In a ceremony in the Indian city of Chennai, Paridar received the honor along with 13 other female coaches in various fields of chess.
Paridar is the vice president of Iran’s Chess Federation and the head coach of the Iranian women’s national team in the 44th Chess Olympiad currently underway in Chennai.
She started playing chess at the age of 7 and is the first Iranian female chess player who is ranked as a grandmaster.
“With the crimes last night, the Zionist regime once again revealed its occupationist and aggressive nature to the world,” said the Iranian president on Saturday.
On Friday, the Israeli military launched a series of aerial attacks across the Gaza Strip, killing10 people, including a five-year-old girl, and Taysir al-Jabari, a Palestinian resistance commander.
Dozens of others were also wounded in the strikes, which triggered a military response from the Gaza-based resistance groups.
President Raisi praised the Palestinians for standing firm in the face of Israeli atrocities and occupation and said, “The resistance of the Gaza people will fasten the decline of the child-killing regime.”
Elsewhere, he referred to the plots by the “mercenaries” of the US and Israel to incite sedition in Afghanistan.
The president said those behind the deadly terror attacks against mourning ceremonies for Imam Hossein, the third Shia Imam, were “stooges” of the global hegemony and were seeking to sow sedition among the Muslims in Afghanistan.
He called on the caretaker administration in Kabul to “identify the criminals and provide security to all Afghan people.”
At least eight mourners were killed and 18 others wounded in a bomb explosion near a mosque in a Shia neighborhood of Kabul on Friday.
The Daesh terror group claimed responsibility for the deadly blast.
Brigadier General Esmail Qaani made the remarks on Friday evening addressing a funeral ceremony in the northern Iranian province of Mazandaran for the newly-discovered bodies of three Holy Shrine Defenders, a term used to describe anti-terror forces in Iraq and Syria as a symbolic reference to the Hazrat Zaynab’s shrine in Damascus as well as the holy shrines of Shia Imams in neighboring Iraq.
Iran has been reinforcing anti-terror units in Iraq and Syria ever since the Daesh and other militant groups reared their heads in the region in 2014. Iran says the militant groups are supported by the US and Israel.
“The luminous path of the martyrs, who are standing against the greed of arrogant leaders, will continue until the complete annihilation of the enemies,” Gen. Qaani told the procession.
The top commander added Iran along with allied resistance movements, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, are well-prepared to give decisive response to “the mischievous acts and crimes committed by the US and the Zionist regime against the Iranians and other oppressed people of the world.”
Gen. Qaani praised the young generation of volunteer forces fighting militants for their achievements in the field and behind the scenes, “despite the plots by the enemies spearheaded by the US and the Zionist regime.”
Ahmad al-Ebadi, a spokesman for the ministry, said the volume of gas imports from Iran currently stood at 43 million cubic meters, while Iraq needed 55-60 million cubic meters of the energy source.
Talks are underway with Iran and its Oil Ministry for an increase in Baghdad’s gas purchases, the Iraqi official said.
He said Iraq’s electricity production had witnessed a 22-percent growth compared to the previous year, adding that new power plants were set to be operationalized in the Middle Eastern country, which needs natural gas for fuel.
Iran also exports 1200 megawatts of electricity to Iraq annually.
Earlier, Iraq paid $1.6 billion in arrears to Iran for imports of natural gas and said it would pay monthly for the purchases in an effort to secure a steady gas supply for power generation through the summer.
Chronic underinvestment mainly due to decades of war and sanctions has left Iraq dependent on imports from Iran for much of its gas needs.
But US sanctions on the Iranian energy sector have complicated Iraq’s payments for the imports.
Iran had responded to the delay in debt settlements by periodically switching off the taps, prompting power outages in the country.
Tamim Ghassan Hijazi, from the town of Bani Suhaila, was killed in an attack on the southern town of Khan Yunis.
Israeli military aircraft targeted a land in the al-Zana area, east of the city.
The death toll since Israel began its latest offensive on the Gaza Strip is now 11, including a five-year-old girl and a 23-year-old woman.
The Islamic Jihad has fired dozens of rockets toward the occupied territories after the Israeli regime assassinated one of the Palestinian resistance movement’s senior commanders during the Friday’s massacre.
Israeli forces have also arrested a number of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, targeting former prisoners who are members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad faction.
At least 19 Palestinians were arrested in addition to the detainment of journalist Ibrahim Abu Saffiyeh after his house in the Beit Sir village near Ramallah city was raided.
The international community has strongly condemned the latest Israeli air raids in the Gaza Strip that killed and injured dozens of civilians, voicing its deep concern over the latest rounds of violence by the Tel Aviv regime against Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave.
The Palestinian Authority condemned “the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and demanded its immediate cessation”.
“The presidency called on the international community to compel Israel to stop this aggression against our people everywhere, particularly in Gaza, and to provide them with international protection,” it said in a statement.
The UN special coordinator for the so-called Middle East peace process warned the “dangerous” escalation risked creating the need for more aid at a time when world is facing other conflicts.
“In the past few hours, at least 10 Palestinians were killed by Israeli air strikes. I am deeply saddened by reports that a five-year-old child has been killed in these strikes. There can be no justification for any attacks against civilians,” Tor Wennesland stated.
Hossein Amirabdollahian made the remark while briefing the Iranian Parliament’s Agriculture Committee on efforts by the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi in economic diplomacy, export of agricultural products, and environmental issues, including the dust storms, since coming to power in August last year.
Amirabdollahian said, “We will not give up even a drop of the Iranian nation’s historical share of its water rights.”
The Iranian foreign minister said Iran and Turkey have established a joint committee to sort out differences over their share of Aras River in northwestern Iran that runs from eastern Turkey.
Construction of dams by neighboring countries has heavily restricted the flow of water to Iran.
To the southeast, Iran has been trying to persuade the Taliban officials to open the gates of Kamal Khan Dam in the Hirmand River, known as the Helmand River in Afghanistan, and release the flow of water to drought-hit Hamoun Lake in Iran.
Hamoun is the largest freshwater lake in Iran, directly linked to the biodiversity in Sistan and Baluchestan Province and the people’s livelihood in the region.
Speaking to reporters at the venue of the talks on Friday, Mora said he heard about the rumor in a report by Bloomberg “but I don’t know who said that.”
He said the negotiations will absolutely continue beyond the three-day period mentioned in the report.
Citing Bloomberg, some media outlets reported that unnamed European diplomats had said either the obstacles to the revival of the Iran nuclear deal would be removed in 72 hours or no deal could be reached at all.
The sources had said that achieving a deal necessitated decision-making in Tehran and Washington at high levels, but that it seemed the two sides’ determination had lost momentum.
The new round of talks resumed in Vienna on Thursday, with delegates from Iran and the US holding indirect talks. Mora conveys messages between the two sides.
Iran’s top negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani also held separate meetings with Mora, who coordinates the talks, and Russian Ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov.
The original format of talks — also including China, Russia, France, Germany and the UK — is scheduled to be reconvened as well.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi held several phone calls Friday to the presidents of Russia, China and France.
The deputy chief of staff for Raisi, Mohammad Jamshidi, tweeted that “it was his firm position that ONLY when the so-called Safeguard Issues [are] resolved & closed, can the final agreement be achieved.”
To address the Safeguard issue between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, also traveled to the Austrian capital on Friday.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Marandi, an adviser to Iran’s negotiating team, wrote on Twitter on Friday, “Progress has been made, but all other issues, including the provision of guarantees to Iran, are still on the table.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani strongly condemned the brutal acts of the “apartheid Zionist regime” against the defenseless Palestinian nation and the assassination of the resistance movement commanders.
Kanaani stated that the criminal and adventurist aggressive moves of the usurper Zionists are quite provocative, and the responsibility of the reactions to it are quite on the shoulders of the apartheid Zionist regime.
The Foreign Ministry spokesperson asked the entire countries and international organizations to heed their legal and ethical responsibilities, and to prevent the continuation of that regime’s criminal acts, that are factors leading to instability and lack of security in the region.
The racist Zionist army on Friday launched air raids against a number of Gaza Strip districts, in which so far at least 15 Palestinians have been martyred and 80 others seriously wounded.
According to the official figures released by the health ministry, this comes as the number of blue cities where things are normal has decreased from 50 to 35.
The number of orange cities, which come after red in terms of risk level, has increased from 112 to 120.
Iran is now in the throes of a new wave of the Coronavirus pandemic. The wave is driven by a new sub-strain of Omicron, which is itself a variation of Covid-19.
The country experienced several days of zero death toll from the virus over the past few weeks.
But people’s disregard for the health protocols and their decline to get their booster shots of the Coronavirus vaccine shot up the number of new cases again.
Iranian health ministry figures on Friday showed 47 people had died of the virus in the past 24 hours.
The Friday daily caseload was also 5,455 including 998 hospitalizations.
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has sounded an alarm about the situation at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after shelling damaged parts of the compound on Friday.
“I’m extremely concerned by the shelling yesterday at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which underlines the very real risk of a nuclear disaster that could threaten public health and the environment in Ukraine and beyond,” Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement.
Grossi stated Ukraine had reported no damage to the reactors and no radiological release, but that military action was “unacceptable” and had to be “avoided at all costs.”
“Any military firepower directed at or from the facility would amount to playing with fire, with potentially catastrophic consequences,” he added.
An official with the Russian occupying authorities in Ukraine’s Kherson region has been gravely wounded after an assassination attempt, local Moscow-backed authorities have stated.
Russian state news agency TASS quoted an anonymous official in Russia-occupied Kherson as saying the attack targeted the deputy chief of the Kakhovka district, some 80km (50 miles) east of Kherson city.
“Vitaly Gur has been the victim of an assassination attempt at his home. He is in hospital with multiple gunshot wounds, in a critical state,” the source added, without providing further details.
The Russian agency that investigates criminal cases in the country and in Russian-occupied areas, on Telegram confirmed there had been an “assassination attempt” against Gur.
The EU’s top diplomat has hit out at Russia after attacks damaged Europe’s largest nuclear site.
“The EU condemns Russia’s military activities around Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” Josep Borrell wrote on Twitter.
“This is a serious and irresponsible breach of nuclear safety rules and another example of Russia’s disregard for international norms,” he added.
Borrell insisted that the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, be given access to the plant, which is under Russian control. Ukraine and Russia have blamed each other for the attacks.
Parts of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant have been “seriously damaged” by attacks that forced one of its reactors to shut down, the plant’s operator has announced.
The attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in south Ukraine on Friday “seriously damaged” a station containing nitrogen and oxygen and an “auxiliary building”, Energoatom said on the Telegram messaging service.
The shelling “has caused a serious risk for the safe operation of the plant”, Ukraine’s state enterprise added.
Kyiv says Russian troops are fiercely attacking Bakhmut, a cornerstone of the defence system around the last Ukrainian-held urban area in the eastern Donbas region.
“The enemy is carrying out an attack on Bakhmut; The fighting continues,” the Ukrainian general staff announced in its situation report.
The pro-Russian rebels had reported the day before that there was fighting already inside the city area.
The statements from both sides cannot be independently verified.
Oksana Pokalchuk – the head of Amnesty International’s Ukraine office – says she has resigned, accusing the rights organisation of parroting Kremlin propaganda in a controversial report that criticised the country’s military response to Russia’s invasion.
Amnesty sparked outrage in Ukraine when it released a report on Thursday accusing the Ukrainian military of endangering civilians by establishing bases in schools and hospitals, and launching counterattacks from heavily populated areas.
“If you don’t live in a country invaded by occupiers who are tearing it to pieces, you probably don’t understand what it’s like to condemn an army of defenders,” Pokalchuk stated on social media, announcing her resignation.
“And there are no words in any language that can convey this to someone who has not experienced this pain,” she added.
Ukraine says it could start exporting wheat from this year’s harvest from its sea ports in September under a landmark deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations.
Kyiv hopes in several months to increase shipments of grain through the route to between three million and 3.5 million tonnes per month from the one million tonnes expected in August, Ukraine’s deputy agriculture minister Taras Vysotsky noted.
Such volumes will allow Ukraine to receive enough funds so it does not have to reduce its sowing plans, Vysotsky added.
The UK’s defence ministry announced Russian forces are almost certainly massing in the south of Ukraine, anticipating a counteroffensive or preparation for a possible assault.
Long convoys of Russian military trucks, tanks, towed artillery and other weapons continue to move away from Ukraine’s Donbas region and are headed southwest, the ministry said on Twitter.
Battalion tactical groups (BTG), which comprise between 800 and 1,000 troops, have been deployed to Crimea and would almost certainly be used to support Russian troops in the Kherson region, the update added.
The United States is preparing a new $1bn security assistance package for Ukraine, which will include munitions for long-range weapons and armoured medical transport vehicles, according the Reuters news agency.
The package would be one of the largest so far and is expected to be announced as early as Monday, three sources briefed on the matter told Reuters.
The US has given about $8.8bn in aid to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion on February 24.
The officials, speaking to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, stated that President Joe Biden had not yet signed the next weapons package, and cautioned that weapons packages can change in value and content before they are signed.
However, if signed in its current form, it would be valued at $1bn and include ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) as well as some 50 M113 armoured medical transports.
The Pentagon recently announced Ukrainians would be allowed to receive medical treatment at a US military hospital in Germany near Ramstein air base.
Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of striking Europe’s largest nuclear site, causing a reactor stoppage.
Russian troops have occupied the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine since the early days of their invasion and Kyiv has accused them of storing heavy weapons at the site. Moscow, in turn, has accused Ukrainian forces of targeting the plant.
“Three strikes were recorded on the site of the plant, near one of the power blocks where the nuclear reactor is located,” Ukraine’s state-run nuclear power plant operator Energoatom said in a statement.
“There are risks of hydrogen leakage and radioactive spraying. The fire danger is high,” it added.
Amnesty International has said it stands by its accusation that Ukraine is endangering civilians by creating army bases in residential areas to counter Russian forces, after a report from the rights group prompted a furious response from Kyiv.
“The findings … were based on evidence gathered during extensive investigations which were subject to the same rigorous standards and due diligence processes as all of Amnesty International’s work,” the organisation’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard told AFP.
Callamard expressed concern that the Ukraine government’s “reaction risks chilling legitimate and important discussion of these topics.”
Andriy Zagorodnyuk, an analyst at Ukraine’s Centre for Defence Strategies, told Al Jazeera that the report contained “some facts” but placed them out of context.
“In some villages, the military took schools and used them for military purposes, but what it doesn’t say is that none of these schools are working,” he added.
The European Union has coordinated the evacuation of some 1,000 Ukrainian patients in need of urgent care to hospitals in 18 member states since the Russian invasion began, an EU Commission spokesperson said.
To relieve pressure on local hospitals, the EU has been coordinating patient transfers to other European countries who have available hospital capacity,” spokesperson Miriam Garcia Ferrer sفشفثی.
“The [EU] Commission stands ready to continue coordinating this assistance,” she added.
The World Health Organization told CNN on Friday that it has so far recorded 434 verified attacks on healthcare in Ukraine since the invasion started that have killed at least 85 people and injured 101 more.
Russia says it has imposed entry bans on 62 Canadian citizens including government officials, in the latest retaliatory move against Western nationals.
The Russian foreign ministry announced in a statement that the list included figures known for “their malicious activity in the fight against the ‘Russian world’ and our traditional values”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have agreed to switch part of payments for Russian gas to the rouble currency, Interfax news agency has reported, citing Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.
During a four-hour meeting at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, the two leaders also agreed to boost cooperation in the transport, agriculture and construction industries, Russia’s news agency TASS reported.
They also stressed the need to ensure the implementation of the Istanbul grain agreements, including unimpeded exports of Russian grain.
The United States ambassador to the United Nations has warned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will cause 40 million people to be cut off from reliable food sources.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who is currently on a visit to Ghana, said that sub-Saharan Africa will be the hardest hit region by the crisis.
She added that Washington had seen “no indication that Russia will accept a diplomatic solution” to the war in Ukraine.
The Black Sea region is a big source of food supplies for the global market, with Ukraine and Russia being key suppliers of wheat, corn, barley and sunflower oil that millions of people in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia rely on.
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