“In the [nuclear] negotiations, if sensible things are said and fair and wise arrangements are made, we will agree to them; but, Iranians, from the top all the way to the bottom [of social strata,] from the masses of the people to all its officials, will stand up to excessive demands,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in a gathering of members of Basij.
The Leader noted that both the Iranian nation and the negotiating sides must know that “if the talks fail, the one who will lose the most will be the Americans not us.”
In their last round of talks before a November 24 deadline, Iran and the P5+1 countries — the United States, Russia, China, Germany, France and Britain — wrapped up a week of closed-door intense nuclear negotiations in Vienna, Austria, on Monday. The talks aimed to tackle the remaining obstacles that exist in the way of reaching an agreement.
At the end of the talks, the two sides decided to extend their discussions for seven more months. They also agreed that the interim deal they signed in the Swiss city of Geneva last November will remain in place during the course of the negotiations until July 1, 2015.
A film by an Iranian director has been initially shortlisted for the best Live Action Short Film at the 87th Academy Awards.
Parvaneh, the 25-minute short film by Talkhon Hamzavi, is one of the 10 motion pictures selected from a 141 qualified short films in this Oscar Awards category.
Parvaneh narrates the story of an Afghan girl who has entered a refugee camp in Switzerland, but when she comes to know about her father’s poor health condition in Afghanistan, she decides to send the whole money she had illegally earned in the foreign land to her family.
She is forced to go to the city of Zurich, but due to not possessing a valid passport, she finds herself unable to follow her initial aim. Meanwhile, she meets a girl named Emily, and the rest of the story is determined by their friendship.
Hamzavi, who is currently living in Switzerland, has produced her film in German language. She had formerly participated in various foreign film festivals with Parvaneh, and in 2013, won the silver medal for the best foreign film at Student Academy Awards.
Her film was forwarded to the Oscars from the country of her residence. She was born in 1979 in Tehran, and migrated to Switzerland when she was 7. She obtained her Master of Arts in film-making from the University of Zurich.
All the 10 qualified short movies were viewed for the first round of voting by the Academy’s Short Films and Feature Animation Branch Reviewing Committee at Los Angeles screens. Based on the regulations, three to five movies will ultimately be opted as the major finalists at the upcoming Academy Awards. Four cities of Los Angeles, London, New York, and San Francisco will host the branch screenings in December.
Nominees in all 24 categories of the 87th Annual Academy Awards will be announced on January 15, 2015, in Samuel Goldwyn Theater, and the Oscars Ceremony will be held on February 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood.
Iran has officially addressed Reza Mirkarimi’s Today to represent the country this year. A Few Cubic Meters of Love, the Iranian-Afghan film directed by Jamshid Mahmoudi, is also nominated by Afghanistan to compete at the upcoming Academy Awards.
Parliament’s vote of confidence to Mohammad Farhadi as science minister dominated the front pages of Iranian newspapers on Thursday. Also among front-page headlines was the spillover of protests to other American cities following the decision of a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri not to indict a white police officer for fatally shooting an unarmed black teenager in August.
Abrar: America has extended the suspension of its sanctions against Iran.
Abrar: “Those who have illegally received scholarships should be dealt with,” an MP said during the confirmation hearing of Mohammad Farhadi, the new science minister.
Afarinesh: South Korea paid $500 million it owed Iran [for crude imports].
Afkar: President Obama has urged Saudi King Abdullah’s son to help normalize relations between Tehran and Riyadh.
Afkar: President Rouhani has hailed the performance of the Iranian nuclear negotiating team.
Arman-e Emrooz: Mohammad Farhadi, President Rouhani’s pick for science minister, won 197 nods from MPs to take charge of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology.
Arman-e Emrooz: Ali Motahari, [a principlist MP who supported President Rouhani’s nominees for science minister] has come under a barrage of attacks by fellow principlists in the chamber.
Asrar: “We all have to turn out for [upcoming parliamentary] elections,” said former President Mohammad Khatami.
Ebtekar: Former President Mohammad Khatami has described the performance of President Rouhani as “good”.
Ebtekar: “Using Basij [the Volunteer Force] to advance partisan agenda is sinful,” said Chairman of the Expediency Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Emtiaz: Sami Yusuf, an Iranian-born British singer-songwriter, is to perform onstage in Iran.
Emtiaz: “The value of smuggled items in Iran stands at $20 billion annually,” said the director of the Headquarters to Fight Smuggling in Goods and Currency.
Esfahan Emrooz has described the confirmation of President Rouhani’s pick for science minister as “reconciliation between government and parliament”.
Etemad: As many as 70 French automotive managers will soon pay a visit to Iran.
Ettela’at: The government spokesman said the pay rise of civil servants will be proportionate to inflation next year.
Ettela’at: European giants are in line to make it to the Iranian stock market.
Farhikhtegan: “Some want to tell Rouhani that they are still powerful,” said reformist former President Mohammad Khatami.
Hamshahri: Mayors of Asian cities have welcomed a proposal by Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf to establish a joint development fund.
Hemayat: “The bullying attitude of the United States is to blame for the failure [of Iranian and P5+1 negotiators] to strike a nuclear deal,” said Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadegh Amoli Larijani.
Iran: As many as 15 million people who live on the edges of major cities will benefit from the Healthcare Transformation Plan.
Iran Daily: Musician Khorshidifar passes away.
Javan: “Recent talks proved that the United States is not trustworthy,” said the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps.
Jomhouri Islami: “Iran has no plans to cut its crude oil production,” said Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh.
Kaenat: Three policemen on the beat have been killed in a terrorist attack in Zahak, a small town in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan.
Kayhan: The Russian ambassador to Tehran has said in an exclusive, “Just like Iran, we view economic self-sufficiency as the way to counter sanctions.”
Resalat: American people are protesting against racial discrimination from coast to coast.
Roozan: [With the confirmation of Farhadi as science chief] Mohammad Ali Najafi, who served as acting minister since the impeachment of Faraji-Dana, released a memo to bid farewell to the staff at the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology.
Shahrara: Sami Yusuf [an Iranian-born British singer-songwriter] says he will soon pay a pilgrimage visit to Mashhad [home to the shrine of Imam Reza (PBUH)].
Shahrvand: A number of MPs have signed a motion that calls for the death penalty for those convicted of staging acid attacks.
A senior Iranian legislator has said that nuclear talks between the Islamic Republic and the six major world powers revealed that the United States is not a reliable country.
Chairman of Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Alaeddin Boroujerdi said on Wednesday that Iran’s negotiating partners – Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States, and Germany – must live up to their commitments based on the Joint Plan of Action, signed between the two sides in the Swiss city of Geneva last November.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran displayed its sincerity with respect to this accord, but America is trying to weaken the pillars of this agreement by announcing new sanctions [against Iran],” Boroujerdi said during a meeting with chair of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with Iran, Tarja Cronberg, in Tehran.
The Iranian lawmaker further noted that Washington does not respect the rights of the Iranian nation and tries to influence Iran’s position and the result of the talks through sanctions.
Boroujerdi also underscored that such sanctions have helped Iran base its economy on domestic capabilities.
Cronberg, for her part, expressed hope that the Geneva nuclear deal is respected in its entirety.
The latest round of nuclear talks between Iran and P5+1 ended in the Austria capital, Vienna, on November 24, with the two sides agreeing to extend the Joint Plan of Action to July 1, 2015.
Under the Joint Plan of Action reached between the two sides in November 2013, a final comprehensive deal aims to give assurances that Tehran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful and, at the same time, lift all sanctions imposed against the Iranian nation over the country’s nuclear program.
Iran has repeatedly said its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, including generating electricity and making radioisotopes for its cancer patients.
Iran has called on countries which are non-members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to participate in cutting oil output.
Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh told reporters on Wednesday that it was not only up to the organization to deal with growing market oversupplies, saying non-OPEC producers needed to cooperate as well in limiting oil production.
“To deal with this situation we need to have a contribution from non-OPEC producers for managing the market,” Zanganeh told reporters upon arrival in the Austrian city of Vienna for the OPEC meeting.
His remarks come as the 166th ministerial meeting of OPEC is scheduled to be held in Vienna on Thursday, November 27, to discuss sharp reduction in oil prices.
Meanwhile, non-members Russia and Mexico along with two OPEC countries Saudi Arabia and Venezuela met on Thursday to address a growing oil glut.
Oil prices have plunged this year, with analysts putting the blame on the rise in the value of the US dollar and the unlikely chance that the intergovernmental OPEC body might cut crude output.
OPEC is a Vienna-based intergovernmental organization of 12 oil-producing countries, which groups Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Kuwait, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.
OPEC members pump about 40 percent of the world’s oil with Iran being currently the organization’s third-largest oil producer.
On Tuesday, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for January delivery rose nine cents at USD 75.87, while Brent crude for January fell eight cents to USD 79.60 in afternoon trade.
On November 25, one day after the closing of nuclear talks between Iran and world powers, Donyay-e Eghtesad, a daily, carried a piece on what the extension of Vienna talks translates into, economically. The following is the translation of how the paper’s Ali Farahbakhsh assessed the outcome of the talks through an economic prism:
Political negotiations, in particular those with a geopolitical background which have dragged on for quite a few years thanks to distrust, require a long time to produce results.
A look at Ping-Pong Diplomacy pursued by Henry Kissinger, which was aimed at normalizing relations between America and China, as well as at the talks over ballistic missiles during the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union clearly highlights the fact that in the most ideal of conditions, diplomatic negotiations over strategic issues either fail, or need quite a while to produce an agreement. Even more time is required to see such a deal come to fruition.
The outcome of the recent talks between Iran and P5+1 and the agreement over extension of the negotiations into the months ahead one more time showed that in spite of positive results coming out of the talks, we need to exercise more patience to witness a profound impact on the economy.
Although over the past few months, politicians and those active on the economic front have outlined the probable scenarios for the talks and sized up the likely impact of each on the economy, the important question is: “Now that the scenario of extension has been played out, based on what assumptions, should macroeconomic policies, by the government, and microeconomic policies, by economic institutions, be formulated?”
Although a nuclear deal could play an effective role in turning the economy around, policies at home seem to determine where the economy is heading for.
In fact, external factors resulting from diplomatic developments could have more effects on the pace of developments rather than giving directions to the economy.
As a matter of fact, the positive effects of the removal of sanctions should not be blown out of proportion, nor should it be assumed that all economic woes, several of which have cropped up on the back of dysfunctional structures, would be addressed overnight as soon as sanctions are lifted.
Actually, sanctions have exposed many of our internal flaws. When the previous government [Ahmadinejad’s] was in office, a lot of mismanagement was kept hidden behind sanctions without drawing a distinction between the ramifications of wrong macroeconomic policies and those of sanctions.
If our politicians are under the impression that the removal of sanctions will see an inflow of foreign currency which could act as a panacea for our economic problems, they are making a strategic miscalculation.
As it was mentioned, for one thing, there is no silver bullet for strategic disputes. For another, in the highly unlikely event of easy access to all foreign currency revenues of the country, history suggests that substantial amounts of petrodollars not only may fail to address the economic woes of the country, but they may give rise to a more deepening crisis.
For instance, the 1973 oil shock [which began in October when members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), consisting of the Arab members of the OPEC, plus Egypt, Syria and Tunisia, proclaimed an oil embargo which saw oil prices rise from $3 per barrel to nearly $12 by the end of the embargo in March 1974] which swelled the coffers of the previous regime did nothing to prevent the collapse of the Pahlavi Regime in 1979.
Nor did the petrodollars of the previous government – nearly $120 billion in annual revenues – lead to a pretty pass, and the baton was passed on to Rouhani in conditions that the country’s economic growth was languishing in negative territory while Iran’s economy was fighting a losing battle against an unprecedented recession which had spiraled out of control.
Which direction the economy at home takes is more influenced by our politicians rather than by uncontrollable external factors. Among other things, the mounting growth of liquidity, unbalanced interest rates, a big and dysfunctional state sector, an unsuited atmosphere for business, and implementation of privatization at a snail’s pace are key factors at play which can be streamlined by our politicians rather than by nuclear talks.
Above all, the process of economic policymaking in Iran reveals that the driving force behind the economy has usually gathered more momentum and turned out to be more functional in the face of uphill challenges. That has added more weight to implementation of economic reforms.
However, whenever Iran’s economy rakes in petrodollars, it simply invests its focus in how such additional revenues must be allocated, and it suddenly gets forgetful of transforming the economic structure of the country.
Although, to arrive at a multilateral deal, there is a bumpy road ahead, returning to the point where we were before the start of the talks is impossible.
Even if a minimum agreement is reached in the upcoming months, a new raft of sanctions is unlikely to be implemented. Besides, under the new accord in Vienna, in the next seven months, nearly $5 billion of Iran’s foreign currency revenues will return to government coffers.
The bottom line is that our policymakers should not attach the fate of the economy to the outcome of the negotiations. Rather, they should make efforts to put forth a coherent economic overhaul plan to lay the groundwork for economic growth. As an old saying goes, “Bad luck often brings good luck”, we can turn curses into blessings.
On November 25, the front page of Haft-e Sobh newspaper featured the translation of a piece on how American Monica Byrne has described Iran in her fantastic words. The simple, still very beautiful and emotion-filled, wording of this American novelist and playwright was good-enough reason for IFP to surf the net for the original piece. We eventually found it at http://www.lobelog.com/iran-reconciliation/. IFP decided to put the entire piece on its website, although the Persian-language paper had only parts of it translated:
Before I traveled to Iran, I didn’t want to read anything about Iran. Certainly nothing written by mainstream American news media, which often draws an absurdist caricature of the country. I wanted to arrive with an open heart.
But I knew that having an open heart wasn’t the same thing as an ignorant mind. I didn’t pretend to have more than a superficial knowledge of Iranian-American relations. I didn’t wish to gloss over the misdeeds of either country, including human rights abuses. I was just a writer, with three motivations:
Travel is essential to my writing;
I have Iranian friends in America who are passionate about their homeland, which made me curious; and
for their sake and mine, I want reconciliation between our countries.
No small task, of course. Not when people from both countries have been working toward that goal ever since the 1979 revolution ousted a pro-American monarch and replaced it with an Islamic Republic.
The revolution has impacted a whole generation of people in both Iran and America. But a new generation – including my friends and I – born after 1979, don’t have a memory of the revolution, or the occupation of the US Embassy in Tehran. There’s no case to be made for ignorance, but there is a case to be made for innocence: To us, the estrangement of Iran and America makes neither political nor intuitive sense. America’s simultaneous fidelity to Saudi Arabia and Israel feels odd and hypocritical. While I was in Iran, I asked my guide to explain the reason behind the sanctions. He couldn’t really explain it. I researched the sanctions. I couldn’t even explain them to myself. They just seemed pointless and arbitrary.
An older generation resigns itself to everything being the way it is. A younger generation questions why any of it has to be.
So where do we begin? And by “we,” I don’t mean the nation states; I mean “we” as individual citizens. Do we seek common ground? I’m not going to insult everyone’s intelligence by saying Iranians are just like Americans. That not only implies that Iranian lives only have value insofar as they resemble American ones; it also obscures our differences, including the religious orientations of our current governments, and the effects those orientations have on the public and private behavior of individual citizens. Those differences are real and important.
Yet those differences are not a real barrier to reconciliation. And as an American, I see the primary responsibility for reconciliation in America’s court. We are far more ignorant about, and hostile toward Iranians than Iranians are toward us. That is our shame. Are there people in Iran who chant “Death to America”? Sure, I guess, somewhere. I didn’t meet any of them. Are there people in America who can’t even locate Iran on a map? Yes. I meet them every day.
The good news is that both countries have made small acts of good faith over time, which then led to acts of good faith among individual citizens; my homeland became a home for people of Iranian origin and descent. They grew up in (or came to) America and made friends, including me. Those friendships then inspired me to travel to Iran.
While staying near the historical city of Pasargad, the final resting place of Cyrus the Great, I had a wonderful experience playing the part of an American tourist in a documentary that happened to be shooting near my guesthouse. The producers gave me a verse of Hafez, the great Persian poet, to say in Farsi:
The Tomb of Hafez, Shiraz, Iran. Credit: Monica Byrne
Derakhte doosti benshan,
ke kame del be bar arad.
Which means:
Plant the tree of friendship,
and it will give the fruit of the heart’s desire.
Even now, two weeks after leaving Iran, the line still resonates with me. I’m not a politician. I don’t have the ear of anyone in power. The negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program are not accessible to me. But travel and friendship: these are tools that are available to me. They’re also available to millions of Americans, especially after Hassan Rouhani – known inside Iran as a moderate cleric with reformist ambitions – was elected president last year. By travel I don’t mean joining a mindless mega-tour group, whose members don’t interact with anyone except through the viewfinder of their cameras. I mean travel as a mindful and radical act: to seek one-on-one consensual reconciliation of Other and Self, of mutual transformation that leaves both parties more perfectly themselves than they were before.
The state will act at the level of the state, in Vienna or wherever. But individuals can act at the level of individuals, on American and Iranian soil: seeing and being seen, hearing and being heard, knowing and being known.
My last night in Iran, I went back to the Tomb of Hafez. The first time I’d gone was daytime, when tourists go; evening is when Iranians go.
The air was cool and electric. In the northeast corner of the courtyard, a square of rugs was set down for evening prayer. Up and down the steps of the tomb came students, artists, professors, pairs of women, pairs of men, parents with teenagers, parents with toddlers. A young couple – the girl wearing a scarf fashionably high on her head, the boy wearing all black, with a gold chain – walked up to the tomb and fidgeted there, unsure of how to behave. Some placed their fingers on the tomb, their lips moving. Others checked their smartphones, or took selfies. A man in a grey suit hovered by one of the columns, reciting Hafez to whoever would listen.
As per an Iranian tradition I’d read about, I circled the tomb seven times and then sat down, legs crossed, with my back to one of the pillars, and asked the question in my mind: How do Iran and America reconcile?
And then I opened my English translation of The Divan of Hafez, which my guide Mohamad had bought me as a gift. This was the first verse my eyes fell upon:
Joyous that day from when this desolate abode, I go:
The ease of soul, I seek: and for the sake of the Beloved I go.
The answer gave me chills.
But I didn’t have time to think more about it, because just then, the men who’d finished praying came to take a group picture on the steps of the tomb. They asked me where I was from, and like everyone who heard I was from America, were delighted and extremely welcoming. We could communicate very little, but they managed to tell me they were from nearby Estahban, a city famous for figs.
Our conversation drew onlookers. Soon it was a crowd of twenty or more. Someone asked if I spoke any Farsi. I got really excited because I remembered my line from the vineyard documentary, so I started:
Derakhte doosti benshan—
And the entire crowd finished it with me as if it were a song we’d long rehearsed.
—ke kame del be bar arad!
The man in the grey suit who’d been reciting Hafez behind us called “Yes! Yes! Thank you!” and rushed forward to pour peanuts and raisins into my hand.
A translator materialized; the crowd was now asking me why I’d come to Iran. “I want Iran and America to reconcile,” I said. Immediately applause broke out. “Tell your government!” someone called out. “I’m trying!” I said, waving my Moleskin. It felt like such a paltry gesture. But I have to believe that it was something. That these gestures of good faith would also come to bear fruit, like the gestures of good faith that had sent me there in the first place.
American news outlets often portray Iran as something like Mordor, the strange and unknown wasteland from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth. The average American mostly follows suit. Now that I’ve been there, what can I say to that? Where can I even begin?
What I saw was a vast, gorgeous, brilliant country at the crossroads of the world, with an ancient culture seasoned by peoples from the north, south, east, and west who’d broken over Persia like waves for three thousand years. I fell in love with Hafez and the reverence of artists that his veneration represents. I fell in love with Iranian food (I’m rationing my remaining saffron sugar sticks like bars of gold). I fell in love with Iranian landscapes—Alamut, Abyaneh, Persepolis, Garmeh. I fell in love with Iranian places—the Zurkhaneh in Yazd, the homestay in Farahzad, the garden in Kashan. And Iranians themselves were unfailingly kind to me. How is it even possible that our peoples are still estranged? It makes no sense.
I spent my last night in Iran on the steps of Hafez’s tomb, talking. Men, women, mothers, fathers, teenagers, girls, boys, children—all eager to talk. A daughter translated, and a father filmed the impromptu interview. A son translated, and told me the meanings of all his family’s names. I ripped pages out of my Moleskin and wrote down my contact information for five, ten, twenty people; and got theirs in return. Blog, Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, Viber, Whatsapp, Instagram—we would find each other there (even if some of those applications are illegal in Iran). The men from Estahban returned with a handful of figs and poured them into my hand on top of the peanuts and raisins. My heart overflowed. I didn’t want to leave. In just thirty days, Iran had become beloved to me.
I’ll be back soon, inshallah. In the meantime, to every single American who is able, I echo Hafez:
For the sake of the Beloved, go.
Monica Byrne is a novelist, playwright, and traveler based in Durham, NC. Her first novel The Girl in the Road was published by Penguin Random House in May. She writes from home and abroad on her blog.
Iranian short animation Scale has scooped a prestigious award at the 2014 edition of Munich International Festival of Film Schools in Germany.
Directed by Amin Rahbar, the animation garnered the high-profile Climate Award of this year’s edition of the film event.
“Scale is a two-minute film which was produced by cutout animation technique,” the director said.
Some 42 screen productions from 22 countries, displaying various themes, took part in the festival.
Scale has been screened and awarded at several international festivals including Hamburg Festival in Germany, Con i minuti contati Festival in Italy, and SHNIT Festival in Switzerland.
The jury congratulated Amin Rahbar on the successful artistic and technical realization of his film, saying, “In just one and a half minutes, the clip illustrates how drastically our environment has changed, the severe damage that has been done to it and the current consequences such as climate change.”
The Munich International Festival of Film Schools is held annually (November 16-22).
In an open session Wednesday Majlis (parliament) endorsed President Hassan Rouhani’s fifth nominee to head the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology.
The parliamentary session was held in the presence of President Rouhani during which he urged the lawmakers to support his nominee. It was attended by 235 lawmakers and chaired by Speaker Ali Larijani.
The chamber approved Mohammad Farhadi as the minister of science, research and technology with 197 votes in favor, 28 against, and 10 abstentions.
Farhadi needed 50 percent plus one of the votes to become minister.
Last Tuesday, Majlis turned down Rouhani’s fourth nominee Fakhreddin Ahmadi Danesh-Ashtiani.
Danesh-Ashtiani failed to obtain a vote of confidence when 171 lawmakers voted against him, 70 in favor, and 13 abstained.
Hassan Qashghavi, a high-ranking Iranian diplomat who is in Baghdad, in a meeting with chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq underlined Iran’s strong support for Iraqi government and people in the fight against terrorism.
Deputy Foreign Minister for Consular and Parliamentary Affairs Hassan Qashghavi, in a meeting with Ammar al-Hakim, offered congratulations on recent victories of the Iraqi military and people in the fight against terrorists and expressed hope for continuation of such victories.
Ammar al-Hakim, for his part, called Iran’s role in helping Iraqi government in fight against terrorist groups valuable and appreciated Iran’s support for Iraq.
He also underlined the necessity of promoting ties between the two countries in all fields.
