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How Trees Show their Joy

In recent days, with spring arriving in full force, the Beautification Department of Tehran’s Municipality has displayed “trees of happiness” in the capital’s main street, Vali Asr.

According to Honaronline website, Ms. Nasrin Sarmadi, the creator of these works, said, “I have called my work “Happy Trees,” and have used cotton rope for making them.

Rope is wound round around the tree trunks, then painted with colours. By using cotton rope to cover the trunks up to a height of 2 metres, we do no harm to them, said the artist.

She added that designs used on Kilims, a type of Iranian handmade rug, were used in attractive shapes, bringing beauty and happiness to the streets of our capital.

The project brings beauty and happiness to the streets of Tehran

This annual event is called the spring festival, and this year is taking place at Vali Asr Crossroads, and in nearby Daneshjoo Park. The festival started on the eve of the Iranian New Year (Nourooz), and will conclude at the end of the first month of the Iranian calendar year, Farvardin.

 

 

 

Shakespeare’s Globe performs “Hamlet” in Tehran

The performance is the Globe’s two-year tour, which will help introduce and endear millions of people to Shakespeare, to classical literature and the performing arts in general, and notably to Hamlet.

Health Minister Hassan Qazizadeh Hashemi, Director and Representative of the UNESCO Tehran Cluster Office Esther Kuisch Laroche and several foreign ambassadors, as well as eminent theatrical figures including Ali Nasirian, Pari Saberi, Marzieh Borumand, Siamak Ehsai, Behzad Farahani and Dariush Modabian watched the performance.

Shakespeare’s Globe is a charity and continues to operate under the leadership of Artistic Director Dominic Dromgoole. The Globe Theatre season plays in repertory from April to October annually, and has gained an international reputation for performance excellence, welcoming more than one million visitors annually.

Photo: Actors perform a scene from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet for members of the media during a photo call to present Hamlet at Shakespeare’s Globe theater in London on April 23, 2014. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Bandar Abbas Petrol Project Near Complete

Hashemi Namvar, the refinery’s managing director, told Shana that the project is 96% complete and will add 3 ml/d to Iran’s gasoline output bringing it to 12 ml/d.

He said the project is chiefly aimed at boosting the refinery’s gasoline output and raising the quality of its gasoline and gasoil production.

Namvar said the project will become operational within the next 3 months, moving Iran one further step to becoming an exporter of the product.

5 companies from Japan and the UK and several companies from other countries have indicated their readiness to carry out projects to add to the refinery’s output, the official said.

He further said Bandar Abbas Refinery has reduced its expenses by $150m by carrying out efficiency refining projects.

Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia issue statement on coop.

The foreign ministers of Iran, Russia, and Azerbaijan at the end of their meeting in Baku issued a statement highlighting the major areas of agreements made in the meeting.

According to the statement agreed upon by Mohammad Javad Zarif, Sergey Lavrov, and Elmar Mammadyarov, the trilateral meeting is valued as measure to deepen dialogue, interaction, and cooperation between the three countries in the region and the globe.

Also the statement stresses on the commitment of the three countries to the charter of the United Nations and all other international regulations.

The three FMs also underline the importance of staging collaborative measures against new-born threats, like terrorism, extremism, organized crimes, and drug trafficking, against the peace and stability of the region and the whole world and voiced readiness to have closer interactions in fight with them.

Agreement upon developing trilateral cooperation in areas of energy, economy, transit, infrastructures, culture, tourism, trade, costume, and consular affairs is another article of the statement.

The statement also stresses on the necessity of developing economic and trade interactions based on the principles of equality and reciprocal benefit.

Continuing efforts for keeping the Caspian Sea as a sea of friendship and peace is also stressed upon in the statement added by cal for defining a legal regime for the shared closed water.

Also the three top diplomats agreed to facilitate the way for having trilateral meeting of the presidents of the three countries.

Iranian swimmer bags 6 medals in DIAC 2016

Alireza Amin Zomorrodi took part in the event with Tehran Swimming Society Team.

He won gold medal for 50-meter freestyle event, 50-meter backstroke event, and 50 and 100-meter butterfly events.

He also received silver medal in 100-meter freestyle event and 100-meter backstroke.

International Aquatics Championships (DIAC) was held for four days in Hamdan Sports Complex.

Iranian representatives, Tehran Swimming Society and Water Waves Land Teams won 31 medals in this event.

Prominent Iranologist passes away

Head of Taleghani Hospital Mohammad Khajavi told IRNA on Saturday that Sotoudeh who had been hospitalized due to an infectious disease passed away last night as a result of a shock.

He was in the ICU ward of the hospital.

Professor Sotoudeh was a distinguished scholar of Iranian languages and ethnic groups. He wrote many books and treatises on the subjects.

Iran Dismisses Report on Building Canal Linking Caspian Sea to Persian Gulf

The Russian TASS news agency on Friday reported that Iran’s Ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanaei has noted in an address to students in Saint-Petersburg University of the Humanities and Social Sciences that Moscow and Tehran are holding talks on digging a ship canal from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf.

“During Dr. Sanaei’s address in St. Petersburg’s state university, a student asked about Iran’s construction of a ship canal from Caspian (Sea) to Persian Gulf, and our ambassador replied that such a case is under investigation,” the media diplomacy department of Iran’s embassy said on Friday.

“There has been no question or mention of cooperation between Iran and Russia in this regard,” the Iranian embassy added, dismissing the media report.

The embassy said that Russia’s TASS has accordingly corrected the way it published the news.

The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed inland body of water in the world. Its coastline is 7,000 kilometers long and is bordered by Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Azerbaijan.

Any canal linking Caspian Sea to Persian Gulf (and the Indian Ocean) has to go through Iran.

Earlier on Thursday, Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran agreed to speed up the talks on a North-South transport corridor, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Part of it will go along the western coast of the Caspian Sea from Russia to Iran through Azerbaijan.

The North-South corridor, when built, is expected to significantly reduce the time of cargo transport from India to Central Asia and Russia. At present, it takes about 40 days to ship goods from Mumbai in India to Moscow. The new route will be able to cut this time to 14 days.

The corridor will also bypass the overloaded and expensive Suez Canal.

Shapouri House in Shiraz

Shapouri House is an early 20th-century Persian building and garden in the city of Shiraz, Fars province. This mansion was registered as a national building in 2000.

 

 

Iran says Boeing team coming to Tehran

The country’s flag-carrier airline Iran Air has announced in a statement that it will host Boeing for its upcoming trade talks in Tehran.

A main topic in the agenda of discussions will be supporting the current Iran Air fleet, the airline said.

Several other Iranian airlines will also hold talks with the aviation giant, it added without providing an exact timetable on its arrival and the planned talks.

Ali Abedzadeh, the president of Iran Civil Aviation Organization (CAO), said last month that talks between Iran Air and Boeing over the purchase of new planes are continuing, stressing that a deal with the American aviation giant is “very likely” to be sealed.

Abedzadeh added that several other domestic aviation companies are also engaged in talks with Boeing to purchase planes.

The media in late January quoted a top Iranian official in a report as saying that the country plans to purchase over 100 planes from Boeing.

The same report said that Iran’s order list from the American aviation giant included narrow-body 737s for domestic flights and two-aisle 777s for long-haul routes.

In January, Iran signed a major deal worth over $27 billion for the purchase of 118 planes from Airbus.  The deal – which is yet to be finalized – was signed during a landmark trip to Paris by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani.

Iran’s Transport Minister Abbas Akhoundi said in January that Airbus’s first deliveries to flag carrier Iran Air are due as early as July.

Iranian officials have already emphasized that the country will need to buy 500 commercial jets of various models for various short-, medium- and long-distance routes.

According to Minister Akhoundi, Iran’s current civil aviation fleet consists of 248 aircraft with an average age of 20 years, of which 100 are in storage.

Iran Facilitates Tax Conditions for Foreign Investors

“Helpful laws have been passed in Iran with the aim of removing obstacles for competitive production, based on which foreign investors would be exempted from tax for five years,” he said in a meeting with Chinese delegations.

He said that in cases where foreign companies use Iran’s internal production units to make high-quality goods and export at least 20% of the products, they would be exempted from tax.

The Iranian trade official continued, saying that investors would then have to pay 50% tax after 5 years.

He said that Iran is the largest market for retail goods in the Middle East, and given its access to to a population of 300 million people in neighbouring states, it is in a good position for trade and investment.

Ziyaie-Bigdeli said investors can use Iran as their export hub.