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42 1 1 12Iran to construct 3 power plants in Kazakhstan

Iran welcomes close ties with EU: Rouhani

Iranian wrestler Yazdani likely to miss Olympics

Art Bureau hosts Week of Islamic Revolution Arts

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

Revolution Arts

L Y Velayati says Kerry’s missile remarks are ‘absurd’ 2

12 Pages Price 10,000 Rials 37th year No.12525 Monday APRIL 11, 2016 Farvardin 23, 1395 Rajab 3, 1437

The Egyptian government has handed over the ownership of disputed Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia amid strong objection from sev-eral former officials as well as the Mus-lim Brotherhood.

The Egyptian cabinet announced in a statement released on Saturday that both islands fall within the territorial waters of Saudi Arabia as codified in the maritime border agreement signed between Cairo and Riyadh the previous day.

Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail inked the border demarcation accord with the Saudi side in the presence of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the House of Saud regime’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in the Federal Presidential Palace, eastern Cairo.

The agreement is going to be pre-sented to the parliament for ratification.

Analysts, dissidents question le-gitimacy of agreement

Meanwhile, legal experts and oppo-sition figures in Egypt have cast doubt on the legitimacy of the agreement on the two strategic islands, arguing that relinquishing authority over Egyptian

territory is unconstitutional.The banned opposition movement,

Muslim Brotherhood, also denounced the agreement in a statement which said, “The Muslim Brotherhood here-by declares unequivocally that no one has the right to abandon the property and resources of the Egyptian people in exchange for a fistful of dollars, or in exchange for support for government policies sanctioning murder, detentions, violations, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.”

Tiran Island is located at the entrance of the Straits of Tiran, which separates

the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aqaba. Its strategic significance lies in the fact that it is an important sea passage to the major ports of Aqaba in Jordan and Eilat in Israel.

Israel briefly took over the island during the Suez Crisis in late 1956, and once more between 1967 and 1982 fol-lowing the Six Day War.

Sanafir Island is in the east of Tiran Island, and measures 33 square kilome-ters (13 square miles) in area.

Ownership of the two islands was handed to Egyptian control in 1982, when Tel Aviv and Cairo signed the so-called Camp David peace ac-cords.

King Salman, Sisi ink $16-bil-lion investment fund to boost Egypt economy

Elsewhere, Egyptian President el-Sisi and visiting Saudi King Salman bin Ab-dulaziz have finalized a contract for a $16-billion investment fund among sev-eral other bilateral accords.

The document was inked on Satur-day, the third day of an unusually long visit by the 80-year-old Saudi monarch to Egypt. 9

Egypt hands over two disputed islands to Saudi Arabia

How Haaretz distorts Ayatollah

In a recent analysis, Israeli news-paper Haaretz claimed that Iran’s missile program has become a new

focus of dissent from within and dis-torted Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Raf-sanjani’s stand over the program.

The article, written by Zvi Bar’el, claimed that the ballistic missile pro-gram has created a big gap between conservatives and reformists and also divided Iran’s top leaders, because Ayatollah Rafsanjani has still stood upon his word, though he omitted his tweet.

The main argument of the Zion-ist regime’s newspaper is based on a quotation from Rafsanjani which was published on his twitter page that is not being run by himself. The tweet read, “The world of tomorrow is a world of dialogue, not missiles.”

The tweet soon made big po-litical outcry and caused Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to de-nounce the statement in his March 30 speech in Mashhad either as ig-norance or treason.

Distorting the story, the Israeli newspaper claims that chairman of Iran’s Expediency Council has omit-ted the post he had published, im-mediately after the bitter criticism of the Supreme Leader but has not eaten his word and still stood up for what he wrote!

Actually it is a big lie on which Haaretz has fallen to a false conclusion that there is a dissent at home over the missile program and it has made a big gap between Iran’s top leaders.

But why Haaretz’s argument is inva-lid with false conclusion?

Despite the Israeli newspaper ’s claim, Ayatollah Rafsanjani strongly denied the authenticity of the tweet and personally confirmed and ap-proved of the missile program and even stressed that the missile indus-try was originally started and de-veloped during his presidency from 1989 to 1997. 9

18 soldiers killed by Abu Sayyaf in the PhilippinesAt least 18 soldiers were killed and more than 50 others wound-ed on Saturday in fierce fighting with the armed group Abu Sayyaf and allied fighters on a southern island in the Philip-pines. It was the largest single-day combat loss by government forces this year in the restive south, where the military has long battled Muslim separatist rebels and Communist fighters.

Three military officials told the AP news agency the heavy daylong fighting took place on Mindanao island of Basilan. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to publicly discuss details.

Local media reports said about 100 Abu Sayyaf fighters clashed with troops and four soldiers had been decapitated. The evacuation of wounded soldiers was continuing late on Saturday. In 2015, more than 30 police commandos were killed by rebels during a government raid on mainland Mindanao.

Some Muslim rebel groups in the area have reportedly al-lied themselves with Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh) followers.

Abu Sayyaf is known to maintain a base in Basilan, as well as the neighboring Sulu archipelago, where a former priest from Italy was released on Friday after millions of pesos in ransom was reportedly paid.

Abu Sayyaf was founded in 1991 in Basilan, about 880km south of the capital, Manila.

The United States and the Philippines have separately blacklisted Abu Sayyaf as a “terrorist” organization for deadly bombings, extortion, kidnappings for ransom, and beheadings of locals and foreigners, including Christian missionaries in the south. More than a decade of U.S.-backed Philippine offen-sives have weakened the armed group, but it remains a key security threat. (Source: agencies)

Tehran, Ankara sign

banking, trade MOUs

TEHRAN — Iran and Turkey signed

three memorandums of understand-ing (MOUs) for banking and trade co-operation at the end of their 25th joint economic committee meeting, which was held in the Turkish city of Konya on Saturday.

Iranian Communications and Infor-mation Technology Minister Mahmoud Va’ezi signed an MOU on trade coop-eration with Turkish Development Min-ister Cevdet Yilmaz.

Another document was signed by Va’ezi and Yilmaz, aiming to start a new chapter in bilateral banking ties between the two neighboring coun-tries in post-sanctions era.

The third document was signed be-tween Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (IC-CIMA) and the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey, named Turkiye Odalar ve Borsalar Birli-gi (TOBB).

Turkey looks to improve trade with Iran

“Turkey will boost its trade volume with Iran as soon as possible, as export levels in March showed an increase. In 2015, we had a $10 billion trade vol-ume and we will look to increase it to the $30 billion level,” the Turkish news agency Anadolu quoted Yilmaz as saying in the meeting. 4

TEHRAN — Leader of the Islamic Revolu-

tion Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Sunday that Iran’s military is neither “ceremonial” nor “illogical”.

During a meeting with senior

military officials, the Leader he said that the Armed Forces should have both “military and operation-al capability” and “religious and spiritual motivations”.

“The main duty of the Armed Forc-

es is defending national security bor-ders in the Islamic Republic system, so the forces’ operational capability and spiritual motivations should be boost-ed day by day,” Ayatollah Khamenei noted. 2

Leader: Iran’s military is neither ceremonial nor illogical

See page 2

Iran’s renewable energy market

blinks at investors Our studies indicate a technical capacity of 35,000-40,000 megawatts (MW) from wind sources, Mohammadnejad Sigaroodi says

TEHRAN — While Iran is sitting on giant, unburnable fos-sil fuel reserves, there are increasing calls from within the country for a shift to alternative energies.

The pro-change camp cites environmental concerns as well as shrinking conventional fuels, saying it is necessary to have the lovely alternatives in the country’s energy mix.

All these concerns have up till now resulted in less than 200 megawatts (MW) of eco-friendly energy being gen-erated in Iran.

However, with the country’s re-engagement with the global community following an agreement with the West over its nuclear program, it seems that on horizon will be more lamps fed by electricity from renewable energies.

Due to the country’s status change in the internation-al scene, it has become easier to get cutting-edge tech-nology and attract foreign dollars. If provided, Iran can turn well into a renewable energy heaven considering the territorial characteristics of the sunny country, where

suntanned faces get cooled down by gusts of wind.

In what follows, the Tehran Times releases an interview with Jafar Mo-hammadnejad Sigaroodi, the deputy

chief for planning and develop-ment at the Renewable Energy Organization of Iran (SUNA), to hear from him more de-

tails about current and fu-ture status of renewable energies in Iran, land of the Sun.

gthe territorial characteristics of the

suntanned facegusts of wind.

In what foreleases an inhammadnejad

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By Ali KushkiEXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

A massive fire has swept through a temple in India during a fireworks display, killing at least 100 people and injuring at least 200 others.

The fire broke out on Sunday morning, officials said, when a spark from the show ignited a separate pile of fireworks that was being stored at the Puttingal temple complex in the coastal town of Paravur in Kerala state.

Thousands of people were packed into the temple when an explosion was heard at about 3am local time. The blaze then spread quickly through the building, trapping people inside.

Local TV channels showed footage of huge clouds of white smoke billowing from the temple, as fireworks continued to ex-plode in the night sky.

Al Jazeera’s Divya Gopalan, reporting from Delhi, said daily celebrations were being held in the country to mark a Hindu festival.

The fire came as Kerala - governed by the Congress party, which is in opposition at a national level - prepares to head to the polls in one of five state elections being held in India this month and next.

India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, said on Twitter that he was on his way to the site of the fire.

Modi annnounced 200,000 rupees (about $3,000) in com-pensation for the families of those killed and 50,000 rupees for

those injured.Rescuers on Sunday morning were sifting through the

wreckage looking for survivors, while diggers cleared the debris and ambulances ferried the injured to nearby hospitals.

The chief doctor at Thiruvananthapuram Medical College in the state capital said some of those pouring into the hospital had suffered serious injuries “and many would require ampu-tation” of limbs.

“Many have sustained burns of over 50 percent and the con-dition of some of them is quite serious,” D. Mohandas told the Hindu newspaper.

Navy spokesman D.K Sharma said the helicopters would trans-port the injured to Thiruvananthapuram and also to the city of Kochi where the navy operates a hospital, with some of the injured currently being treated at small local medical centers.

Every year, the temple holds a competitive fireworks dis-play, with different groups putting on successive light shows for thousands of devotees gathered for the last day of a seven-day festival honoring the goddess Bhadrakali, a southern Indian in-carnation of the Hindu goddess Kali.

Fires and stampedes are not uncommon at temples and during religious occasions, often because of poor security ar-rangements and lax safety standards.

(Source: agencies)

Massive fire in crowded India temple kills scores

By Mohammad Reza NoroozpourPolitical analyst

A R T I C L E

Zarif: There will be no missile JCPOA

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POLITICALd e s k

TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Mo-hammad Javad Zarif held talks on Sun-

day with Chairman of the Finnish Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs Antti Kaikkonen, exploring ways to promote

cooperation between Tehran and Helsinki.

Zarif said the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers has provided good opportunities for Iran and the European Union to tap into the existing economic, trade, and banking potentials. For his part, Kaikkonen expressed Helsinki’s interest in taking new steps for

developing parliamentary, economic, and cultural relations with Iran.

“During this visit (to Iran), we developed our knowledge about Iran’s capacities,” he said, according to Tasnim.

The trip will also help to introduce Finland’s new capacities for the enhancement of economic ties with the Islamic Re-public, the senior Finnish lawmaker added.

Finnish MP holds talks with Zarif

TEHRAN — Ali Akbar Velayati, the top aid to the Supreme Leader, has

said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks about Iran’s missile program are simply “absurd.”

The official said the remarks in a TV program on Sat-urday.

Velayati’s remarks came after Kerry had said the U.S. is open to negotiations with Iran about the country’s missile program.

“There will be no compromise over defense issues and as the late Imam Khomeini noted, if we take one step back, they take a hundred of steps forward. But the Islamic Republic pays no heed to their threats and re-marks and their infiltration dream into Iran won’t come true,” Velayati was quoted as saying.

‘Assad ouster is our redline’The veteran politician said Iran has been support-

ing the Syrian government at the request of President Beshar al-Assad.

“At the Syrian president’s request, Iran is helping the government, whose legitimacy is recognized by the UN and its representative is attending the body, to battle ter-rorists,” Velayati said.

The trained pediatrician laid emphasis on backing the Assad government, saying that no one can defend terri-

torial integrity of Syrian better than Assad as he stood firm in defending his country even when terrorist worriers were only hundreds of meters away from his residence.

“The U.S. officials say that Bashar Assad should leave, but Assad should remain in power as Syria’s legal president until the end of his presidential term and that is our redline,” Velayati remarked.

He underscored that it is “Iran’s redline” that Assad should stay in power because it is the Syrian people who have the right to deter-mine their country’s fate.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the former foreign minister referred to the U.S. dual approach to Iran, saying Washington calls Iran a sup-porter of terrorism and simultaneously invites the country to battle terrorism.

“The U.S. deployed thousands of soldiers in Iraq to rule the country and exercised all their power in the region to topple Syria. But, Iran helped the re-sistance front and stood up to terrorists’ offensives, in-flicting heavy failures on the U.S. allies such as Daesh.

This brought Americans to the negotiation table.” ‘Russia ready to sell Su-30 fighters to Iran’

Also, Velayati pointed to Iran-Russia ties, saying, “Both of us have common concerns and are exposed to threats. On

the other hand, as two Asian countries, Iran and Russia have maritime borders in the Caspian Sea and the

two countries’ cooperation in Syria indicated that we have close strategic ties.”

On if Russians are reliable friends and the country’s withdrawal of forces from Syria, Ve-layati noted that Iran has its own national in-terests, seeking ties with every country which

works towards this and does not med-dle in Iran’s domestic affairs.

“Some European countries avoid giving us even a gun, but Russia is ready to sell Su-30 fighters to Iran.”

Also, on the S-300 deal, Velayti stated that the deal

will certainly will take effect though it may take time.

“We will fulfill all our commit-ments to Iran,” Velayati quoted President Putin as saying in a

meeting with him recently.

TEHRAN — Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of

the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said on Sunday that the crisis in Syria is result of the U.S. and its allies’ “mistake”.

“The U.S. strategic mistake which was made due to wrong analysis based on its allies’ information in the region [the Mid-dle East] caused dispatching forces and training tens of thousands of terrorists in

the region whose terrorist acts have influ-enced some of the European countries,” he said during a meeting in Tehran with Antti Kaikkonen, chief of the Finnish Par-liament Foreign Affairs Committee.

Boroujerdi added that the volatile regional situation has resulted from the Western countries’ interventions to meet their “illegitimate interests”.

He also said that the Syrian cri-sis should be settled through in-

ter-Syrian dialogue.Commenting on Iran-Finland rela-

tions, he expressed hope that coopera-tion would be expanded in various areas.

Boroujerdi said that Iran’s policy is based on mutual respect, adding that Iran welcomes expansion of parliamenta-ry ties with Finland.

Kaikkonen said that Iran and Finland have always had “friendly relations” even before the removal of sanctions.

He expressed hope that his trip to Iran would open new chapter in bilateral ties.

TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Minister Mo-

hammad Javad Zarif has categorically rejected any compromise on Iran’s missile program, stressing that “there would be no JCPOA for defense issues,” ISNA news agency reported on Sunday.

Minister Zarif’s remarks came after Sec-retary of State John Kerry had said in Bah-rain that his country is ready to negotiate with Tehran about its missile capability.

Kerry’s words have drawn a barrage of fiery responses from other senior Iranian officials, including commanders of the Islamic Revolutions Guards Corps (IRGC) over the past few days.

Speaking at a joint press conference with his Estonian counterpart Mari-na Kaljurand in Tehran on Sunday, Zarif noted that Iran’s missile program is not related to the JCPOA and Americans are aware of this.

“Secretary Kerry and the U.S. State Department know well that Iran’s missile and defense capabilities are not open to negotiation.”

He added if such issues truly matter to the U.S. administration, it should halt “the

selling of weaponry which are used to slaughter the defenseless Yemeni people or employed by the Zionist regime.”

Since after the IRGC’s successful fire-testing of two ballistic missiles in March, Iran has seen itself in another confrontation with the United States.

The U.S. and some of its Western allies claim that Iran’s missile tests are a breach of the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorsed the JCPOA.

The resolution does not ban the test-ing of conventional weapons by Iran.

Zarif said last month that the missiles recently tested are not programmed to carry nuclear warheads.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Zarif called a claim by Kerry that Iran backs terror-ism “baseless,” saying the world takes no heed of the remarks.

Terrorism and extremism as main threats to the region and even to the world are byproducts of the U.S. gunboat diplomacy in Iraq and invasion of the county, Zarif maintained.

Also, on the formal trip to Tehran by Estonian Foreign Affairs Minister Marina Kaljurand, Zarif said this is the first time the

country’s foreign minister is visiting Iran although bilateral ties between the two countries dates back to almost a century.

“We talked on a range of issues in our meeting. The two countries can collabo-rate with each other in different political, cultural, parliamentary, and economic

domains,” Zarif said. Following the signing of the JCPOA,

senior foreign officials have been visiting Iran like no time before.

It is hoped the visits bring about a bet-ter future for Iran in all areas, particularly economy and politics.

TEHRAN — President Hassan Rou-hani said on Sunday that Iran wel-

comes deepening relations with the European Union.“Consulting and coordinating to maintain stability

and security in the Middle East region are among the areas of cooperation between Iran and the European Union,” Rouhani said during a meeting with Estonian Foreign Minister Marina Kaljurand in Tehran.

The president also said Tehran attaches great impor-tance to cooperation with the EU in settling international issues.

Rouhani also called for boosting cultural cooperation through exchange of students and professors.

Elsewhere, he said that the Islamic Republic is con-cerned about terrorism in some countries from North of Africa to the Middle East, insisting on Tehran’s position for a “serious” fight against terrorism.

For her part, the Estonian foreign minister called for expansion of ties with Iran in various spheres.

Kaljurand said that deepening the two countries’ co-operation will benefit the Iranian and Estonian govern-ments and people.

APRIL 11, 2016APRIL 11, 20162 I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

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MEDIA MONITOR

1 Some countries’ armies are “ceremo-

nial”, have no operational power and are just intended to provide the governments with security, he said.

There are such armies in the Middle East region some of which have invad-ed Yemen with full power during the past year with “no achievement”, the Leader said in an indirect reference to the Sau-di-led attacks on Yemen which started in March 2015.

The Leader added that there is an-other group of armies which are out-wardly operational and military ca-pable, but are actually “illogical” and “merciless”.

The performance of the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan present such an example, Ayatollah Khamenei noted.

Such armed forces, when caught in a dangerous situation, show no hes-itation to employ “professional crim-inals” such as Blackwater guards, he explained.

The Leader called the Iranian armed forces the only “religious” mili-tary in the world which enjoys spiritual motivations along with “professional-ism” and serves a country that has “political independence”.

The Leader also said the Armed Forces in Iran belong to the whole country and not just to a certain person or faction.

Prior to the Leader’s remarks, Hassan Firouzabadi, chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, said the Iranian Armed Forces is obligated to increase its military and preemptive capability especially in the area of ballistic missiles.

Majlis votes to cut cash subsidy of 30 percent of recipients

TEHRAN — The Majlis on Sunday approved the outlines of the national budget for the current Ira-nian fiscal year, which started on March 20.

The government had built the budget bill on sale of 2,250,000 barrels of oil per day, the spokesman for the parliament’s Joint Commission said, ICANA reported.

Mohammadreza Pour-Ebrahimi added that ac-cording to the proposed budget, every barrel of oil will be sold at 40 dollars.Speaking in the Sunday morning session of the legislative body, he said the current year budget bill is trying to focus on mon-etary policies, the fifth development plan and the sustainable development policies.

According to the parliamentarian, the ceiling of the current year budget will be 250,000 billion in rials.

ICANA

Reformist MPs to hold meeting with lawmaker-elects

TEHRAN — Sitting reformist MPs are going to hold a meeting with 30 lawmaker-elects from the Tehran constituency.

Making the announcement in an interview with ISNA on Sunday, MP Kamaleddin Pirmoazzen said the meeting will provide an opportunity to exchange views among the meeting sides.He explained that the makeup of committees and the presiding board of the next Majlis will feature high in the meeting.

ISNA

Motahari plans to run for post of deputy parliament speaker

TEHRAN — Ali Motahari has announced that he will be running for the position of deputy speaker in the next Majlis.

Writing on his Instagram page, the lawmak-er-elect said on Sunday that his announcement was a response to public questions as of his agenda for the next parliament.IN

STAGRAM

IRGC Ground Force to hold drills

TEHRAN — The commander of the IRGC Ground Force announced on Sunday that a series of drills, code-named “Payambar-e Azam” (Great Prophet), will be held from Tuesday to Thursday in four regions of Iran.

“The drills will be held in southeast of the coun-try, including parts of Sistan-Balouchestan province, southern Kerman, southern parts of South Khoras-an province, and east of Hormozgan province,” Mohammad Pakpour said, according to Tasnim.

The war games are aimed at maintaining the preparedness of IRGC forces, displaying the coun-try’s might, and ensuring security, Pakpour added.

TSNIM

Deputy FM in Turkey to attend OIC meeting

TEHRAN — Iran’s deputy foreign minister is in the Turkish city of Istanbul to take part in a preliminary meet-ing of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

Heading a high-ranking delegation, Abbas Ara-qchi arrived in Istanbul on Sunday to hold talks with the representatives of other member states of the OIC on the agenda of the upcoming summit, Fars reported.Iran has not yet announced at what level it will be represented in the meeting.

FA

RS

Iran working on stable isotope, nuclear hospital projects

TEHRAN — In the Fordow nuclear facility Iran is working on stable isotopes with Russians and the job has made good progress, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) director told the na-tional TV on Saturday.

Ali Akbar Salehi also stated that Iran has started operational procedures of building a nuclear hospital.

“The budget needed for the hospital is available. We have bought the land already and will dispatch a team to Austria in a couple of weeks to procure the equipment,” the nuclear chief said.

IR

IB

MEHR

‘11000 inmates were pardoned last year’

TEHRAN — Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said on Sunday that 11000 inmates were pardoned in the last Iranian calendar year.

During a press conference, he said that some of the inmates’ sentences were commuted and some of them were released.

The inmates, who were not “harmful” to the so-ciety, were pardoned, he added.

Velayati says Kerry’s missile remarks are ‘absurd’

Syrian crisis is result of U.S. mistake: Iranian MP

Zarif: There will be no missile JCPOA

Iran welcomes close ties with EU: RouhaniPOLITICALd e s k

POLITICALd e s k

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Leader: Iran’s military is neither ceremonial nor illogical

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Cruz picks up all delegates in Colo.; Sanders win in Wyo.Ted Cruz completed his sweep of Colorado’s 34 delegates while rival Donald Trump angled for favor a half-continent away in New York’s all-important April 19 primary. On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders picked up another win in Wyoming — but it did nothing to help him gain ground in the delegate chase.

Cruz netted 13 more delegates at Colorado’s state GOP convention. The Texas Senator already had locked up the support of 21 Colorado delegates and visited the state to try to pad his numbers there.

Keeping up his tussle with Trump over values, Cruz told the Colorado crowd earlier that it’s easy to talk about making America great again — “you can even print that on a base-ball cap” — but that the more important question is which candidate understands “the principles and values that made America great in the first place.”

In an appearance before Jewish Republicans in Las Vegas later that day, Cruz warned of a “bloodbath” for the GOP if Trump were the nominee and said control of Congress and the balance of the Supreme Court could be at risk.

Cruz’s sweep increases the chances of a contested Re-publican convention this summer. Trump still has a narrow path to clinching the GOP nomination by the end of the pri-maries on June 7, but he has little room for error. He would need to win nearly 60 percent of all the remaining delegates to clinch the nomination before the convention. So far, he’s winning 46 percent.

Following the Colorado results, the Associated Press count stands at Trump 743, Cruz 545, and John Kasich 143. Marco Rubio, who suspended his campaign, has 171 delegates. To clinch the nomination by the end of the primaries, a GOP candidate needs 1,237 delegates.

Trump left the Colorado convention to his organizers, and spent about a half-hour on Saturday touring the Nation-al Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum in lower Manhattan. His campaign issued a statement describing the site as “symbolic of the strength of our country, and in particular New Yorkers, who have done such an incredible job rebuilding that devas-tated section of our city.”

Democratic presidential hopefuls, too, were focused on New York’s big trove of delegates even as Wyoming gave its nod to Sanders over Hillary Clinton.

Sanders got word of his Wyoming win from his wife, Jane, midway through a rally in Queens, part of a four-stop swing through New York City. A raucous cheer went up from the New Yorkers, but the Wyoming vote was a draw from a delegate perspective: Sanders and Clinton each picked up seven.

(Source: AP)

In a city obliterated by a U.S. atom bomb more than 70 years ago, Japan kicked off a gathering of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies with a call to end nuclear weapons.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, who presides over the two-day annual meeting this year, said on Sunday that ministers will also discuss anti-terrorism steps, mari-time security and issues related to North Korea, Ukraine and the Middle East.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is set to join his coun-terparts from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan on Monday to visit an atomic bomb museum and lay flowers at a cenotaph for nuclear bomb victims, becoming the first in his post to do so.

The move could possibly pave the way for a never-be-fore visit to Hiroshima by a U.S. president when Barack Obama attends the annual meeting of G7 leaders in Japan next month.

During World War II, a U.S. warplane dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, reducing the city to ashes and killing 140,000 people by the end of that year.

Three days later, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered six days later.

Maritime security is also on the cards after China rattled nerves in the region with its controversial reclamation work in the South China Sea.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Saturday called for the

participating ministers not to “hype up” the South China Sea issue.Wang’s comment was followed by a scathing article by Chi-

na’s official Xinhua News Agency on Sunday on the prospects of the G7 meeting discussing the South China Sea matter.

“(Kishida) has purportedly coordinated to outline a joint communiqué regarding the sovereignty disputes over the South China Sea, despite the fact that neither Japan nor any G7 member is a relevant party to the disputes,” the article said.

“Long uncomfortable with China’s rising influence in the region, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his admin-istration have never passed up an opportunity to trip up and contain China,” it said.

(Source: Reuters)

The Russian air force and Syrian military are preparing a joint operation to take Aleppo from rebels, the Syrian prime minister was quoted saying on Sunday, and an opposition official said a ceasefire was on the verge of collapse.

With a United Nations envoy due in Damascus in a bid to advance struggling diplomatic efforts, the “cessation of hos-tilities agreement” brokered by Russia and the United States came under new strain as government and rebel forces fought near Aleppo.

The ceasefire came into effect in Feb-ruary with the aim of paving the way for a resumption of talks to end the five-year-long war. But it has been widely vi-olated, with each side blaming the other for breaches. The fighting south of Alep-po marks the most significant challenge yet to the deal.

Diplomacy has meanwhile made little progress with no compromise over the Syrian future of President Bashar al-As-sad, his position strengthened by Iranian and Russian support.

A top Iranian official, in comments to Iran TV, rejected what he described as a U.S. request for Tehran’s help to make Assad leave power, saying he should serve out his term and be allowed to run in a presidential election “as any Syrian”.

Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Hala-ki told a delegation of visiting Russian lawmakers of preparations to “liberate” Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city and commer-cial hub before the conflict that erupt-ed in 2011. Aleppo is divided into areas controlled separately by the government and opposition.

“We, together with our Russian part-ners, are preparing for an operation to liberate Aleppo and to block all illegal armed groups which have not joined or have broken the ceasefire deal,” he was quoted as saying by TASS news agency.

Dmitry Sablin, a member of Russia’s upper house of parliament and a mem-

ber of the delegation, told RIA news agency “Russian aviation will help the Syrian army’s ground offensive opera-tion”.

The deployment of the Russian air force to Syria last year helped tip the war Assad’s way as it bombed rebels supported by his enemies including the House of Saud regime, Turkey and the United States. Russian President Vladimir Putin last month withdrew some of the Russian forces, but maintained an air base in Latakia, and kept up strikes on the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh) terrorist group.

Neither the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) or ISIL terrorist group are included in the partial cease-fire.

Rebels have reported the resumption of Russian air strikes south of Aleppo, an important theater where Lebanon’s Hez-bollah is fighting in support of the army and the al-Nusra Front is deployed in close proximity to rebels.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a total of 35 combat-ants had been killed on both sides in a 24 hour period in the area, where fighting has been raging for some 10 days.

A member of the main opposition council said the last 10 days had “wit-nessed a serious deterioration, to the point where the ceasefire is about to col-lapse”.

Bassma Kodmani of the High Nego-tiations Committee also told Journal du Dimanche that a U.S.-Russian ceasefire monitoring mission was “powerless”.

The war has killed more than 250,000 people, created the world’s worst refu-gee crisis, and allowed for the rise of ISIL.

Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said “in Aleppo there is a real collapse of the truce”.

The army says groups that had agreed to the cessation of hostilities had taken part in al-Nusra Front attacks on government-held positions south of Aleppo. Free Syrian Army groups mean-while blame the fighting on government violations.

“The air strikes are now roughly back to what they were,” said Mohamed Rasheed, head of the media office with the Jaysh al-Nasr rebel group. A Syrian military source said: “The battles are raging because ... armed groups that were part of the (truce) joined al-Nusra in the attack.”

The Observatory also reported fight-ing on Sunday between government and rebel forces near the opposition-held town of Douma outside Damascus, and said government helicopters had dropped barrel bombs on rebel-held ar-eas north of Homs.

Iran rejects U.S. “precondition”Meantime, United Nations envoy

Staffan de Mistura arrived in Damas-cus on Sunday evening, and is expect-ed to meet Syrian officials on Monday. He said last week he would go to Da-mascus and Tehran to sound out their position on a political transition before beginning a new round of peace talks on Wednesday.

De Mistura has said the next round of talks needs to “be quite concrete in the direction of a political process leading to a real beginning of a political transition”.

Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran’s Leader Aya-tollah Ali Khamenei’s top adviser on in-ternational affairs, said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had asked “Iran to help so that Bashar Assad leaves.

“We should ask them: “What does this have to do with you? Shouldn’t the Syri-an people decide?”

“From Iran’s point of view Bashar Assad and his government should re-main as a legal government and legal president until the end of his term. And Bashar Assad shall be able to take part in a presidential election as any Syrian citi-zen. And their precondition that Bashar Assad should go is a red line for us.”

In a sign of Assad’s confidence, the Syrian government plans to hold parliamentary elections on Wednes-day. Salim al-Muslat, opposition spokesman, said the vote was ille-gitimate.

“I don’t know how they can really an-nounce an election in Syria. In Idlib or in Aleppo or in Deir al-Zor or in Homs, can people go there and vote?” he said.

(Source: Reuters)

G7 foreign ministers gather in Hiroshima

APRIL 11, 2016APRIL 11, 2016 INTERNATIONALh t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m / i n t e r n a t i o n a l 3I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

Syrian PM: Russia to back new Aleppo attack; opposition says truce near collapseIran rejects U.S. “precondition”

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Vacancy AnnouncementThe Mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

in IRAN is seeking to fill the following vacant position inTehran:

Secretary

It should be noted that the position might require travelling (on mission) outside and inside the country.All interested applicants should submit a letter of interest and a résumé in English to the following email address:

teh_hr_services@icrc.org

ALL submissions MUST be received by the closing date of 24 April 2016Please be informed that only shortlisted candidates will be notified for further process.

Main responsibilities Performs general secretarial duties independently Drafts and types routine correspondence Agenda keeping and various office work Carries out translations/interpretations upon request Executes basic financial tasks

Minimum required knowledge & experience: University degree 3 - 5 years work experience in a similar field Very good knowledge of written and spoken English Very good computer skills Good analytical skills Similar working experience with an international organization would

be an asset

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

E C O N O M Y h t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m / e c o n o m yAPRIL 11, APRIL 11, 20162016

Italy’s banks are currently loaded with about 360 billion euros ($410 billion) in bad loans, Reuters reported. The fund will be financed by major banks, including UniCredit SpA and Intesa Sanpaolo SpA along with state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti to help the cooperative lenders in sales of shares and

bad debt.Terms of the deal are still under review

and a final agreement may be reached as soon as next week, sources told Bloomb-erg.

Earlier this year, Italy struck an agree-ment with the European Commission,

which allowed Italian banks to bundle their bad loans in securities for sale, in a bid to work out a recovery from a recession in Eu-rope’s third-largest economy.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, Pier Carlo Padoan, the country's economy minis-ter said that Italian banks can deal with the

pile of bad loans over the next two to three years, adding that the situation of their bal-ance sheets was "difficult but manageable."

Italian banking stocks have lost 40 per-cent of their market value this year, Reuters reported.

(Source: International Business Times)

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F Airbus is meeting demand for larger corporate jets in China with the new ACJ319, which features conference, dining and lounge areas at the front, plus two separate rooms at the rear.

It is offered for VVIP charter by Comlux and is on display next week at the Asian Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition (Abace) in Shanghai. It is certificated to transport 19 passengers – more than traditional business jets – and is able to serve a wider range of business needs.

Airbus has about 20 ACJ320 family corporate jets in China, giving it the strongest presence of any busi-ness jet at the top-end of the market.

At least 2,500 European employees of General Electric (GE) have protested in Paris against the US industrial conglomerate’s restructuring plans, which include 6,500 job losses throughout the continent.

The demonstrators came to the French capital from throughout Europe with 700 from Germany and hundreds more from Italy, Poland, Belgium and France itself.

A large number were from French company Al-stom, four months after GE acquired its power and grid businesses. Other protests took place in Germa-ny, Spain, Austria.

GE is most of the way through a restructuring to hone its focus on its key traditional industrial busi-nesses.

Japan’s government and auto giants Toyota Motor Corp and Nissan Motor Co will join in an effort to de-velop intelligent maps by 2018, the Nikkei daily said, as competition heats up to improve the technology key for autonomous driving.

Japanese automakers, map-making companies, and the government will get together to generate standardized intelligent maps, with plans to incor-porate driving data gathered by the automakers, the paper said on Sunday.

A Toyota spokesman declined to comment, while officials at Nissan could not be reached immediately for comment.

Airbus' biggest corporate jet, first A330neo for TAP and more

Nearly 2,500 General Electric workers stage protest in Paris against restructuring

Japan government, Toyota, Nissan to step up efforts on intelligent maps

Tehran, Ankara sign banking, trade MOUs

MOU on veterinary health inked between Iran, Germany

ECONOMYd e s k

1A third of trade between Turkey and Iran is now

conducted in the Turkish lira or the Iranian rial, the Turkish official added.

Trading in local currencies rather than the U.S. dollar benefits the trading nations as it avoids ex-change rate losses, reducing trade costs.

“We made some great progress and would like to add to it in the next period. We will continue to make trading easier by adding 30 more products to the protocol we will sign today,” Yilmaz noted.

Turkey was the fourth largest exporter of non-oil goods to Iran in the past Iranian calendar year which ended on March 19, 2016, while in its preceding year (March 2014-March 2015) Turkey was the 6th major importer of Iranian non-oil goods.

The two countries also maintain close energy ties. Turkey is one of the major customers of Iranian gas and imports 10 billion cubic meters of the product from Iran every year.

TEHRAN — “Iran and Germany signed a

memorandum of understanding (MOU) in the field of veterinary health and medicine,” Iranian Agriculture Minister Mahmoud Hojjati told reporters on the sidelines of his meeting with the visiting German economic delegation in Tehran on Sunday.

“A special task force, comprised of Iranian and German officials is formed to vet expansion of further mutual ag-ricultural cooperation,” the Tasnim news agency quoted Hojjati as saying.

An economic delegation including 20 top German officials headed by the country's Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt arrived in Tehran on Sunday to confer bilateral agricultural cooperation and in particular future joint agro-ven-

ture during a two-day visit.Germany has expressed eagerness to

revive its joint bilateral relation in various economic areas with Iran as of the Asian country signed its nuclear deal, known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with P5+1 in June, 2015.

The agreement, which led in removal of unfair anti-Iranian financial sanctions during the past months, has triggered many European countries, including Germany as one of the most prominent European economic powers, to com-pete for finding even a small share in the booming Iranian market.

During the past months, Iranian and German officials as well as businessmen have visited each other ’s countries to in-vestigate warmer future relations in dif-ferent fields.

Iranian oil exports to Asia hiked 25% in February

TEHRAN — Iran’s exports of crude oil to Asian countries mounted 25 percent in

February 2016, as compared with the same month in the pre-ceding year, IRNA news agency reported on Sunday.

The rise has emerged a month after the implementation of Iran’s nuclear agreement with the world major powers in January which removed the sanctions against the Islamic Re-public, the report said.

According to the latest report released by the Organiza-tion of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Iran’s oil pro-duction in February hit 3.132 million barrels per day (bpd), posting its largest monthly gain since the imposition of sanc-tions on the country in 2012.

Iran’s oil output surged by 187,800 bpd in February to sur-pass its January figures which stood at 2.944 million bpd.

Iran heavy crude oil price in February also rose to $27.28, showing an increase of $3.21 compared to its previous month, the report says.

Based on February figures, Iran is the third largest pro-ducer of crude oil after Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Iranian Communications and Information Technology Minister Mahmoud Va’ezi (L) met Turkish Development Minister Cevdet Yilmaz on April 9 in Turkey.

Global sugar and palm oil prices jump in March: FAO

The FAO Food Price Index for March rose by 1.0 percent com-pared to February, as soaring sugar prices and continued in-crease in palm oil quotations more than offset plunging dairy product prices.

The Index averaged 151.0 points in March, its highest level in 2016, but still some 12.0 percent below its level of a year earlier.

The FAO Food Price Index is a trade-weighted index track-ing international market prices for five key commodity groups: major cereals, vegetable oils, dairy, meat and sugar. Its de-cline over the past year reflects ample food supplies, a slowing global economy and a stronger US dollar.

The keystone FAO Cereal Price Index fell slightly in March - marking the fifth straight month of decline- amid a favorable supply outlook in the new season. The drop was far more pronounced if compared to last year, as the sub-index is down 13.1 percent below its March 2015 level.

The FAO Sugar Price Index rose 17.1 percent from February, reaching its highest level since November 2014. The sharp in-crease reflects mainly expectations of a larger production defi-cit during the current crop year, but likely also reported higher use of raw sugar for the production of ethanol in Brazil.

The FAO Vegetable Oil Price Index also rose notably, jumping 6.3 percent from February, as international palm oil prices surged on the back of prolonged dry weather in Ma-laysia and Indonesia, by far the world main producers. Soy oil prices were stable, while sunflower and rapeseed oil prices declined.

The FAO Dairy Price Index dropped 8.2 percent to its lowest level since June 2009, led by plummeting butter and cheese prices. The FAO Meat Price Index was broadly unchanged from last month. (Source: fao.org)

Iran to construct 3 power plants in Kazakhstan

TEHRAN — Bahman Salehi, the CEO of Iran Power and Water Equipment and Ser-

vices Export Company known as SUNIR, announced that his company plans to build a wind power plant as well as two thermal power plants in Kazakhstan in 18 months, IRNA news agency reported on Sunday.

“We penned a contract, at the value of $600 million, with the Kazakh Eurasia Invest Group, in this regard,” Salahi said on the sidelines of Iran-Kazakhstan Business Council meeting in Tehran.

According to him, the Iranian company aims to expand its cooperation with Kazakhs in various sectors including water and wastewater, construction of gas pipelines, development of roads and also in mining sector.

Kazakhstan has expressed high incentives to expand trade ties with Iran and vowed to provide Iranian traders with any permit they need to start business in Kazakhstan.

Last February, Asset Issekeshev, the Minister of Invest-ments and Development of Kazakhstan, heading a 260-mem-ber delegation of traders, participated in the Kazakh-Iranian Business Forum in Tehran.

Addressing the conference, Issekeshev noted that 900 Ira-nian companies are currently active in different fields, mostly in chemical industries, in Kazakhstan.

ECONOMYd e s k

ECONOMYd e s k

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron published details of the taxes he’s paid since 2009 as he sought to draw a line under the furor over his personal finances, which culminated in him admitting on Thursday that he profited from an offshore fund set up by his father.

The four-page document, prepared by a firm of chartered accountants and published on Sunday, shows Cameron’s sal-ary as prime minister, income from a house he rents out in London and interest on his savings. Over the six tax years through April 2015, he paid 402,283 pounds ($568,345) in tax on earnings of 1.08 million pounds, according to the data.

“As the prime minister said last week, he saw no issue with Prime Ministers and Leaders of the Opposition publishing the information that goes into their tax returns,” Cameron’s office said in a statement. The documents represent “a summary and explanation of the prime minister’s tax affairs going back six years. These cover his final year as Leader of the Opposi-tion and all years as prime minister.”

Cameron also announced a task force to probe docu-ments leaked from Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca as he sought to regain the initiative after being forced to ac-knowledge he once held shares in an offshore fund linked to his father, Ian, which was mentioned in the papers. He was accused of hypocrisy by the opposition Labor Party and protesters outside Downing Street on Saturday, because he has repeatedly condemned companies and individuals who avoid paying tax.

The task force will be made up of tax, fraud and criminal authorities and will pursue leads from the documents, Cam-eron said, a day after he accepted blame for the way in which

he was forced -- in five separate statements over four days -- to acknowledge his links to an offshore fund.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the U.K. tax author-ity, has already tracked down 2 billion pounds ($2.8 billion) from tax dodgers since 2010, and is chasing 700 leads relat-ing to Panama, according to a statement on Sunday from the Treasury. HMRC will lead the probe with the National Crime Agency, with Cameron committing initial funding of 10 million pounds. Investigators and analysts from the Seri-ous Fraud Office and the Financial Conduct Authority will also assist.

Cameron is seeking to boost his government’s record on cracking down on tax avoidance, a subject he has repeatedly returned to in meetings with governments and multilateral bodies around the world.

“The U.K. has been at the forefront of international action

to tackle the global scourge of aggressive tax avoidance and evasion, and international corruption more broadly,” Cam-eron said in a statement. “There is clearly further to go and this task-force will bring together the best of British expertise to deal with any wrongdoing relating to the Panama Papers.”

Cameron promised to publish details of his tax affairs fol-lowing his acknowledgment on Thursday that he sold about 30,000 pounds ($42,000) of shares in his father’s fund shortly before he became prime minister. He said he had paid all tax due on the stake.

The data show the prime minister’s taxable income to-taled 1.08 million pounds for the six tax years through April 2015. That included 795,766 pounds in salary, 56,451 pounds in taxable expenses on items including travel and clothing, and 215,400 pounds from his 50 percent share in renting out his and his wife’s London home.

In the year 2013-14 he received 6,681 pounds in interest from savings in “a U.K. high street bank,” the documents show, suggesting substantial cash deposits at a time when the Bank of England base rate was 0.5 percent.

Cameron told Conservative Party activists on Saturday that the poor media management of the past week, and the fact it took five statements for him to clarify his relationship to his father’s fund, was his fault.

“Don’t blame Number 10 Downing Street or nameless ad-visers, blame me,” he said, to applause from the Conservative Party’s Spring Forum. “I know that I should have handled this better, I could have handled this better; I know there are les-sons to learn and I will learn them.”

(Source: Bloomberg)

Iranian Agriculture Minister Mahmoud Hojjati (R) shaking hand with his German counterpart Christian Schmidt in Tehran on Sunday

Cameron publishes tax details in bid to move on from Panama

Italian government, banks to meet Monday to finalize fund to tackle bad loans

State shares worth over $849m divestedin Iran in a year

TEHRAN — Iranian state-run companies have transferred 29.662 trillion rials (about

$849.914 million) worth of their shares to the private sector in the past Iranian calendar year of 1394 (which ended on March 19), the Tasnim News Agency reported on Sunday.

The country transferred 47.738 trillion rials (over $1.367 billion) worth of shares of state-run companies to the private sector in the calendar year of 1393.

The Iranian government envisioned a large privatization program in the Fifth Five-Year National Development Plan (2010-2015), aiming to privatize about 20 percent of the state-owned firms each year.

Under the present interpretation of the Article 44 of Iran's Constitution, hundreds of state-owned companies have been privatized.

ECONOMYd e s k

In this fast-paced get-it-done-now world, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a few hours in the presence of a field of gorgeous flowers, letting their vibrant colors and won-derful scents allows us to drift away from the hassles of life. And if you’re going to do it, do it right. Here are five fields from around the world perfect for taking one of those pre-cious moments to stop and smell the flowers.

France: Lavender Flower Fields

Imagine heading down France’s picturesque Laven-der Route, traipsing through a Cezanne painting come to life. And with all due respect to the legion of French artists who have traveled here to capture the views of

these fields on canvas, there is one part of these lush fields they can’t adequately portray: the aroma.

What could the aroma be coming from you might ask? The wonderful lavender fields along the famous route are responsible for the fragrance stopping you in your tracks. Set amid the rolling verdant hills, the seas of purple is particularly an eye-popper during the months of July to August when they are in full bloom.

With the strong perfumes of these purple buds auto-matically floating in the air, resisting the opportunity to stop and smell their aromas is impossible.

China: Canola Flower Fields

A shutterbug’s delight, there’s rarely a moment that

passes without a bee pollenating the canola flowers or someone embracing their bright hue. Even as this yellow carpet of flowers appears to extend for miles on end, it is perpetrated by dark forces, which are the Hundred Thou-sand Hills as well as the Golden Rooster Hills rising out of the field, yet majestically clashing with its vibrant hue.

The Canola Flower Fields of China is a dynamic sight, specifically during February to March, when it showcases its brightest features. As a great producer of cooking oil, the flower field is a treasure that holds significance to the Chinese culture. And with such a sunny presence through rain or shine, you may need to bring a pair of sunglasses.

Japan: Farm Tomita

Not all rainbows are formed in the sky; some are planted in the earth. If this statement seems untrue, you’ll want to pay Farm Tomita a visit to see for yourself.

Although lavender claims to be its wildest attraction, visitors are just as easily smitten for the field’s other floral bouquets decorating the farm. Flaunting its brightest as-sets during June to September, Farm Tomita also boasts a café offering delicious jellies and pastries for visitors who can’t get enough of the aromatic lavender. A gift shop also incorporating the flower into its products is on hand so guests can take their memories home with them.

The Netherlands: Keukenhof

With flowers extending as far as the eyes can see, the Keukenhof rightfully takes its places as the second largest flower garden in the world. But once you’re in the presence of seven million buds sprouting breathtakingly beautiful colors, it’s quite hard to envision another field topping it.

Nevertheless, Keukenhof’s rich fragrance pouring out of the rainbow-inspired plants completely dominate the entire park, as each corner intensifies with dozens of tulips, sun-flowers and other delightful florets. Here, every day feels like spring, and once its aromatic flowers hit your nose, you’ll see why Keukenhof attracts the undivided attention of every guests with its famed tulip fields alone.

California: The Flower Fields

Drenched in Giant Tecolote Ranunculus flowers, you’ll want to follow your nose through its 50 acres to capture every hue in this sea of color. California’s “The Flower Fields” is an attraction in itself that offers interesting displays around every corner. From the American Flag designed out of red, white and blue petunias to the 1,500-square foot greenhouse draped in poinsettias, visitors can expect a natural world of flowers unlike any other of its kind.

Even children are inclined to stop and smell the flow-ers while being whisked away on a wagon through the colorful fields. Set in view of the Pacific as its psychedelic colors illuminate the sky and its surroundings so effort-lessly, it may be hard to resist taking your shoes off and diving head-first into this bed of flowery rainbows.

(Source: travelpulse.com)

TEHRAN — Louvre Museum will display Egyptian antiqui-

ties, which are kept at the place, during an exhi-bition in Iran in the near future, Iran’s Museums and Historical Properties Office Director Moham-mad-Reza Kargar said on Saturday.

“According to the recent agreements between Iran and Louvre Museum and negotiations with President of the Louvre Museum Jean-Luc Mar-tinez, the exhibition will be held in the near fu-ture,” Kargar said.

Martinez, leading a seven-member delega-tion, arrived in Tehran on Saturday for a two-day journey.

The Egyptian antiquities present vestiges from the civilizations that developed in the Nile Valley from the late prehistoric era (c. 4000 BC) to the Christian period (4th century AD).

Louvre Museum is such an extraordinary collection, which is home to different cultures around the world, Martinez told reporters during his visit to the Golestan Palace.

He said that about 550,000 artifacts are kept

at the museum that thousands of them belong to Iran but he doesn’t know the exact number.

“Iran’s artifacts at Louvre Museum were dis-covered during the 19th century cooperation and mutual excavation in Susa and Apadana in Perse-polis,” he said.

He claimed that all Iranian artifacts, which are kept in the museum, were granted to the place according to an agreement signed in the 19th century.

“There is no specific department for Iran at the museum. The Iranian artifacts are kept in sev-eral departments including Islamic Art,” he said.

“I am here for a mutual cooperation. French experts come to Iran and vice versa. Louvre Mu-seum and National Museum of Iran can display their artifacts in exhibitions in each country,” Mar-tinez added.

The Louvre and the Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicraft Organization of Iran signed a co-operation document in Paris on January 27, 2016.

The document covers cooperation in various fields including archeology and local arts.

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HISTORY & HERITAGEh t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m APRIL 11, 2016APRIL 11, 2016 5I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

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Louvre Museum President Jean-Luc Martinez poses for a photo at Tehran’s Golestan Palace.

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Louvre to exhibit Egyptian antiquities in Iran

O N T H I S D A Y1564 England & France sign Peace of Troyes

1801 Johann von Schiller’s “Die Jungfrau von Orleans” premieres in Leipzig

1814 Napoleon abdicates unconditionally; he is exiled to Elba

1865 Abraham Lincoln urges a spirit of generous conciliation during reconstruction

1914 George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” premieres

1919 The International Labor Organization is founded

1945 Allied troops liberate Basket-Compascuum

1945 U.S. troops conquer Mulheim, Oberhausen, Bochum, Unna, Essen

1957 Pablo Neruda arrested in Buenos Aires

1957 Britain agrees to Singaporean self-rule.

1961 Bob Dylan makes his 1st appearance at Folk City, Greenwich Village

1970 Apollo 13 launched to Moon; unable to land, returns in 6 days

1970 Beatles’ “Let It Be” single goes #1 & stays #1 for 2 weeks

1974 WW II war criminal JP Philippa arrested

1981 Ronald Reagan arrives home from hospital after Hinkley shot him

1984 Chinese troops invade Vietnam

1991 UN Security Council issues formal ceasefire with Iraq declaration

2002 The Ghriba synagogue bombing by Al Qaeda kills 21 in Tunisia.

2002 An attempted coup d’état takes place in Venezuela against President Hugo Chávez

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Ministry of Industry, Mine, and TradeIndustrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran (IDRO)

Cotton spinning production lineInvitation to Bid

Tender No.: 95/527Subject: Request for Proposal for Turnkey Basis of Engineering and Procurement

(EP) Works of Cotton spinning yarn Manufacturing Plant

Industrial Development and Renovation Organization (IDRO) of IRAN intended to

award the contract for Turnkey Basis of Engineering and Procurement (EP) Works of

cotton spinning production line through a tender bid. In this regard and in accordance

with Iranian tender law and its bylaws, IDRO solicits Bids from internationally

reputed organizations of both foreign and local origin for ENGINEERING and

PROCUREMENT (EP) works of cotton spinning production line on a turnkey basis.

1- Employer/Client: Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran

(IDRO)

2- Project: Turnkey Basis of Works Engineering, Procurement (EP) of spinning

production line for cotton, polyester and viscose and blended off.

3- Location: Ghostaresh sanaye Baloch CO, 5th km Bampor- Iranshahr road,

Iranshahr, Sistan & Baluchestan Province, Islamic Republic of Iran.

4- Contract: Design and Engineering, Technology Transfer, Supply and Procurement

of Equipment and Machinery, Installation, Commissioning, Supervision, Training

and Operation of the Project. With respect to Laws and Regulations of the I.R. of

Iran, the maximum potential of local contractors and suppliers shall be exploited

and used by the selected Bidder.

5- Plant Capacity: 15 TON yarn per day (10 ton Ne 20 and 5ton Ne 30) .

6- Submission of Bids: From 9/April/2016 TO 30/ April/2016 . Filled RFP Documents

Shall be posted to the below address.

7- Contact Information: 5th Floor, No. 2, IDRO Building, Jame- e- Jam St., Vali-e-

Asr Ave, Tehran, Iran.

Tel: +98(21) 22044067 or +98(21)23862202, Fax: +98(21) 22044035

Email: Ghorbani-sa@idro.orgPerson in charge: Mr. Saeid Ghorbani

Spectacular flower fields you must see

Iran, Denmark to boost archeological cooperation

TEHRAN — The Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies of University

of Copenhagen and the Research Center for Cultural Herit-age and Tourism of Iran will sign an agreement in the field of archeology.

The head of the research center Mohammad Beheshti will lead a delegation to Denmark this week.

The research center will also honor scholars of Iran studies and will hold a two-day workshop at the university.

The Iranian delegation will also visit David Collection, Rosenborg Castle Gardens, and Center for GeoGenetics – a basic research center of excellence located at the Natural His-tory Museum in Copenhagen.

Morocco plans to attract more Russian touristsAs tourists shy away from the nearby traditional markets in Eu-rope because of instability, Moroccan tourism authorities are planning to attract more visitors from China, Russia and West Africa. In an interview following King Mohammed VI’s visit to Russia, Lahcen Haddad, Morocco’s Tourism Minister, said that the plans for opening new air routes have been set in motion.

The minister said that the opportunity offered by Russia is big and the goal is to increase the visitor arrivals from the country by 400 percent to 200,000 a year over three years from the current level of 40,000 Russian tourists a year.

Morocco, untouched by the 2011 uprisings in North Africa, wants to increase the tourist arrivals in to the country to en-sure the growth of the key tourism sector. However, instability being experienced by countries such as Tunisia, Libya and Egypt following the Arab Spring is keeping the visitors away.

The contribution of Moroccan tourism towards GDP of $105 billion is 10 percent. The industry which employs 400,000 people comes next to the agriculture sector. Last year, the biggest drop was in the French market, Morocco’s largest, as tourist arrivals declined by about 7 percent. Visitor arrivals from Italy, Spain and Belgium were also smaller, but there was an increase in the amount of visitors from the UK and US. Overall, there was a one percent decline in tourist arrivals on year-over-year basis in 2015 and revenues slipped 1.3 percent to $6.1 billion.

According to Minister Haddad, tourists are not differen-tiating Morocco, a secure and safe country, from Egypt or Tunisia and, therefore, a lot has to be done to send the mes-sage across to people.

During the course of the interview, he also added that talks are being held with airlines – Aeroflot and Royal Air Ma-roc – for opening new routes between Marrakesh and Agadir and Moscow and St. Petersburg though the plans for start-ing direct flights to Morocco from China, announced in 2014, have not yet materialized.

In February, Morocco reviewed its tourism strategy “Vision 2020”, launched in 2010, in view of the mounting regional in-stability. The aim was to create 470,000 new jobs and 200,000 extra beds. The review results are to be published in May.

(Source: tourism-review.com)

APRIL 11, APRIL 11, 201620166I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

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

The Obama administration has worked diligently over the last five years to ease the marginalization of more than 70 million Americans with criminal records that can shut them out of jobs, housing, higher education or the consumer credit system — sometimes for minor offenses in the distant past or arrests that nev-er led to conviction. By addressing this problem, Obama is pushing the country to re-evaluate longstanding policies that trap people with criminal records at the very edges of society, driving many of them right back to prison.

Last week, for example, the De-partment of Housing and Urban De-velopment warned private landlords that blanket bans on renting to people with criminal convictions — common throughout the country — violate the Fair Housing Act and can lead to law-suits and charges of discrimination.

The guidelines make clear that landlords cannot use arrests — which quite often do not lead to conviction — to disqualify applicants, and must

consider the nature and severity of convictions in evaluating rental appli-cants and prove that any exclusions are justified. Landlords who reflexively bar people with criminal records risk being hauled into court unless they revise that policy. The department took a similar step toward policies in public housing last year, advising local agencies that administer federally assisted hous-ing programs against shutting out appli-cants based on arrests and discouraging “one strike” policies that automatically evict people for brushes with the law.

Policy changesThese and other policy changes can

be traced to the Federal Interagen-cy Reentry Council, a group of more than 20 federal agencies led by the at-torney general and convened in 2011. The council and its member agencies have been especially focused in remov-ing unfair barriers to employment that have become pervasive since employ-ers turned to computer-based arrest and conviction records for job-screen-

ing purposes. These records are notori-ously inaccurate, and frequently contain mistakes, including records of arrests that either were dismissed or never led to conviction. To address this problem, the administration is creating a national clearinghouse that will teach legal aid programs how to clean up such mistakes.

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission took an im-portant step in 2012 when it updated a ruling that bars companies from automatically denying jobs to people based on arrest or conviction records. The commission’s guidance explained that companies needed to take into account the seriousness of the offense, when it had occurred and whether it was relevant to the job. The agency has since taken strong enforcement actions against companies that have failed to observe the ruling.

Many states and counties already forbid public agencies and in some cas-es private businesses from asking appli-cants about their criminal histories until

after they have had a chance to prove their qualifications. The administration joined this “ban the box” movement last year when it ordered federal agencies to take the same approach.

Era of marginalizationAnother area of marginalization

has been in higher education. There is no doubt that inmates who receive college degrees in prison — or who

even attend classes without graduat-ing — are far less likely to end up back behind bars once they leave. Yet Con-gress disqualified inmates from getting federal Pell Grants during the “tough-on-crime” 1990s. Obama opened the door to prison education again last year with an executive order creating a pilot program that will permit a limited num-ber of inmates to pay for college courses

through federal Pell Grants. More than 200 colleges in 47 states have expressed interest in participating in the program.

Every weekday, get thought-provok-ing commentary from Op-Ed column-ists, The Times editorial board and con-tributing writers from around the world.

In the 1990s, Congress caused great damage by denying federal grants and loans to people with minor drug con-victions. It later narrowed the rule so that only people enrolled in school and receiving aid at the time of the offense would be disqualified. Both the House and the Senate are considering bills that would repeal the whole rule and bar the Department of Education from includ-ing questions about drug convictions on the federal application for financial aid, known as the Fafsa. More than 20 million people use the form each year.

By committing himself to reform in this area, Obama is leading the coun-try away from policies that once wrote off millions of people and cast them permanently aside. (Source: The NYT)

A fair chance after a conviction

There is no doubt that inmates who receive college degrees in prison — or who even attend classes without graduating — are far less likely

to end up back behind bars once they leave.

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INTERNATIONALh t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m / i n t e r n a t i o n a l APRIL 11, APRIL 11, 20162016 7I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

A perfect storm is brewing and it could take Britain out of the European Union. Right now it’s hard to see what, or

who, will thwart that scenario. For months I thought Brexit was unlikely. Now, I’m alarmed. The push factors are piling up.

It’s not just that the gap between remain and leave has been narrowing in opinion polls – perhaps the polls need to be taken with a pinch of salt. What’s so worrying is that developments in the UK and events beyond it are together setting the stage for a train-wreck.

For Britain and EU alike, Brexit would be a tremendous loss. Yet a whiff of fatalism in the air, or at least a careless passivity, makes the situation especially dangerous.

To seriously contemplate Brexit is almost a taboo – there’s a great deal of comment, but few see it as a reality. Officials in other European states refrain from making open statements: partly for fear of negatively influencing the ref-erendum, but mostly because they are in denial.

A friend at the EU commission recently told me that its staff are banned from organizing any meetings to discuss the possible effects of Brexit, in case it leaks and EU insti-tutions appear defeatist. This amounts to sticking heads in the sand.

With less than 11 weeks to the vote, the reasons things are going wrong are easy to list. David Cameron, the British prime minister, is now politically weakened by the Panama Papers fallout. Like it or not, his personal credibility affects the credibility of his message on Europe. The Dutch ref-erendum result last week has brought added ammunition to the Brexit campaign. Nigel Farage was swift to tweet: “big No to EU. Hooray!”

External factors driving Brexit are no less daunting. The slowdown in refugee movements across the Mediterra-nean – brought about by the EU-Turkey deal – is likely to be only temporary. Not just because warmer weather will make crossings easier, but because the “cessation of hostil-ities” in Syria has now all but collapsed.

More Syrians will want to seek safety abroad. And more TV images of refugees will feed British anxieties about im-migration, which is at the heart of the referendum debate.

Brussels attacksAdd to all that the impact of the Brussels attacks, so

soon after the Paris terror. To many British people these events made Europe look frightening because of its very vulnerability. And that increases the pull-up-the-draw-bridge syndrome.

Barack Obama is expected to visit the UK in a few weeks to make the case for remain. That is good news, but it’s hard to ignore that he is a lame duck president who recent-ly criticized Europeans for being “free riders” in the global order – which didn’t go down too well among those who worry about the strength of America’s commitment to Eu-rope’s security.

Meanwhile, Obama’s entry into the referendum debate has already been slammed by Brexiters as U.S. meddling in national affairs.

It could be argued that the remain camp has not yet pumped up the volume, that it’s still early days to be alarm-ist.

Some British students are just starting to campaign, and they are doing so eagerly. One media outfit, InFacts.

org, is actively exposing the many myths that Brexiters are spreading.

The Labour Party has made remain its official policy. But its grassroots activists will only put energy into that mes-sage after the UK’s local elections in May – and that could be too late. Also, the credibility of Jeremy Corbyn, the La-bour leader, as a pro-EU voice leaves much to be desired.

Three years ago Cameron put the future of the UK – and even its territorial integrity (think Scotland) – at stake by setting off towards an in-out referendum on the EU as a way of managing his own party.

It is obvious he has failed to put internal Tory dissent to rest. That Boris Johnson has sided with leave brings to mind how in 2005 Laurent Fabius, one of France’s socialist heav-yweights, opted for no against his own party’s leadership in the referendum campaign on the EU constitution. That led to disastrous results – despite a majority of the French media calling for a yes vote.

In Britain the media has long been Eurosceptic. Even the BBC seems hesitant these days. The Daily Telegraph

describes the EU as either a threatening entity for Britain, or too weak an institution to protect it.

European voicesAnd long gone are the days when authoritative Europe-

an voices could reach out to British voters in a convincing manner – as when Jacques Delors singlehandedly swayed the British left towards a pro-European position in 1988.

The French president, François Hollande, is dismally weak, and Angela Merkel is less politically sturdy than she once was. Populist movements whose leaders believe they stand to benefit from a British exit are on the rise across the continent.

The deeper phenomenon at work is a wider one. British society suffers from an identity crisis not unlike those that have hit other western countries in the wake of globaliza-tion and the 2008 financial crisis.

Fragmentation is spreading everywhere as nations be-come more inward-looking and worried about how the world is changing. In the British case this general sense of disarray now has the opportunity to express itself in a ref-erendum.

Britain’s image has often been associated with com-mon decency, sober assessment and cool-headedness. But this is an age of extremes when moderate voices are fast drowned out by radical slogans.

Of course, Cassandras have been wrong before about the European project. The eurozone has held together. Grexit didn’t happen. Merkel may be weaker, but she has not lost power.

Yet it would be foolish not to see that the omens for Britain remaining in the EU are very poor.

But does anyone care? If they do, they need to wake up now and shout stop. (Source: The Guardian)

Obama must lift the fog of drone war

After the conclusion of the two-day Nuclear Security Summit in Washington last week, President Barack Obama did what

he usually does once a high-profile meeting with dozens of world leaders ends: he stepped up to the podium and took ques-tions from reporters.

As should have been ex-pected, many of the questions thrown his way were about nu-clear security matters.

Did he think Chinese and Russian nuclear modernization is undermining global nonpro-liferation efforts? How serious is the link between nuclear ma-terials and international terror-ist networks? And how much of a priority do other nations around the world put on safe-guarding loose nuclear material?

But the most interesting question didn’t have anything to do with nuclear weapons. Rather, the subject was about drones and President Obama’s consistent use of targeted killing in his coun-terterrorism policy over the past seven years.

Asked by the Washington Post’s David Nakamura how he could be certain that all of the people that have been killed in drone strikes were in fact imminent threats to the United States, President Obama tacitly admitted that he couldn’t provide that reassurance. In a moment of candor, Obama admitted in public what international human-rights organizations, counterterrorism analysts, former intelligence officials and think-tanks in Washing-ton have long reported: civilians have indeed been killed in U.S. drone attacks.

President Obama continued: “(The legal framework govern-ing the use of drone strikes) wasn’t as precise as it should have been, and there’s no doubt civilians were killed that shouldn’t have been. We have to take responsibility where we’re not acting appropriately, or just made mistakes.”

Depending on which organization is tracking the casualties, estimates on the number of civilians who have perished as a re-sult of drone strikes range from 370–445 (according to the New America Foundation’s count of strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and So-malia) to the much larger 514–1,127 (from the Bureau of Investiga-tive Journalism). Because these are just ballpark figures, however, the international community doesn’t know precisely how many civilians have been killed, what the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths is and where each of these strikes took place.

Until senior administration officials were forced to release some critical information by court order, the U.S. intelligence community and the White House operated on the ridiculous premise that there was no drone program to begin with. That position became increasingly more ridiculous after each news re-port of another attack by unmanned aircraft—one that President Obama, to his credit, has taken personal interest in changing.

And yet despite the fact that targeted killing has been an instrumental tenet of America’s counterterrorism policy for two consecutive administrations, the American people are only al-lowed to access the most basic information about these oper-ations.

Drone programFor far too long, the U.S. government has modified the drone

program without much consideration for what the public is enti-tled to know under a democratic system of governance.

At one point in time, CIA director John Brennan made the out-standing claim that there wasn’t a single civilian casualty during the previous year of targeted killings.

Exhaustive reporting about the procedures that the Obama administration used to distinguish between terrorists approved for the “kill list” and those who were not only added more ammu-nition to activists campaigning for greater transparency.

The White House has responded to the calls for more trans-parency, but has done so to the minimum extent possible. The infamous 2013 speech at National Defense University, where President Obama outlined the legal criteria for the program, was the beginning of an effort to level with the American people.

An unclassified presidential directive was released on the same day, providing the public with more information as to the U.S. government’s legal framework, its “near-certainty” standard that civilians were not present in the target area and the amount of oversight that members of Congress were afforded after each strike occurred.

The Obama White House is prone to calling itself the most transparent in U.S. history. On the drone issue, however, that description is more talking point than truth. If President Obama wants to seriously be considered as a transparent president in the history books, he should go beyond releasing the raw number of civilians killed in drone attacks since 2009, by enacting reforms that are bolder and will last longer than a single administration.

There are multiple reforms to the process that President Oba-ma can either enact on his own or advocate for in the halls of Congress. He can and should declassify the full Presidential Policy Directive that establishes the rules and procedures for the target-ed killing program so the American people can judge the stand-ards for themselves.

The White House should push for a statute that requires any future administration to annually disclose how many combatants outside declared warzones have been killed in drone strikes dur-ing the previous year, how many civilians were killed, where the operations took place (broadly speaking), how much the drone program costs to the U.S. taxpayer, which terrorist organizations are listed as fair game, and a public assessment from the intelli-gence community of the impact of drones on the capability of those terrorist groups to hold territory, plan attacks, recruit and fundraise.

All these reforms could be passed without compromising sources and methods, or tipping off America’s terrorist adversar-ies. Just as importantly, opening the program to more scrutiny from Congress and the American people will set an international standard for countries in the future who are beginning to deploy their own drones on the battlefield.

(Source: nationalinterest.org)

By Daniel R. DePetris

Three years ago Cameron put the future of the UK – and even its territorial

integrity (think Scotland) – at stake by setting

off towards an in-out referendum on the EU as a way of managing his own

party.

The Brexit nightmare is becoming reality. The remain camp is in denial

By Monica Crowley

From Cameron’s Panama Papers debacle to the weakness of Merkel and Hollande, the omens for Britain remaining in the EU get poorer by the day. Does anyone care?

By Natalie Nougayrède

Two weeks ago, President Obama took time out of his busy schedule of “fun-

damentally transforming the nation” to do the wave with the Reds at a baseball game in Cuba.

Last week, socialist Bernie Sanders won the Democratic primary resound-ingly in Wisconsin, the birthplace of pro-gressivism. Not a coincidence.

“So often in the past there’s been a sharp division between left and right, between capitalist and communist or socialist,” Obama told a group of young Argentinians after his tete-a-tete with the Castros of Havana.

“And especially in the Americas, that’s been a big debate, right? Oh, you know, you’re a capitalist Yankee dog, and oh, you know, you’re some crazy communist that’s going to take away everybody’s property.

“And I mean, those are interesting in-tellectual arguments, but I think for your generation, you should be practical and just choose from what works. You don’t have to worry about whether it neatly fits into socialist theory or capitalist theory — you should just choose from what works,” he continued. “And I said this to President Castro in Cuba.

I said, ‘Look, you’ve made great pro-gress in educating young people. Every child in Cuba gets a basic education — that’s a huge improvement from where it was. Medical care — the life expectancy of Cubans is equivalent to the United States, despite it being a very poor coun-try, because they have access to health care. That’s a huge achievement.’ They

should be congratulated.” Cuban economy

He admitted that the Cuban economy was still faltering and issued some per-functory praise of the free market, but added a “market does not work by itself.”

None of this socialism-worship should come as a surprise. After all, he “chose what worked” for him long ago. Indeed, he once described his brief time in the private sector as being “behind enemy lines.”

His comments serve as a good re-minder of what he truly believes — and how it has directed his policies and re-shaped the Democratic Party.

In his memoir, “Dreams from my Fa-ther,” Obama wrote boldly about his early radical associations, though he was care-ful to tone down their true beliefs and influence on him.

His father, Barack Obama Senior, was a committed communist who, while serv-ing as a finance minister for the Kenyan

government, urged a total confiscatory tax rate of “100 percent.” He also routine-ly demonized corporations. His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, sympathized with the cause.

His grandfather introduced him to poet and prominent communist Frank Marshall Davis, to whom he refers in “Dreams from My Father” as “Frank.”

Davis became a mentor and father figure to the young Barack, schooling him early in the ways of radical redistribution-ism. Davis was a labor movement activist who worked — along with Vernon Jarrett, the father of William Jarrett, ex-husband of one of Obama’s closest confidantes, Valerie Jarrett — in the Communist Par-ty-dominated group Citizen’s Committee to Aid Packing House Workers. As Obama himself recalled in his memoir, “It made me smile, thinking back on Frank and his old Black Power, dashiki self. In some ways he was as incurable as my mother, as cer-tain in his faith, living in the same sixties

time warp that Hawaii had created.” Social ideology

Thanks in large part to the influence of his parents and Davis, Mr. Obama ad-mitted that as a student, he sought out Marxist professors. In April 1983, while a senior at Columbia University, he at-tended a “Socialist Scholars Conference” at Cooper Union, a confab touted as a tribute to Karl Marx. He was so taken by the socialist ideology that he attended the 1984 conference as well. The archived files of the Democratic Socialists of Amer-ica show Mr. Obama’s name on a confer-ence registration list.

As his radicalism fully flowered, he grew close to an even fuller array of influ-ential leftists, the radical preacher Jeremi-ah Wright and Bill Ayers, the co-founder of the Weather Underground, which described itself as a communist revolu-tionary organization. Throughout his life, Obama’s mentors and pals made sure he consumed Marxist literature, anti-colonial propaganda and revolutionary poetry.

As he gained political currency, Oba-ma increasingly promoted radical wealth redistribution, class warfare and retrench-ment of U.S. power globally until he reached the presidency and could put it all into full effect.

When Obama told those Argentinians to “just choose from what works,” he re-minded us yet again of what he has cho-sen. Socialism has a long historical record of economic and human devastation, but that has never stopped the social engi-neers, including Mr. Obama, who always believe that they will be the ones to finally do Karl Marx proud.

(Source: The Washington Times)

The real secret of Bernie Sanders’ success

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

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

N E W S I N B R I E F

M E D & S C I h t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o mAPRIL 11, APRIL 11, 20162016

SpaceX successfully lands booster rocket on drone shipIn a development that could bring down the cost of delivering cargo to space mission, SpaceX has successfully landed a rock-et on a drone ship. The successful landing of Falcon 9 has put Elon Musk's SpaceX in a dominating position in the commercial launch services market.

The Hawthorne-based space technology company for the first time Friday successfully landed a booster rocket on a

drone ship.The drone ship, named

‘Of Course I Still Love You’, is moored in the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The Falcon 9 stage touched down on the drone ship shortly after hurling a payload destined for the International Space Station, in what was the company's fifth attempt at a sea landing. The company had failed in its fourth attempt last month after a commercial payload was launched from the same site.

Showcasing unusual sense of humor during previous failures, particularly after a January explosion off the California coast, Musk tweeted, "at least the pieces were bigger." "The rocket landed instead of putting a hole in the ship or flipping over, so we're really excited about that… I will feel like I have achieved the next level when it becomes boring, when it's like, 'another land-ing, no news there”, said Musk.

SpaceX had earlier achieved a milestone in December when it had landed upright its first-stage booster on solid ground at Cape Canaveral. The milestone was considered by the new gen-eration of space flight engineers and aficionados nothing less than the televised coverage of Apollo missions.

(Source: NH Voice)

Cryoablation to relieve extreme limb pain: studyResearchers have revealed that by using a newly-developed medical procedure that is minimally invasive, phantom limb pain (PLP) can be curbed to a great extent. People who lose limbs be-cause of accident, diabetes or surgery undergo this state, known as PLP. The feelings of patients going through PLP were reduced significantly through the use of a technique called cryoablation, which involves subjecting body parts to extreme cold.

Discomfort of patients can be eased out through these cold blasts, even in cases where the limb has been lost decades ago. Till now, patients feeling PLP did not have many options to al-leviate their distress.

In the United States, more than 200,000 amputations are performed annually. Patients can begin to feel PLP where the limb has been lost or in the scar tissue, shortly after the limb is lost. The new procedure involves placing a probe beneath the skin of the place where the limb was earlier present.

Subsequently, that particular area’s temperature is reduced for a time span or nearly 25 minutes. According to David Pro-logo of the Emory University School of Medicine, several nerves, which are responsible for this pain, cannot be reached by physi-cians without imaging.

The research involved 10 patients going through PLP and they were each asked to individually rate the level of distress felt by them before and after the procedure was performed. The ratings from the patients were recorded for before the treat-ment as well as seven and 45 days subsequent to the treatment. A reduction of four points was recorded during the time period, ranging from 6.4 to 2.4. No negative impact of the treatment was felt by any of the patients.

(Source: Maine News Online)

Intracellular recordings using nanotower electrodesOur current understanding of how the brain works is very poor. The electrical signals travel around the brain and throughout the body, and the electrical properties of the biological tissues are studied using electrophysiology.

For acquiring a large amplitude and a high quality of neuronal signals, intracellular recording is a powerful methodology compared to extracellular re-cording to measure the volt-age or current across the cell membranes.

Nanowire- and nanotube-based devices have been developed for the intracellu-lar recording applications to demonstrate the advantages of these devices having high spatial resolution and high sensitivity.

However, length of these nanowire/nanotube electrode

devices is currently limited to less than 10 µm due to process is-sues that occur during fabrication of high-aspect-ratio nanoscale devices, which are more than 10-µm long. Thus, conventional nanodevices are not applicable to neurons/cells within thick bio-logical tissues, including brain slices and brain in vivo.

A research team in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering and the Electronics-Inspired Interdiscipli-nary Research Institute (EIIRIS) at Toyohashi University of Technology has developed three-dimensional microneedle-based nanoscale-tipped electrodes (NTEs) that are longer than 100 µm.

(Source: NeuroScience News)

The European aircraft manufacturer is team-ing up with German industrial conglomerate Siemens (SIEGY) to develop hybrid planes that can carry up to 100 passengers. The aircraft would use a combination of electric power and conventional fuel.

They would operate a bit like a Toyota (TM) Prius car: Quieter and much more fuel efficient than similar models, said Siemens spokesperson Florian Martini.

The hybrid Airbus (EADSF) planes would consume 25% less fuel and would be al-most silent during take-off and landing, when running on electric power, according to Siemens. At cruising altitudes, the planes would be powered by jet fuel.

The planes are expected to have a range of about 620 miles, enough to get you from New York City to Detroit, Michigan.

The ultimate goal for Airbus is to de-velop "zero-emissions aviation," CEO Tom Enders said in a statement.

Electric aircraftAirbus and Siemens are developing

a commercial hybrid electric aircraft that

could carry up to 100 people.Airbus said it's been spurred to develop

the hybrid technology by European emis-sion rules requiring that aircraft emit 75% less CO2 and generate 65% less noise in 2050 than in 2000.

Airbus and Siemens have been working together since about 2010 to develop the technology on a smaller scale.

Last year, they flew a small all-electric aircraft from the UK to France in a 36-minute flight.

Now they're committing more resourc-es to the project by creating a 200-person team to work on the technology.

U.S. competitor Boeing (BA) has worked on similar projects with NASA, developing small aircraft that can be powered by hy-brid electricity and liquified natural gas.

An era of super-quiet hybrid planes could open up new opportunities for the aviation industry, said Siemens spokesman Martini.

Authorities could potentially allow planes to fly later at night without disrupt-ing residents living near airports, he said.

(Source: cnn.com)

Scientists have successfully developed a low-cost way to trap and destroy the eggs of the mosquito genus that spreads dengue, and is likely spreading the Zika virus.

The 10-month study, conducted in a remote, urban area of Guatemala, documented a cheap, easy system to reduce virus-carrying Aedes genus mosquitoes by capturing and destroying its eggs.

The system includes an innovative trap called an "ovillanta," created from two 50 cm sections of an old car tire, fashioned into a mouth-like shape, with a fluid release valve at the bottom.

Inside the lower tire cavity, a milk-based, non-toxic solution developed at Laurentian University in Canada lures mosquitoes.

Inserted to float in the artificial pond is a wooden or paper strip on which the female insect lays her eggs.

Mosquito pheromoneThe solution, which now includes mosquito phero-

mone (the female insect's chemical perfume that helps

others identify a safe breeding site), is then drained, fil-tered, and recycled back into the tire.

The pheromone concentrates over time, making the ovillanta even more attractive for mosquitoes.

The researchers, led by Gerardo Ulibarri of Lauren-tian University with collaborators Angel Betanzos and Mireya Betanzos of the National Institute of Public

Health of Mexico, found the rubber ovillanta signifi-cantly more effective at attracting the Aedes mosquito than standard traps made from 1-liter buckets.

During the study, the researchers collected and destroyed over 18,100 Aedes eggs per month using 84 ovillantas in seven neighborhoods of the town of Sayaxche (population 15,000), almost seven times the roughly 2,700 eggs collected monthly using 84 stand-ard traps in the same study areas.

There were no new cases of dengue reported as originating in the ovillanta study test area, a commu-nity that would normally anticipate two or three dozen cases in that timeframe, researchers said.

Targeting mosquito eggs using the ovillanta is one third as expensive as trying to destroy larvae in natural ponds and only 20 percent the cost of targeting adult insects with pesticides, which also harm bats, dragon-flies and the mosquitoes' other natural predators, said Ulibarri.

(Source: Business Standard)

New way to trap, kill mosquito eggs may help fight Zika

Airbus hopes to launch hybrid passenger planes by 2030

An era of super-quiet hybrid planes could open up new opportunities for the aviation industry, said Siemens

spokesman Martini.

An international team of researchers has uncovered a novel stroke risk locus near the FOXF2 gene.

Through a meta-analysis of 18 genome-wide association studies, researchers from a trio of international stroke genetics research consortiums identified 21 loci linked to risk of stroke, and confirmed two of them in follow-up samples. While one was a known risk locus, the other — located between FOXQ1 and FOXF2 — hadn't before been tied to stroke risk, as the researchers report-ed in the Lancet Neurology.

In animal studies, they found that the lack of the FOXF2 gene affected pericyte coverage in zebrafish and led to cerebral infarction and microhemorrhage in mice.

"Our research has identified a gene af-fecting … ischemic stroke, due to small ves-sel disease, and also suggests some genes may be associated with both ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke and may act through a novel pathway affecting pericytes, a type of cell in the wall of small arteries and capillar-ies," co-author Sudha Seshadri, a professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine, said in a statement.

Vessel disease"Unraveling the mechanisms of small

vessel disease is essential for the devel-opment of therapeutic and preventive strategies for this major cause of stroke."

In the discovery stage of their study, Se-shadri and her colleagues compared GWAS data from 4,348 stroke patients and 80,613 controls to find 177 genetic variants in 21 independent loci associated with incident

all stroke, ischemic stroke, cardioembolic stroke, or non-cardioembolic stroke.

In a follow-up study drawing on 19,816 stroke patients and 50,988 con-trols, the researchers replicated the as-sociation between two loci — chr6p25.3 and chr4q25 — and incident all stroke or incident cardioembolic stroke, respective-ly, in a combined analysis.

The chr4q25 locus, the researchers noted, is a known risk locus for cardioem-bolic ischemic stroke. But the chr6p25.3 locus, which falls between the FOXQ1 and FOXF2 genes hadn't previously been linked to stroke risk.

When the researchers looked at stroke sub-types, they found that the chr6p25.3 locus was linked with incident ischemic stroke, non-cardi-oembolic I ischemic stroke, and cardioembolic ischemic stroke in their discovery cohort and with small-vessel ischemic stroke in their follow-up cohort, though not with large vessel or with cardioembolic ischemic stroke in that group.

(Source: genomeweb.com)

A research team is now working to put a massive drill into the Gulf of Mexico's seafloor to help peel back 65 million years of history. Their goal: to secure a nearly mile-deep core sample from the Chicxulub crater that's commonly linked to the end of the dinosaur era.

"There's a lot of questions about mass extinction events, including all the extinc-tion or kill mechanisms out there," says one of the research team's leaders, Sean Gulick of the University of Texas, Austin.

If Gulick and his colleagues are suc-cessful, their work could bring insights into a range of topics, from prehistoric biology and planetary geology to Earth's current era of climate change.

The impact of a miles-wide asteroid and the end of the Cretaceous period were catastrophic to life on Earth, eras-ing more than 70 percent of the planet's species, according to the most recent estimations. When it hit our planet, the impact must have looked something like an exclamation point, packing enough velocity and mass to make deep-seated rocks and other materials behave like water splashing in a pond after a stone is thrown into it.

Craters on EarthUsing core samples, the scientists will

explore Chicxulub's well-preserved peak ring — the rough circle of hills that's commonly seen rising above flat impact craters on Earth and other planets.

"In that section," Gulick says, "the big excitement is, 'How did life come back

at ground zero?' Was it the specialists that came back first, the generalists? Is there any clue to what organisms re-populated first, as opposed to what the environmental consequences were for the ocean?"

To drill into the seafloor, a 137-foot craft called the Liftboat Myrtle is now using its tripod of 6-foot-wide legs to position itself over an offshore site that's about 25 kilometers from Progreso, Mexico.

The Chicxulub crater from the im-pact that's widely believed to have caused the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinc-tion 65.5 million years ago is visible here in a shaded relief image of Mexico's Yu-catan Peninsula.

The Chicxulub crater from the impact that's widely believed to have caused the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction 65.5 million years ago is visible here in a shaded relief image of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

(Source: npr.org)

Scientists set to drill into extinction-event crater in Mexico

New stroke risk locus detected through GWAS meta-analysis

Carbon fibers derived from a type of wild mushroom can be used to make anodes that outperform conventional graphite electrodes in lithium-ion batteries, scientists, in-cluding one of Indian-origin, have found. Researchers have created electrodes from a species of wild fungus called Ty-romyces fissilis.

“Current state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries must be improved in both energy density and power output in or-der to meet the future energy storage demand in electric vehicles and grid energy-storage technologies,” said Vilas Pol, associate professor at Purdue University in U.S.

Batteries have two electrodes, called anode and cath-ode. Graphite anodes are used in most lithium-ion bat-teries. Lithium ions are contained in a liquid called an

electrolyte, and these ions are stored in the anode during recharging.

Pol and doctoral student Jialiang Tang found that car-bon fibers derived from Tyromyces fissilis and modified by attaching cobalt oxide nanoparticles outperform conven-tional graphite in the anodes.

“Both the carbon fibers and cobalt oxide particles are electrochemically active, so your capacity number goes higher because they both participate,” Pol said.

Hybrid anodesThe hybrid anodes have a stable capacity of 530 milli-

amp hours per gram, which is one and a half times greater than graphite’s capacity. One approach for improving bat-tery performance is to modify carbon fibers by attaching

certain metals, alloys or metal oxides that allow for in-creased storage of lithium during recharging.

Tang got the idea of tapping fungi for raw materials while researching alternative sources for carbon fibers.

The “methods now used to produce carbon fibers for batteries are often chemical heavy and expensive,” Tang said. He decided to study the potential of a mushroom as a source for carbon fibers. “I was curious about the struc-ture so I cut it open and found that it has very interesting properties,” Tang said.

“It’s very rubbery and yet very tough at the same time. Most interestingly, when I cut it open it has a very fibrous network structure,” he said.

(Source: livemint.com)

Mushrooms may help develop more efficient batteries

Families of Afghans killed in U.S. drone raids seek probe

France calls on Israel to stop building wall in West BankFrance has criticized a decision by Israel to resume the controversial construction of a separation wall south of the occu-pied West Bank, saying the move could seriously hamper the social and eco-nomic development in the area.

The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday that renewed construction of the Apartheid Wall in Cremisan Valley will affect lives of the Christians in the town of Beit Jala near Bethlehem (Beit Lahm).

“France is concerned by the Israeli authorities’ resumption of construction of the separation wall in the historical Cremisan Valley, which will affect several dozen Palestinian families in Beit Jala,” the statement said, adding, “This wall is a new obstacle to economic and social development in the town of Bethlehem.”

The statement also reminded the re-gime in Tel Aviv that building the Apart-heid Wall was declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004. The ministry called on Israel to reverse its decision to resume the construction work at the site.

Local Christians in Beit Jala say Israel’s plans for renewed construction of the

wall are meant to cleanse the area from the residents. Frequent clashes have broken out between the residents and Israeli forces over the past months with people urging an immediate stop to the operation in Cremisan.

The European Union has also ex-pressed concern about the continued activity of the Israelis at the site. An EU delegation visited the area in 2015 and heard numerous complaints from the locals.

Israel resumed the constructions in August 2015, with reports suggest-ing that it is designed for the illegal annexation of the illegal Har Gilo set-tlement south of the occupied Quds (Jerusalem) so that it is connected to the illegal Gilo settlement. Israeli set-tlers have been illegally settled across the West Bank since the enclave was occupied in 1967.

The United Nations says nearly 60 kilometers (37 miles) of the Apartheid Wall is built on the Palestinian land. Israel began the construction of the illegal structure in 2002, claiming that the move came for security reasons.

(Source: Press TV)

Relatives and tribal elders in southeast-ern Afghanistan are demanding an in-vestigation into the killing of 17 people by the United States drones this week, claiming that the air strikes hit civilians, not members of armed groups.

U.S. army officials said on Thursday that two air strikes in Paktika province, near the Pakistani border, had only tar-geted fighters, without any evidence of civilian casualties.

Afghan officials confirmed to Al Ja-zeera that 17 people had been killed in Wednesday’s strikes in Gomal district, but added they all had links to the Taliban.

Yet, local leaders and relatives insist-ed on Saturday that all of those killed were innocent civilians.

“We demand an investigation into the brutal killings of these innocent people,” Nimatullah Baburi, a deputy of the Paktika provincial council, told Al Jazeera.

“I know them personally and their families too. They are in no way affiliat-ed with the Taliban,” he added.

“Those men were doing low-paid jobs to feed their families. All of them were civilians”.

However, Aminullah Shariq, the gov-

ernor of Paktika province, told Al Ja-zeera on Saturday only Taliban-affiliated people were killed in the attack.

“We’ve been in touch with the Amer-icans and after all the investigations and inquiries, we’ve come to the conclusion that all people killed in the strike were linked to the Taliban,” he said.

His comments came after Brigadier General Charles Cleveland, spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, said in a statement on Thursday: “We can confirm that the U.S. conducted two counterterrorism strikes in Paktika on Wednesday afternoon. Emran Feroz, an activist and founder of Drone Memorial, a website documenting civilian drone-strike victims, said Afghan officials are not doing enough to protect civilians.

The U.S. has intensified drone opera-tions in the country since Islamic States in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh) loy-alists started appearing in Afghanistan.

According to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Af-ghanistan is the “most drone-bombed country in the world” with at least 1,368 people killed since 2015.

(Source: Al Jazeera)

WORLD IN FOCUSh t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m / i n t e r n a t i o n a l 9I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

J U M P

The militant cell behind bombings in Brussels had been plotting to hit France again after carrying out the Paris attacks but was forced to strike closer to home as police closed in, Belgian prosecutors said on Sunday.

Investigations into the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group attacks in Paris in November which killed 130 people showed many of the perpe-trators lived in Belgium, including sur-viving suspects who managed to evade police for more than four months.

Prime suspect Salah Abdeslam was arrested by police on March 18 after a shootout in the Belgian capital. Four days later, suicide bombers killed 32 people in attacks on Brussels airport and a rush-hour metro train.

“Numerous elements in the investiga-tion have shown that the terrorist group initially had the intention to strike in France again,” Belgium’s federal prosecu-tor said in a statement.

“Surprised by the speed of progress in the investigation, they took the decision to strike in Brussels,” the prosecutor said.

Born and raised in Belgium to Moroc-can-born parents, Abdeslam told a mag-

istrate he planned to blow himself up at a sports stadium in Paris but backed out at the last minute. His brother Brahim blew himself up at a Paris cafe.

Another man linked to the Paris at-tacks, Mohamed Abrini, was arrested in

Brussels on Friday and he has admitted to being the “man in the hat” captured on video walking into Brussels airport alongside two suicide bombers.

Abrini, 31, has been charged with ter-rorist murders, prosecutors said.

Belgian intelligence and security forces had been criticized from abroad for not doing more to dismantle the militant cell, because of its links to the Paris attacks, though as of Friday all known suspects were either in deten-tion or dead.

Belgium maintained its second high-est threat level, however, on Sunday with Prime Minister Charles Michel saying his government would remain alert.

Another main suspect who was seen alongside the suicide bomber in the Brussels metro and identified by prose-cutors as Osama K was also arrested on Friday in the Belgian capital.

Osama K, 28, widely named by media as Swedish national Osama Krayem, was filmed buying the bags used to carry the Brussels bombs. Like Abrini, his finger-prints were found in an apartment used as a bomb factory and safe house for the attackers.

As with other suspects in both the Paris and Brussels attacks, police be-lieve Krayem returned last summer from fighting with ISIL in Syria aboard refugee boats reaching Greek islands.

(Source: AP)

Bank Sina to issue credit cards for clients

TEHRAN — Expanding its electronic banking services, Sina Bank issues credit

cards for clients, the bank’s public relations office announces.Applicants can use the credit cards for shopping and in a

whole range of other transactions. The maximum credit limit for the credit cards would be 40 million Iranian Rials, accord-ing to the bank’s report.

Among the services provided for the Users of Banks Si-na’s credit cards,shopping, benefiting from Shetab Banking system services, online purchases and bill payments, the possibility of receiving bills via ATMs and terminals of Bank branches can be mentioned, also these cards allow the cli-ents to view and query their balance through ATMs and POS terminals in shops and bank branches.

Egypt hands over two disputed islands to Saudi Arabia

1 The visit and the fund contract apparently reflect the extent of the Saudi support for Egypt’s former army chief, who engineered a coup against the country’s first democrat-ically elected president Morsi.

The House of Saud regime has remained a key supporter and chief financier of Egypt’s troubled economy under the Sisi administration.

Since his arrival in Egypt on Thursday, King Salman and his entourage of senior Saudi officials have an-nounced a string of investments in Egypt, as well as a massive plan to construct a bridge over the Red Sea to connect the two Arab nations.

Moreover, on the third day of the Saudi ruler ’s five-day tour of Egypt on Saturday, Salman and Sisi attended the sign-ing ceremony for a number of other deals intended to fur-ther boost Egypt’s battered economy at the historic Abdeen Palace in Cairo.

More than a dozen other accords, including a memoran-dum of understanding to set up an industrial zone in Egypt, were also unveiled during the meeting. (Source: agencies)

Rockets hit Afghan capital after Kerry visitAt least three explosions rocked the centre of Kabul on Sat-urday shortly after visiting United States Secretary of State John Kerry left Afghanistan following a surprise visit to the war-torn country.

Al Jazeera’s Qais Azimy, reporting from the capital, said two senior Kabul police officials confirmed that rockets struck a road outside the Presidential Palace complex where Ker-ry’s convoy had passed four times back-and-forth on Saturday.

Azimy said a projectile also landed inside the com-pound near where the U.S. embassy and a CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) office are housed.

No casualties were re-ported and no group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Last month, Taliban fight-ers fired projectiles at Af-ghanistan’s parliament com-pound while politicians were in session.

Earlier on Saturday, Kerry called on the Taliban to re-en-gage in peace talks dormant for almost a year.

He said there was no change now in President Barack Obama’s plans for American troop levels in Afghanistan. There are 9,800 U.S. forces on the ground in the country, and that number is set to fall to 5,500 next year.

In the coming months, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Or-ganization) and international donor summits could define long-term security and aid commitments critical to the Af-ghan government’s survival, and Kerry’s visit sought clarity on Afghanistan’s direction.

The Taliban - toppled from power in a U.S.-led invasion in 2001 - has waged an armed campaign to overthrow the Afghan government and re-establish its rule.

The nearly 15-year conflict has killed thousands of people and strained the country’s economy. (Source: agencies)

Brussels bombers had planned to hit France again:

prosecutors

APRIL 11, 2016

Tehran to host IMIS2016

City Bank CEO meeting ICL representative

TEHRAN — Dr. Pourzarandi, the

managing director of City Bank met with Kimberley Bilmer, the representative of International City Leaders (ICL) foun-dation for UN-Habitat’s City Prosperity Initiative (CPI), the public relations office of the bank reported.

In this meeting, City Bank was hon-ored for supporting of Sustainable De-velopment Goals adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and contrib-uting the implementation of UN-Habi-tat’s City Prosperity Initiative (CPI).

Also Kimberly Bilmer, for her part, underlined the Significance of City

Bank’s collaboration with ICL and Dr. Pourzarandi announced that the City Bank is ready to boost the cooperation with the Foundation. It’s worth men-tioning that in an earlier ceremony, UN-Habitat appointed Dr. Pourzaran-di as champion, global advisor and spokesman of City Prosperity Initiative for Metropolitan Cities (CPI-MC).

UN-Habitat’s City Prosperity Initia-tive (CPI) is a global initiative that en-ables city authorities, as well as local and national stakeholders, to identify opportunities and potential areas of intervention for their cities to become more prosperous.

TEHRAN — Teh-ran is hosting the 2nd

Iran Mines and Mining Industries Summit (IMIS2016) in July 2016, Iranian Mines & Min-ing Industries Development & Renovation’s (IMIDRO) office of public relations reports.

The main goals of this summit would be, foreign investment attraction, com-munication opportunities, cooperation of domestic and foreign firms and pres-entation of the latest achievements in industry and mining sector.

IMIS 2016 has 6 main subjects includ-ing “IMIDRO’s exploration proposes for domestic and foreign firms “,”privileges of mining sector; realization of added

value creation by innovation ,productivi-ty and cost management”, ”using finance solutions for mines and mining industries sector”, ”government’s tax incentives for development of mining activities and in-crease share of this sector in Iran econ-omy”, ”survey globalization solutions in Iran’s mines and mining industries sector”, ”introduction of investment potentials in IMIDRO’s mines and mining industries chain; methods and regulations”.

IMIS 2016 is one of the largest interna-tional arenas in investment and commer-cial cooperation which covers all sectors including geology, mining explorations, extraction, mineral processing, etc.

ECONOMYd e s k

ECONOMYd e s k

ECONOMYd e s k

Relatives and tribal elders in southeastern Afghanistan are demanding an investigation into the killing of 17 people by the United States drones this week, claiming that the air strikes hit civilians, not members of armed groups.

U.S. army officials said on Thursday that two air strikes in Paktika province, near the Pakistani border, had only targeted fighters, without any evidence of civilian casualties.

Afghan officials confirmed to Al Jazeera that 17 peo-ple had been killed in Wednesday’s strikes in Gomal dis-trict, but added they all had links to the Taliban.

Yet, local leaders and relatives insisted on Saturday that all of those killed were innocent civilians.

“We demand an investigation into the brutal killings of these innocent people,” Nimatullah Baburi, a deputy of the Paktika provincial council, told Al Jazeera.

“I know them personally and their families too. They are in no way affiliated with the Taliban,” he added.

“Those men were doing low-paid jobs to feed their families. All of them were civilians”.

However, Aminullah Shariq, the governor of Paktika province, told Al Jazeera on Saturday only Taliban-affili-ated people were killed in the attack.

“We’ve been in touch with the Americans and after all the investigations and inquiries, we’ve come to the conclusion that all people killed in the strike were linked

to the Taliban,” he said.His comments came after Brigadier General Charles

Cleveland, spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghani-stan, said in a statement on Thursday: “We can confirm that the U.S. conducted two counterterrorism strikes in Paktika on Wednesday afternoon.

Emran Feroz, an activist and founder of Drone Me-morial, a website documenting civilian drone-strike victims, said Afghan officials are not doing enough to protect civilians.

The U.S. has intensified drone operations in the country since Islamic States in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh) loyalists started appearing in Afghanistan.

According to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Afghanistan is the “most drone-bombed coun-try in the world” with at least 1,368 people killed since 2015.

(Source: Al Jazeera)

Families of Afghans killed in U.S. drone raids seek probe

Syrian army soldiers and their allied forces have managed to recapture two villages in the northwestern province of Aleppo from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh) terrorist group, inflicting losses on the militants, military sources say.

Army units, in cooperation with pop-ular defense groups, took control of Barneh and Zaytan villages, which lie south of the provincial capital Aleppo, on Sunday following intense skirmishes with the ISIL, Arabic-language Syria Now news website reported.

Syrian fighter jets also pounded ISIL positions on the outskirts of the mili-tant-held city of Raqqah, situated about 160 kilometers (99 miles) east of Aleppo, killing 10 militants in the airstrikes.

Syrian warplanes also struck vehicles belonging to the ISIL terrorists in the vi-cinity of Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi castle, lo-cated 80 kilometers (49 miles) southwest of the ancient city of Palmyra.

There were no immediate reports of possible casualties on the side of ISIL ter-rorists.

Separately, ISIL terrorists seized nine villag-

es from rival militant groups north of Aleppo and near the border with Turkey.

Lebanon’s al-Ahed news website re-ported that militants fighting under the banner of the ISIL Takfiri group captured the villages of al-Bel, Sheikh Reih, Firou-zah, Baraghidah, Tal Hussain, Yahmoul, Ghazal, Talil al-Hosn and Jarez after fierce battles with the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) militants.

The report added that an unspecified number of militants was killed and injured during the heavy exchange of gunfire. ISIL militants also took eight FSA militants

hostage and moved them to an unknown location.

According to a February report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the ongoing Syrian conflict has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond borders of the conflict-ridden Arab country.

Damascus accuses the House of Saud re-gime, Turkey and Qatar of funding and arm-ing anti-Syria terrorist groups, including ISIL.

(Source: Press TV)

Syrian forces retake two villages in Aleppo

How Haaretz distorts Ayatollah

1 Expressing his stance clearly in favor of Iran’s mis-sile program and the Supreme Leader, Rafsanjani’s office had already published an official statement saying the quotation published on his twitter was an incomplete version of his statement and wasn’t verified by him or his office before it was posted.

The day after, April 5, all of Rafsanjani’s social media ac-counts were suspended until he becomes sure that all the materials will be well reviewed and verified in the future.

Although it was a big news story that Rafsanjani has not published the tweet himself, Haaretz claims in its new analysis that the ayatollah still stands upon his opinion against the missile program.

There is something very clear about Iran’s missile program which Haaretz either tried to ignore or failed to understand. Although in Iran there is not a full consensus over the JCPOA, there is a meaningful consensus among all different political factions over the missile program.

By Farnaz Heidari M.Sc. in Environmental Engineering

A RT I C L E

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

ENVIRONMENTd e s k

ENVIRONMENTd e s k

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

E N V I R O N M E N T h t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m / s o c i e t yAPRIL 11, 2016APRIL 11, 201610

SUNA official says, “Currently, almost 200 MWs of electricity is generated from alternative resources, mainly from solar

and wind ones. A key point here is that not only the governmental sector is involved in the projects, but also the private sector has

stepped in and this is good news.”

1 Would you please give us a general picture of renewable energies in Iran?

A: At the outset, I would like to thank the Tehran Times for the interview. SUNA is the right organization that can give a general yet exact assessment of the country’s current and future status of renewable energies. Generally speaking, Iran has high potential for renewa-ble energy generation, meaning that in long-run, it can count on the capacity as an effec-tive and reliable source of energy supply. Of course, the country sits on colossal reserves of fossil fuel, as well.

More than two decades ago, SUNA was established as a branch of the Energy Min-istry to focus more seriously on renewable energies. At first, it was a bit difficult to justify the need for such organization as the main emphasis was on fossil fuels. However, from the very beginning, SUNA conducted key research works, feasibility studies, as well as technological projects related to different types of renewable energies including solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass.

But back to your question regarding the current status of renewable energies in Iran, our studies indicate a technical capacity of 35,000-40,000 megawatts (MW) from wind sources. But, practically, it is roughly estimated that some 20,000-25,000 MWs are cost-ef-fective. In terms of solar capacities, suffice to know that as much as the country’s current electricity generation capacity (which is tech-nically about 74,000 MWs) can be generated from central plains of Iran! As regards other renewable alternatives, we have also good capacities.

What is the country’s current re-newable energy generating capacity in the aggregate?

A: As I said earlier, over the past years, the major focus has been on generating energy from fossil-fuel power plants. However and happily, the country has also moved towards renewable energies. Currently, almost 200 MWs of electricity is generated from alternative

resources, mainly from solar and wind ones.A key point here is that not only the gov-

ernmental sector is involved in the projects, but also the private sector has stepped in and this is good news. In order to encourage more investment in alternative energies, the government has recently pushed through new regulations that sweeten investment in the sector, meaning that more output from the renewable sector in the country is in the offing. For example, according to the newly introduced guaranteed purchase scheme, the government will give the private sector a 20-year guarantee to buy its generated electricity.

Foreign investment in Iran’s renew-able energy market is key to flourishing the sector. What are SUNA’s priorities for future international cooperation?

A: Iran’s renewable energy market is quite lucrative and attractive. Considering the post-sanctions era, in our talks with a num-ber of international brands active in the field of renewable energies from Germany, Spain, Denmark, and Italy, the Ministry of Energy and SUNA look for transfer of technology and economic flourishing.

These are important as Iran has educated, skilled workforce and more importantly, the renewable energy sector is in its infancy in our country. So, any international collaboration should make inroads into the two domains. We have already taken measures to achieve this in our plans. For example, as part of the guaranteed purchase scheme envisaged for the sector in Iran, we have included an arti-cle in the document, based on which foreign

investors can sell their electricity to Iran at a 15-percent higher rate provided that they construct plants using equipment manufac-tured in Iran. We have also encouraged for-eign partners to manufacture parts of their equipment in Iran.

Many foreign investors have given the green light to enter Iran. As you al-ready mentioned, the country’s renewa-ble energy sector has high potential for foreign investment. What are some other incentives that you have included in the new document you referred to above?

A: As I already noted, in addition to the guaranteed purchase plan and the 15-per-cent advance, we have considered other in-centives. Notably, future contracts will allow foreign partners to export electricity which they generate in Iran from renewable sourc-es. We have facilitated the permit issuance process which investors need to go through including permits demanded by the Depart-ment of Environment.

Moreover, based on the talks held be-tween ministries of energy and economy, for-eign investment in the sector will be guaran-teed. This is an important step as it is a cause of concern for many foreign investors.

Development is not achieved over-night. Have you envisaged a long-term roadmap for renewable energies?

A: Certainly, you’re right. To make pro-gress, short-term-, middle-term, and long-term blueprints are required. Although we need more studies to give a better picture of our future plans, for the time being it has been clearly stated that as many as 5,000 MWs of energy should be generated from renewable energies by the end of the 2020-development master plan depicted for the country. I’m very upbeat about actualizing the goal given that both the Energy Ministry and SUNA are seri-ously pursuing their plans in the sector.

The Tehran Times thanks the public re-lations office of SUNA for scheduling the interview.

Iran’s renewable energy market blinks at investors

IN FOCUS Tehran Times/ Bahman Vakhshour

Two boys are pressing against the sculpture of a man who is pushing a tree upward. The whitish figure is symbol of man being concerned with the environment, and the boys who are lending a hand to it also show identification with the man and of course, with the environment.

IRAN’S WILDLIFE

A N I M A L S ’ S T O R I E S

Ospery: Focus on going fishing

One of the most spectacular species of Iran is Ospery, the bird of prey. These species are recorded in the south coasts and Persian Gulf islands as a breeder and also recorded by chance in Shorek Plateau of Khorasan Province.

They are really important for Iranian conservationists be-cause of their spectacular habitats. Ospery, with the scientific name of Pandion haliaetus, is a summer visitor in Europe and passes winters in Africa.

Ospery breeds on clear freshwater lakes and on coasts at brackish water in the Mediterranean Sea. So conserving Ospery is equal to conservation of specific wetlands.

IdentificationMedium-large, long-

winged, and ventrally pale plumage with unique flight silhouette are the best keys to identify Ospery. The Ospery is outstanding among the fishing birds of prey. It’s a fast and spectac-ular bird that begins high in the air and ends dramatical-ly in the water. Sometimes it will submerge itself complete-ly, unlike other fishing raptors. Its wings are narrow with long hand and has only four fin-gers. It is important to notice

its tail for identification because it is short and has square cut. Hunting behavior

Ospery usually soars over the lakes and wetlands, looking for fish swimming close to the water surface. Once spotting its prey, Ospery falls like a stone from the sky, while gaining speed. It opens out its wings to slow it down seconds before it hits the surface on the water. It brings its feet toward as it reaches the water’s surface.

At the second point, Ospery outstretched feet pierce the surface of the water and thrust toward the fish with open claws. The fish can be nearly one meter down, and the Ospery has to plunge right into the water to reach it. However, the fish can manage the whole scene to avoid the hunter’s clutches, and the bird can take just a bath. After this point, Ospery struggles back into the air to try again.

The next fish Osprey spies on is swimming at the water’s surface. Undeterred by the previous failure, the bird judg-es its dive well and soon the fish is gripped in the Ospery’s sharp talons. The spiny surface of the Ospery’s feet provides extra gripping force and prevents the slippery prey from get-ting free, no matter how much it tries.

Fighting for foodOspery pulls the fish

out of the water with pow-erful beats of its wings. Its feet hold the fish’s head first to cut down air resist-ance during the flight. And then Ospery flies back to its perch. On the way, it might get attacked by pirates, birds that harry the Ospery and force it to drop its catch, which they then pounce on.

At last with its catch in its claws, the Ospery lands on its perch. There it uses its sharp bill to slice through the tough

scales and skin of the fish to feast on the tasty flesh. Success rate of bird of prey

Although Ospery is a very skillful hunter, not all of its dives are successful. On average, it has to make three or four dives before it succeeds in making a prey. Osperys may make up to four preys a day to feed themselves, but they need to catch more fish if they are very hungry or when they are feeding chicks in the nest.

Wayward sea lion snarls traffic in CaliforniaSAUSALITO, Calif. (AP) — A wayward sea lion snarled Monday morning traffic on a San Francisco Bay Area freeway before it was caught and taken to a marine center for a check-up.

San Jose, California, TV station KNTV reports a Sonoma County freeway was completely blocked at 10 a.m. as the sea lion tried to make it across the road.

The sea lion evaded an off-duty officer, before experts from the Marine Mammal Center arrived and caught the critter.

It’s far from the first marine mammal to lose its way in the Bay Area.

Late last month, authorities say a baby seal made it 4 miles from the water to the front yard of a Bay Area home before it was rescued. The female northern fur seal was also taken to the Marine Mammal Center.

TEHRAN — As the breeding season has

started with spring be careful not to take baby animals you see while sightseeing in the nature and leave them alone.

You might encounter baby animals which are left unattended in the nature and take them with you out of kindness but keep in mind that in almost all cas-es the mother or one of the parents will come back.

Seeing a baby animal left alone in the nature does not necessarily mean that their parents are dead or have abandoned them. It is normal for wild animals to leave their babies unat-tended for hours to go haunting and bring food.

It is important to remember that many species of wildlife cache their babies for safety. These babies are not abandoned; they simply have been hidden by their mother until she returns for them.

Besides, sometimes when human be-ings approach animals’ habitat they hide their babies and leave there for some time for the humans to go and then they’ll come back again.

Leave the wildlife to the wild! Do not try to take pictures or something with the baby animals and just pass by their

habitats without disturbing them. The only time a baby animal may be

removed from the wild is when you are hundred percent sure that the parent is dead or the animal is injured. In such cases make sure to contact the Depart-ment of Environment or a licensed re-habilitator.

Baby animals will never be able to receive the same quality of care from humans as they get from their natural parents. Human care, to some extent, is always damaging to the baby animals. For this reason, human intervention should always be the absolute last re-sort, and should occur only if the baby has no chance of surviving in the wild.

TEHRAN — Iran is in a critical condition envi-

ronmentally and unfortunately officials are trifling with the environmental predicaments, MP Moayed Hosseini-Sadr has said.

“Being flippant about environmental threats would certainly jeopardize the future of the country,” Hosseini-Sadr said, the iew website reported on Sat-urday.

While environment must be our top priority, existing infrastructure is inade-quate and not in place, regretted Hos-seini-Sadr who serves as the spokes-man for environment and sustainable development group of Majlis.

Budget constraints of the Depart-ment of Environment, outdated and old equipment, and shortage of manpower double the problems, he added.

Noting the urgent state of the envi-ronment, he stated that short term de-cisions would not be efficient anymore and all officials and bodies, particularly the Majlis, should join hands to help the government and the Department of Environment to counter environmental degradation.

Hosseini-Sadr who is Khoy and Chai-pareh’s MP, further suggested that in the sixth five-year development plan

the government should be tasked to re-consider car manufacturing procedures.

Khoy and Chaipareh are cities which are located in West Azarbaijan province.

Deforestation and ignorance toward the pollution of seas are of other environ-mental problems, he said, adding during the rule of the previous administration the environment has gotten seriously sick and the feeble efforts made by the current administration would not make things any better.

Things should move forward faster and get more serious to help the envi-ronment get on its feet once again, he noted.

Officials not taking environment seriously, says MP

Leave the wildlife to the wild!

S P O R T Sh t t p : / / w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m / s p o r t s APRIL 11, 2016APRIL 11, 2016 11I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

O L Y M P I C SU.S. men’s, women’s basketball teams to sleep on cruise ship during Rio GamesRIO DE JANEIRO — Rio de Janeiro’s renovated port area should be hopping — or “hooping” — during the Olympics.

The United States men’s and women’s basketball teams will be staying on a cruise ship in the port. A second and much larger liner will be anchored alongside during the games and provide lodging for what officials term the “Olympic Family.”

USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo previously told ESPN’s Marc Stein that Team USA planned to house its players on a cruise ship to ensure maximum security.

The NBA is also expected to set up a “hospitality house” in the port area.

“We’ll have two cruise ships in the port,” Nilo Sergio Fe-lix, secretary of the Rio de Janeiro state tourism office, told The Associated Press. “There will be one with the basket-ball players and the other for Olympic people. These are the only two we expect.”

The ship housing the basketball players will be the rel-atively small “Silver Cloud” operated by Silversea Cruises, which bills itself as the “Leader in Luxury Cruising.”

The company lists the ship’s capacity at 296 with a ton-nage at 16,800. Its last cruise is in the Mediterranean in June before heading for the Olympics.

Craig Miller, a spokesman for USA Basketball, the na-tional governing body, declined to confirm where the two basketball teams would stay. He listed security as a reason for not disclosing the location, but he said the men’s team stopped staying in the Olympic Village beginning with the 1992 Olympics -- the first appearance of “The Dream Team.”

“We don’t stay in the village because we don’t feel it’s the best way to prepare for competition,” Miller told the AP. “The players have a long professional season and they want to spend as much time as possible with family and friends.”

Miller said it was always difficult during the Olympics to find lodging for the large American basketball delega-tion. The United States teams stayed in hotels in London and Beijing, and on a cruise ship in Athens in 2004 -- the Queen Mary 2.

He said USA Basketball picks up the costs of the lodg-ing, an expense that would be covered primarily by games organizers if players stayed in the village.

Miller said tall players have the same problem no matter where they stay.

“You face the issue in a hotel, or you would face it in a village; the beds aren’t made for 7-foot (2.13-meter) play-ers,” he said. “These guys live on the road and they figure out ways to sleep. Sometimes I’ve seen them put their lug-gage at the end of the bed so their feet can rest there.”

Rio’s new port area, centered on Praca Maua, is the most visible sign of change that Olympic organizers promised to bring to Rio. The centerpiece at the port is the Museum of Tomorrow, a science museum designed by the futuristic architect Santiago Calatrava.

The port is situated on heavily polluted Guanabara Bay, which will host Olympic sailing. Sadly, it’s a reminder of a broken promise by organizers to cleanse the fetid waters.

“From a legacy perspective, I think this was a missed opportunity to reach the goal that was supposed to be achieved,” Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes said Thursday, referring to Olympic bid pledges to drastically cut the amount of raw sewage flowing into the bay.

The port area is remote from the basketball venues at the Olympic Park in Barra da Tijuca and the northern cluster in Deodoro, where some women’s games will be played. Travel could take more than an hour depending on traffic, a problem that should be improved when the Olympic lanes -- set aside only for Olympic traffic -- start operating in late July.

The NBA is also expected to run a hospitality venue in the port, probably in one of the abandoned warehouses that have been used for exhibitions by companies like Nike.

An NBA spokeswoman declined to specify the plans, saying they would be released shortly.

The “Olympic Family” will stay on the cruise ship “Geta-way” operated by Norwegian Cruise Lines. The company listed the capacity at 4,000 guests and tonnage of 145,655. It’s one of the world’s largest cruise ships.

Rio organizers confirmed the ship’s presence. They said 90 percent of the ship would be reserved for the “Olym-pic Family,” a term that takes in sponsors, national Olympic committees, sports federations and other guests of the Switzerland-based International Olympic Committee.

Rio officials said the remaining 10 percent of the cabins would be sold in tour packages by the Brazilian operator Tam Viagens.

A company spokeswoman for Norwegian Cruise Lines declined to give information, saying it was bound by con-tract not to disclose details.

(Source: Espn)

Iran runner-up at World Schools Championship Futsal 2016 Iran lost to Brazil in the final match of the ISF World Schools Championship Futsal 2016 on Saturday.

Iranian representative East Azerbaijan was defeated against Brazil 6-0 in the final match.

The Iranian outfit had already lost to Croatia 2 in the event and earned five victories.

In girls’ category Brazil defeated France 6-2 to win the title.

World Schools Championship Futsal 2016 started in Porec, Croatia on April 3, and concluded on April 10.

(Source: Tasnim)

Iran middle blocker Mo-hammad Mousavi is ex-

pected to miss some time due to a back injury.The volleyball player suffered the

injury during the Iran national team’s training on Sunday.

Mousavi was rushed to hospital after the injury.“We are waiting for the results of MRI

scan and then we will announce the ex-tent of his injury,” Siamak Afrouzi, Iran's volleyball team doctor, said.

Iran is preparing for the world quali-fication tournament which will be held in Japan from May 28 to June 5.

The Iranian team has a chance to advance to the Olympics as the best Asian team.

Mohammad Mousavi suffers back injury

Bundesliga side Hertha BSC officials

who came to Iran to meet Iran foot-ball federation president Ali Kafashi-an watched Esteghlal vs. Sepahan clash in the 25th week of Iran Pro-fessional League at Azadi stadium on Sunday.

The German club officials came to Iran to discuss future cooperation with the League Association and the Feder-ation.

Hetha BSC is one the biggest club in Germany who is currently in the third place of Bundesliga behind league giants Bayern Munich and Dortmund.

Hertha BSC officials watch Esteghlal – Sepahan clash at Azadi Stadium

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Vahid Hashemian denies Bochum linkFormer Iranian interna-tional Vahid Hashemian

denies rumors linking him with the Vfl Bo-chum job.

Hashemian, who has dedicated himself to coaching, is on the verge of acquiring the DFB Pro License which allows him to coach a Bundesliga side.

“I’m in process of passing “Coaching Pro License” program in Germany. The duration of the program is 10 months. I have to serve three internships during this program. Tak-ing part at the Vfl Bochum training is one of them and it is not related to the club offer to accept the coaching role. Bochum has a great coach who has just extended his con-tract,” Hashemian said.

Former Bayern Munich and Hannover striker hopes to coach Iran national team in the future.

“I would be happy coaching all the teams I used to play for. And I’m also in interested in Iran national team of course. The only problem is: you rely on offers as a coach, you can’t just pick your own job. So I want to develop well first. The rest will take care of itself,” he added.

Iran’s Tasisat Daryaei futsal club’s head coach Amir Shamsaei has been nominated for the 2015 Best Club Coach of the World.

The Iranian coach has nine coach-es ahead of him to win the Futsalplanet Awards 2015 event.

He is older brother of Iranian legend futsal player Vahid Shamsaei.

Amir Shamsaei inspired Tasisat Daryaei win the AFC Futsal Club Championship in August 2015.

Tasisat Daryaei is the first Iranian club since 2012 to win the event.

Mehdi Mostafaei and the Iranian national

futsal team have already been nominated for the World’s Best Futsal Goalkeeper and the Best National Team of the World respectively.

Best Club Coach of the WorldNominees(In strict alphabetical order!)Hernan Basile (ARG)Kimberley Futsal (ARG)Ricardo Camara Sobral “Cacau” (BRA)Kairat Almaty (KAZ)Fulvio Colini (ITA)Pescara c5 (ITA)Fabio Cortez (BRA)Al-Qadsia (Kuw)

Daniel Rodriguez Martinez (ESP)Jaen Paraiso Interior Futbol Sala (ESP)Jesus Velasco Tejada (ESP)Movistar Inter (ESP)Joel Tiago Gonηalves Rocha (POR)SL Benfica (POR)Paulo Ricardo Figueiroa Silva “Kaka” (BRA)Gazprom Ugra (RUS)Marcos “Marquinhos” Xavier Andrade

(BRA)Carlos Barbosa (BRA)Amir Shamsaei (IRN)Tasisat Daryaei (IRN)

(Source: Tasnim)

Iran’s Amir Shamsaei nominated for Best Club Coach of the World

Iranian sportsman Farzollah Rostami has used a late burst of speed to break away from opponents in the first edition of Pars Marathon, and won the title at the end of the the international sporting event.

On Saturday, Rostami ran an official distance of 42.195 kilometers (26.21875 miles) from the ruins of Persepolis, situated 60 kilometers (37.2 miles) northeast of the city of southern Iranian city of Shi-raz to Naqsh-e Rostam rural district in Marvdasht County in 2 hours and 46 minutes, and sprinted across the finish line.

He was followed by his compatriot Mohammad Fa-raji, who ran the course in 2:48.

Abdulrahman Mirzaei, also an Iranian participant and a resident of the holy shrine city of Mashhad, was

the third finisher in 2:56.More than 100 male and female participants from

36 different countries participated in the first edition of the international Pars Marathon. A total of 85 Iranian runners also vied for the top honor.

Marathon was instituted in commemoration of the fabled run of the Greek soldier Pheidippides, who was a messenger from the Battle of Marathon to Athens.

Even though marathon was one of the original modern Olympic events in 1896, its distance was standardized in 1921.

More than 500 marathon competitions are held across the world annually, and a great proportion of participants are recreational athletes.

(Source: PressTV)

Leicester went 10 points clear of Tottenham with a massive win over Sunderland on Sunday, thanks to two goals from Jamie Vardy.

The first half contained few chances as Wes Morgan headed wide from a corner, while Sunderland's Fabio Borini was denied by Kasper Schmeichel's save.

Both teams also had penalty appeals turned down as De-Andre Yedlin kicked Shinji Okazaki in the chest and a low cross

hit Robert Huth's arm while the defender was on the floor.In the second half, Danny Drinkwater should have done

better when through on goal but miscontrolled and al-lowed the defence to regroup and stop him.

However, Vardy hit his 20th goal of the season in the 66th minute as he raced away after a long ball and curled a sweet finish past Vito Mannone in the Sunderland goal.

Jack Rodwell had a great chance to equalise when the

ball fell to him in the box in the 81st minute, but the mid-fielder struck his effort over the bar.

Vardy then had a late shot which was well saved by Mannone and the Italian stood strong to block from Daniel Amartey in the final seconds.

Vardy then netted with virtually the last kick of the game to make it 2-0.

(Source: Soccernet)

Iranian freestyle wres-tler Reza Yazdani says

that he will likely miss the 2016 Olympic Games after suffering an ankle sprain which occurred in training on Sunday.

MRI scan showed that the 97kg

freestyler will likely need surgery to re-pair his right ankle.

“Medical commission of Iran Wres-tling Federation is studying how well this treatment works. My injury is very serious and I hope that I can participate

at the Olympics,” Yazdani told ISNA. Two-time world champion compet-

ed in the London 2012 Olympics but was injured in the semi-final, in the match against Ukrainian competitor Valeriy Andriytsev.

Rostami crested in international Pars Marathon

Leaders Leicester win again as Jamie Vardy goals sink Sunderland

Wrestler Yazdani likely to miss Olympics

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

Zip Code: 1599814713

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

O soul! whose lot it is to bleed with pain, And daily change of fortune to sustain, Into this body wherefore didst thou come, Seeing thou must at last go forth again?

Khayyam

Poem of the day

SINCE 1979Prayer Times

TEHRAN — The Week of Islamic Revolution Arts, a cultural event or-

ganized by the Art Bureau, opened during a special ceremony in Tehran on Saturday.

Two photo exhibits were inaugurated at the Ira-nian Photographers Center (IPC), an affiliate of the bureau, as part of the event.

A big model of the book “The Revolution’s Art” written by Morteza Gudarzi-Dibaj on the history of art after the victory of Islamic Revolution was un-veiled at the ceremony. The book is scheduled to be published by the bureau in the near future.

“A collection of about 1,000 artworks have been selected and studied in this book, reviewing the rea-sons behind the formation of the art of revolution,” Gudarzi-Dibaj told the participants.

The ceremony was followed by tributes paid to 11 artists of the art bureau who were honored in vari-ous national festivals over the past year.

The busts of poet Qeisar Aminpur (1958-2007) and scholar and Quran translator Tahereh Saffarza-deh (1936-2008) made by sculptor Ali-Asghar Yuz-bashi and Malek Dadyar Garusian were also unveiled at the ceremony.

In addition, an exhibition displaying the treasure trove of the bureau including paintings, graphic de-signs, calligraphy works, sculptures and miniatures with the central theme of Islamic Revolution was

opened.An exhibition of cartoons by Masud Shojaei

Tabatabai is also underway in the Abofazl Aali Gal-lery of the bureau.

TEHRAN — Paintings by 72 children will be showcased in an exhibition in

Tehran to raise funds for children suffering from cancer.The exhibition will be held on Thursday and Friday

at the Mahak Charity Society, a Tehran-based major medical center for children with cancer, the center an-nounced on its website on Sunday.

The works have been created by children attending courses, which were held by art teacher Tara Behbahani over the past year.

The children have drawn their own perception of life in the works for the exhibit entitled “Life from My Eyes”.

The exhibition aims to encourage children to help

the children of the same age who are battling cancer, Behbahani said in a press release.

She has held the charity exhibition every year for the past ten years.

The first exhibition was held with paintings by 16 child artists in 2007 to raise funds to provide clothing for poor children for Noruz, the Iranian New Year cel-ebration.

“That year I never thought that the 16 child artists would increase to 72 and many people joined us in or-ganizing the event,” Behbahani said.

She expressed her hope that this year’s exhibition would be received as warmly as previous editions.

Tehran theater to host “The Yalta Game”

“Liar Wanted” surfaced at Tehran theater

TEHRAN — Direc-tor Atabak Naderi

returned to the stage after 19 years on Saturday by staging Greek playwright Dimitris Psathas’ 1961 play “Liar Wanted” at Tehran’s Eyvan Shams Hall.

Naderi renamed the play “Deputat” for its performance in Tehran.

The plot of the comedy centers on Theodoros Parlas or Pseftothodoros (Liar Theo) who has a great “talent” for making false promises. He starts a great career as right hand man of Theofilos Ferekis, the new Minister of Health and Welfare.

Pendar Akbari, Saman Darabi, Susan Parvar, Yashar Naderi and Maral Farjad

are the main members of the cast for the play, which will be on stage until May 20.

TEHRAN — Levon Haftvan will direct

Irish playwright Brian Patrick Friel’s “The Yalta Game” at Tehran’s Konesh-e Moa-ser Hall on Wednesday.

Friel wrote the play based on An-ton Chekhov’s short story “The Lady with the Little Dog”, which the Russian playwright composed in 1899 in Yalta, a resort city on the southern coast of the Crimean Peninsula.

Renowned Iranian painter Aidin Aghdashlu has designed a poster for the play that tells the story of an accountant who vacations alone, leaving his wife and family behind in Moscow.

Vahid Rahbai, Shadi Karamrudi and Mani Monadizadeh are the main members of the cast for the play.

Noon:13:05 Evening: 19:53 Dawn: 5:08 (tomorrow) Sunrise: 6:35 (tomorrow)

PICTURE OF THE DAY ILNA/Mehdi Nasiri

Managing Director: Ali Asgari Editor-in-Chief: Hassan Lasjerdi Editorial Dept.: Fax: (+98(21) 88808214 editor@tehrantimes.com Switchboard Operator: Tel: (+98 21) 43051000 Advertisements Dept.: Telefax: (+98 21) 43051450 ads@tehrantimes.com Public Relations Office: Tel: (+98 21) 88805807 Subscription & Distribution Dept.: Tel: (+98 21) 43051603 www.eshterak.ir Distributor: Padideh Novin Co. Tel: 88911433 Webmaster: webmaster@tehrantimes.comPrinted at: Kayhan - ISSN: 1017-94

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Art Bureau hosts Week of Islamic Revolution Arts

Men work at Tehran’s Charsu Cinema Complex on April 9, 2016 to refurbish the venue for hosting the 34th Fajr International Film Festival, which will be held from April 20 to 25.

Visitor at an exhibition organized during the Week of Islamic Revolution Arts at the Art Bureau in Tehran (Mehr/Hadi Hirbodvash)

Iranian films line up for Indian festival

TEHRAN — A lineup of Iranian shorts and

feature-length movies is competing in the 8th CMS Children’s International Film Fes-tival, which opened its doors to the public in Lucknow, India on April 7.

The short films include “Experiment” directed by Mohammadreza Minapur, “Five Senses of Art” by Hesam Dehqani, “Paper Dream” by Zahra Khorshidi, “The Cloud” by Mehdi Heydari, “Changeover” by Mehdi Alibeigi and “Mystery” by Al-ireza Moqaddam.

The short section also is presenting “Clowns Not Die” by Ako Zandkarimi, “Alleys” by Nasser Nurani, “Withdrawal” by Alireza Mohammadzadeh, “Idiot” by Shaharm Shirzadi, “Coming Week” by Ali Zare’, “Cloudy Children” by Reza Fahimi and “Shoes” by Morteza Asemani.

The feature film section is screening several Iranian movies, including “Story of My Father’s Bike and Me” by Fayyaz Musavi, “Environment Protection” by Had-is Maleki and “The Window” by Rahbar Qanbari.

Films from over 30 countries, including Ireland, Slovakia, Greece, The UK, Taiwan, the U.S., Spain, Canada, Germany, Russia and Luxemburg, are competing in the fes-tival, which will be running until April 15.

N E W S I N B R I E FSwedish festival spotlights female filmmakers from Iran

TEHRAN — A lineup of five films by Iranian directors went on

screen at the 10th International Female Film Festival Malmo, which wrapped up yesterday in the Swedish city.

The lineup contained features “Tales” by Ra-khshan Bani-Etemad and “Nahid” by Ida Panahan-deh, and documentary films “Fest of Duty” by Firu-zeh Khosravani, “Five Pieces of Iranian Dishes” by Sepideh Abtahi and “Iranian Ninja” by Marjan Riahi.

A total of 24 features, shorts and documentaries by directors from around the globe were screened during the seven-day festival organized by Ima-genes Del Sur, a non-profit organization in Malmo.

Fajr festival announces short film lineup

TEHRAN — The 34th Fajr Inter-national Film Festival announced

the lineup for the short film section on Sunday.Eighteen movies, including “Golden Shot” di-

rected by Goglap Gonen from Turkey, “The Seed” by Ifigeneia Kotsoni from Greece, “The Same Blood” by Mitry Semeno-Aleinikov from Belarus, “Northern Great Mountain” by Amanda Kernell from Sweden and “Switch Man” by Hsun-Chun Chuang and Shao-Kuei Tong, both from Taiwan, will be screened in the section.

About 150 international distributers, directors, ac-tors and critics from around the globe have been invited to attend the festival, which will be held at Tehran’s Charsu Cinema Complex from April 20 to 25.

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A poster for “Life from My Eyes”, a charity exhibition for children suffering from cancer

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Painting exhibition to raise funds for children with cancer

Friars Club hosts 90th birthday tribute for Jerry LewisNEW YORK (AP) — At the Friars Club tribute for Jerry Lewis’ 90th birthday, many of the jokes were not about Jerry Lewis.

There were wisecracks Friday night about Donald Trump, doctors, and growing old from speakers including Richard Bel-zer, Freddie Roman and Max Alexander. When the subject did turn to Lewis, the kidding around turned to praise as Lewis was honored as a comic master, inspiration, and, for Belzer, a savior.

“My mother was very physical; she used to be beat me up,” said Belzer, one of Lewis’ closest friends. “Once in a while I would do a Jerry shtick ... and my mother would laugh and sometimes not hit me”.

About 200 people squeezed into the first floor dining room for the 90-minute event. Lewis, whose birthday was last month, sat to the side of the dais, where he laughed and cried.

The Friars Club has long been like a second home for Lewis, whose name appears on the front of the building and whose pictures hang inside. Before the tribute, he sipped on a soda in the first floor bar, otherwise known as the Billy Crystal Room, and dined upstairs with such friends as Robert De Niro and Jim Carrey. A birthday card in the lobby was signed by comedian Gilbert Gottfried and former “Saturday Night Live” writer Alan Zweibel, among others.

The tribute touched upon many of the highlights of Lewis’ long and singular career, from his partnership with Dean Martin to such movies as “The Nutty Professor” and his stage perfor-mance in “Damn Yankees”. A compilation of pre-taped greet-ings included Steven Spielberg, Al Pacino and Don Rickles, who urged Lewis “to go to bed early”.

“Star Wars” leads winners at MTV Movie AwardsLOS ANGELES (Reuters) — Leonardo DiCaprio’s “Revenant” bear encounter and a foul-mouthed hosting duo dominated Saturday’s MTV Movie Awards, where “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” came away the top winner.

“The Force Awakens”, the third-highest grossing film of all time, led with 11 nominations and beat out blockbusters such as “Jurassic World” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron” for movie of the year. Lead star Daisy Ridley won best breakthrough perfor-mance.

“It’s especially amazing to be part of a film that represents all genders - two genders - and races and ages in such a positive and aspirational way,” Ridley said.

Hosts Kevin Hart and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson set the tone for the evening as they opened with curse words and insults, at one point dressing up as Batman and Superman to throw barbs at the A-list superhero actors in attendance.

Charlize Theron won best female performance for playing Imperator Furiosa in “Mad Max: Fury Road”. She said the film was “in part a story of the power of women and the power to create our own destinies,” dedicating her win to “all the Furoisas”.

A poster for “The Yalta Game” by Aidin Aghdashlu Cast for “Liar Wanted” poses in an undated photo. (Shahruz Alasti)