nan-garhar province, Afghan media reported, citing a statement issued by provincial government media office.

According to the provincial government, the recent deadly attacks in Jalalabad (cricket ground, customs de-partment, medical faculty, and education directorate) were planned and carried out under the leadership of Adam Khan, the report stated.

Some weapons, motorcycles and munitions were con-fiscated during the operation, said the report.

On May 27, at least two back to back explosions were reported in Jalalabad city, which came barely a few days after three multiple explosions at a cricket stadium in the city killed at least eight people.

On May 13, at least six people were killed and nearly 20 others were wounded in a suicide attack in Jalalabad near the gate of the finance department.

ISIS has gained strong foothold in some parts of eastern Afghanistan, especially Nangarhar, and have been carrying out attacks across the country. Many of their leaders have been killed in joint operations of Afghan security forces and Afghan intelligence agency.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday reaffirmed Bangladesh’s firm

commitment to remain engaged with the United Nations in its efforts towards preventing conflict and establishing peace in the world.

“Bangladesh always remains ready to contribute troops and police in response to UN’s call for strengthening world peace and stability,” Hasina told UN Under Secretary General Jean Pierre Lacroix when he paid a courtesy call on her in Dhaka.

Hasina said Bangladesh also remained prepared to sup-port the UN peacekeeping capability readiness steps. As per the UN’s request, she said, the government was also ready with “rapid deployment battalion” for MONUSCO in Congo.

The Prime Minister also underscored implementation of a nine-point reform agenda for the UN peacekeeping opera-tions presented by the UN secretary general and assured the UN of Dhaka’s support in this regard.

While talking about the Rohingya issue, she pointed out Bangladesh’s foreign policy of “friendship to all, malice to none” and said her country wanted to maintain peace with all. “Accordingly, the government opened dialogue with Myanmar to solve the Rohingya issue,” she noted.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for targeting double-digit GDP

growth rate for breaking into the $5 trillion economy club and expressed hope that India’s share in world trade will double to 3.4 percent. He made these remarks while inau-gurating new office complex of India’s Ministry of Com-merce in New Delhi.

Modi, who heads the BJP-led government in India, said his government has taken many steps in four years to ease the process of doing business in India while maintaining macro-economic indicators like inflation, fiscal deficit within limits.

India’s growth rate, he stated, has touched 7.7 percent in the last quarter of 2017-18 but they are aiming beyond 7-8 percent growth and ultimately double-digit expansion.

“The need of the hour is that we should work towards achieving the target of double digit figure from 7-8 percent currently,” Modi said, adding that the world was watching as to when India will break into the $5 trillion economy club by doubling its economy.

Modi also emphasized the importance of foreign direct investment inflows and foreign exchange reserves, which he said were are at record highs.

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BY Seyed Mostafa Khoshcheshm

JUNE 26, 2018 ANALYSIS & INTERVIEW

By Jalal HeiranniaEXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

1 So if Trump’s handling of the presidency is similar, he will view everything from the perspective of a dealmaker, who is out to make the most for himself while convincing his gullible supporters that they are getting the best deal possi-ble. We can expect him to see him extract huge tax breaks for himself and his billionaire friends while the American taxpayer foots the bill. Already we see this with the passage of tax cuts, which really benefit the very rich while actually increasing the tax rate on lower and middle income folks. And above all, he will use the presidency to market the Trump brand worldwide, while callously disregarding the plight of the poor and struggling who did not have the advantage of a privileged upbringing. I’m afraid there is no deep political philosophy in the making in the wings with this scoundrel.

Trump has repeatedly stated that he is not a Republi-can. In your opinion, what is the current political affiliation of Trump himself?

A: It is necessary to unpack the question here, because in asking about political affiliation there is the hidden assump-tion that first, there is a difference between Republicans and Democrats and, second, that other parties, such as Green, Libertarian, Socialist Workers, etc. are irrelevant in the U.S. political duopoly. As Noam Chomskey has pointed out, there is one corporate party with two factions, Republican and Democrat. Looking at campaign positions of various Democratic and Republican candidates reveals a remarkable lack of differences and virtually lockstep agreement in the area of foreign policy and military spending. Trump has been a Democrat and is now a Republican, but what this change means in concrete terms is difficult to determine, and may even mean nothing at all.

The president of the United States has used his own cabinet of neoconservatives, such as John Bolton. This is while he previously described himself as one of George W. Bush›s sharp opponents. How do you evaluate this contradiction?

A: Examining Trump’s campaign promises shows that there have been a number of contradictions. For example, while campaigning, he referred to NATO as obsolete, but after being in office and having a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, he concluded that NATO was not obsolete and was fighting terrorism. Trump had held Steve Bannon in high esteem until he fired him, at which time Trump said Bannon had lost his job and his mind. He accused China of being a currency manipulator and then denied that when China was engaging with North Korea in a manner to his liking. On the campaign trail, Trump as-sured voters that he would not be spending his time playing golf like Obama, but has spent something like 3 times the amount of time playing the game. Trump first endorsed Mitt Romney and then called him a failed politician. So his having been a hypercritic of George W. Bush and then adopting his methods should come as no surprise.

If we think of Trump as a Republican, what is his ideology that, in the political spectrum, is closer to this party (T-party, Neoconservatives or Traditional Republicans)?

A: If we consider that Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were all “Republicans,” it becomes difficult to pin down exactly what is traditional Republican. One of the key features of Eisenhower’s economic policy was a reduction in military spending, following Democrat Harry Truman’s post World War II increase due to the “communist threat,” and he refused to cut taxes. Nixon signed into law the Environmental Protection Act creating the EPA, the Occupational Safety and Health Act creating OSHA, instituted wage price controls to reduce inflation, and effectively canceled the Bretton Woods Agreement, which had permitted a direct gold exchange for U.S. dollars. Reagan was a champion of deregulation, reduced taxes, government spending and regulation, and advocated tightening the money supply to control inflation. Reagan also struck a devastating blow to the labor movement by firing the PATCO union air traffic controllers, but allowed the Federal Railroad Administration to increase in size.

Likewise, the mantra of “fiscal conservative” does not seem to have much applicability, as the U.S. transitioned from a net creditor nation to a net debtor nation under Reagan, whose tax cuts and military spending broke the budget. It is worth noting that the last U.S. budget surpluses occurred under Democrat Bill Clinton, but he was responsible for doing away with the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated investment banks and commercial banks. Clinton also

pushed for national health care, but his efforts were stifled by the insurance and pharmaceutical companies’ lobby-ing efforts. Eisenhower addressed healthcare in 1955 and suggested expanding access to health insurance through a federally-subsidized program, much the same as Obama’s program a half a century later.

So where does Trump fall on the political spectrum? The pattern for Trump seems to be closer to Reagan: deregula-tion, higher military spending and tax cuts, particularly for the rich. Yet as recently as 2009, Trump was a registered Democrat, and reportedly has donated more money to the Democrats than to the Republicans. Trump even backed his presidential contender, Hillary Clinton, and has given $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation, which he denigrated as a “pay for play” criminal enterprise during his campaign. Frankly, with the massively corrupt state of U.S. politics where one dollar equals one vote, political labels are becoming meaningless. It is far more instructive to investigate who is backing the candidates, for once in office, a politician will strive to do the bidding of the largest campaign contributors. With Trump, this is casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus, and hedge fund manager Paul Singer. Trump’s pro-Israeli, anti-Iran policies reflect the wishes of these three men.

Is Trump›s protective approach to the economy or his special emphasis on «American values» can be a sign of his influence on a particular economic and political school of thought?

A: Historically, protectionism through imposing tariffs has been at a minimum counterproductive and at worst an economic disaster. When the U.S. stock market crashed in 1929, protectionist trade policies were implemented shortly thereafter with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. Instead of stim-ulating local production, the tariffs and retaliatory responses at a minimum exacerbated the Great Depression. The slow and sometimes nonexistent recovery following the global financial crisis of 2008 has created a similar atmosphere that is conducive to reviving protectionist trade policies. Therefore, in Trump’s thinking, protectionist tariffs will help stimulate a recovery in the manufacturing sector of the economy. However, in the 1930s, the U.S. dollar was tied to the gold standard, so the lowering of interest rates to stimulate growth was not an option.

Today, with the U.S. economy composed of 90% ser-vice and manufacturing less than 9%, there is scant local industry to make up for the shortages of goods caused by protective tariffs. Also, the U.S. manufacturing sector has not recovered at the same rate since the global financial crisis of 2008 and therefore, the trade deficit has grown, which Trump has blamed on China’s alleged currency ma-nipulation. However, a deeper look would show that the U.S. trade deficit is a result of weak domestic demand due to chronically depressed wages and the declining purchasing power of the average American worker. Decreases in supply

caused by tariffs will lead to higher prices, which will have the greatest impact on the people in the lowest tiers of the economy who can least afford it.

There are additional problems as well, such as a lack of investment in infrastructure, research and development, and education and training of the workforce. Likewise, lowering the rock bottom interest rates, as in the 1930s, is not an option now either, as years of quantitative easing by the U.S. Federal Reserve has shown. If effectively negative interest rates accompanied by injecting nearly $85 billion a month in liquidity into the economy could not stimulate growth, it would be magical thinking to believe that tariffs would. If anything, due to the service nature of the U.S. economy, Trumps tariffs and inevitable retaliatory responses by other countries could trigger a worldwide recession. The good news is that countries like Iran with highly devalued currencies will likely see a minimal impact.

Is the election of Trump as the president of the Unit-ed States in 2016 a symbol of American citizens’ tendency towards populism? If not, how can such a phenomenon be interpreted?

A: While appearing to be a populist revival, Trump’s election is more likely a symptom of the economic and po-litical frustration of voters, as well as disappointment with Obama’s failure to deliver significant change in their eco-nomic situation. Trump is a logical outcome of a political system that is awash in corruption and leaves the voter with a choice between two candidates with virtually identical campaign platforms, carefully vetted by the moneyed elite, as well as the Zionist lobby, of course. Trump, as vulgar and repulsive as he may be to some, represented a departure from the typical politicians American voters have seen in past elections. Using a carefully crafted verbal approach, which featured simple, short words, a restricted vocabulary and familiar phrases, Trump has managed to craft a political persona that has alarmingly wide appeal. In addition, he managed to convince a sufficient number of the electorate that he was immune to the corrupting influence of money in politics since he was a billionaire.

Looking back 10 years, we see that Obama capitalized on the global financial crisis in 2008, which was triggered by the sub-prime mortgage crisis, which in turn was precipitated by the bundling of mortgages into arcane financial instru-ments, allowing the original sellers of the mortgages to avoid risk of foreclosure. But an economic downturn resulted in defaults on mortgage payments, which led to foreclosures, which left investment bankers scrambling to assess the value of their derivatives and other mortgage-backed securities. Unlike U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, who placed a moratorium on home foreclosures and forced bankers to renegotiate terms, Obama chose to bail out the banker and let the hapless homeowners fend for themselves. Naturally, this fostered a huge amount of anger and resentment, which Trump merely played to his advantage.

TEHRAN — Professor Kevin Richards, chair of Liberal Arts Department at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, tells the Tehran Times that “cinema becomes a medium through which to speculate and potentially perform philosoph-ical questions, especially when considering a filmmaker like Cronenberg.”

He also adds that “philosophy can be used to understand works of cinema.”

Following is the text of interview: What will be your forthcoming book

and which publisher may publish it?A: My most recent publication is an essay

in the volume Van Gogh among the Philos-ophers. The book, published by Lexington Books, is an anthology of recent essays on philosophers writing about the work of Vin-cent van Gogh. My essay, “Pointure mal or if the shoe doesn’t fit…,” considers Jacques Derrida’s essay “Restitutions de la vérité en pointure,” a text that considers Martin Hei-degger’s essay “The Origin of the Work of Art” and the art historian Meyer Schapiro’s short response to Heidegger’s reading of van Gogh, “The Still-life as Personal Object- A Note on Heidegger and van Gogh.” I also have an essay forthcoming in another anthology to be published by Lexington Books, Cinema and Transcendence. This will be a collection of essays considering cinema through the lens of philosophy. My essay, “eXistenZ or Existenz: Transcendence in the early 21st century,” looks to David Cronenberg’s film eXistenZ.

What is your main question in that book?A: In my essay “Pointure mal,” I try to

situate Derrida’s essay within the context of his larger intellectual development, pointing to how it stylistically relates to texts written proximate to it, while also looking to how it opens up questions that he subsequently explores in later works. At the same time, I pay particular attention to questions of gen-der and sexual identity that pass through Derrida’s considerations of Heidegger and his reading of van Gogh.

In my essay on David Cronenberg’s eX-istenZ, I look to how this film, when juxtaposed with philosophical texts, helps to frame the way cinema can engage questions pertinent to philosophical discourse, especially as it relates to questions around existentialism. It also considers how cinema can be a medium

used for questions pertinent to speculative philosophy.

What Hypothesis will you use to answer this question?

A: In my essay in Van Gogh among the Philosophers, I rely heavily on some lesser known texts. In particular, a text on Cezanne by Schapiro, written in the same year as his essay on Heidegger and van Gogh, points to a number of contradictions within his texts, helping to support some of Derrida’s com-ments in regards to Schapiro’s misreading of Heidegger. I also rely on a few shorter texts by Derrida on Heidegger that help to point to ways of thinking beyond binary constructs around gender and sexuality. All of this helps to frame Derrida’s reading of Heidegger’s “The Origin of the Work of Art.”

In my essay on Cronenberg, I look to how

eXistenZ relates to his earlier film Videodrome, framing my reading of these films around ques-tions concerning selfhood and technology within the early twenty-first century. In this context, I propose that cinema becomes a medium through which to speculate and potentially perform philosophical questions, especially when considering a filmmaker like Cronenberg.

What is the necessity of writing this book?

A: In regards to Van Gogh among the Philosophers, my essay and the other essays in the collection, help to continue the ongoing relation between philosophy and the visual arts. While this may be most obvious in the field of aesthetics, one of my central areas of concern, it is also important to see how major modern philosophers have considered the work of one of the most important and popular modern artists in the West.

Cinema and Transcendence helps to consider the relationships between cinema and philosophy. In the process, the essays help to show how cinema can do the work of philosophy, while also pointing to the way that philosophy can be used to understand works of cinema. In this way, the field of philosophy shows it relevance to new pop-ular visual forms, while providing insight-ful readings of some well-known works of cinema, spanning the early twentieth to the early twenty-first century.

In both essays and collections, I am compelled to explore the way that the arts are an invaluable aspect to thinking about what it means to be human, in all its diverse, different, and complex forms.

Trump seems to be closer to Reagan: U.S. analyst

Cinema can engage philosophical questions: Kevin Richards

TEHRAN (FNA) — North Korea›s Kim Jong-un must have watched closely how Trump dismantled the Iran nuclear deal, and now the question is if that experience has left any impact on the Korean leader›s mindset on a deal with the United States.

Denuclearisation is an essential requirement for global peace and security, but it doesn›t seem likely to happen any time soon.

Global efforts, including international treaties such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), have failed not only to lead to a drastic reduction in the number of nuclear weapons but also to stop proliferation.

The recent statements and actions of U.S. President Donald Trump have contributed to this reality.

In his first official phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump called the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) signed less than a decade ago a «bad deal», provoking speculation on whether he intended to cancel it. Then, in February this year, his administration announced that it was going to allocate $11bln in the 2019 budget to modernise the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

In May, after months of threats and hostility, Trump decided to pull out of the JCPOA - Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - a non-proliferation agreement concluded with Iran, despite the protests of his European allies.

Despite his questionable commitment to non-proliferation, in June, the U.S. president embarked on a long process to negotiate the denuclearisation of North Korea. He met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore and, of course, did not hesitate to make grand declarations and take credit for an historic «breakthrough».

But does he really think that North Korea did not watch close-ly what happened with Iran? And does he expect Pyongyang to actually trust him, given the track record of his and previous U.S. administrations?

Washington›s double standardsA glance at so-called denuclearisation efforts reveals that the

U.S. has long been exercising double standards when dealing with different states. Otherwise, why would Washington not ask Israel to open its clandestine nuclear weapons programme to international monitoring and inspection?

Israel is not even a signatory to the NPT or any other interna-tional agreement or pact that brings its nuclear undertakings under scrutiny. It has always been at war with its neighbours and has been massacring Palestinians for seven decades now. It is currently believed to be in possession of several hundred nuclear warheads.

Iran, on the other hand, has not attacked another country in its recent history and has been under a record number of inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

While the U.S. has shown an encouraging silence on Israel›s military nuclear capability that has, one way or another, persuaded the country to continue developing its atomic arsenal, it has put inten-sifying pressures on Tehran over alleged nuclear proliferation plans.

When Iran finally negotiated a deal to lift some of the pressure, the U.S. found it hard to keep to its commitments. Despite claims that Trump›s predecessor, President Barack Obama, was seeking a win-win deal for all parties involved, Washington started violating the agreement right from the start.

First, in December 2015, just months after the signing of the JCPOA, Obama started implementing a law which prevented for-eign citizens who have been to Iran from entering the U.S. without a visa, which went against the principles of the deal. Then, a year later, Obama allowed the Iran Sanction Act to become a law - again in flagrant violation of the JCPOA›s provisions.

Then Washington›s closest ally, the UK, also reneged on its promise and obligation to supply yellowcake to Iran.

That Trump eventually discarded an internationally-endorsed nuclear deal without the other side committing a single violation perhaps should not come as a surprise to us.

After all, Trump is a true manifestation of Washington›s maxi-malist approach to foreign policy - in both relations and deals - which entails receiving all the benefits and granting no concessions.

A brief look at his administration›s list of 12 demands from Tehran, issued after withdrawing from the nuclear deal, shows his appetite for catastrophic success in diplomacy.

This has been undoubtedly taken into consideration by the North Koreans.

Why North Korea should distrust the U.S.Trump›s whimsical decision to kill the Iran nuclear deal adds

to a long list of cases which show that international respect for non-proliferation as a crucial requirement for the promotion of global peace and stability fails to cross the boundary of words at UN-related summits or scholarly events.

In this sense, it is important to note that North Korea›s leader Kim Jong-un is stepping into protracted talks with the U.S. after having witnessed its disloyalty to a hard-negotiated nuclear deal with Iran.

There might have been big words and promises made at the Singapore meeting, but Kim is not naive. Undoubtedly, it is clear to him that the U.S. - like other nuclear powers - pushes for denu-clearisation and non-proliferation in order to wear out its perceived adversaries and not because its leadership is truly committed to achieving a nuclear-free world.

In fact, North Korea itself has a long history of being let down by successive U.S. administrations - most recently by the Clinton administration and its six-party talks that amounted to nothing in the end.

By cancelling war games with South Korea, Trump is perhaps hoping that Pyongyang will reciprocate with some major concession. But confidence-building doesn›t happen with a single gesture and a Trump-style charm offensive.

U.S. foreign policy is seriously lacking in trustworthiness and credibility on the international scene and Trump is the last person in the world that can fix that.

Kim knows, probably better than anyone else, that once he drops his trump card, he will be left with no other means to prevent the U.S. from pursuing regime change in his country.

The truth is, the White House and the Pentagon have never dropped their commitment to the Paul Wolfowitz Doctrine. Contain-ment followed by bullying and pressure through sanctions, threats and excessive use of force to undermine so-called rogue states and eventually enforce regime change in them has always been the main, or rather, the only agenda of successive U.S. administrations.

Holding a deterrent force is the only means to resist U.S. plots and hostile agendas based on its profound belief in the «rule of the jungle».

And if nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles are your only deterrent, you would be a fool to give it up for a dubious deal, especially if the other side is as untrustworthy as Washington.

And Kim Jong-un probably knows this all too well.

Should Kim Jong-Un trust Trump?

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By John LloydIt’s an increasingly hard world for those seeking a better life in richer countries. Immigrants aren’t welcome in most states, even where demographic trends reflect the need to expand the labor force to levels able to sustain and support aging populations.

While both Europe and the United States will have to face the need for younger workers in the coming decades, citizens in the wealthy nations, no matter what their ethnic backgrounds, dislike mass immigration and punish politicians who allow it.

In Europe especially, immigration is the main driving force for nationalism, for the rise of popu-list parties and for the decline of the center left.

There are exceptions. Spain, which has had relatively low immigration from North Africa, ac-cepted over 600 migrants from a stranded ship, the Aquarius that Italy and Malta had turned away. Ire-land has been notably more sympathetic than most to the plight of Syrian refugees (though substantial

minorities there worry about strains on health and welfare systems.) The devolved administration of Scotland – concerned about its aging population and shrinking work force – has for some years proclaimed itself more welcoming to immigrants than the British government in London.

But the movement remains towards exclusion. In Germany, Europe’s leading economy and most powerful nation, Chancellor Angela Merkel dif-fers sharply with her Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, on the latter’s call to block migrants already registered in another EU country from entering Germany.

Seehofer is chairman of the Bavarian Chris-tian Social Union, in what has been a permanent coalition with Merkel’s Christian Democrats. The CSU has given her till early next month to come up with a compromise; most Germans presently believe she will fail to do so. Such a failure would endanger her coalition government, but the CSU

is hard-pressed by the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of October state elec-tions in Bavaria and can’t afford to back away from its threat to unilaterally close German borders.

EU-wide agreementMerkel hopes to find an EU-wide agreement. An

“informal meeting” of several leaders – including those from Austria, France, Germany and Italy, chaired by the EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker – will take place Sunday to seek some form of agree-ment before a June 28-29 EU summit – a sign that the issue now dominates the politics of all of them.

Merkel’s closest EU ally, France’s President Emmanuel Macron, has himself hardened his stance on migrants, telling Italian Prime Minis-ter Giuseppe Conte that those requesting asylum should be handled by centers established outside of Europe. Macron framed it in humanitarian lan-guage, saying that it’s not right for those with no chance of getting asylum in Europe to die in the

Mediterranean or live in “unworthy” conditions, but his proposal would mean that France follows Italy in banning entry to migrant ships. At the same time, however, France criticized Italy’s decision to refuse permission for the Aquarius to dock – and accepted some of the migrants on board.

Insofar as there is European agreement on im-migration, it is coming from the anti-immigration wing of the Union. Earlier this week, a meeting between Germany’s Seehofer and Austrian Chan-cellor Sebastian Kurz produced an agreement to create an “axis,” not so much, as Kurz put it, “of the willing,” but of those states – including Ger-many, Italy and Austria – unwilling to accept more migrants. Merkel is thus challenged not only by Italy, whose new populist government sees her insistence on open borders coupled with pressure to cut Italian public spending as intolerable, but also by her ally Macron, by her neighbor Austria and by her own interior minister.

This toughening stance begins to move the West-ern European EU members closer to the Central Europeans – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – all of which have refused to take the quota of migrants decided for them by the EU. In a powerful essay, Branko Milanovic, a former economist at the World Bank, argues that for these states, liberated from communism and control by the Soviet Union (and before Moscow, from the Austro-Hungarian empire), are deeply opposed to a migration which would dilute their ethnic homogeneity and new-found national freedom.

Milanovic writes that “ethnic heterogeneity would … come from within in the form of migrants, people of different culture, religion, and most scary in the eyes of the locals, people whose birth rates significantly outstrip the anemic, or even negative, growth rates of the native population. Migration thus appears as a threat to the hard-won national independence.” 1 3

Migrant misery, from Europe to the U.S.

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ADVERTISEMENTJUNE 26, 2018 9I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

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

HERITAGE & TOURISM JUNE 26, 2018

TEHRAN — A team of Iranian archaeologists

and researches have resumed exploration activity in the Amlash region to find further clues about its ancient culture.

Located in Gilan province, northern Iran, the site is filled with ancient and prehistoric settlements and cemeteries.

“Liar-Sang-Bon, an archaeological site in Amlash, is urgently being excavated for the third consecutive year,” IRNA quoted the project’s leader Vali Jahani as saying on Monday. “The site was initially identified in (the Iranian calendar year) 1391 (Mar. 2012-Mar. 2013) while its related mapping and demarcating projects were completed in 1393. Furthermore, the first season of excavation commenced in 1395,” Jahani explained. The site was partly looted by an-tique seekers due to a two-year gap between archaeological projects, he said.

So far and over the course of previous explorations, valuable cultural information has been collected through studies conduct-ed by archaeologists, anthropologists and ancient botanists, Jahani added.

A field research in 2016 led to the discovery of funerary and stone architectural objects and that estimated to date from the Parthian

and Sassanid eras.Some sources say that the site has yielded

relics such as animal figurines, human statu-ettes and potteries, which mainly date from

the late second millennium BC through the Partho-Sasanian period.

TEHRAN — Iran’s Cultural Heritage,

Tourism and Handicrafts Organiza-tion will hold a special crafts festival with the aim of spurring the use of handicrafts in decorating high-rise buildings.

The organizing plans to run a special festival dedicated to Iranian handicrafts and ways of their usage in decorating high-rise buildings, CHHTO Director Ali-Asghar Mounesan said on Sunday.

He made the remakes in an address to a gathering of builders, architects and designers who are running busi-nesses in districts 1 to 3 of Tehran, IRNA reported.

“Handicrafts can benefit construc-tion industry of the country by creat-ing lavishly decorated structures and apartments.”

Mounesan, who doubles as vice president, didn’t mention an exact time for the festival.

Mounesan’s deputy Pouya

Mahmoudian used the context of Iranian Home to discuss the signifi-cance of handicrafts in embellishing internal designs.

Iranian Home made its debut at the 28th National Crafts Exhibition, which was held in Tehran last August, she said.

The initiative features advantages of embedding traditional handicrafts in modern homes through presentation of their usefulness in practice.

Iran exported $280 million worth of handicrafts during the past Iranian cal-endar year, which ended on March 20. Traditional ceramics, pottery vessels, handwoven cloths as well as person-al ornamentations with precious and semi-precious gemstones are among Iranian exports to Iraq, Afghanistan and Germany, the U.S., the UK and other countries.

Dozens of Iranian handicrafts have gained the UNESCO Seal of Excellence during the past couple of years.

An all-you-can-eat restaurant in China has shut its doors after customers ate too much food, driving the establishment into $80,000 worth of debt.

Jiamener, a hot pot restaurant in the Sichuan province city of Chengdu closed its doors last week after customers took advantage of their $19 all-you-can-eat deal, according to reports. The establishment, which opened in December, wanted to get a leg up on the competition, so on June 1 they created a promotion in which customers paid a low fee for a membership card that allowed them to chow down on as much food as they wanted for a month.

But just two weeks into the promotion, they priced them-selves right out of business. Some customers reportedly passed their membership card around to family and friends, causing the volume of consumed meals to hit a fever pitch. While the restaurant was busy with an average of 500

customers a day, they never made up the financial ground they were losing with the promotion. Long lines developed outside the restaurant and the hours of the establishment were forced to get longer due to demand.

The owners were hoping to gain loyal customers from the deal and knew they would lose some money, but they did not anticipate the $80,000 in losses.

The owners told the South China Morning Post that due to their lack of business skills and “uncivilized behavior of the diners,” the restaurant had to shutter.

Hot pot restaurants are reportedly very popular in Cheng-du, which has a population of more than 10 million people. There are more than 20,000 hot pot restaurants estimated to be in the area.

(Source: Inside Edition)

High levels of tourism can lead to a dramatic reduction in the number of cheetahs able to raise their young to independence, new research has found.

A study in Kenya’s Maasai Mara savannah found that in areas with a high density of tourist vehicles, the average number of cubs a mother cheetah raised to independence was just 0.2 cubs per litter – less than a tenth of the 2.3 cubs per litter expected in areas with low tourism.

Dr Femke Broekhuis, a researcher at Oxford University and the author of the study, surveyed cheetahs in the reserve between 2013 and 2017 to assess how the frequency of tourist vehicles affected the number of cheetah cubs that survived to adulthood.

“During the study there was no hard evi-dence of direct mortality caused by tourists,” such as vehicles accidentally running over cubs, Broekhuis said. “It is therefore possible that tourists have an indirect effect on cub survival by changing a cheetah’s behaviour,

increasing a cheetah’s stress levels or by min-imising food consumption.”

Broekhuis said she has seen as many as 30 vehicles around a single cheetah at the same time. “The most vehicles that we recorded at a cheetah sighting was 64 vehicles over a

two-hour period,” she said.Too many tourist vehicles can reduce a

cheetah’s hunting success rate, the study suggests, and even if the hunt is successful, the disturbance from tourists could cause a female to abandon her kill, making her less

likely to be able to provide for her young.Broekhuis said it was “crucial that strict

wildlife viewing guidelines are implemented and adhered to,” and suggested limiting the number of vehicles around a cheetah to five and not allowing them to get any closer than 30 metres.

Dr Sarah Durant, a cheetah ecologist from the Institute of Zoology and the Zoological Society of London, who was not involved in the study, suggested “off-road driving should also be banned and enforced, as this enables cheetahs to avoid tourist ve-hicles should they wish to. What is needed is sustainable tourism that does not come at the price of the very species these parks are designed to protect”.

But Broekhuis is keen to stress that the tourism industry should not be demonised. “Tourists can play their role in conservation by respecting wildlife and minimising dis-turbance at sightings, especially of parents with young,” she concluded.

(Source: The Guardian)

H E R I T A G Ed e s k

H E R I T A G Ed e s k

H E R I T A G Ed e s k

Archaeology team probe Amlash settlements

TEHRAN — On July 3, Christie’s in London will auction tens of historical relics that in-

cludes a large Persian pottery jar, which dates from circa 3rd millennium BC.

The jar is estimated to fetch a value of 21,000 to 27,000 USD, according to the Chris-tie’s website.

The object measures by 24.2 by 8 inches with some high 25 inch in height.

A wood mask, alabaster cosmetic vessel, terracotta female figure, blue faience bowl and a wood duck-shaped cosmetic vessel are amongst relics to be put up for the auc-tion, all from ancient Egypt.

Founded in 1766 by James Christie, Christie’s is a British auction house. Its main premises are in London and the New York City.

Festival to promote usage of handicrafts in construction industry

All-you-can-eat restaurant forced to close after customers ate too much

Tourism preventing Kenya’s cheetahs from raising young, study finds

CAIRO (Arab News) — An Egyptian of-ficial in Alexandria said the coastal city is considering to establish tourist-only private beaches to offer its foreign visitors “the pri-vacy that suits their needs.”

The chairman of Alexandria Chamber for

Travel Agencies was quoted by Al-Masry El-Youm saying that the future of tourism in the city will be “very promising within the coming period.”

Ali Al-Manesterly noted the government’s recent agreements with Greece, Cyprus and

Italy in efforts to promote tourism in Alexan-dria among the citizens of its Mediterranean neighbors.

He also pointed out that the city is con-sidering to establish tourist-only beaches “to suit the needs of foreign nationalities”

and will create an opportunity to promote beach tourism in the city alongside its his-torical and cultural aspects. Al-Manesterly said the idea of allocating beaches to foreign tourism in return for fees is not strange for most touristic cities

Alexandria to seek tourist-only beaches to ensure privacy for expats

Durham Castle and Cathedral

Durham Cathedral was built between the late 11th and early 12th century to house the bodies of St. Cuthbert (634-687 CE) (the evangelizer of Northumbria) and the Venerable Bede (672/3-735 CE). It attests to the importance of the early Ben-edictine monastic community and is the largest and finest example of Norman architecture in England.

The innovative audacity of its vaulting foreshadowed Gothic architecture. The Cathedral lies within the precinct of Durham Castle, first constructed in the late eleventh century under the orders of William the Conqueror.

The Castle was the stronghold and residence of the Prince-Bishops of Durham, who were given virtual autonomy in return for protecting the northern boundaries of England, and thus held both religious and secular power.

Within the Castle precinct are later buildings of the Durham Palatinate, reflecting the Prince-Bishops’ civic responsibil-ities and privileges. These include the Bishop’s Court (now a library), almshouses, and schools. Palace Green, a large open space connecting the various buildings of the site once provided the Prince Bishops with a venue for processions and gatherings befitting their status, and is now still a forum for public events.

The site is significant because of the exceptional architec-ture demonstrating architectural innovation and the visual drama of the Cathedral and Castle on the peninsula, and for the associations with notions of romantic beauty in tangible form. The physical expression of the spiritual and secular powers of the medieval Bishops’ Palatinate is shown by the defended complex and by the importance of its archaeological remains, which are directly related to its history and continuity of use over the past 1000 years.

(Source: UNESCO)

ROUND THE GLOBE An interior design that revolves around ‘Iranian Home’ as its theme.

H E R I T A G Ed e s k

An exterior view of the Durham Castle and Cathedral

Prehistoric Persian jar head to auction at Christie’s

Under restoration: Historical bridge in Langarud

TEHRAN — A centuries-old brick bridge in Langarud, northern Iran, is being restored,

CHTN reported on Sunday. Some 70 percent of the rehabilitation project, which commenced

some 20 days ago, has been completed so far and restores are to take down scaffolding poles, the report said.

The arch bridge, made over the Langarud River, dates from the Safavid era (1501–1736).

Alzheimer’s disease affects millions of people around the world, but what ultimately causes the debilitating dementia remains unknown. One controversial theory, however, holds that the disease might be the result of a virus, or multiple viruses, infecting the brain.

Now, a new study offers more evidence to bolster this theory. In the study, published on June 21 in the journal Neuron, research-ers found that the brains of deceased people with Alzheimer’s disease had higher levels of viruses than the brains of deceased people without Alzheimer’s. Specifically, the Alzheim-er’s brains had up to twice as much of two common strains of herpes viruses than the non-Alzheimer’s brains.

The theory that viruses or other patho-gens could play a role in the development of Alzheimer’s “is actually a pretty old idea,” said lead study author Dr. Benjamin Readhead, an assistant research professor at Arizona State University and adjunct faculty member at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “Even as early as the 1950s, people have been … positing the potential for some kind of pathogen to be contributing to Alzheimer’s disease.” Still, these ideas have received much backlash from scientists and medical experts throughout the years.

Finding brain networksReadhead and his team didn’t set out to

look for possible viruses; rather, at first they were trying to find brain networks that ex-isting drugs could be repurposed to target as

potential treatments for the disease. “That actually kind of led us down this rabbit hole where we started suspecting that viruses could (explain) some of what we were seeing in these Alzheimer’s disease networks,” Readhead told

Live Science.In the study — one of the most detailed

analyses of Alzheimer’s brain tissue done to date — the team analyzed nearly 1,000 postmortem brains of people with and without Alzheim-

er’s disease from multiple brain banks. They sifted through raw RNA and DNA sequences taken from these brain tissues and identified which of these genetic sequences were human and which were not. The non-human genetic sequences were compared to a database that contained genetic data for more 500 differ-ent viruses that researchers know can, or are thought to, affect humans.

And while it may sound startling to learn that there are strains of herpes in the brain, the “thing to say about these viruses is that they’re very, very common,” Readhead said. (Nearly everyone carries these herpes strains in their bodies because they are infected with them in infancy. However, the strains don’t typically cause problems other than rashes in young children.)

In fact, the researchers detected the presence of these viruses in about 40 to 50 percent of the brain tissues examined in the study. But the Alzheimer’s brain samples had many more copies of these viruses than those without, he said.

Because viruses were found in both Alzheimer’s brain tissue and non-Alzheim-er’s brain tissue, the researchers can’t “simply say that infection with these viruses causes Alzheimer’s disease,”

Readhead said. “There’s obviously some other important mechanisms that change why some people would have a different response to the presence of a virus.”

(Source: Live Science)

The body-positive movement has prompted an advent of self-love and improved body satisfaction among women and men of all sizes, but new research suggests that what feeds the soul may endanger the body.

Wider plus-size acceptance might prevent overweight adults from recognizing the extent of their weight gain and promote unhealthy habits, says a study published Friday in the journal Obesity.

Researchers surveyed more than 23,000 British over-weight or obese adults and gauged their perception of their weight against how much they actually weigh. Men were more likely to underestimate their weight — almost 60 per-cent — compared to 30 percent of women.

Fighting the plus-size stigma hasn’t halted physical health declines: people who misperceived how much they weighed were 85 percent less likely to attempt to lose weight than those who recognized their weight status.

People of lower levels of education and income, two primary determinants of health, were more likely to underestimate their weight and less likely to lose weight as a result. Minority groups were also more likely to underestimate their size.

Socioeconomic indicators of obesityThese inequalities reflect socioeconomic indicators of

obesity, lead author Raya Muttarak wrote. Working condi-

tions, health literacy and adequate access to healthcare are all tied to health outcomes, and unequal access reinforces health disparities among those demographics.

This combination photo shows overweight and obese people in July 2003 in Los Angeles, May 2013 in Mexico City and October 2006 in Manchester, England. Researchers blame the body positive movement for normalizing unhealthy behaviors that promote obesity.

Though body image is traditionally considered and studied as a gendered issue, men and women are both plagued by

body image woes: studies found up to 84 percent of Amer-ican women and 43 percent of men are unhappy with their bodies, which lends itself to greater risk of eating disorders, depression and poor self-esteem. The average American woman wears a size 16, but models in nearly every clothing campaign wear between a double-zero and zero.

The body positivity movement is proven to significantly improve women’s self-image: as women see increased rep-resentation in average- and plus-size models, they feel deeper satisfaction with their own bodies and stopped comparing themselves to thinner women.

Mental and physical health are growing in opposite di-rections, though: the Centers for Disease Control said more than 70 percent of American adults are overweight or obese, though it’s the 18th most obese country in the world.

Critics of the body positive movement have shredded the “unrealistic expectations” it creates, like the idea weight and health aren’t correlated. At worst, it’s been called an “excuse” for overweight people to stay complacent about the extra pounds. The “wrong” kind of body positivity blinds followers from recognizing the health consequences of being overweight, Kelly deVos wrote in the New York Times.

(Source: Newsweek)

S C I / M E DJUNE 26, 2018 11I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

A new study has brought science one step closer to a molecular-level understanding of how patterns form in living tissue. The researchers engineered bacteria that, when incubated and grown, exhibited stochastic Turing patterns: a ‘lawn’ of synthesized bac-teria in a petri dish fluoresced an irregular pattern of red polka dots on a field of green.

Representative fluorescent image of a stochastic Turing pattern of signaling molecules in a biofilm of forward-engi-neered E. coli cells. The field of view is about 300 microns across. Right: Com-puter simulation of a stochastic Turing pattern with parameters corresponding to the experimental conditions. The sim-ulation region is smaller than that of the experiment, but the statistical properties of the patterns are in agreement with those of the experiment.

How did the zebra get its stripes, or the leopard its spots? Humankind has been trying to answer such questions since our earliest recorded days, and they resonate throughout the extant mythologies and folklores of an earlier world. In modern times, we’ve looked to mathematical models and most recently to genomic science to uncover the explanation of how patterns form in living tissues, but a full answer has proven particularly hard to get at.

The mechanism of pattern for-mation

The mechanism of pattern formation in living systems is of paramount interest to bioengineers seeking to develop living tissue in the laboratory. Engineered tissues

would have countless potential medical ap-plications, but in order to synthesize liv-ing tissues, scientists need to understand the genesis of pattern formation in living systems.

A new study by researchers at the Uni-versity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University has brought science one step closer to a molecular-level understand-ing of how patterns form in living tissue. The researchers engineered bacteria that, when incubated and grown, exhibited stochastic Turing patterns: a “lawn” of synthesized bacteria in a petri dish fluoresced an irregular pattern of red polka dots on a field of green.

What are classic Turing patterns?Turing patterns can be stripes, spots or

spirals that arise naturally out of a uniform state. In 1952, the British mathematician, computer scientist, and theoretical biologist Alan Turing proposed a mechanism for how patterns form, theorizing that it’s due to a very general kind of instability, which he worked out mathematically.

At that time, biology had not yet uncov-ered the complexities of gene regulation, and it’s now clear that the model Turing proposed is overly simplified to describe the multitude of parameters at work in animal-skin pattern formation.

So while Turing patterns have been observed in certain chemical reactions, such patterns have proven very difficult to demonstrate in biological organisms.

(Source: Science Daily)

Engineering bacteria to exhibit stochastic Turing patterns, study finds

Today’s Martian weather forecast calls for a hat, sunglasses and anything that will protect you from a planet-wide storm of hellish dust. But a few billion years ago, you might’ve been able to get by with just a pair of galoshes.

According to a new study published May 22 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, the entire surface of the Red Planet may have been covered in a single ocean about 3 billion years ago. The water would have been shallow — only about 4 inches (20 centimeters) deep, the study authors wrote. But Mars’ “Waterworld” phase would have been just one consequence of a much larger phenomenon.

Beginning about 3.5 billion years ago and continuing for up to 500 million years after that, an outbreak of massive volcanic eruptions may have changed every aspect of the Martian geosphere, the authors wrote.

“(These eruption) would have marked a pivotal point in the atmospheric, surface and interior evolution of Mars,” lead study author and famed Mars-water-finder Lujendra Ojha, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, said in a statement.

Mars’ eruptive pastAnd, unfortunately for conspiracy

enthusiasts, Mars’ eruptive past may also mean the famed site of a suspected UFO crash landing is merely the result of ancient, world-shattering volcanoes.

The bubbling dunes and mesas of

Medusae Fossae stretch more than 2 million square miles (5 million square kilometers) across Mars’ equator. Scientists think it was once twice as big.

The bubbling dunes and mesas of Medusae Fossae stretch more than 2 million square miles (5 million square kilometers) across Mars’ equator. Scientists think it was once twice as big.

“This is a massive deposit, not only on a Martian scale, but also in terms of the solar system,” Ojha said.

This unusual region stretches along Mars’ equator over an area about one-fifth the size of the United States, standing in stark contrast to the flat crust nearby. The rocks there are also significantly softer than regular Martian crust and have eroded into strange patterns over time, the researchers said.

Conspiracy theorists like pointing to Medusae Fossae as the site where an alien vehicle crashed. But scientists prefer simpler explanations for the anomalous terrain: Perhaps the rolling rocks are partially made of ice, or perhaps they are porous leftovers of past volcanic eruptions.

To get a clearer answer, Ojha and Lewis compared a slew of radar and gravity data taken during several previous Mars orbiter missions. From these combined measurements, they found that Medusae Fossae was far less dense than the rest of the Martian crust — about two-thirds as dense, to be exact.

(Source: space.com)

Mars had a seriously crazy volcanic past, new study reveals

Could herpes viruses play a role in Alzheimer’s? New study backs theory

Great white sharks are uncannily attracted to these specific ocean featuresMarine biologists studying the movements of adult female white sharks in the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Ocean have dis-covered, to their surprise, that they prefer warm-water eddies — ocean whirlpools that spin clockwise north of the equator.

“We’ve decimated some open-ocean shark populations to a fraction of what they were 100 years ago. And yet we don’t know the basics of their biology,” says lead author Peter Gaube, a sen-ior oceanographer at the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory.

“If we know where those sharks, or turtles, or whales might be in the open ocean, then the fisheries can avoid them, and limit their bycatch.”

Gaube investigates how ocean eddies, or whirlpools, influ-ence the behavior of marine animals. A previous study found that loggerhead sea turtles also prefer the anticyclonic, or clock-wise-spinning in the Northern Hemisphere, eddies. These features trap large amounts of water at the ocean’s surface and are most often warm, clear, and low in nutrients.

The new study analyzed movements of two female great white sharks tagged in September 2012 off Cape Cod and in March 2013 off Jacksonville, Florida. OCEARCH, a nonprofit group that focuses on tagging and tracking sharks, did the tricky job of tagging the animals.

One shark just had a position tag, while the other had a second tag that also recorded temperature and depth. The group tracked the sharks for nearly 6 years, with one still reporting its position regularly, as they swim north with the Gulf Stream and then out into the open ocean. (Source: sciencealert.com)

Chemists report biorenewable, biodegradable plastic alternativeColorado State University polymer chemists have taken another step toward a future of high-performance, biorenewable, bio-degradable plastics.

Publishing in Nature Communications, the team led by Pro-fessor of Chemistry Eugene Chen describes chemical synthesis of a polymer called bacterial poly (3-hydroxybutyrate) – or P3HB. The compound shows early promise as a substitute for petroleum plastics in major industrial uses.

P3HB is a biomaterial, typically produced by bacteria, algae and other microorganisms, and is used in some biomedical ap-plications. Its high production costs and limited volumes ren-der the material impractical in more widespread commodity applications, however.

The team, which includes the paper’s first author and research scientist Xiaoyan Tang, used a starting material called succinate, an ester form of succinic acid. This acid is produced via fermen-tation of glucose and is first on the U.S. Department of Energy’s list of top 12 biomass-derived compounds best positioned to replace petroleum-derived chemicals.

The researchers’ new chemical synthesis route produces P3HB that’s similar in performance to bacterial P3HB, but their route is faster and offers potential for larger-scale, cost-effective pro-duction for commodity plastic applications. This new route is enabled by a class of powerful new catalysts they have designed and synthesized. They have filed a provisional patent through CSU Ventures for the new technology. (Source: phys.org)

The non-human genetic sequences were compared to a database that contained

genetic data for more 500 different viruses that researchers know can, or are thought

to, affect humans.

Body positivity promotes unhealthy habits, study says

Severity of mom’s diabetes may up autism risk in their kidsMaternal diabetes may increase autism risk among offspring, re-searchers reported here.

Compared with mothers without diabetes, in utero exposure to the main diabetes types -- type 1, type 2, or gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) -- was tied to a heightened risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the offspring, according to Anny H. Xiang

GDM diagnosed after 26 weeks of gestation was not linked to a significant increased for ASD, however (aHR 0.99, 95% CI 0.88-1.12, P=0.89). And interestingly, this associated risk was not significantly different among mothers with GDM on antidiabetic medications compared to those not on medication (aHR 1.18, 95% CI 0.97-1.43, P=0.10), they reported at the American Diabetes Association annual meeting and in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“We weren’t surprised that there was an association between type 1 diabetes and autism, based on our prior work on type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes. But we hadn’t anticipated the greater mag-nitude of risk associated with type 1 diabetes,” Xiang explained to MedPage Today. “While we haven’t proven that good glucose control will reduce the risk of autism, the association we identified with autism is one of the many reasons to ensure good glycemia control prior to conception and continued during pregnancy” she added.

The retrospective cohort analysis assessed outcomes on 419,425 children. This included 621 children exposed to maternal type 1 diabetes, 19 of whom were diagnosed with ASD. There were 9,453 offspring exposed to maternal type 2 diabetes, with 233 cases of ASD. A total of 11,922 offspring were exposed to gestational diabetes that was diagnosed by week 26 of gestation, with 253 subsequent cases of ASD.

The children were then tracked through their electronic health records for a median of nearly 7 years. An ASD diagnoses included autistic disorders, Asperger syndrome, as well as pervasive devel-opmental disorder not otherwise specified.

Even after further adjustment for pregnancy maternal BMI and smoking status, these associations remained significant.

(Source: MedPage Today)

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

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

W O M E N JUNE 26, 2018

Sameera Al Salam folds a discarded piece of newspaper into a long strip then loops it round her finger to form a tight circle, the first stage of making the upcycled handbags, trays and bowls the Syrian refugee hopes will help her earn a living.

Al Salam, 55, was a hairdresser with a passion for “art and making things” before she fled her war-torn homeland for Irbid in northern Jordan with her family in 2012.

Now she has two teenagers and a hus-band left paralyzed by a stroke to support in a country where she has no automatic legal right to work, and they are three months behind on their rent.

“We were living a really happy life. I had a garden where I grew everything,” Al Salam told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“We had to leave because of the airstrikes. We were always trying to put things in front of the door to protect the children. Whenever I remember, it breaks my heart.”

Like most of the more than 655,000 Syrian refugees living in Jordan – and many Jor-danians – poverty, debt and unemployment dominate the family’s existence.

Al Salam hopes her involvement in a new rubbish collection and recycling scheme that aims to alleviate the poverty of both refugees and locals and bring the two communities closer will help turn things around.

The scheme, managed by charity Action Against Hunger, employs 1,200 people to

collect and sort waste from the streets and provides temporary work permits to refugees who take part.

Nearly half the participants are female in a country where women can face cultural and family obstacles to employment, including a culture of shame around going out to work.

One in three Syrian refugee households in Jordan is headed by women and more and more are now seeking jobs in an already crowded market.

More than 80 percent of the Syrian ref-ugees in Jordan live below the poverty line, according to Care International.

Awsaf Qaddah, a 39-year-old Syrian widow, said working as a rubbish collector initially felt like “a kind of shame”, but she now feels only pride.

“The job took me out of this atmosphere I was living in at home. Women can and should go out and work, especially with the circum-stances we’re facing,” she said. “I have no husband or father or brother to help – I’m proud to do it.”

Fellow worker Berwen Misterihi, who is Jordanian, was forced to earn after her husband left her and their four children.

“Women and men would make comments about me picking up waste,” she said.

“I said to one man, ‘I’d rather work than come to you for the money’ and he apologized.”

‘LIKE SIBLINGS’The project workers were given 50-day

contracts paying 12 Jordanian Dinar ($16.90)

a day, plus training and social security pro-visions. Some of the waste was sold to scrap dealers for extra cash.

Al Salam was among a group of women who started an upcycling project, turning the waste paper and plastic they collected into objects to sell.

Action Against Hunger, which has managed the waste project since 2017 with German gov-ernment funding, is now setting up a second phase focusing on equipping cooperatives and workers to continue waste processing and upcycling unaided.

“First there was a focus on breaking the culture of shame for women. Then we wanted ideas of how they could benefit from waste,” said Sajeda Saqallah, program manager with Action Against Hunger.

“Upcycling is a new concept here, so we took them to Amman to learn about it.”

Al Salam said her husband did not object to her taking part in the scheme. She now hopes she will get training on marketing and trademarking and win one of a number of new contracts Action Against Hunger is providing to carry on upcycling for wages.

The women in her upcycling group meet regularly and share ideas and news in a WhatsApp group.

At a workshop filled with their creations - from handbags to light shades to side ta-bles, all made from recycled newspaper and cardboard - Sahira Zoubi, a Syrian refugee and mother of five excitedly points to the

gold handbag she made.Zoubi, who has not seen her husband since

the Syrian Army captured him in 2012, has made close friends through the project from both Syria and Jordan who she says are “like siblings”.

“Doing this project is so joyful because you come here and forget about your prob-lems,” she said.

Al Salam breaks down as she tells how the project has allowed her to overcome her fears of being a refugee in a strange country.

“I never really mixed with people before this. I was afraid to go outside, I wasn’t in-volved in the community,” she said.

“I was from a different country. I didn’t know what people were going to do to me or what they would say. Now I like to mingle.”

(Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation)

Recycling rubbish into revenue - the scheme bringing hope to women in Jordan

TEHRAN — More women are referring to rehab centers and this means that so-

cial support for drug-addicted women is vital, said Saeed Sefatian, head of the drug demand reduction working group at the Expediency Council.

Increasing the number of drug rehab centers and growing number of addicted women referring to these centers, has led to more realistic statistics about women’s addiction in Iran, IRNA quoted the official as saying.

Based on statistics released in the Iranian calendar year 1390 (March 2011- March 2012), 5 percent of drug addicts in Iran were women; the number has increased to 10 percent in 1395 (March 2016-March 2017), he announced.

However, the statistics does not mean that the number of addicted women has been doubled, but other factors are considered in reaching this number, Sefatian noted.

There exits an interest in over-20 women for consum-ing “crystal meth”, because they are deceived by unofficial commercial advertisement that they will lose weight in very

short period by using the drug, he explained. Though, opium continues to be the leading drug used among

the addicted women, and currently women make up about 10 percent of drug addicts in the country, the official stated.

The government has predicted about 25 percent decrease in drug addiction both among men and women according to the sixth five-year development plan (2016-2021), hence, there should be about 2.5 present decrease in female addicts.

In July 2017, Sefatian announced that the increasing population of drug addicts imposes a financial burden of 500 trillion rials ($13.2 billion) on the treasury every year, ISNA reported.

Based on a recent survey, 17% of Iranians have a ten-dency to experiment with drugs. “From among them 12% are at high risk of addiction if nothing is done to control the problem,” he added.

According to official figures, there are at least 2.8 mil-lion drug addicts in Iran and the Law Enforcement Forces said recently there are between 220,000 to 250,000 people involved in drug smuggling.

Each year around 600-700 tons of illegal substances are seized by police. Also, around 500,000-700,000 people annually receive rehab services.

The Women’s Choice Award, a national research firm rep-resenting the collective voice of women, recently conducted a healthcare survey among 1264 women ranging from 18 – 75+ years. The survey was designed to identify trending issues and gain insight on how women feel about their own health and their opinions on U.S. healthcare.

Overall, the survey found that women and their families are making lifestyle changes to maintain a healthier life. The vast majority of women are more health conscious and dissatisfied with the healthcare administration in the society.

They are open to alternative forms of treatment for health conditions even if it has not been approved by the FDA. And despite the rapid increase in mobile communication, women lack confidence when using telemedicine for a diagnosis.

Survey highlights include: 89% of all women consider themselves more health con-

scious than 5 years ago78% of all women believe that healthcare has progressed

in the last 5 years60% of all women would consider using an alternative

form of healing to treat their medical condition if it was not FDA approved.

60% of women claimed that they have increased stress levels compared to last year.

41% of all women believe that we have better healthcare under our present administration

6% of all women feel extremely confident using telemed-icine for medical diagnosis.

When looking more closely at the individual age groups, increasing trends were observed for three categories.

Women 25 and older, who were more committed to annual examinations, felt that their healthcare provider was more actively involved in supporting their well-being and were

also very satisfied with the amount of patient education received from their healthcare provider.

Asked to rate a health category that concerns them the most, women 75 and under all said that cancer was their leading con-cern. Women 75 and above indicated that heart care was their utmost concern. Choices included infectious disease, heart, breast care, gynecology, osteoporosis, cancer and depression.

When asked what type of changes were made to keep themselves and their family healthy, all age groups except 35-44 and 45-54 said that they ate more fruits and vegeta-bles. Respondents in age groups 35-44 and 45-54 reported adding more water to their diet to stay healthy. For all age groups except 18-24, the factors that prevent women from a healthier lifestyle were: lack of willpower, time to exercise and costs associated with eating healthier.

The main obstacles for women ages 18-24 were the costs associated with eating healthier as well as finding the time to exercise.

Women were asked to select the top three factors that were most challenging to their health. All six age groups with the exception of the 75+ group reported that stress was the #1 factor challenging their health, with insurance costs and hereditary / family history following behind.

(Source: GLOBE NEWSWIRE)

‘More social support for drug-addicted women needed’

Women’s health survey reveals rise in stress levels

You Are Fired! A: Hi Isabel! You wanted to see me?B: Yes Anthony, come on in. Have a seat.A: Is everything okay? You seem a bit preoccupied.B: Well, Anthony, this is not going to be an easy conversation. The company has made some decisions which will have a direct impact on your employment.A: Okay...B: I don’t want to beat around the bush so I’m just gonna come out with it. We are going to have to let you go.A: What? Why? I mean... just like that? I’m fired?B: I’m sorry but, to be honest, you are a terrible employee!A: What! I resent that!B: Anthony, you were caught making international calls from the office phone, you called in sick eight times this month and you smell like alcohol!

Key vocabularypreoccupied: worried; thinking about something elsedirect: connected to, related toimpact: strong influence or effectbeat around the bush: avoid saying something by talking about other thingscome out with it: say something directlylet (someone) go: have someone fired or dismissedto be honest: used to say something directlyresent: find something very insultingcall in sick: call the office to say you can›t come to work because you’re sick

Supplementary vocabularyseverance package: money or benefits you give someone when they are firedlay off: end an employment be- cause of business reasons, not performancelayoffs: the action of ending employment because of business reasonsdismissal letter: a letter written to tell an employee his is firedterminate: end the employment of a person; fire

(Source: irlanguage.com)

L E A R N E N G L I S H

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

W O M E Nd e s k

W O M E Nd e s k

W O M E Nd e s k

TEHRAN — About 83 percent of Iranian families

are parented by women and 17 percent by men, the Statistical Center of Iran reported.

A total number of 1.77 million Iranian families, equaling 7.2 percent of the total population of the country are single-parented.

Based on census results made in the Ira-nian calendar year 1395 (March 2016-March 2017) out of the total number of 24 families living in Iran, 87 percent of heads of families are male and 13 percent enjoy a female head.

Another census result made in 1390 (March 2011-March 2012) shows that out of about 21 million families, 7 percent were single parent families; 14.48 percent headed by fathers and 85.52 percent headed by mothers.

Therefore, there exists a growth of about 19 percent in number of single parent families during a five-year period.

According census results made in 1395, the total population of Iran is 79 million which consists 51 percent of men and 49 percent of women.

Iran population is equivalent to 1.07% of the total world population.

Single-parent families are families with children under age 18 headed by a parent who is widowed or divorced and not remarried.

A single parent is a parent that parents alone without the other parent’s support, meaning this particular parent is the only

parent to the child, responsible for all financial, material, and emotional needs.

In 2017, about 19.97 million children in the United States lived with one parent, approximately 16.77 million of them with their mother only.

A study revealed that financial problem

is the main stressor for majority of the sin-gle mothers. The emotional life of the single mother is also affected by their single status. Majority of the single mothers reported that they felt lonely, helpless, hopeless, lack of identity and lack of confidence.

The demographics of single parenting show

a general increase worldwide in children living in single parent homes. Single parenting has become a norm in the United States and is a trend found in many other countries.

Of the world’s 2.3 billion children 14 percent - or 320 million - are living in sin-gle-parent households, most often headed by single mothers.

Those children aged 0 to 17 years and their single mothers and single fathers face special challenges, including economic hardships, social stigma and personal difficulties, that require society’s attention and assistance.

While raising children is a major responsi-bility and protracted undertaking for couples, it becomes markedly more demanding and often onerous for lone parents.

Children raised in single-parent house-holds generally do not have the same financial means, personal care and parental support available to them as those brought up in two-parent families. Consequently, children in single-parent families are frequently dis-advantaged due to comparatively high levels of unemployment, poverty and poor health among such households.

The primary cause of single-parent house-holds is parental death due to disease, war, maternal mortality and accidents. As a result of those high adult mortality rates, it is esti-mated that at least one-third of the children had lost a parent during childhood.

Conference held on women’s role in economy

TEHRAN – A conference on women’s role in the national economy was held in Tehran

on June 20.The congress pivoted on “past, present and future”, discussed

women’s role in economy, the world experiences, exchange of views in women’s employment, economy of the family, wom-

en’s economic or job security and realities about women’s employment at present time, Mehr reported.

Since there exists relation-ship between economic culture of the family and strengthening the foundation of family, stud-ying economic changes in fam-ily is an essential in researches based on gender and family.

However, growing number of working women have not di-minished their traditional du-ties as housewives, spouses and mothers. In other word, women are burdening the outside duties

besides the home responsibilities. Women make up half of the country’s population and their

share in Resistance Economy is as much as men’s share. There should exist logical frameworks in direction of religious

principles for women’s employment, the report concluded.

Fresh cherry cake

“A white cake made with fresh cherries and cherry juice. My wife’s favorite!”

Ingredients:2 cups all-purpose flour2 teaspoons baking powder1/2 teaspoon salt1 1/2 cups white sugar, divided1/2 cup butter, softened1 cup milk1 teaspoon vanilla extract4 cups halved and pitted cherries1 1/4 cups cherry juice

Directions:Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a deep 9x13-inch baking dish.Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl.Place 1 cup sugar and butter

in a separate bowl; beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, 4 to 5 minutes. Stir in milk and vanilla extract. Add flour mixture to butter mixture; mix until batter is well blended and thick, 2 to 3 minutes.

Spread batter in the prepared baking dish; arrange cherries on top. Drizzle cherry juice over the cherries. Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup sugar over the surface.

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes.

Cook’s note:The most time-consuming part of the prep work is pitting

the cherries. This is easily done by slicing the cherry along its equator with a sharp knife and twisting the two halves. To remove the pit from the half with the cherry, put the edge of the blade into the pit and pull it out.

1283% of Iranian single-parent

families headed by women

Syrian refugee Sahira Zoubi works on a new handbag, made from recycled news-papers, at an up-cycling workshop in Irbid city, northern Jordan, May 9, 2018.

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

JUNE 26, 2018

The United States White House press sec-retary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was booted from a Virginia restaurant because she works for the U.S. President Donald Trump, setting off a fierce debate about whether politics should play a role in how administration officials are treated in public.

Sanders tweeted that she was told by the owner of the Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia, that she had to “leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left.” She said the episode on Friday evening and said far more about the owner of the restaurant than it did about her.

“I always do my best to treat people, in-cluding those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so,” Sanders said in the tweet from her official account, which generated 22,000 replies in about an hour.

The restaurant’s co-owner Stephanie Wilkinson told The Washington Post that her staff had called her to report Sanders was in the restaurant. She cited several reasons, including the concerns of several restaurant employees who were gay and knew Sanders had defended Trump’s desire to bar trans-gender people from the military.

“Tell me what you want me to do. I can ask her to leave,” Wilkinson told staff, she said. “They said yes.”

Wilkinson said that she talked to Sanders privately and that Sanders’s response was immediate: “That’s fine. I’ll go.”

Employees at the restaurant told the Associated Press that Wilkinson wasn’t available for further comment. Sanders’ treatment created a social media commo-tion with people on both sides weighing in, including her father, Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and Republican

presidential candidate.“Bigotry. On the menu at Red Hen Res-

taurant in Lexington VA. Or you can ask for the ‘Hate Plate,’” Huckabee said in a tweet, quickly generating 2,000 replies in about 30 minutes. “And appetizers are ‘small plates for small minds.’”

Tom Lomax, a local business owner, brought flowers to the restaurant on Sat-urday afternoon as a show of support. He

called Wilkinson a “force of nature” and “one of the biggest drivers of the downtown.”

“We support our own here, great little community we have,” he said.

Stephen Russek, a former restaurant owner in the area, said, “They had no right to do that.”

“You have your political opinions, you don’t throw somebody out of your restau-rant,” Russek said.

“They ought to be shut down.”The separation of families trying to

enter the U.S. at the southern border has intensified political differences and pas-sions that were already at elevated levels during the Trump presidency. Earlier in the week, Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen cut short a working dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Washington after protesters shouted, “Shame!” until she left.

Ari Fleischer, who was a press secretary for President George W. Bush, tweeted Satur-day: “I guess we’re heading into an America with Democrat-only restaurants, which will lead to Republican-only restaurants. Do the fools who threw Sarah out, and the people who cheer them on, really want us to be that kind of country?”

(Source: AP)

London alarmed by threats to UAE

1 Ansarullah has launched more than 120 missiles at Saudi Arabian cities such as Riyadh, Jeddah, Ta’if, Khamis Mushait, Jizan and Najran. Did the British government got knowledge that Ansarullah’s patience has come to an end? Perhaps.

Emirati cities are allegedly protected by Patriot missile defense systems but the system is not trusted and the psychological impact of Yemeni missiles striking the UAE would be huge, especially if the targets are Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

A Bahraini human rights activist, Nader Mansour al-Ghamar, wrote on Facebook: “The Houthis have sent a message to the Sultanate of Oman with a view to transferring it to the Emirates. It has been emphasized that it will soon target the UAE with ballistic missiles.”

The Houthis have said that the Saudi-led coalition crossed a red line by using forbidden bombs, perhaps tiny nuclear bombs, that caused many casualties.

The British advised their nationals in the United Arab Emirates to immediately leave this country. Other countries are expected to have similar recommendations to their nationals to leave the UAE. Over one a million British tourists go to the UAE every year and 100,000 British citizens live in the UAE. If many British and other foreigners leave the UAE, it could impact the economy.

Yemen’s army spokesman Brigadier General Sharaf Loghman announced that the UEA’s recent move in al-Hudayda faces a strong reaction. He warned investors in the Emirates that it is not a safe place to be.

The leader of Yemen’s popular Houthi Ansarullah move-ment, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, recently called on foreign companies to shut down investment in the UAE and leave the country.

The head of the Human Rights and Legal Department of the Political Bureau of Ansarallah, Abdul Wahab al-Mahbashi, said:

“Strategic plans, especially military and economic, in the UAE are targeted by Yemeni forces and missiles. Yemeni missiles are capable because a nuclear power plant was previously targeted in Abu Dhabi and the plant inauguration, scheduled for last year, was postponed to 2019, following a Yemeni missile strike.”

The UAE may be in for a very hot summer indeed.

Migrant misery, from Europe to the U.S.

8 Immigrant children, many separated from their parents under the “zero tolerance” policy by the Trump administration, walk in single file between tents in their compound next to the Mexican border in Tornillo, Texas, U.S. June 18, 2018.

A dilution of national ethnicityIn many minds, “threat” is now an indivisible companion

to “migrant.” To opponents, the new arrivals threaten crime; a dilution of national ethnicity and a claim on services paid for by the taxes of the native population. Europeans especially don’t like immigration of Muslims, fearing the new arrivals might include militants planning acts of terror.

The advantages of a young and usually hard-working cohort who will themselves pay taxes, take jobs no longer attractive to existing citizens and provide cultural diversity are either less visible or increasingly ignored. In France, the Malian migrant Mamoudou Gassama, who climbed up to a fourth-floor balcony to save a four-year-old child in danger of falling, was granted French citizenship and time with President Macron for an act of courage – an opportunity unlikely to come the way of others seeking nationality.

U.S. President Donald Trump is one who sees migrants all but wholly through the prism of “threat.” He is unremittingly harsh, using terms like “infest” and “animals” in his references to those trying to enter the United States without documentation. His enforcement of a policy that led to children being separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexican border was widely seen, even in his own Republican Party, as an abomination, and – after falsely accusing Democrats of being responsible for the policy – he signed an order ending the separations.

The pressure of the poor on the rich world is one of the sorriest sights of the past few years. The pressure will not go away; neither will the resistance to it. Africa and the Middle East, especially its war zones, will continue to pour forth tired, poor and huddled masses, and they will continue to be pushed back. Leaders, liberal and conservative, will have little choice but to join the push-back party if they wish to remain in office.

These leaders must now get smarter – rather than more re-actionary. The poverty and conflict that increasingly divides the world must be addressed more comprehensively than it has been so far. The effects of its misery can no longer be confined with-in poorer borders: it more and more becomes the rich world’s emergency too.

(Source: Reuters)

Adjustment of European package with Iran national interests

1 On the other hand, there have recently raised conflicts between the United States and the European Union over the transatlantic economic relations. The imposition of tariff on the imported steel and aluminum from Europe by the United States can be analyzed in the same vein. With the emergence of Trump-ism inside America, The United States has moved to redefine its economic relations with other countries (and especially with Eu-rope) based on protectionism. Washington’s confrontation with the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund also indicate this issue very well. With his decisions, Trump has challenged the “free trade” in the international system. The crisis that has already been created by Trump, and the subsequent strengthening of the nationalist approach in the United States have targeted the liberal order of the Western world.

In the second half of the twentieth century, we saw that the United States, in cooperation with institutions such as the Inter-national Monetary Fund and the World Trade Center, formed a kind of economic and liberal order in the international system. Even the United States supported ideas such as eliminating tolls and tariffs in line with the continuation of this liberal order. But the protectionist strategies which are now dominant in the White House are in conflict with this institutionalized order. The crisis that Trump has created in the Western world is a serious challenge. This kind of approach is backed up by many within the United States, though it has some opponents as well. What is certain is that this crisis isn’t going to come to an end in near future, but will develop and extend.

Sanders’ restaurant booting prompts hot debate

The United States will soon present a timeline to North Korea with “specific asks” of Pyongyang after a historic sum-mit between the United States President Donald Trump and North Korean lead-er Kim Jong Un, a senior U.S. defense official said.

The official, who spoke to a small group of reporters ahead of a trip to Asia this week by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, did not specify details but sug-gested that the timeline would be rapid enough to make clear Pyongyang’s level of commitment.

“We’ll know pretty soon if they’re going to operate in good faith or not,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“There will be specific asks and there will be a specific timeline when we present the North Koreans with our concept of what implementation of the summit agreement looks like.”

Trump has drawn some criticism from national security analysts for an agreement that emerged from his June 12 summit with Kim that had few details on how Pyongyang would surrender its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week he would likely travel back to North

Korea “before too terribly long” to try to flesh out the summit commitments.

At the Singapore summit, the first meet-ing between a serving U.S. president and a North Korean leader, Kim reaffirmed a commitment to work toward complete denu-clearization of the Korean peninsula, while Trump said he would halt joint U.S.-South Korean “war games.”

Mattis, at the start of a week-long trip that includes stops in China, South Korea and Japan, said Trump’s guidance on suspending military drills applied not just to the major Freedom Guardian exercise in August but also to two smaller Korean Marine Exchange Program training exercises.

“The large, joint, combined exercises have been suspended. ... We’ll see if the continuing negotiations keep them that way,” Mattis said, adding that he was in frequent contact with Pompeo.

Mattis arrived on Sunday in Alaska, where he will visit Fort Greely and Eielson Air Force Base, before continuing to China.

His trip there from June 26-28 will be the first by a U.S. defense secretary since 2014, and comes as Sino-U.S. tensions have heightened over trade and China’s muscular military posture in the South China Sea.

North Korea is expected to be among

the top items on Mattis’ agenda during his talks with senior Chinese officials. He will then travel to South Korea and end his trip with talks in Japan on June 29.

Last week, China hosted North Korea’s Kim. North Korean media said Chinese President Xi Jinping and Kim reached an understanding on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula after discussing the outcome of the U.S.-North Korea summit.

Pompeo told reporters on a visit to Seoul earlier this month he would take the lead role in driving the North Korea negotiation process forward following the summit.

He said Washington hoped to achieve major disarmament by North Korea within the next 2-1/2 years, within Trump’s cur-rent presidential term, which ends on Jan. 20, 2021.

(Source: Reuters)

An ex-Bosnian Serb soldier suspected of taking part in an operation in which 57 Muslim Bosniaks were burned alive in the country’s 1992-95 war appeared in court on Monday after being extradited from France, the Bosnian prosecutor’s office said.

Radomir Susnjar, 63, also known as Lalco, is charged also with robbery and illegal detention of civilians near the eastern town of Visegrad in 1992, the office said.

The group of 57 Bosniak Muslims are alleged to have been seized in the village of Koritnik and were later burned alive in a house that was set ablaze with

an accelerant and explosives.Susnjar and other Bosnian Serb Army troops and mem-

bers of paramilitary groups also opened fire at the house to prevent the civilians from fleeing, the Bosnian prosecutor’s office, who sought his extradition, said in a statement.

Susnjar lived in France for many years before being tracked down, the office said.

Bosnian Serbs Milan and Sredoje Lukic were sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yu-goslavia (ICTY) to life and 27 years in prison in 2012 for the same crimes.

Bosnian Serb forces, helped by the now-defunct Serb-dom-inated Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) and Serbian para-militaries, committed the worst atrocities against Muslim Bosniaks in eastern Bosnia early in the conflict as part of their bid to create exclusively Serb territories.

Around 100,000 people died in the 1992-95 war, a large majority of them Bosniaks.

The ICTY, set up in The Hague to prosecute atrocities committed during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, closed its doors last December, having tried 161 suspects.

(Source: Daily Star)

Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini called Monday on a visit to Tripoli for processing centers to be set up south of Libya’s borders as a way to block attempts by migrants to cross the Mediterranean.

“On Thursday in Brussels, we will jointly support with Libyan authorities the setting up of reception and identification centers south of Libya, on the external border of Libya, to help Libya as well as Italy block migration,” he said, referring to an European Union summit this week.

Salvini, addressing a news conference alongside Ahmed Maiteeq, deputy premier of Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA), did not specify which African countries should host the centers.

Maiteeq said Libya “categorically refuses” to set up such

camps on its own territory and that his country would in-vite European nations bordering the Mediterranean to a summit on migration to be held in Tripoli in September.

Salvini also held talks on his brief visit with the GNA chief, Fayez al-Sarraj, and the interior minister, Abdes-salam Ashour.

Italy, on the frontline of Europe’s migrant crisis, has turned away rescue vessels with its new populist govern-ment demanding greater solidarity from reluctant fellow EU states.

Salvini, who was the first member of the new gov-ernment to visit Libya, on Sunday bluntly told foreign charities to stop rescuing migrants off the North Af-rican coast.

In an interview published Monday with the newspaper

La Repubblica, Libya’s Maiteeq said he hoped to work with the Italian government on the crisis.

“The cooperation between Italy and Libya is crucial,” he said, adding that the arrival of migrants was also “a major problem” for his country.

“Traffickers who bring migrants to Italy are dangerous criminal groups for us, who prevent Libya from taking a step toward a difficult normalization.”

“All of Europe must think of structural measures to take in African countries to stop migrants.”

On Sunday, 16 of the EU’s 28 leaders held emergency talks in Brussels to find a way forward despite a longstanding deadlock over who should take in migrants and refugees who land in Italy and other European countries.

(Source: AFP)

More than 50 Members of Parliament from the ruling Conservative Party are ready to rebel against Prime Minister Theresa May in case she decides to pull the UK out of the European Union (EU) without striking a deal.

A former cabinet minister told The In-dependent on Sunday that the Tories would thwart the PM if she decides to push ahead with of a “no deal” Brexit in case EU talks fail.

“There are at least 50 Conservative MPs who would be prepared to vote to stop it hap-pening, which would be more than enough to force the government to take notice,” the unnamed ex-minister vowed.

The warning comes amid growing con-

cerns that May would insist on leaving without any agreement despite warnings by her own government officials about potential food and medicine shortages and huge tailbacks at Britain’s borders.

Earlier this month, she was able to talk her way past a Tory revolt in the parliament that sought a “meaningful vote” to block no deal Brexit. May has so far been able to enforce her mantra that “Parliament cannot tie the hands of government in negotiations.”

Liam Fox, the International Trade Sec-retary, infuriated government critics over the weekend after insisting that “no deal

remained an option.“We’ve got to be free in the negotiation

to say if we don’t get the deal we want, there won’t be any agreement,” he told Sky News.

Meanwhile, 60 politicians and business figures, including former chancellor Nigel Lawson, vocal Brexiteer John Redwood, and Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin, have written a letter to May asking her to push forward with her plans.

They urged the government to speed up plans to switch to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, a decision that many businesses including Airbus say would be disastrous.

Airbus has warned it could leave Britain

if the country exits the EU’s single market and customs union without a transition deal.

But the former Cabinet minister was con-fident that parliament would find a way to stop May if necessary.

“In the end, parliament will find a way to stop a no-deal Brexit happening if that’s what it takes, including Conservative MPs like myself,” they said.

Former British attorney general Dominic Grieve, who is also a rebel Tory MP, said this week that the rebellion could bring down the government if May insisted on her no deal threat.

(Source: agencies)

U.S. to give North Korea post-summit timeline with ‘asks’ soon: official

France hands over war crimes suspect to Bosnia

Italy calls for migrant centers south of Libya

Over 50 Tory MPs ready to defy no-deal Brexit: Tory MP

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

W O R L D S P O R T S JUNE 26, 201814

Nigeria v Argentina has rich World Cup history and this meeting falls more than a decade after the captains met in a youth final.

Mikel John Obi smiles. “Yeah, Messi stole the Golden Ball off me,” the Nigeria captain says, and he remembers how it happened as if it were yesterday. The story comes from the World Youth Championship of 2005, when Mikel drove Nigeria to the final, where they faced a Lionel Mes-si-inspired Argentina.

“Before the game people said that I was going to win the Golden Ball for being the player of the tournament,” Mikel says. “But then Messi scored twice, both of them penalties, Argentina won 2-1 and I got the Silver Ball. Messi has kept on stealing awards from me!”

Cue more laughter. The serious point is that Messi has been messing with Nigeria and Mikel for too long. Indeed, Argentina have held an Indian sign over Nige-ria at World Cups going back to 1994, when the African nation first qualified.

Nigeria are contesting their sixth World Cup and it is a remarkable detail that they have been drawn to face Argen-tina at the group stage in all but one of them.

In 1994 they lost 2-1 to a pair of Claudio Caniggia goals in a game that saw the biggest bang come afterwards, when Diego Maradona failed a drugs test, was sent home and banned. He would never play for Argentina again. Nigeria suffered 1-0 defeats in 2002 and 2010, on the back of goals from Gabriel Batistuta and Gabriel Heinze respectively, and in 2014 they lost 3-2.

Mikel played in that game, having missed 2010 through injury, and so did Messi, who scored twice. Messi had also played in 2010 and he was a star of the Argentina team that

won gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when they beat Ni-geria in the final, with Ángel Di María scoring the only goal.

Nigeria can point to the 1996 Atlanta Games, when they beat Argentina 3-2 in the final. That team were from the golden age of Nigerian football and featured Kanu, Jay-Jay Okocha and Sunday Oliseh, among others. Emmanuel Amunike scored a stoppage-time winner. The triumph is fondly remembered but, in terms of tournament successes against Argentina, it stands in glorious isolation.

Mikel and his teammates are determined to break the World Cup jinx when they take on Argentina in Tuesday’s Group D finale in St Petersburg and it has the ingredients of the most decisive meeting between the countries yet.

Nigeria know that after the 2-0 win over Iceland, another victory would ensure qualification to the last 16 while a draw would be enough as long as Iceland do not beat Croatia by a couple of goals. Even then Nigeria could go through on goals scored. For Argentina, the equation is simple. Only a win would keep their hopes alive.

The subplots are numerous and mouthwatering and yet Messi, inevitably, feels like the central figure. His travails against Iceland and the horror-show loss to Croatia have been well-documented but Mikel knows better than to view him as anything other than the player he and his teammates must stop.

Nigeria beat Argentina 4-2 in a Krasnodar friendly last November and they draw a measure of strength from the result. But it was significant that Mikel highlighted how Messi had not featured on that occasion.

“A certain human being wasn’t playing,” Mikel says. “Ac-tually, is he even a human being? Messi is Messi. He decides games and the last time we met he scored two against us at

the Brazil World Cup. Without him, they are definitely less of a team. We can’t put all our attention on Messi but he is the man that we need to stop. Do we have to put somebody to mark him? Maybe yes, maybe no because when you do that you are playing with less balance.”

Nigeria played with great balance and purpose against Iceland, when Ahmed Musa scored both of the goals, af-ter the manager, Gernot Rohr, made a tactical change. He abandoned his usual 4-2-3-1 formation and went with 3-5-2.

Mikel, who made his name as a defensive midfielder over 10 and a half seasons at Chelsea and plays for Tianjin Teda in China, has typically operated as a No 10 at international level. It was where he played in the opening group tie against Croatia, which Nigeria lost 2-0.

“I was playing as a No 10 before I went to Chelsea but [José] Mourinho converted me to a holding player,” Mikel says. “I enjoy it. When I was at Chelsea and there was a national team break, I’d go there and I’d enjoy it. I’d have this one or two weeks of freedom – to express myself and play the way I want. But at Chelsea, I did a job.”

Mikel did likewise against Iceland. Rohr started him in the central holding role, although he and the midfielders either side of him – Oghenekaro Etebo and the impressive Wilfred Ndidi – did get up and down the pitch. Rohr will weigh up whether to continue with the approach against Argentina.

And so here Nigeria are once again, confronted by the opponents who have become their nemesis. “We knew we would get them,” Mikel says. “I said to a friend of mine: ‘Trust me, Argentina are going to be in the same group as us.’ It’s crazy. I don’t know why but it keeps happening.”

Mikel and Nigeria crave a different ending.(Source: The Guardian)

Harry Kane leads England into World Cup 2018 knockoutsCaptain Kane scores a hat-trick as England ease past hapless Panama to reach the knockout round at Russia 2018.

Harry Kane struck a hat-trick as England marched into the round of 16 of the World Cup after with a record 6-1 win over a woeful Panama in their World Cup Group G match.

Sunday’s result, a record win for England in a World Cup match, means England qualify for the knockout stage with a game to spare, along with Belgium who also have six points. Tournament debutants Panama are eliminated along with Tunisia.

England were 5-0 up at halftime after taking full advantage of a poor Panamanian defense. A header from a corner by John Stones, a penalty from Kane and a beautiful strike from the edge of the box by Jesse Lingard set them on their way.

A Stones header from a well-worked free-kick routine and a second Kane penalty gave them a 5-0 lead going into the break.

The England captain, now the tournament’s top scorer with five goals, completed his hat-trick when a shot from Ruben Lof-tus-Cheek deflected in off the Tottenham forward in the 62nd minute.

Kane became just the third England player to score a hat-trick in a World Cup game following Geoff Hurst in the 1966 final and Gary Lineker against Poland in the 1986 tournament.

Panama pulled a goal back in the 78th minute through Felipe Baloy - the Central American nation’s first goal at a World Cup.

(Source: Al Jazeera)

Sweden’s Jimmy Durmaz was subjected to a torrent of online racist abuse in the aftermath of his side’s dramatic World Cup defeat by reigning champion Germany Saturday.

The 29-year-old substitute was targeted after giving away a free kick deep into stoppage time that led to Toni Kroos firing home a spectacular German winner.

Durmaz, born in Sweden to Assyrian parents who had emi-grated from Turkey, played down the abuse that had appeared on his Instagram account after the 2-1 defeat.

“It’s nothing I’m bothered about,” he told reporters. “I’m here proud and representing my country.”

Durmaz’s teammate John Guidetti hit out at those responsible for the racist posts.

“He ran and fought the whole game, it’s unlucky -- it’s completely idiotic to subject him to hate for that,” Guidetti told reporters.

Sweden had taken a first-half lead against Germany courtesy of Ola Toivonen’s neat finish.

Defeat for Germany, which lost its opening group game against Mexico, would have led to it failing to make it past the opening round for the first time since 1938.

But Marco Reus equalized soon after the break to drag Ger-many level, and even though the Germans were reduced to 10 men when Jerome Boateng was sent off for two yellow cards, the reigning champions prevailed.

Kroos’ late strike led to angry scenes between the two bench-es, with Sweden coach Janne Andersson accusing Germany of taunting his side.

“Some of them celebrated in a disrespectful way in my opinion,” Swedish substitute Pontus Jansson told reporters.

“There was a lot of feelings, we had just let in a goal and lost the game, so it was pretty sour. Maybe there was unnecessary anger (from me), but they apologized afterward so it’s just a case of accepting it. There were a lot of feelings in the heat of the moment.”

(Source: CNN)

Ekaterinburg: Japan’s Keisuke Honda’s strike against Senegal on Sunday earned him two records - as the leading all time Asian scorer and the first Japanese to score in three editions of the FIFA World Cup.

Honda struck Japan’s equaliser just six minutes after coming on for Shinji Kagawa in the 72nd minute with the match finishing 2-2.

In Honda’s FIFA World Cup debut in 2010, he scored against Cameroon and Denmark as Japan advanced to the Round of 16.

In Brazil 2014, Honda found the back of the net in the group stage match against Ivory Coast.

Australia’s Tim Cahill, Saudi Arabia’s Sami Al Jaber and Korea Republic’s Ahn Jung-hwan and Park Ji-sung are the next leading Asian scorers with three goals each.

On Sunday, Sadio Mane had given Senegal the lead in the 11th minute but Takashi Inui found the back of the bottom right net with a strike from inside the box in the 34th minute to level the scores going into the break.

Senegal regained their goal advantage through Moussa Wague in the 71st minute, but Honda’s equaliser meant Japan stayed in contention for a third appearance in the Round of 16.

“Inui’s ball fell in a great position for me,” said Honda, who appeared in his ninth FIFA World Cup match.

“I knew if I missed, it would be a horrible scenario, so I am happy I scored. I wanted us to seal qualification (but) this shows how tough the World Cup is.”

Akira Nishino’s charges will go up against Poland in their final group stage match on June 28 at the Volgograd Arena.

(Source: the-afc.com)

Sweden’s Durmaz subjected to racist abuse after Germany defeat

Honda leads Asia’s top scorers

The World Cup might be in full swing, but that is not going to stop transfer rumors from hogging the headlines.

Many of the stars currently in Russia could well be plying their trade for differ-ent clubs by the time next season kicks off. Here, Newsweek takes a look at all the news, rumors and gossip swirling around the big-gest tournament in the world.

Let’s start with Eden Hazard. The Chelsea maestro will come up against familiar faces when Belgium takes on England Thursday, but he might not be in the Premier League next season.

Spanish newspaper Marca suggests Real Madrid are keen to bring the Belgian to Spain and were encouraged to approach the 27-year-old by his father, Thierry.

Landing Hazard, however, would cost the 13-time European Cup winners around $140 million.

While the Belgian could be on his way out of Stamford Bridge, the Blues’ soon-to-be new manager Maurizio Sarri is planning to strengthen the team’s defense. According to The Sun, the Italian has identified Kalidou Koulibaly as a key priority.

The Senegal international, who spent three

seasons under Sarri at Napoli, has impressed at the World Cup so far—but could cost as much as $116.4 million.

Sarri is yet to be formally appointed but the Daily Mirror reports the Italian will be in London early this week. He is expected to sign a two-year deal with the option for a third.

The same paper reports the two Man-

chester clubs could go head-to-head to sign France star Kylian Mbappe. The teenager was due to make his loan move to Paris Saint-Germain permanent, but Financial Fair Play sanctions could scupper any $219.6 million transfer.

Manchester City manager Pep Guardi-ola is a known admirer of the 19-year-old,

while Manchester United could send Anthony Martial to France in a bid to lure Mbappe.

The 20-time champions of England could also soon wave goodbye to Marouane Fellaini. The Belgian is out of contract at the end of the month and The Independent reports his future will be resolved soon. He turned down two offers from United amid interest from a number of clubs.

Meanwhile, Jose Mourinho’s search for a new midfielder is set to continue, with The Sun suggesting the United manager has identified Roma midfielder Lorenzo Pellegrini as an alternative to Lazio’s Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, whose $116.4 million price tag is considered prohibitive.

Elsewhere, The Sun believes Jack Wil-shere will turn down a move to West Ham. The former Arsenal midfielder was offered a one-year deal but is looking for a longer agreement, while The Times claims Liver-pool could resurrect their hopes of signing Nabil Fekir.

The Reds’ deal for the Lyon captain looked dead and buried earlier this month but the French club’s president, Jean-Michael Aulas, has now said “anything’s possible.”

(Source: Newsweek)

The lowest-ranked team coming into their own World Cup, Russia have sparkled since the action began – and perhaps the secret to their success is not just their ability on the ball but good old-fashioned industry.

No other team has matched the hosts’ Stakhanovite work rate in their opening matches – both of which Russia won by healthy margins – nor even come close when it comes to putting in the hard yards.

According to FIFA’s statistics, Russia, who play Uruguay in their final group game Monday, have, by a startling margin, covered more ground than any other team, with their opening 5-0 victory over Saudi Arabia seeing them run a collective 118 kilometers. To put that into context, the second highest distance covered in the first round of matches was 112 kilometers by Egypt in their defeat to Uruguay.

In their second match, a 3-1 victory over Egypt, Russia took their total over two games to more than 233 kilome-ters, which, after Friday’s action, was around 8 kilometers more than any other two-match team, with workmanlike Australia their nearest challengers.

This ferocious industry has been spearheaded by Al-eksandr Golovin, who has not only stood out as a shining

midfield talent, but also as the most hardworking player at the tournament, covering an impressive 25.15 kilometers.

And Golovin, like Russia’s other players, is not simply

accumulating distance by ambling around the pitch.Any doubts that the stats for distance covered provide an

accurate picture of effort are dispelled when you look at the figures for the number of sprints made, with Russia again leading the way having completed 824 in their two matches.

Those looking for the source of Argentina’s struggles at this tournament might be interested to see that the South Americans completed only 604 sprints in their draw with Iceland and defeat to Croatia.

This may go some way towards explaining how a Russian team, who had won just one of their last nine matches at previous tournaments and none of their last seven warmup games, have now breezed into the knockouts with a game to spare.

Undoubtedly fueled by the adrenaline that comes from being roared on by a passionate home crowd, Russia face Uruguay at the Samara Arena to decide who will finish top of Group A, which carries the incentive of avoiding the vic-tors in Group B.

With Uruguay having edged into the last 16 with narrow 1-0 victories over Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the impressive Russians will be keen to finish the group with a perfect record.

(Source: The Daily Star)

Real Madrid wants Chelsea star, Manchester clubs to battle for Kylian Mbappe

Russia put in the hard yards as the World Cup’s running men

Mikel aiming to turn tables 13 years after Messi took his Golden Ball

“Feel the power of dream at 2018 World Cup”

S P O R T S 15I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

Cristiano Ronaldo reacts to Iranian fans outside Portugal’s HotelTASNIM — Iranian football enthusiasts decided to make sure of getting one-up on their opponents by standing outside Portugal’s hotel in the Russian city of Saransk and making a whole lot of noises.

The Real Madrid star Cris-tiano Ronaldo came to the win-dow and politely asked them to keep the noise down, even gestured a ‘go to sleep’ motion.

Iran and Portugal are set to square off on Monday, with Iran’s only chance of advanc-ing to the Round of 16 coming via a win.

Portugal only needs a draw, but also aims to take the top po-sition in Group B ahead of Spain.

In March, PSG fans attempted to disrupt Ronaldo’s sleep before their Champions League clash by making noise outside the Real Madrid hotel.

Ali Daei: The Iran hero who bagged 109 international goals

These Football Times – LONDON, Pelé trails him by 32 goals, Cristiano Ronaldo by 24, and Messi by 45. Indeed no football-er, past or present, can dream of matching Ali Daei’s tally of international goals. The Iranian legend’s career is defined by numbers. From 1993 until his retirement in 2007, Daei plun-dered an astonishing 109 goals for his country, making him the only player to break the century mark at international level.

Daei was one of those special breed of players, like Gheorghe Hagi, Hristo Stoich-kov and Diego Maradona, who grew in stature the moment they donned their country’s colours. Incredibly, while Daei scored those 109 goals in 149 international matches, he only scored three more in 287 league matches for his various clubs.

Unlike many Asian and Middle Eastern players of that era, Daei was not afraid to try his luck in Europe – even if he did not hit the heights in Germany – but most of his domestic goals were scored in the relative familiarity of his nation’s grounds. He started his career at 19 at his hometown club of Esteghlal Ardabil, where he had spent five years in several age group teams. After only one senior season, he joined Taxirani where he also lasted one campaign, before moving to Bank Tejarat.

The short spells set the tone for the rest of his career. Curiously, Daei never racked up too many appearances in a single season, very often due to prioritising internationals. In four seasons at Tegarat he played only 46 matches, though the goal return was an impressive one every other game.

It was only in 1994 when he moved to his next club, Perse-polis that his career genuinely took off, especially with Iran. That year he scored an incredible 22 goals in 18 internationals, which later earned him a move to Qatar’s Al Sadd.

Eight of those goals came in December’s AFC Asian Cup in the UAE, including four in the match of the tournament, a famous 6-2 win over South Korea. Iran lost the semi-final on penalties to Saudi Arabia, but his standout performances earned him the runner-up spot in the Asian Footballer of the Year award, behind teammate Khodadad Azizi.

In Qatar, Daei racked up 10 goals in only 16 league matches, before, ever the journeyman, he was on the move again. This time it was the big one – to Arminia Bielefeld in Germany in 1997. As Iran eyed the 1998 World Cup in the USA, Daei scored seven goals in 25 Bundesliga matches, but as usual he saved his real heroics for his country.

Daei scored nine in 17 in 1997, as Iran progressed to a win-ner-takes-all two-legged tie against OFC qualifiers Australia, with a place at France 1998 up for grabs. In front of 128,000 fans at the Azadi Stadium in Tehran, Iran managed only a 1-1 draw with Terry Venables’ men. The real drama, however, came in the second leg as Iran pulled off one of their greatest ever results in front of a crowd of over 95,000 in Melbourne, storming back from two goals down to qualify on away goals.

Daei, Azizi, the emerging Ali Karimi and the rest of the squad earned hero status in Iran. In France, Jalal Talebi’s team exited at the group stage but still managed to record arguably the most famous result their history, a fabled 2-1 win over the USA.

Daei was at the peak of his career, and that summer Bayern Munich came calling. In Bavaria, he won a Bunde-sliga title but was an unused substitute in the heartbreaking Champions League final loss to Manchester United at the Camp Nou. Still, Daei was named Asian Player of the Year for the only time in his career. After one season, naturally, at Bayern, three at Hertha Berlin produced only six league goals and 12 in total. With his German odyssey over, he joined Al Shabab in the UAE for two seasons before finishing his career in Iran.

The year 2000 saw another remarkable haul of 20 goals in 19 internationals, including three at the AFC Asian Cup in Lebanon. In 2003 against Lebanon he surpassed Ferenc Puskás’ 84-goal record, and the following year scored his 100th against Laos in a four-goal performance. In a race only with himself, he eventually hit his 109th against Costa Rica in March 2006.

By the time the World Cup in Germany came around, Daei was 36 and clearly past his best, with critics claiming he had no right to make the Iranian squad. Daei, though, did get the support of Franz Beckenbauer who called him “a great ambassador and one of the best players Bayern Munich had”.

But there would be no fairy-tale ending in Germany. Iran exited the group stages with a single point, and with that Daei’s amazing international journey had come to an end. Today, Iranians still look up to Daei as the country’s greatest player, while international forwards will likely be looking up to his goal scoring record for years to come.

(Source: persianfootball.com)

Press TV — Iranian Greco-Roman wres-tlers have shown admirable displays of gripping skills and muscular strength at the 2018 edition of Hungarian Grand Prix Imre Polyák Memorial, and grabbed five medals, including two gold ones, at the event.

Mohammad Reza Garaei fell to a Kazakh contestant in the final bout of the men’s 67-kilo-gram weight division, and collected the silver.

Mehdi Fallah, who routed a rival from the host nation 3-0 in his opening round contest of the 87-kilogram weight category, defeated an Uzbek contestant 3-1 in the second showdown.

Fallah, however, lost to a wrestler from Hungary by 1 point to 3 in the last contest and received the silver medal.

Earlier, Mohsen Hajipour prevailed over his Egyptian rival 3-2 in the finale of the men’s 63-kilogram weight division, and snatched the gold medal.

In the 72-kilogram weight class, Ali Arsalan

outmuscled a Chinese wrestler 14-3 in the repêchage round and claimed a bronze medal.

Yousef Qaderian claimed Iran’s second gold medal after he overcame a Hungarian opponent 6-3 in the final contest of the 82-kilogram division.

The 2018 edition of Hungarian Grand Prix Imre Polyák Memorial kicked off in Gy?r city on June 23, and wrapped up on June 24, 2018.

Dozens of Greco-Roman wrestlers from various countries, including Algeria, Brazil, China, Egypt, Hungary, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Romania and Serbia, took part in the tournament.

The event was in honor of featherweight Hungarian Greco-Roman wrestler Imre Polyák. He competed in the 1952, 1956, 1960 and 1964 Olympics and won three silver and one gold medal. He won the world title in 1955, 1958 and 1962, and placed second in 1961 and 1963. Nationally Polyák won 12 Hungarian titles and was named Sportsman of the Year in 1958 and 1962.

Iranian Greco-Roman wrestlers get five medals in Hungarian Grand Prix

Press TV — Iranian male and female Paralympic athletes have scooped eight-een medals, including eleven precious gold ones, at the 12th edition of Tunis Interna-tional Meeting.

On Sunday, Farhad Kahrizi com-peted in the men’s 2x100 meter relay F36 race at the multi-purpose Stade Olympique de Radès stadium in Rades, located about 10 kilometers southeast of the Tunisian capital city of Tunis, and recorded 26.32 seconds to snatch the gold medal.

Ali Ojaghlou, another Iranian represent-ative, managed to earn gold in the men’s 2x100 meter relay F46 category, having set the time of 22.64 seconds.

In the men’s javelin throw F33/34 final, Iranian pitcher Mohsen Kaedi took the gold medal with his best effort of 34.94 meters.

Additionally, Hormoz Seyyedi, Khaled Khaziri and Mohammad Alvanpour picked up three gold medals in the men’s javelin

throw F37, F55 and F56 classifications respectively.

Shahla Hadidi registered 14.99 meters in the women’s F54 discus throw compe-titions, and took the top honors.

Payman Nasiri also stole the show in the final contest of men’s 1,500-meter T20 race, and grabbed another gold medal for the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Additionally, Ali Olfatnia and Mehdi Alizadeh claimed two silvers in the men’s 2x100 meter relay F37 race and men’s javelin throw F33/34 sections.

Batoul Jahangiri and Davoud Ali Gha-semi settled for two bronze medals at the women’s javelin throw F33/34 and men’s 2x100 meter relay F37 race.

Earlier, Iranian athletes had clinched three gold, one silver and two bronze medals on the first day of the tournament.

The 12th edition of Tunis International Meeting started on June 23, and finished on June 24, 2018.

Iranian Paralympic athletes earn 18 medals at 12th Tunis International Meeting

JUNE 26, 2018

Press TV— The Iran men’s national volleyball team has overpowered Germany for the third straight victory at the fifth week of the 2018 Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) Volleyball Men’s Nations League.

The Iranian outfit managed to beat the German side 3-2 (25-20, 23-25, 25-22, 22-25 and 15-11) at the end of a Pool 19 match played at the Azadi Indoor Stadium in western Tehran on Sunday evening.

The Iranian volleyball players, inspired by a vocal home crowd, started the game vigorously, scoring four of the first five points. The hosts then went on accumulating points and deservedly claimed the first set 25-20.

Germany started the second set sharper in the hope of shrugging off a lackluster opening. It was a see-saw-ing battle mid-set with both teams following each other point by point. Germany finally took the second set by 25 points to 22.

Iran regained composure and opened the third set with a blistering start. The hosts thundered home spikes and skipped out to a 25-22 result at last.

The Germans came from behind in the fourth set to steal the show. Their frontline did well thwarting the attacks and took the set 25-23.

The finale was marked by energetic play amid a tense atmosphere. Iran withstood a last-gasped gusty German run, and ensured its home dominance by clinching the

period 15-11.The 2018 FIVB Volleyball Men’s Nations League kicked

off on May 25, and will run through July 8 in 22 host cities.A total of 16 teams compete in a round-robin format with

every core team hosting a pool at least once.The teams are divided into four pools of four teams at

each week and compete five weeks long, with a total of 120 matches.

The top five teams after the preliminary round join the host of the final round to compete in the last stage.

The relegation takes in consideration only the 4 chal-lenger teams.

The last-ranked challenger team plays the promotion play-off against the Challenger Cup winners. The winners of the play-off will qualify for the next edition as a chal-lenger team.

Iran beats Germany in 2018 FIVB Volleyball Nations League, gains 3rd consecutive win

Asia and Africa being left behind - Queiroz

Carlos Queiroz said that the qualifying process for Asian and African teams puts them at a disadvantage when compared to European nations.

Carlos Queiroz has called for rule changes that would allow Asian and African football to develop, saying the gap between Europe and other continents is getting wider.

Queiroz saw his Iran side narrowly beaten by Spain in their second World Cup Group B fixture, courtesy of Diego Costa’s 54th-minute goal, and he told reporters af-ter the game that many Asian and African nations are at a disadvantage when it comes to developing for success on the world stage.

Having beaten Morocco 1-0 in their opening game, Iran still stand a chance of reaching the World Cup knockout stages by taking points from their final group game against

Portugal, but Queiroz did not give a positive assessment when asked whether Asian football was catching up on Europe.

“I have exactly the opposite opinion,” he said. “Two years ago I said European football has taken off far away from other the other countries and continents.

“Other continents are struggling. Only the nations that have the opportunity to bring players to Europe have a chance to be closer. For Asia the gap is higher, for Africa the gap is higher.

“There are some teams like Morocco or Senegal we say are African teams, but they’re not African teams. They’re African players playing in Europe, so all the players who benefit from being in Europe can help national teams, but my opinion, having been in the game 37 years, it is clear.”

Iran played 18 qualifying matches to reach the 2018

World Cup in the Asian Football Confederation section, whereas European teams played just 10 games to determine who would go to Russia.

Queiroz lamented the widening gap between wealthy European football associations and the struggling Asian equivalents.

“Four years ago the gap between Asia and Africa was big, eight years ago it was big and it’s still growing, World Cup after World Cup, if the rules don’t change,” he said.

“The development plans for Asia and Africa cannot be exactly the same as for Europe.

“You cannot ask Iran to prepare a World Cup [qualifying] game in four days with the same rules as Germany, Brazil and Portugal, it makes no sense.”

(Source: sportskeeda.com)

“80 Million People, One Nation, One Heartbeat”

TEHRAN – An Iranian orchestra

will perform with traditional Iranian instruments during two concerts at the Spirit of Astana, an international festival of contemporary ethnic music in the capital of Kazakhstan in July.

Vahid Taj and conductor Ali-Akbar Qorbani will accompany the orchestra during the concerts, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance announced in a press release on Monday.

Rehearsals are underway at Tehran’s Rudaki Hall under the supervision of maestro Farhad Fakhreddini, the former conductor of the National Orchestra.

Deputy Culture Minister for Artistic Affairs Mojtaba Hosseini attended a rehearsal of the orchestra on Sunday and held talks with Qorbani and Fakhreddini.

“The skills of the master [Fakhreddini] and the commitment of Mr. Qorbani have allowed them to prepare a repertoire that will well-represent Iranian music in Kazakhstan,” Hosseini said in briefing on the orchestra’s program.

Part of the soundtrack from “Avicenna”, director Keyhan Rahgozar’s 1985 TV series on the Iranian scientist who lived during 10th and 11th centuries, is one of the highlights of the repertoire.

The performances will be carried out based on a memorandum of understanding signed between Iran

and Kazakhstan during August 2017 when Kazakhstan’s Minister of Culture

and Sports, Arystanbek Mukhamediuly, paid a visit to Tehran.

The Spirit of Astana will be held from July 6 to 8.

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

Zip Code: 1599814713

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TEHRAN – Filmmakers from 120 countries have applied to the 35th Tehran International

Short Film Festival with 5050 submissions, the organizers announced on Monday.

Most of the submissions are coming from France, India, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Russia and several other countries.

The Iranian Youth Cinema Society is the main organizer of the event, which will take place in the Iranian capital from November 9 to 13.

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Tehran gallery holds art exhibit in memory of Abbas Kiarostami

National library to scrutinize role of art in child abuse prevention

TEHRAN – The Na-tional Library and Ar-

chives of Iran (NLAI) will be playing host to a panel discussion today to scrutinize the role of education, art and literature in child abuse prevention.

“The Role of Education, Art and Literature in the Prevention of Violence against Children” is the subject of the session, which will begin at 4 p.m., the NLAI announced on Monday.

Writers Farhad Hassanzadeh and

Mohammadreza Zaeri, and filmmaker Mohammadreza Kherdamandan are scheduled to deliver speeches at the session.

The meeting will also be attended by psychologist Shiva Dowlatabadi and MPs Farideh Oladqobad and Mahmud Sadeqi.

The session will end with unveiling Bozorgmehr Hosseinpur’s painting “Nail” that has been dedicated to the NLAI on the occasion of World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse.

TEHRAN — Tehran’s Daargoun Gallery is

playing host to a group exhibition of li-thography in memory of late filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami under the title “Beyond the Wall”.

The works have been inspired by poems from Kiarostami’s collections “A Wolf Lying in Wait” and “Wind and Leaf”, the gallery has announced.

In addition, the exhibit takes its title from a poem of the same title from Kiarostami.

The copies of the works are on display during exhibitions at the galleries of Sar-

venaz in Shiraz, Diba in Kerman, Marlik in Yazd and Aknun in Isfahan.

Veteran artist Ahmad Vakili is the curator of the exhibit, which opened on Friday and will be running until Kiarostami’s death anniversary on July 5 at Daargoun Gallery located at 14 Bashardoost Dead End, Kusha St. off Shariati Ave.

The director of “Certified Copy”, “Taste of Cherry”, “Through the Olive Trees” and “Where Is Friend’s Home”, Kiarostami died in 2016 at the age of 76. He was a filmmaker, photographer, poet, graphic designer and a video artist.

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) — Dinosaurs are ruling the box office again.

“Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” topped estimates to devour $150 million from 4,475 locations in North America this weekend. While it fell short of its predecessors’ record-shattering $208.8 million launch, the dinosaur sequel is off to a mighty start. The Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard-led tentpole has already amassed $711.5 million worldwide, including $561.5 million overseas.

“Fallen Kingdom” easily led the weekend as the lone wide release, though “Incredibles 2” enjoyed a heroic second week-end. The Disney-Pixar sequel picked up another $80 million, bringing its domestic total to $350.3 million. The superhero blockbuster, directed by Brad Bird, launched with $182.7 mil-lion, making it the best opening for an animated feature and the eighth-biggest debut of all time.

“Incredibles 2” also earned $56.8 million overseas, taking the international tally to $134.6 million. With a global total of $485 million, “Incredibles 2” has already surpassed the entire run of the original film, “The Incredibles.”

Universal, the studio behind “Fallen Kingdom”, is celebrat-ing its second-best opening ever, only behind 2015’s “Jurassic World”.

“We are obviously thrilled with our opening at the North American box office,” Jim Orr, head of domestic distribution at Universal, said. “We found that we are playing very broadly in all four quadrants. [J.A. Bayona] really crafted an extraor-dinarily intense film. I expect word of mouth to be stellar.”

The tentpole, co-produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, is the fifth installment in the “Jurassic” fran-

chise. The film has received a mixed critical response with a 50 percent average on Rotten Tomatoes and an A- CinemaScore. Moviegoers under the age of 25 accounted for 56 percent of audiences, while 54 percent were males.

Of “Fallen Kingdom’s” $711 million haul, $380 million came from 3D ticket sales, along with $105 million from RealD. It also opened on 410 Imax screens, where it brought in $13 million.

Meanwhile, “Ocean’s 8” has crossed a major milestone of its own. In its third weekend, the female-led spinoff hit the $100 million mark in North America. The Warner Bros. and

Village Roadshow Pictures film pocketed $11.6 million this weekend. Overseas, the heist movie stole $26.9 million for a global total of $171 million.

Another Warner Bros. title, “Tag”, landed in fourth with $8.2 million. The comedy has brought in $30 million domes-tically, officially clearing its $28 million production budget.

Rounding out the top five is Ryan Reynolds’ “Deadpool 2” with $5.2 million. The 20th Century Fox sequel passed the $300 million mark domestically and $700 million globally. The original “Deadpool” finished its box office run with $363 million in North America and $783 million worldwide.

Elsewhere, “Solo: A Star Wars Story” reached $200 mil-lion in North America five weeks in. With another $2 million internationally, the Disney and Lucasfilm picture’s worldwide total sits at $353.5 million.

At the specialty box office, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” pocketed $1.8 million and expanded to 348 theaters. Morgan Neville’s documentary on Mister Rogers, which secured the 10th spot at the domestic box office, has earned an impressive $4.1 million in three weeks. The biopic will expand to 500 theaters next weekend.

Thanks to the roaring success of “Fallen Kingdom” and “Incredibles 2,” the box office is 97.3 percent bigger than the same weekend last year, according to comScore. Overall, the box office is up 8.5 percent in 2018.

“Notably, the $150 million earned by ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ is more than the $141.9 million generated by the entire marketplace of 105 films (led by ‘Transformers: The Last Knight’) over the comparable weekend last year,” said Paul Dergarabedian, a box office analyst at comScore.

BERLIN (Reuters) — Simon Rattle con-ducted his final concert in charge of the Berlin Philharmonic on Sunday after 16 years that have revamped the image of the prestigious orchestra.

Rattle was joined by his Czech-born wife, the mezzo-soprano, Magdalena Kozena, in a program at Berlin’s wooded outdoor amphi-theater, the Waldbuehne, that included works by George Gershwin, Joseph Cantaloube, and Aram Khachaturian.

The British-born maestro, now 63, has al-ready started a new job as music director of the London Symphony Orchestra, but will continue to live in Berlin with his family.

The Berlin orchestra was “born in struggle and will always be in that state”, Rattle said in an interview published on the Philharmonic’s website.

He said the orchestra was unlike any other he had worked with, more like “an absolutely

gigantic string quartet, with all the arguments and verbal violence and frustrations”.

Even after a decade-and-a-half in charge, Rattle said it was still a mystery to him how the orchestra worked, but it had ultimately embraced more educational outreach, a wider repertoire and new programming.

With live streaming and an appeal to stu-dents, the orchestra had shed its elite image and opened itself to be “more cosmopolitan and

diverse”, Berlin’s Tagesspiegel newspaper said.“The world has changed an enormous

amount. And they are in an incredibly privileged position, whether they realize it or not. I think they are now more part of the beating heart of the city,” Rattle said of the Philharmonic.

The conductor thanked “my wonderful orchestra” and “my dear Berlin public” at a performance on Wednesday at the orchestra’s concert hall.

A poster for “Beyond the Wall”.

Tehran short film festival receives over 5000 foreign submissions

Astana festival of ethnic music to host Iranian orchestra

Ali-Akbar Qorbani conducts an orchestra performing traditional Iranian instruments during a rehearsal at Tehran’s Rudaki Hall on June 24, 2018. (Honaronline/Mahdieh Babai)

Photo exhibit to explore life in Tehran, Kabul

TEHRAN – A collection of photos depicting scenes of daily life in Kabul

and Tehran will be showcased in an exhibition at Tehran’s Shalman Gallery.

The collection contains photos from a number of Iranian and Afghan photographers. Pejman Dadkhah and Fatima Hosseini are the curators of the exhibition entitled “Tehran-Kabul, Review of Two Capitals”.

Among the photographers are Arman Estapanian, Musa Akbari, Nasser Bayat, Majid Saeidi, Dawood Helmandi, Rahman Hak-Hagir, Wasim Mirzaie and Fatima Hosseini.

The exhibit opens on Friday and will run until July 4 at the gallery located

at 27 Kavusi Alley, West Rudbar St., off Mirdamad Blvd.

Prolific, painfully candid ex-poet laureate Donald Hall dies

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Hall, a prolific, award-winning poet and man of letters widely admired for his sharp humor and painful candor about nature, mortality, baseball and the distant past, has died at age 89.

Hall’s daughter, Philippa Smith, confirmed Sunday that her father died Saturday at his home in Wilmot, New Hampshire, after being in hospice care for some time.

“He’s really quite amazingly versatile,” said Hall’s long-time friend Mike Pride, the editor emeritus of the Concord Monitor newspaper and a retired administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes. He said Hall would occasionally speak to reporters at the Monitor about the importance of words.

Hall was the nation’s 2006-2007 poet laureate.

Starting in the 1950s, Hall pub-lished more than 50 books, from poetry and drama to biography and memoirs, and edited a pair of influential anthologies. He was an avid baseball fan who wrote odes to his beloved Boston Red Sox, com-pleted a book on pitcher Dock Ellis and contributed to Sports Illus-trated. He wrote a prize-winning children’s book, “Ox-Cart Man”, and even attempted a biography of Charles Laughton, only to have his actor’s widow, Elsa Lanchester, kill the project.

But the greatest acclaim came for his poetry, for which his honors included a National Book Critics Circle prize, membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a National Medal of Arts. Although his style varied from haikus to blank verse, he returned

repeatedly to a handful of themes: his childhood, the death of his parents and grandparents and the loss of his second wife and fellow poet, Jane Kenyon.

“Much of my poetry has been elegiac, even morbid, beginning with laments over New Hampshire farms and extending to the death of my wife,” he wrote in the memoir “Packing the Boxes,” published in 2008.

In person, he at times resembled a 19th century rustic with his untrimmed beard and ragged hair. And his work reached back to timeless images of his beloved, ancestral New Hampshire home, Eagle Pond Farm, built in 1803 and belonging to his family since the 1860s. He kept country hours for much of his working life, rising at 6 and writing for two hours.

A poster for “Tehran-Kabul, Review of Two Capitals”

In this 2011 photo, President Barack Obama presents a 2010 National Medal of Arts to poet Donald Hall, during in a cere-mony in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP/Charles Dharapak)

A poster for the NLAI session “The Role of Education, Art and Literature in the Prevention of Violence against Children”

Rattle bids Berlin Philharmonic farewell as chief conductor

Executive producer Steven Spielberg poses at the premiere of the movie “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 12, 2018. (Reuters/Mario Anzuoni)

“Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” feasts on $150 million opening