The ancient city of Bam in Kerman, which is home to Arg-e Bam (the historical Bam Citadel), is lively and still standing strong 11 years after the 2003 earthquake. The reconstruction and renovation process of the city continues to progress.
The following are the pictures the Islamic Republic News Agency released on December 27 of the historical city more than a decade after the devastating earthquake:
Most Iranian dailies on Sunday led on the government’s reaction to allegations that it has illegally withdrawn $4.1 billion from the Foreign Exchange Reserve Fund. The government insists that there has been no such withdrawal. Some MPs, among them a principlist heavyweight Ahmad Tavakoli, say the report by the Supreme Audit Court is compelling enough that the fund has been tapped. Images of major war games by the Iranian Army in the south and news about Russia’s new military doctrine appeared on the front pages of several dailies too.
Abrar: “Up to 40 percent of street children are HIV-positive,” said the founder of the Society for the Protection and Assistance of Socially Disadvantaged Individuals.
Afarinesh: President Rouhani has ordered the reinstatement of the Management and Planning Organization.
Afarinesh: The government has denied reports that it has withdrawn money from the Foreign Exchange Reserve Fund.
Aftab-e Yazd: “Low-interest loans will be offered to the needy,” said government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht.
Arman-e Emrooz: Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s membership of a political party has been revoked.
Asrar: “Human rights have turned into a tool in the hands of the West,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said at a meeting with his Belorussian counterpart.
Asrar: “Talks with P5+1 won’t last forever,” said President Rouhani’s Chief of Staff Mohammad Nahavandian.
Asrar: The new president of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting has appointed a female vice-president for the national broadcaster.
Etemad: [Principlist MP] Ahmad Tavakoli has accused the government of acting against the law. In reaction the government spokesman has urged those who have made the “false accusations” to apologize to the government and the public.
Ettela’at: “Some 55 percent of Iranian people are under 30 years of age,” said the director of the National Organization for Civil Registration.
Hemayat: Bahraini people have staged a massive demonstration against the country’s rubberstamp parliament.
Javan: The Russian President has signed a new military doctrine which lists NATO as a major foreign threat to the Russian Federation.
Jomhouri Islami: The Iraqi army has liberated the town of Ramadi.
Jomhouri Islami: Former US President Jimmy Carter has described the policy to impose sanctions on nations as inefficient.
Kaenat: The first vice president said the government has made arrangements to prevent an oil shock.
Kayhan: An investigation has been launched into the performance of mobile phone operators.
Mardom Emrooz led on an exclusive about Iran-Saudi ties. Less than a week ago Iran sent a message to the Saudi government, calling for understanding on regional issues, nuclear talks and oil prices.
Mardomsalari: The UN secretary general’s envoy to Tehran has said that the international community needs Iran’s support.
Resalat: “A decree by the Supreme Leader stopped the execution of the seditionist leaders,” said Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.
Sayeh: “Despite a drop in oil prices, the government is not worried about next year’s budget,” said the economy minister.
Sharq: Next year’s spending package envisions a 120 percent rise in the budget of state hospitals.
Taadol: The new head of the Securities and Exchange Organization of Iran has said he would continue the policies adopted by his predecessor.
Vatan-e Emrooz: The former director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has said that the 2009 sedition [unrest caused in the wake of presidential elections] paved the way for the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists.
Iran’s foreign minister lashed out at the West for employing “unlawful and cruel” sanctions as leverage to exert pressure on other nations.
“We should not let the Western countries make use of sanction as a tool to pile up pressure on other countries,” Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart in Tehran on Saturday.
Making a reference to the Western sanctions imposed on Iran and Belarus, Zarif added, “The countries that aretargetedby the unlawful and cruel sanctions need to keep moving by relying on their own capabilities.”
He also pointed to the nuclear talks between Iran and major world powers, stressing that the negotiations will bear fruit only if the Western parties come to the understanding that “unfair sanctions, which go counter to the international regulations, do not amount to a great achievement for them.”
Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei, for his part, voiced Minsk’s support for Tehran’s right to enjoy nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
Belarus believes that the Iranian negotiators handle the nuclear talks with six world powers “wisely and in a prudent manner.”
Iran and P5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) are in talks to hammer out a final agreement to end more than a decade of impasse over Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program.
The two sides wrapped up a week of intensive nuclear talks in Vienna on November 24 without reaching a long-awaited deal they were supposed to hammer out by the self-imposed November 24 deadline.
Negotiators from Iran and the sextet concluded a round of deputy-level talks on Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program in Switzerland’s Geneva on December 17.
The Swiss city will reportedly once again host the next round of talks before January 20, 2015.
The head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) has picked a woman as his deputy for radio affairs.
Mohammad Sarafraz on Saturday appointed Nasrin Abravani as his deputy to regulate radio affairs of Iran’s broadcasting service.
Abravani is the first woman ever appointed to the post. She replaces Mohammad Hossein Sufi who assumed the post in 2008.
A graduate of Persian language and literature, Abravani has served as director of Radio Payam, a popular radio station which broadcasts music and news items. She has also served as news editor and writer in radio programs since 1997.
Launched in 1926, Iran radio department governs 27 national radio stations, broadcasting programs for various ethnic groups inside Iran.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has congratulated Christians around the world New Year.
“On the threshold of the new Christian year, I urge fraternity and amity upon all free-thinking and peaceable people, and hope the year 2015 will be a year replete with prosperity and welfare for all people of the world,” the president said in a congratulatory message.
Rouhani also referred to the birth of Jesus as “good tidings to mankind.”
“Jesus came to give the good news that God is one, but does not belong to a single ethnic group or tribe. God is one, and is so for all humanity. Jesus came to say there is no [such thing as a] superior, better ethnic group.”
“We take pride in Iran, which is home to all Iranians, including Muslims, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians,” the president said, and noted, “We Iranians have, as one of the first Muslim ethnicities and nations, always had good experience of coexistence with our fellow Christian countrymen and women.”
He said the onus is on Muslim and Christian intellectuals to “initiate people into the message of divine spirituality with clear-sightedness and awareness, and to stand up to violent distortion of the divine religion.”
Three Iranian children were awarded diplomas of honor at the International Montana Children Painting Competition in Bulgaria.
Paria Pirmandi, 12, Kimia Mahmoudtash, 14, both from West Azarbaijan province and Elaheh Yarahmadi, 7, from Lorestan province were awarded in the competition themed ‘Music and Devotional Dances’.
The Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults had forwarded some 331 works to the event.
On December 27, Tabnak, a news website, quoted a senior Iranian MP as describing as delusional the comments of an Israeli Foreign Ministry official that Tel Aviv will one day reopen its embassy in Tehran. What appears below is the translation of the report:
“Not only will such a dream never come true, but Gold willing, the Islamic Republic of Iran will one day open its embassy in the holy land of Palestine without the presence of the Zionists,” said Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the chairman of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee.
On Thursday, after news came out that the Israeli Foreign Ministry is going to offer Persian-language courses to its employees, Paul Hirschson, the ministry spokesman, started daydreaming and said that Israel will one day open its embassy in Tehran.
Yedioth Ahronoth, a Tel Aviv-based daily, reported that the language course by the Israeli Foreign Ministry is designed to provide additional tools for employees who deal with Iran’s nuclear program.
Such courses are aimed at helping Tel Aviv with fulfilling its 2015 objectives as far as Iran is concerned, including foiling Tehran’s nuclear program, exerting diplomatic pressure on Tehran, keeping sanctions in place, securing regional unity against Iran and highlighting Iran’s role in supporting [Palestinian] resistance groups, the daily reported.
On December 25, Iran, a daily, carried a report about the resumption of concerts in Tehran after a two-month hiatus because of the mourning months of Muharram and Safar. The following is a partial translation of the piece:
With mourning functions coming to an end, musical instruments are getting tuned to be played at concerts. After an interval of two months, concertgoers are looking forward to watching the performance of their favorite musicians.
With the concerts, comes into force a new agreement between police and the Music Office at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. The deal eliminates the possibility of concert cancellations because of a lack of coordination between the police and organizers.
Rose, a newly-formed band led by Nazli Bakhshayesh, has already performed to a women-only audience at Tehran’s Niavaran Cultural Complex.
Vahdat Concert Hall will play host to Zaman Classical Guitar Orchestra conducted by Farzad Daneshmand in the final days of December. The orchestra will have staged two more charity concerts for cancer patients by yearend [March 21, 2015].
Fereydoon Nasehi, a veteran composer and musician, will give a piano recital in early January at Tehran’s Niavaran Cultural Complex. Nasehi will play a selection of pieces by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Peter Schubert, Frédéric François Chopin, Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff and Franz Liszt.
Iranian pop band Seven will put on a concert at Milad Hall at Tehran International Fairground in mid-January.
Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has ordered the transfer of drilling rigs to oil fields jointly owned by Iran and neighboring Arab countries.
Iran newspaper ran a front-page report on December 25 on the order by the Iranian oil chief, calling it a giant leap by Iran toward better exploitation of joint oil fields. Here is a partial translation of the highlights of the full report on what Iran is planning to do to develop and exploit the fields:
Oil reserves are finite. The eleventh government [President Rouhani’s] has revised the country’s development plans, concentrating its efforts on the development of joint oil fields to raise the volume of crude oil – currently seven percent – Iran produces in the fields co-owned by neighboring countries.
The government has also required the oil industry to increase its production capacityto more than 5.7 million barrels per day in four years’ time.
Based on the targets set by authorities, Iran’s crude output in the West Karoon Oil Fields is projected to increase to 700,000 barrels per day by 2018.
By 2018, the Iranian government will have invested upward of $21 billion in the joint fields.
A collection of over 300 Iranian artifacts in Belgium for 50 years has finally been returned to Iran.
The 349 Iranian heritage items which had been illegally transferred to Belgium some 50 years ago were finally handed back to Iran by following a Belgian court ruling 33 years in the making.
The stolen artifacts comprising of 221 clay and 128 bronze antiques date back to the end of the second millennium and the first millennium BC and are some 3,000 years old. They will be put on display at the National Museum of Iran soon.
The antiques which had been discovered in Khurvin, Alborz Province, were gradually transferred to Belgium in 1965 by a French woman who had acquired an Iranian nationality due to her marriage to an Iranian professor.
After the Iranian government was informed of the existence of the collection in a Museum in Ghent, Belgium, it filed a lawsuit in Belgian courts in 1981, saying that the artifacts which had been illegally transferred out of the country, belonged to the government of Iran.
After more than 30 years, a Belgian court finally ruled in favor of Iran in September 2014 and the antique collection was returned to Iran on Thursday Dec. 24.
The head of Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHTO) Masoud Soltanifar, while confirming the transfer of the antiques to the National Museum of Iran, maintained that Iran is adamantly following up on a similar case related to some 7,000 Achaemenid tablets which are presently being kept in the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
According to the former head of ICHTO Mohammad Ali Najafi, the clay tablets had been loaned to Chicago’s Oriental Institute for Studies and Translation during the rule of the Shah, but they have not been returned to Iran yet.
Other than the case on Achaemenid tablets, Iran is following up on another case involving artifacts discovered in Choghamish in Dezful County, Khuzestan Province, which according to Soltanifar is in its final stages.
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