Zarif, Qureshi discuss Afghan security

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By Javad HeiranniaEXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWMohammad Ghaderi

Tehran Times editor-in-chief @ghaderi62

EDITORIALSyed Zafar Mehdi

Journalistfrom New Delhi

R E P O R T

Corbyn targeting the Brexit talks

Jeremy Corbyn, the British politician who has been serving as Leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the

Opposition since 2015 in the UK, is now trying to provide the ground for his own victory and the Labor Party in the country’s possible election in 2019. It seems that after his success in defeating figures such as Tony Blair, he has more incentives for pursuing his goals.

This is in spite of the fact that Cor-byn is still facing opposition inside the Labor Party and, of course, rival parties. Opponents who, from the beginning of Corbyn’s presence as the leader of the Labor Party, didn’t have a positive view on his presence as the party’s candidate in the upcoming general election.

At the beginning of Corbyn’s presence in the Labor Party, the security institutions and opposition parties in the UK, and even some inter-party opponents, explicitly referred to him as a dangerous person at the head of the Party’s equations, and wanted to curb his activities.

These institutions and individuals be-lieved that Corbyn would soon disagree with the structure of the British royal sys-tem. Even two years ago, British sources reported about Corbyn’s negative attitude to the royal system and his support for Republicans. However, the leader of the Labor Party was silent against some of these allegations, and denied some others.

Recently, while criticizing the agree-ment reached between Prime Minister Theresa May and European leaders over the Brexit, Corbyn announced a re-sumption of talks with European leaders (in the event of a government change). However, European officials, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have emphasized that there will be no further talks between the two sides on how to leave the EU.

Of course, Merkel has emphasized that the European Union has made con-tributions to London to facilitate its exit from the EU!

Jeremy Corbyn is now focusing on the most important issue in British foreign policy. Corbyn is determined to force EU leaders to resume talks on Brexit through changing the British government. Fol-lowing his relative victory in the previous general election in Britain, Corbyn found a lot of power in the Labor Party. 7

Two anti-Pakistan figures nominated to top security posts in Afghanistan

In a very significant but debatable move, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani has appointed two political rivals and

avowed adversaries of neighboring Paki-stan to two key ministries.

The news had been doing rounds for a week and the final announcement came as a surprise to many. Both the nominees have headed the country’s spy agency – National Directorate of Security (NDS).

Amrullah Saleh, a close aide of chief ex-ecutive Dr. Abdullah Abdullah and a critic of Ashraf Ghani-led government, has been given the crucial portfolio of interior ministry.

Asadullah Khaled, a veteran security official who announced his own politi-cal movement earlier this year, has been entrusted with the ministry of defense.

The nomination of Saleh and Khaled to two key security posts – interior affairs and defense – comes at a time when the Taliban movement has gained momen-tum across the country and the security situation has deteriorated alarmingly.

The timing is particularly interesting as the insurgent group has been engaged in ‘peace negotiations’ with U.S. over the past few months, reportedly facilitated by Pakistan.

Both men are vocal critics of Pakistan and openly accuse Islamabad of providing sanctuary to terror groups like Haqqani Network that targets Afghans.

Saleh, in particular, has often slammed Pakistan for being the ‘state sponsor of terror-ism’ and opposed any move to extend hand of friendship towards Islamabad. Saleh had earned tremendous fame as the head of Af-ghanistan’s spy agency before calling it quits.

In a tweet just two days ago, he said the real threat was not ISIS-K, but ISI (Pakistan’s spy agency). “Watch the ISIS and ISIS-K will vanish by itself… At least 30 million plus Afghans know who the enemy is,” he wrote.

In another tweet, sub-tweeting Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s statement that Pakistan had helped in the dialogue between Taliban and the U.S. in Abu Dhabi, Saleh said the Pakistan army and the ISI had “ordered its proxy terrorists to agree to dialogue in order for Pakistan to secure a loan from the IMF.” 6

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Iran not to let U.S. carriers come close to its waters

Experience contradicts Western media image of Iran

Former Iran and Persepolis coach Stanko Poklepovic dies 15

Iranian film posters on display in Prague 16

Turkish-backed rebels reinforce front around Manbij as U.S. prepares to pull outTurkish-backed Syrian rebels have rein-forced the area around the town of Man-bij, a rebel spokesman said on Monday, as they prepare for a withdrawal of U.S. troops following Washington’s surprise decision to pull out of Syria.

The heightened military activity comes

as Ankara and Washington have agreed to coordinate on the U.S. withdrawal. U.S. President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision has upended American policy in the region and set Turkey up for a broad push against Syrian Kurdish YPG forces across its border. 1 3

Iran’s saffron farming system wins FAO world heritage status

TEHRAN — A tradi-tional saffron cultiva-

tion system in Iran has won recognition from FAO as Globally Important Agricul-tural Heritage Systems (GIAHS).

Titled “Saffron Farming System based on Qanat irrigation in Gonabad, Iran”, the credit reflects a unique way to produce nutritious foods and/or spices using traditional knowledge and skills while improving local people’s livelihoods and preserving

biodiversity, FAO website reported on December 21.

The Iranian entrée, along with coun-terparts in Spain and Morocco, was designated by the GIAHS Scientific Advisory Group based on selection criteria including global importance, values in terms of supporting food and livelihood security, agro-biodiversity, knowledge systems, adapted technol-ogies, cultures, and outstanding land-scapes. 1 0

India to officially start operating Shahid Beheshti Port in Chabahar

TEHRAN – Open-ing an office in Iran

on Monday, India Ports Global Limited (IPGL) has officially taken over the opera-tions at phase 1 of Shahid Beheshti Port in Iran’s southeastern port city of Chabahar, IRNA reported quoting director of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) for ports and economic affairs.

According to Mohammad-Ali Hassanza-deh, under the contract between PMO and

India Ports Global Limited (IPGL), India would operate phase 1 of Shahid Beheshti Port for a term of one and a half year.

“The short-term lease then will be ex-tended to a 10-year lease if the two sides agree to do so”, the official said.

Hassanzadeh further noted that the short-term lease would see IPGL to conduct operations like loading and unloading, equipment supply and marketing at the mentioned port. 4

16 Pages Price 20,000 Rials 1.00 EURO 4.00 AED 39th year No.13287 Tuesday DECEMBER 25, 2018 Dey 4, 1397 Rabi’ Al thani 17, 1440

TEHRAN — Peter Jenkins, former UK Ambas-sador to the IAEA and UN says that “UNSC 2231 “calls upon” Iran to refrain from developing a certain category of missiles. “Call upon” is not a legally-binding formulation.”

Former associate fellow of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy also adds that “So the United States has no right to claim that Iran is “violating” 2231 (as it is itself) or “in non-compliance” with 2231, or “failing to comply” with 2231.”

He adds that “There is no agreed international norm that outlaws the acquisition or possession of missiles, whether short-range, medium-range, intermediate-range or intercontinental.”

Following is the full text of the interview: Western countries claim that Iran’s

missile-related activities is threat for inter-national system. Is there any kind of agreed international norm that can be used to assess whether or not a weapon system is justified as a defensive tool?

A: There is no agreed international norm that outlaws the acquisition or possession of missiles, whether short-range, medium-range,

intermediate-range or intercontinental. A list of missile-possessing states on the site of the Arms Control Association suggests that more than 30 states possess one or more of these categories of missile. A 2004 UN Security Council resolution creates certain legally binding obligation for all states in relation to the “means of delivery” (i.e. missiles) of certain weapons, but these obliga-tions do not include to refrain from acquiring, manufacturing or possessing.

Around Iran is full of threat from U.S. bases in region and Saudi Arabia missile and Israel chemical and nuclear. In this area, is it logical Iran ignore its missile program? 1 3

A high-ranking member of the Yemeni Houthi Ansarullah movement has accused the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of attempts to scupper agree-ments recently reached between warring sides during the latest round of UN-sponsored peace negotiations in Sweden.

Addressing representatives of various Yemeni political parties in the capital Sana’a on Sunday evening, Secretary-General of Ansarullah politi-cal bureau, Fadhel Abutaleb said the Abu Dhabi regime is trying to torpedo the accords by means of its mercenaries, mainly Tareq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh – a Yemeni military commander and the nephew of the late Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

He described the agreements reached during peace talks as a victory for the Yemeni people, stressing that the triumph was scored through the steadfastness of people from all walks of so-ciety over the countries involved in the ongoing military aggression on Yemen.

Abutaleb also called on mercenaries fight-ing on the side of Saudi Arabia and its allies to withdraw from the strategic Red Sea port city of Hudaydah.

The top Ansarullah official then praised UN Security Council Resolution 2451 on Yemen as more effective and helpful compared to previ-ous one.

He urged Yemeni political parties, factions

and organizations to form an advisory commit-tee and support the national delegation and the political leadership with their visions.

Delegates from Ansarullah movement and representatives loyal to former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi sat down for a round of peace negotiations in Rimbo, Sweden, earlier this month. The talks resulted in the announce-ment of a break-through agreement.

The document includes three provisions: a ceasefire along the Hudaydah front and the re-deployment of armed forces out of the city and its port; an agreement on prisoner exchange; and a statement of understanding on the southern Yemeni city of Ta’izz. 1 3

U.S. has no right to claim that Iran is “violating” 2231: Jenkins

‘UAE trying to nix agreements reached in Yemen talks’

See page 2

Zarif, Qureshi discuss Afghan security

DECEMBER 25, 2018

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

P O L I T I C S

P O L I T I C Sd e s k






MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS Iran says not to let U.S. carriers come close to territorial waters

TEHRAN — Briga-dier General Ramazan

Sharif, the spokesman for the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), said on Monday that security situation had improved in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman over the past ten months since the U.S. aircraft carrier Stennis had left the Persian Gulf.

“We witnessed a boost in security of the strategic region of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman during the past 10 months when the U.S. carrier was not in this region,” he stated.

He also said the military exercises held in the Persian Gulf on Saturday were different because they occurred at the time that Stennis entered the Persian Gulf again.

Sharif said in the maneuver different tactics were performed in water and land

in proportionate to supposed threats by the enemy.

According to the IRGC, the war games displayed the defensive and for the first time “offensive” power of Iran.

The drills were last stage of the 12th Payambar-e Azam military exercises the first stage of which had started on December 15 in the central parts of Iran with participation of rapid reaction units, airborne units, demolition and combat

units, mid-range missiles, commandos and special forces.

The drills took place on Qeshm Island and surrounding waters, just off the coast of southern Hormozgan province and in the Strait of Hormuz, where roughly one-third of the world’s oil passes through.

Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the IRGC Ground Force, told reporters on Qeshm Island that Iran’s doctrine at operational level is “offensive”.

In the military exercise, the IRGC divers boarded off the vessels near the coast of the mock enemy and dived to the coast and then started attacks and capturing the coast.

The Fars news agency said the op-eration was designed to capture the “main parts of the hostile country’s land and controlling its ports, docks and economic installations.”

TEHRAN — Paki-stani Foreign Minister

Shah Mehmood Qureshi met on Monday with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif to discuss a range of bilateral, regional and international issues.

The two ministers underlined the importance of stability, security and productive cooperation in the region, particularly among Afghans under the current circumstances, IRNA reported.

Qureshi said Pakistan desires to further

promote its political and economic ties with Iran. He said improving relations with all neighbors is the cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy.

Zarif agreed with Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s views, saying Iran is also committed to improve its relations and bilateral cooperation with Pakistan.

The Pakistani minister is on a four-na-tion tour, including Afghanistan, Iran, Chi-na and Russia as part of his government’s policy of outreach in the neighborhood. Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua and

senior Foreign Ministry officials were accompanying Qureshi.

“I will visit these four countries... as contacting the leadership of these countries is the part of agenda for the restoration of peace in the region,” the minister said ahead of his tour.

He also said that restoration of peace in Afghanistan would bring stability in the region. “We are in favor of the restoration of peace in Afghanistan as eradication of terrorism in that country will bring peace in Pakistan as well.”

TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the presence

of U.S. forces in Syria has been ineffective, stressing that the American troops never entered real and meaningful battle against the Daesh terrorist group.

“The U.S. has not fought against the Daesh at all and its presence in Syria was not in line with the interests of the Syrian nation or agreed by the (country’s) government,” Zarif said in an interview with the Arabic-language al-Mayadeen news channel on Monday.

Asked to comment on Washington’s decision to withdraw its forces from Syria, he said, “We do not have sufficient in-formation on U.S. plans in Syria to adopt a clear-cut stance.”

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said the

U.S. forces would be pulled out from Syria since the Daesh terror group had been defeated there.

In Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the presence of the U.S. forces in Syria did not help the political and diplomatic settlement of the crisis in the Middle Eastern country.

“The presence of the U.S. forces on the Syrian soil does not help reach the political and diplomatic settle-ment. Of course, the involvement of Washington in the relevant talks under the UN bumbershoot, the harmoni-ous work of the U.S. officials with (UN Envoy for Syria Staffan) de Mistura in the interests of this settlement would contribute to reaching this final goal,” Peskov told Russia’s Channel One.

‘Iran will not wait for EU to honor JCPOA commitments’Elsewhere in his interview, Zarif said Tehran has many

options available after the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, and since the European Union has been slow in offering reparatory measures, Iran will not wait for the bloc unless they adopt actions in practice.

Trump withdrew the U.S. unilaterally from the nuclear deal in May and ordered sanctions against Iran. The first round of sanctions went into force on August 6 and the second round, which targets Iran’s oil exports and banks, were snapped back on November 4.

The European Union has offered an initiative named the special purpose vehicle (SPV) which is intended to protect trade with Iran against U.S. sanctions. The EU has promised that it will go into force in January 2019.

TEHRAN — Vice President Es’haq Ja-

hangiri said on Monday that the gov-ernment prioritizes planning to restore economic stability.

“Under the current situation, the gov-ernment prioritizes planning to reduce pressure that comes from sanctions and restore economic stability to the country,”

he said during a meeting of the Supreme Council of Employment.

He added, “After re-imposition of sanctions by the U.S., certain sectors of the country’s economy were put under pressure which caused fluctuations in inflation, foreign currency rate, economic and investment growth. In this situation, the government prioritizes planning to

reduce pressure of sanctions and stabiliz-ing fluctuations in a short period of time.”

He noted that the government and related bodies are duty bound to create job opportunities for the youths.

“The youths are the main capital of the country who should play role in the country’s economy and create wealth for the country,” the vice president remarked.

In violation of the UN Security Coun-cil Resolution 2231, President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. unilaterally from the nuclear deal in May and ordered sanctions against Iran. The first round of sanctions went into force on August 6 and the second round, which targets Iran’s oil exports and banks, were snapped back on November 4.

IRGC says regional security had improved in absence of U.S. in Persian Gulf

Zarif, Qureshi discuss Afghan security

Iranian FM: U.S. never fought Daesh

Restoring economic stability is a priority: Jahangiri

TEHRAN — Habibol-lah Sayyari, the deputy

army chief for coordination affairs, said on Monday that Iran will not let U.S. aircraft carriers come close to its territorial waters.

The remarks by the admiral came as a U.S. aircraft carrier, Stennis, sailed into the Persian Gulf on Friday.

On the sidelines of a ceremony, Sayyari downplayed the presence of the carrier in the Persian Gulf, saying “They cannot take any action against us, because we are fully prepared to counter them.”

Pointing to Iran’s advances in defense area, he said good advances have been reached by a proper use of financial re-sources.

On Saturday, the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) held military drills in the Persian Gulf, displaying the defensive and offensive power of Iran.

For the first time, anti-helicopter mines (AHM) were tested in the drills.

The anti-armored units of the IRGC Ground Force exercised operations to regain the regions occupied by the mock enemy.

According to the Fars news agency, the BMP personnel carriers were unloaded from a landing craft and entered the coastal areas to evacuate the commandos to free the occupied territories.

The T72 tanks of the IRGC Ground Force also advanced towards the freed areas by leaving their positions in coastal areas and conducting operations.

Reportedly, IRGC vessels followed the carrier and its accompanying warships when it entered the Persian Gulf, at one point launching rockets nearby.

According to the Associated Press, an Iranian ship could also be seen with pho-tographers and journalists observing the aircraft carrier.

“The Iranian craft drove in front of our ship and stopped and tried to capture their own sort of picture of what was going on,” said Navy Captain Randy Peck, command-ing officer of Stennis, told the AP.


Rouhani condoles with Indonesia over fatal Tsunami

TEHRAN — President Hassan Rouhani on Monday expressed his condolences to

Indonesia over a fatal tsunami that has so far claimed more than 280 lives, Tasnim reported.

In a letter to his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo, Rouhani said the saddening news of tsunami in Sunda Strait, which claimed the lives of hundreds of Indonesian citizens and injured hundreds more, caused great grief and deep sorrow.

“I hereby offer the sincerest condolences of the people and government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Your Excellency and the Indonesian government and nation, and I pray for the dead and wish patience for their bereaved families,” he added.


Saudi compensates Iranian victims for crane crash incident

TEHRAN — Saudi Arabia has paid compensation to families of the Iranian

nationals killed in the collapse of a crane in the holy city of Mecca in 2015, director of Iran’s Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization announced on Monday.

The Saudi officials have announced that they have paid compensation for the death of the Iranian pilgrims in the crane crash through the kingdom’s office at the United Na-tions, Alireza Rashidian said, Tasnim reported.

Rashidian added that the Hajj and Pilgrimage Organi-zation has taken measures to make sure that families of the victims will receive their checks.

Ayatollah Shahroudi in dire medical condition

TEHRAN — Chairman of the Expediency Council Ayatollah Hashemi Shahroudi is in

a dire medical condition, Khatamolanbia Hospital announced on Monday, dismissing rumors of Shahroudi’s demise.

The health condition of Ayatollah Shahroudi has turned worse since Sunday, and he is currently in the intensive care unit (ICU) for a digestive system problem, hospital’s chief Hadi Kazemi said, Mehr reported.

Ayatollah Sharoudi had not attended the Expediency Council’s sessions since mid-summer due to health problems. The senior cleric was appointed as head of the council in 2017, replacing the late Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.


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Tehran Times, Xinhua sign co-op

agreement TEHRAN — The Tehran Times and

China’s Xinhua news agency signed a cooperation agreement on Monday.

The agreement was inked by Tehran Times editor-in-chief Mohammad Ghaderi and Xinhua’s Tehran bureau chief Mu Dong.

Under the agreement, the two sides will exchange news, photos, media delegations, and undertake further measures to strengthen bonds.

Reaffirming their commitment to strengthening cooperation in the sphere of information exchange, the two sides stressed to work together in line with the interests of both parties.

DECEMBER 25, 2018 INTERNATIONALI N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

Top U.S. commander in Afghanistan says no orders to pull out

Ousted Pakistan PM Sharif jailed for seven years for graft

Israel to hold early elections in April

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has agreed to hold early elections on April 9 after a meeting between members of his governing coalition.

Monday’s move comes after the ruling coalition appeared to come up short on votes needed to pass a contentious piece of court-ordered legislation.

Coalition party heads in Netanyahu’s government have decided to dissolve parliament and hold elections in early April “in the name of budgetary and national responsibility,” the statement distributed by a spokesman for Netanyahu’s Likud party said.

A new law extending the military draft to ultra-Orthodox men appears to have triggered the government’s downfall.

Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox partners are demanding the legislation be weakened and his small parliamentary majority seems to be making such a compromise impossible.

Netanyahu, now in his fourth term as prime minister, has been governing with a razor-thin majority of 61 seats in the 120-member parliament. He heads the right-wing Likud party.

Under Israeli law, a national election had to be held by No-vember 2019.

Netanyahu’s coalition was left with a one-seat majority in parliament following Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s resignation in November over a controversial Gaza ceasefire deal.

His resignation removed the five seats held by his party, Yisrael Beytenu, from the coalition.

Netanyahu is also facing mounting pressure over a series of corruption investigations into his affairs.

Police have recommended his indictment in three different probes and the attorney general is considering how to proceed.

Netanyahu is, however, not required to step down if indicted and polls have indicated his Likud party would remain the largest in parliament after new elections.

Some analysts believe he would be better positioned to face potential charges with a fresh electoral mandate.

(Source: Al Jazeera)

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan has not received orders to pull forces out of the war-torn country, NATO confirmed Monday, days after President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw 7,000 troops leaked to the media.

General Scott Miller’s remarks on Sunday capped a tumultuous few days for Afghani-stan as foreign diplomats and Afghan officials digested the possibility of the United States exiting the 17-year war it started and is now leading efforts to end.

An American official told AFP late last week that Trump had decided to pull out “roughly half” of the 14,000 U.S. forces in the country, but the White House has so far not confirmed the widely-publicized move.

“I have no orders, so nothing has changed,” said Miller, who is also the top NATO com-mander in Afghanistan, during a meeting with the governor of the eastern province of Nangarhar, according to Tolo News.

The remarks were confirmed by NATO’s Resolute Support mission in Kabul.

“But if I do get orders, I think it is impor-tant for you to know that we are still with the security forces. Even if I have to get a little bit smaller, we will be okay,” Miller continued.

U.S. troops make up the bulk of the Res-olute Support mission to train and advise local forces fighting the Taliban and the ISIL terrorist group.

Others are part of a U.S.-led counter-ter-rorism mission.

While there has been no official announce-ment of a U.S. drawdown, the mere suggestion of the United States reducing its military presence has rattled the Afghan capital.

Trump’s decision apparently came Tuesday as U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met

with the Taliban in Abu Dhabi, part of efforts to bring the militants to the negotiating table with Kabul.

The Taliban has not issued a formal statement on Trump’s plan, but a senior commander told AFP the group was “more than happy”.

There are fears the hasty move could undermine Khalilzad’s negotiating posi-tion, embolden the Taliban, and further erode morale among Afghan forces, which are suffering record losses.

Many Afghans are worried that President Ashraf Ghani’s fragile unity government would collapse if U.S. troops pulled out, enabling the Taliban to return to power and potentially sparking another bloody civil war.

A day after Miller’s remarks, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi arrived in Kabul for the start of a four-nation tour to discuss, among other things, peace efforts in Afghanistan.

Qureshi, who had hailed Trump’s decision to slash troop numbers in Afghanistan as “a step forward” in the peace effort, will also visit Iran, China and Russia.

(Source: AFP)

A Pakistan court on Monday jailed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for seven years on graft charges that he says were politically motivated.

The anti-corruption court said in its ruling that the three-time prime minister was unable to prove the source of income that led to his ownership of a steel mill in Saudi Arabia.

Sharif was sentenced in July to 10 years in prison by the same court, on charges related to the purchase of upscale apartments in London, after the Supreme Court removed him from power. He was released in September pending an appeal.

Sharif’s supporters said he would appeal.“Appeal is our right, we will protest but will remain

peaceful,” former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who succeeded Sharif last year, told reporters outside the courthouse in Islamabad.

Sharif was ousted and disqualified from holding office by the Supreme Court in July 2017 and jailed earlier this year in absentia. He was arrested on July 13 upon returning from London.

The court ruled on two charges related to Sharif’s assets:

the ownership of the Al-Azizia Steel Mills in Saudi Arabia set up by Sharif’s father in 2001, and Flagship Investments, a company established by his son, Hasan Nawaz, and owns

luxury properties in Britain.Sharif was found guilty on the first charge seeking details

on how his family came to control the steel mill. He was acquitted on the second charge.

Sharif denied the charges which he said were politically motivated. He accused the military and courts of working together to end his political career and destabilize his Pa-kistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party.

Sharif was once a favorite of Pakistan’s powerful generals but had a falling out and clashed with the military.

The military has denied exerting any influence over the court proceedings.

Daniyal Aziz, a former lawmaker from Sharif’s party, de-scribed the verdict as “the weaponization of anti-corruption”.

“With each passing day an expression of a double standard is coming forward from the NAB,” Aziz said, referring to the watchdog National Accountability Bureau that charged Sharif.

Ahead of the verdict, hundreds of Sharif supporters clashed outside the courthouse with police who fired teargas against stone throwing protesters.

(Source: Reuters)

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DECEMBER 25, 20184 E C O N O M Y

3 Iranian plans nominated for WSIS-2019 prize

RBS seeks German banking license as Brexit deadline nears

$34m worth of guarantees issued for small industries

UK finance watchdog makes less from fines after a bumper year

TEHRAN — Accord-ing to the newest data

released by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), Iran’s debts to foreign lenders in the end of the seventh Iranian month of Mehr (October 22) stood at $10.093 billion, showing 10.7 percent decrease in comparison with the announced figure in the first Iranian calendar month of Farvardin (March 21- April 20, 2018), IRIB reported on Monday.

In Mehr, from the total of $10.093 billion of foreign debt, $6.895 billion was mid-term and long-term debts and $3.198 billion was short-term debts, the report confirmed.

According to the same report, Iran’s external debt in the sixth calendar month of Shahrivar stood at $10.317 billion which fell to $10.093 billion in Mehr, while it was $11.305 billion in Farvardin. The figures are showing the decreasing trend of the country’s debts to the foreign lenders.

External debt is the portion of a country’s debt that was borrowed from foreign lenders including commercial banks, governments or international financial institutions. These loans, including interest, must usually be paid in the currency in which the loan was made.

Foreign debt as percentage of Gross Do-mestic Product (GDP) is the ratio between the debt a country owes to non-resident creditors and its nominal GDP.

As IRIB reported, Iran’s GDP was $431.92 billion in 2017, thus the ratio between the debt and GDP is around 2.5 percent, which is not big.

The Civil Aviation Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran (CAO.IRI) has dismissed some media reports that Germany is planning to ban flights in and out of the country by Iran’s Mahan Air in January.

“We have not received any documented proof in this regard and we do not confirm such reports,” Reza Jafarzadeh, a CAO spokesman, told ISNA on Sunday.

He added that no German government’s official body had sent any report to Iran about imposing sanctions on the private Iranian airline, Mahan Air, while no German authority had made any comment in this regard either.

German newspaper Bild on Friday reported that the country’s government had taken the decision to stop Mahan Air from operating its flights to the cities of Dusseldorf and Munich

after intensive deliberations on U.S. demands.Mahan Air is under U.S. sanctions over

allegations that it ferries troops and supplies into Syria.

Back in May, the United States imposed new sanctions against nine Iranian and Turkish individuals and companies as well as a number of entities providing goods and services to four Iranian airlines.

The sanctions announced by the U.S. Treasury Department, targeted the entities cooperating with Iran’s Mahan Air, Caspian Air, Meraj Air, and Pouya Air.

The Treasury Department claimed in a statement that the banned entities extended a lifeline to the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

(Source: Press TV)

TEHRAN – Three plans from Iran has

been nominated for the World Sum-mit on the Information Society (WSIS) 2019 prizes, IRIB reported on Monday.

As reported, the three plans car-ried out by the ministry of economic affairs and finance, namely receiving complaints, responding, tracking and handling complaints from business li-cense applicants (DADVAR), the system of issuing business licenses (SAM), and national plan for inquiries and infor-mation on business licenses (NAMA)

were presented to compete among the contest’s 18 categories.

The World Summit on the Infor-mation Society is United Nations-sponsored summit on information, communication and the information society, which has been taking place since 2003.

The WSIS Prizes is the unique global platform to identify and showcase suc-cess stories in the implementation of the WSIS Action Lines outlined in the Geneva Plan of Action and UN Sustain-able Development Goals.

Royal Bank of Scotland has applied for a German banking license to ensure it maintains access to European markets after Brexit, as uncertainty over the terms of the UK’s exit creates additional burdens even for domestically-focused financial firms.

The company confirmed plans to replace its existing Frankfurt branch with a newly licensed unit that will act as a regional “payments hub” that will be able to keep using infrastructure maintained by the Bundesbank.

It is in the process of recruiting about a dozen new staff members, including treasury and local regulation specialists, to deal with the Frankfurt base’s expanded role. The unit will be responsible for processing and settling euro-denominated payments, managing euro liquidity, and offering loans to and attracting deposits from large German clients, according to job advertisements for the positions.

RBS spent most of the past decade transforming from what was briefly the world’s largest bank by assets to a much smaller lender focused on the UK and Ireland. However it still has a number of investment banking clients in western Europe and processes large volumes of euro payments for corporate customers and its own treasury management purposes.

The bank already has one banking license in continental Europe due to its ill-fated acquisition of ABN Amro before the financial crisis. This month it began the legal process to transfer almost a third of customers at its NatWest Markets investment bank to the Amsterdam-based subsidiary.

However, the additional Frankfurt license will sit inside its legally-separated ringfenced bank.

Rival Lloyds Banking Group has faced

similar complications due to the ringfencing legislation, which was designed to insulate banks’ core retail operations from riskier units. Lloyds plans to set up three separately licensed European subsidiaries — in Berlin, Frankfurt and Luxembourg — to Brexit-proof the different parts of its business.

Frankfurt has been one of the most popular locations for financial firms looking to relocate or expand operations after Brexit, due to the proximity to regulators including the European Central Bank, Bundesbank and BaFin. An estimated €800bn of assets are expected to be moved to the city as a result.

EU rules currently allow financial firms to operate throughout the bloc using their domestic licenses. The UK is pushing for a new regime that would consider the UK and EU’s regulatory regimes to be “ equivalent” after Brexit, but a person involved in the process said RBS would move to the new set-up regardless of the outcome of negotiations.

The importance of maintaining market access for many firms has been amplified in recent weeks as the threat of the UK leaving without a deal has risen, a situation that would see some 5,500 UK-headquartered groups immediately lose their so-called “passporting” rights on March 29.

(Source: Financial Times)

TEHRAN — Iran’s Small Industries In-

vestment Guarantee Fund announced that guarantees worth 1.426 trillion ri-als (about $33.9 million) have been is-sued for the small industries during the first nine months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-December 21), IRNA reported on Monday.

Some 4,600 small and medium-sized units are under construction in the in-dustrial estates of the country, Sadeq Najafi, the previous managing director of Iran Small Industries and Industrial

Parks Organization (ISIPO), announced in August.

The official further said that when these units start operation 74,000 new jobs will be created in the industrial estates.

The total value of fines handed out by the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority fell by almost 75 percent in 2018, after a bumper year in which it had secured penalties against the likes of Deutsche Bank AG, Merrill Lynch International and Rio Tinto Plc.

The regulator handed out 60.5 million pounds ($76.6 million) in fines in 2018, more than half of which were accounted for by a single 32.8 million-pound penalty issued to Banco Santander SA’s U.K. unit on Dec. 19.

That’s down from 230 million pounds in 2017 -- a 74 percent drop. That year saw “a handful of absolutely huge fines,” said Jonathan Cary, a commercial disputes lawyer at RPC in London.

This year’s largest fines, aside from Santander, were a 16.4 million-pound penalty for Tesco Plc’s banking arm for failures that allowed cyber attackers to steal funds, and a 5.2 million pound fine for Liberty Mutual Insurance Europe SE for failures in its oversight of mobile phone insurance claims and complaints handling.

The watchdog fined Barclays Plc Chief Executive Officer Jes Staley 321,000 pounds in April, an amount that pales in comparison to some previous regulatory fines, while allowing him to hold onto his job. The move, which came after an investigation into his two attempts to identify a whistle-blower within Barclays, was seen as an early indication that the Financial Conduct Authority may tread cautiously when enforcing new rules for top executives. In July, it said it won’t fine former Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc

senior executives after an investigation into its small-business lending unit found it put its own profit over clients’ interests.

Last year included a 34.5 million-pound penalty for Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch for failing to report two years’ worth of exchange-traded derivatives transactions, a 27.4 million-pound fine for Rio Tinto over rule breaches and a 163 million-pound fine for anti-money laundering control failings at Deutsche Bank.

The watchdog hasn’t changed its approach and is “committed to investigating and holding firms and individuals to account for misconduct and ensuring wrongdoers pay for the costs of remediation,” a spokeswoman said. It’s opened significantly more investigations this year than last, she said.

“It would be wrong simply to say the value of fines has fallen, therefore the FCA isn’t being sufficiently active or rigorous,” Cary said. The previous year “could be seen as an aberrational high.”

To be sure, the 2018 figures only cover the period to Dec. 21, leaving room for the watchdog to increase the year’s figure if it hands out new penalties in the final days of the year.

(Source: Bloomberg)

European shares tumbled on Monday when a profit warn-ing from online fashion retailer ASOS sent retail stocks into nose-dive as investors fretted that consumers were failing to deliver the traditional pre-Christmas spending boost to markets.

Euro zone stocks .STOXXE were down 1 percent while Germany’s DAX .GDAXI fell 0.8 percent and Britain’s FTSE 100 .FTSE lost 0.9 percent.

ASOS shares plunged 37.5 percent after the British re-tailer - a favorite of investors keen to back internet-focused retail - cut its forecasts, saying November was “significantly behind expectations”.

It was the latest in a string of profit warnings and nega-tive outlooks from retailers including Sports Direct, Dixons Carphone and Bonmarche highlighting poor performance in the pre-Christmas trading period.

Europe’s retail sector .SXRP fell 2.6 percent and closed to its lowest level since July 2016.

Shares in Zalando, a German rival of ASOS and Europe’s biggest online retailer, dropped 11.6 percent, the biggest STOXX 600 fallers.

ASOS peer Boohoo fell 13.7 percent after it reported record Black Friday sales.

Swedish retailer H&M fell 8.5 percent despite reporting in-line sales figures, as the ASOS stress spread. Next and Marks & Spencer fell both 4.6 percent.

Outside retail, M&A drove some big moves with Ingenico tumbling 7.4 percent after it said it had dropped talks over a possible deal.

Sopra Steria and Worldline fell 11.4 percent and 6.8 per-

cent respectively after Morgan Stanley lowered its rating on the stocks.

Swedish electrical components maker Dometic fell 5.3 percent after Kepler Cheuvreux cut their rating on the stock to a “hold” from a “buy”.

Leading euro zone stocks and Britain’s FTSE 100 were all set for their worst quarter since 2011, when the region was in the throes of the sovereign debt crisis.

Investors smarting from a tough year also had a week of central bank events looming with meetings of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of England likely to move markets.

Despite this, Mark Haefele, chief investment officer for Global Wealth Management at UBS, said: “On balance, we are not yet convinced that the profitable thing to do is to position for further policy errors or poor sentiment upend-ing the economy.”

He concurs with the Fed’s assessment that the risk of a recession in the next 12 months is only around 20 percent, and sees global equities as “reasonably valued”. Valuations across global stocks have fallen as a result of recent market turbulence. (Source: Reuters)

COMMODITIES

CURRENCIES

STOCK MARKET

USD 42,000 rialsEUR 47,905 rials

GBP 53,086 rials

AED 11,380 rials

TEDPIX 157484.0IFX 1826.67

WTI $44.62/b

Brent $53.38/b

OPEC Basket $53.92/b

Gold $1,266.65/oz

Silver $14.77/oz

Platinium $791.75/oz

Sources: tse.ir, Ifb.ir

Source: iribnews.ir

Sources: oilprice.com, Moneymetals.com




External debt down 10.7%

India to officially start operating Shahid Beheshti Port in Chabahar

1 The IPGL office is opened concurrent with the first meeting of Chabahar Agreement Committee’s parties to monitor the implementation of the trilateral agreement.

Delegations from India, Afghanistan and Iran visited various parts of Shahid Beheshti Port to assess the infrastructure and investment opportunities as well as commercial and transit facilities of Chabahar Port.

Iran denies report of Germany’s ban on Mahan Air in 2019

Experts say a global bear market is just getting startedVolatility on Wall Street has led shares across the globe on a wild ride in recent months, resulting in a number of stock markets dipping into bear territory. That’s set to worsen in the new year, experts told CNBC on Monday.

Bear markets — typically defined as 20 percent or more off a recent peak — are threatening investors worldwide. In the U.S., the Nasdaq Composite closed in a bear market on Friday and the S&P 500 was on the brink of one itself after declining nearly 18 percent from its record earlier this year. Globally, Germany’s DAX and China’s Shanghai Composite have also entered bear market levels.

Major market risks remain, experts said. The Federal Re-serve is likely to continue raising interest rates and worries about a global economic slowdown — made worse by a trade war between the U.S. and China — are mounting.

“I would love to be more optimistic but i just don’t see too many positives out there. I think the worst is yet to come next year, we’re still in the first half of a global equity bear market with more to come next year,” Mark Jolley, global strategist at CCB International Securities, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Fed to tighten furtherFor Jolley, the big risk lies in the credit markets. With

the Fed projecting another two interest rate hikes in 2019, companies will find it increasingly difficult to service their debt causing some to default or get downgraded, he said.

Such weakness in the credit markets will spill over to stocks, noted Jolley.

“My core scenario will be a credit event, which will further weigh on equity markets, which will definitely weigh on high growth sectors like tech,” he said.

More generally, investors have fewer reasons to be optimistic now because the Fed tightening monetary policy means there will be less money for investments, said Vishnu Varathan, head of economics and strategy at Mizuho Bank.

“There is really no conviction for markets to buy back because they’re not sure this is the bottom, and so they are thinking this is the proverbial falling knives,” Varathan told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

U.S.-China trade disputeFurther tariff escalations between the world’s two largest

economies are on hold until early-March next year, but what will happen after that is anyone’s guess, noted Vasu Menon, OCBC Bank’s vice president of wealth management.

Trade tensions between the U.S. and China have often been cited as a major risk to global economic growth. The International Monetary Fund, for example, downgraded its growth forecasts because it saw trade tensions between the U.S. and its major partners starting to dampen economic activity.

Uncertainties on the trade front will weigh on markets in the coming months until more clarity on where the fight is headed emerges toward the end of the 90-day tariff ceasefire, Menon told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“Valuations are looking attractive, but you’ve got to have a strong risk appetite because I think markets are going to be very choppy,” he said.

(Source: CNBC)

Retail stress roils European stocks, no Christmas boost in sight

5I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

E N E R G Y

Oil prices edged up on Monday after evidence that a recent fall to 15-month lows may be affecting output in the United States, the world’s largest producer, although concern about the outlook for demand tempered gains.

Brent crude futures were up 12 cents at $53.94 a barrel by 0858 GMT, while U.S. crude futures lost 3 cents to $45.56.

Brent fell 11 percent last week and hit its lowest since September 2017, while U.S. futures slid to their lowest since July 2017, bringing the decline in the two contracts to 35 percent so far this quarter.

The price drop has caused U.S. shale oil producers to curtail drilling plans for next year.

The boom in shale output has made the United States the world’s largest oil producer, overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Physical prices for Brent have also fallen in the last six weeks, driven by a drop in demand from Chinese refiners in particular, which has weighed on the value of barrels of anything from North Sea to Nigerian crude.

“The recent weakness in the physical Brent structure can be attributed to a broader easing of purchases by Asian

refiners at this point, with lower end-Q1 intake weighing on spot assessments, and

we can expect this pressure to carry through over the coming weeks,” consultancy JBC

Energy said in a report.Still, the macroeconomic picture and its

impact on oil demand continue to pressure prices. Global equities have fallen nearly 9.5 percent so far in December, their biggest one-month slide since September 2011, when the euro zone debt crisis was unfolding.

The trade dispute between the United States and China and the prospect of a rapid rise in U.S. interest rates have brought global stocks down from this year’s record highs and ignited concern that oil demand will be insufficient to soak up any excess supply.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia agreed this month to cut oil production by 1.2 million barrels per day from January.

Should that fail to balance the market, OPEC and its allies will hold an extraordinary meeting, United Arab Emirates Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei said on Sunday.

“Oil ministers are already taking to the airwaves with a ‘price stability at all cost’ mantra,” said Stephen Innes, head of trading for Asia-Pacific at futures brokerage Oanda in Singapore.

(Source: Reuters)

All industrial revolutions need two things: technology and finance. The U.S. shale revolution was made possible by the advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing that allowed oil and gas to be released from previoU.S.ly unyielding rocks. But the industry’s financing was equally important in turning those innovations into a production boom that has shaken the world.

The financial model that has dominated the industry has been a highly competitive group of exploration and production companies using debt raised from bond markets and bank loans secured on oil and gas reserves. Often they Use derivatives to hedge some or all of their revenues, giving lenders confidence in their ability to make interest payments if oil and gas prices fall.

For most of the shale boom, that financial infrastructure has been underpinned by the low interest rates and quantitative easing that followed the financial crisis. The surge in U.S. oil production has been a result of monetary

stimulus, just as much as the tech start-up boom and the rise in the S&P 500 have been.

As its output has grown, the U.S. E&P industry has been unable to finance its drilling programs from its operating cash flows, and a constant inflow of capital has been essential for keeping it afloat. With stock markets and oil prices falling, and while the Federal Reserve is still signaling its intention to keep raising interest rates, the financial conditions that have protected the shale industry like a warm blanket may next year start to wear thin.

One issue that has been highlighted by Philip Verleger, an energy economist, is the outlook for the hedging used by E&P companies to pro-tect their revenues and reassure their lenders. Strategies vary, but the standard practice is for companies to put a floor under the effective price of some or all of their production by buying put options.

Verleger argues that those options have been an important factor in the collapse of oil prices to

a 15-month low since October. The investment banks and others that sold those put options have to hedge their own positions, typically by selling oil in the futures market. The more likely it is that the options will be exercised, the more oil the finance companies have to sell, in a prac-tice known as “delta hedging”. That creates a positive feedback loop: as prices fall, financial companies that have sold puts need to sell more oil, which drives the price down further.

The scale of U.S. E&P hedging programs is large enough, Verleger has calculated, to explain much of the fall in crude since October. Once oil started to fall, tipped lower by the Trump administration’s decision to ease off on block-ing exports of Iranian oil, and concerns about global growth, the delta hedging effect kicked in, turning the retreat into a rout.

This dynamic does not go on forever. Even-tually the banks and other traders who sold puts will have fully covered their positions, and the selling pressure eases. Most of the options bought

by the listed E&Ps, as disclosed in their regula-tory filings, had strike prices between $50 and $60 a barrel for U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude, implying that prices are under pressure when they are inside or close to that range. Now WTI is at $45.59 a barrel, it may become more stable.

Goldman Sachs suggested last month that once the delta hedging effect had played out, oil prices could “snap back”.

Verleger raises the possibility that there could be a sustained impact on U.S. E&P companies, however, if they find it has become more difficult to hedge. Reduced hedging means reduced bor-rowing capacity, which means reduced drilling. He suggests U.S. output could drop 5-10 per cent next year if that kicks in. That potential squeeze on hedging would add to the other pressures already accumulating for the U.S. E&P groups as a result of the falling oil price, weak stock markets and rising interest rates.

(Source: Financial Times)

DECEMBER 25, 2018

Brent crude edges up, but concern over demand limits gains

OPEC+ will hold extra meeting if output cuts ‘not enough’: UAE OPEC and allied oil producers are ready to hold an extraordinary meeting and will do what is needed if the current cut in oil output by 1.2 million barrels per day does not balance the market next year, the United Arab Emirates’ energy minister said on Sunday.

Extending the output agreement signed in early December will not be a problem and producers will do as the market demands, Suhail al-Mazrouei told a news conference at a gathering of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries in Kuwait.

“What if the 1.2 million barrels of cuts are not enough? I am telling you that if it is not, we will meet and see what is enough and we will do it,” Mazrouei said.

“The plan (to cut oil produc-tion) is well studied but if it does not work, we always have the power in OPEC to call for an extraordinary meeting,” he added.

“If we are required to extend for (another) six months, we will do it... I can assure you an extension will not be a problem.”

The Organization of the Pe-troleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its Russia-led allies agreed earlier this month to slash oil production by more than the market had expected.

Still, oil prices fell on Friday to their lowest since the third quarter of 2017 as global oversupply kept buyers away from the market ahead of holidays over the next two weeks.

The UAE minister said a joint OPEC and non-OPEC monitoring committee would meet in Baku at the end of February or the beginning of March, as producers aim to return the oil market to the balance reached in the summer of 2018.

Mazrouei was speaking at a joint news conference with the Iraqi and Algerian energy ministers as well as Saudi Arabia’s OPEC governor, Adeeb Al-Aama.

Al-Aama said oil market oversupply had fallen to 37 million barrels of crude in November from 340 million barrels in January 2017, when OPEC and its allies began cutting production in an attempt to lift the price of crude.

Iraqi Oil Minister Thamir Ghadhban said there was an expectation that the oil output cut decision could be renewed, adding that Iraq would be willing to extend the production agreement in April. OPEC is set to hold its next oil output policy decision meeting that month in Vienna.

“We will be watching the prices and how they react over time,” Ghadhban said.

Saudi Arabia is fully committed to the reduction agreement, Al-Aama said, adding that the world’s top oil exporter’s production in January is see at 10.2 million bpd, lower than its output target of 10.3 million bpd under the recent pact.

The kingdom has over committed with previous cuts, reducing more than its share and reaching a compliance of 120 percent from January 2017 until May 2018, Al-Aama said. (Source: Reuters)

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U.S. shale’s financial blanket at risk of wearing thin in 2019

DECEMBER 25, 20186I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

INTERNATIONAL

ساعت: امضاء سردبیر: ساعت: امضاء ادیتور: ساعت: امضاء مسئول صفحه: ساعت: 17:00 امضاء صفحه آرا:

INTERNATIONALd e s k

TEHRAN — The civil and military leadership

in Pakistan have often had conflicting views on important political issues, with latter as-serting its authority and influencing major policy decisions.

But, that might be changing now under the PTI government in Islamabad led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan who has so far managed to take the military leadership along. The affirmation of this came on Saturday when Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa backed Prime Minister Khan’s recent peace overtures, primarily towards India and Afghanistan.

The chief of army staff, who yields consid-erable clout in Islamabad, said the Khan-led government has extended a hand of peace and friendship towards India with utmost sincerity but it should not be taken as Is-lamabad’s weakness.

Prime Minister Khan has taken many initiatives recently to eliminate the trust deficit between New Delhi and Islamabad. The biggest confidence building measure has been Kartarpur corridor project.

At a ceremony to formally start construc-tion work on the project earlier this month, PM Khan said the two countries will make progress only when they free themselves from the chains of the past.

He also extended an invitation to the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi for the up-coming SAARC summit in Pakistan, which was declined by New Delhi, citing Islamabad’s “sponsorship of terrorism”.

Last week, in a humanitarian gesture, Paki-stan released an Indian national who had been detained after crossing the border in search of a woman he had befriended online. India also

reciprocated by releasing a Pakistani national, who had been arrested while crossing into In-dian territory for similar reasons.

These initiatives have rekindled hopes of the revival of peace dialogue between the two warring countries but experts believe it is too early and too little.

Gen. Bajwa, while supporting PM Khan’s recent moves, said Pakistan is a peace-loving country and should not be perceived as weak.

Addressing a military event Karachi on Saturday, the army chief said that Pakistan was “a peace loving country and believes in peace”. He said peace benefits everyone and it is time to fight disease, poverty and illiteracy instead of fighting against each other.

“Our new government has extended a hand

of peace and friendship towards India with utmost sincerity but it should not be taken as our weakness,” he said.

The ties between the two countries have always been marked by hostilities. But after the terror attacks in India in 2016 and India’s surgical strikes inside Pakistan, the relations plummeted. The bilateral dialogue was put on the backburner during the previous gov-ernment in Islamabad.

Batting for peace in the neighboring war-torn Afghanistan, Pakistan’s army chief said Pakistan fully supports Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process.

“Wars bring death, destruction and mis-ery for the people. Ultimately all issues are resolved on the table through negotiations

that is why we are trying very hard to help bring a lasting peace in Afghanistan by sup-porting Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace plan,” Gen. Bajwa said.

He added that Pakistan was also a victim of terrorism, and most of the terrorists were those who fall victim to “dangerous or hostile narratives”.

“Like the terrorists before; the protago-nists of the new threats are at times, our own people. Mostly misguided by ambitions, blinded by hate, ethnicity or religion or simply overawed by social media onslaught, some of our own boys and girls readily fall victim to such dangerous or hostile narratives,” Bajwa said.

Talking about hybrid warfare, the army chief said information and modern technology has changed the nature of warfare and tilted the balance in favor of those who embrace the change readily.

“But frankly speaking, even that will not be sufficient as the ever-increasing threat of hybrid war, to which we are subjected to, will need a totally new approach and change of traditional mindset,” he said.

Advising future military leaders to prepare themselves for the threats they will face, Gen. Bajwa said that they should be able to “gauge the enemies latest moves and be ready to respond, even when a surgical strike exists only in cognitive domain or media or even when the attack comes, not in the battlefield but in cyber space, or against country’s ideo-logical frontiers.”

“The response to such onslaughts or threats cannot always be kinetic in nature,” he said, adding that a superior narrative needs to be propagated to deal with attacks in the cognitive domain.

Pakistan army chief backs PM Khan’s peace overtures to India

N E W S I N B R I E F




India, China hold joint military drill

Pakistan PM raises Kashmir with UN chief

More tsunamis could hit Indonesia

Pakistan FM begins four-nation tour

TEHRAN — As part of their military col-laboration, India and China held fortnight-

long joint anti-terrorism training drill in Chengdu, capital of southwest China’s Sichuan province.

The last exercise of the drill was a joint operation in the setting of an urban neighborhood and included a hostage rescue, said a report.

The joint training has not only upgraded combat capabili-ties but also enhanced mutual understanding and friendship between Chinese and Indian officers and soldiers, said Maj. Gen. Li Shizhong, a senior representative of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

Code-named ‘Hand-in-Hand 2018’, the 12-day event has been the seventh joint anti-terrorism training between the Chinese and Indian armed forces since 2007.

The specially-designed drills were in spirit of the summit at Wuhan early this year between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping to improve relations between the two militaries.

“The aim of the Hand-in-Hand exercises is to build closer relations between the militaries of India and China. The ex-ercises involve tactical-level operations in an international counter insurgency/counter terrorist environment as per UN mandate,” said a tweet by Indian Embassy in China.

TEHRAN — Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan telephoned United Nations

chief Antonio Guterres this week and raised the issue of Kashmir, a U.N. spokesman has said.

Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for the U.N. Secretary-General, did not divulge details about the conversation be-tween Mr. Khan and Mr. Guterres but confirmed that the phone call took place.

India’s external affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar in response said that “the statements coming out from their side demonstrates the insincerity and duplicity”.

In response to India’s strong retort to Mr. Khan that Pakistan should mind its own business and that Kashmir is an integral part of India, Mr. Dujarric said, “Our position on Kashmir has been reiterated. There is an observer group as mandated by the Security Council,” referring to the U.N. Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP).

India maintained that the UN observer group in Kash-mir has become irrelevant after the Shimla Agreement and the consequent establishment of the Line of Control (LoC).

TEHRAN — Indonesia has been dev-astated by a series of tsunamis in recent

months and authorities have warned that more deadly tsu-namis could strike the country’s coastline in coming days.

At least 281 people have died from the latest tsunami, which struck the Indonesian coastline without warning Saturday night. Hundreds of others are injured and many more are missing.

Eyewitnesses quoted by local media described fleeing for their lives as beachfront homes were swept away in the catastrophic wave, caused by underwater landslides follow-ing the eruption of Anak Krakatau volcano.

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman at Indonesia’s Na-tional Disaster Mitigation Agency, warned Sunday that more tsunamis were possible as long as the volcano remained active.

In the wake of Saturday’s disaster, Indonesian President Joko Widodo ordered Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geological Agency (BMKG) to purchase detectors which would provide “early warnings to community.”

President Widodo headed to the disaster zone on Mon-day, saying on his official Twitter that he was praying for the victims of the tsunami.

TEHRAN — Pakistan’s Foreign Min-ister Shah Mehmood Qureshi arrived

in Afghanistan on Monday morning on the first leg of his four-nation tour. Besides Afghanistan, Qureshi will also visit Iran, China and Russia.

Qureshi is accompanied by Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua and senior officials of the foreign ministry as part of the government’s policy of ‘outreach in the neighbourhood’.

“During the visit, the Foreign Minister will discuss Pa-kistan’s bilateral relations with senior leadership of these countries to strengthen cooperation in various areas,” said a statement by Pakistan’s foreign office.

Since Iran was not part of ‘peace talks’ in UAE, Qureshi has decided to visit Tehran also and brief the Iranian coun-terparts on the talks and seek their inputs, said a report in The Nation.

Qureshi’s visit to Afghanistan comes in the wake of recent talks between the Taliban and U.S. officials in UAE, which also saw participation of Pakistani officials.

Pakistan is considered a key player in Afghanistan’s peace process due to the leverage it has over the insurgent group. Last week, Prime Minister Imran Khan said that Pakistan helped in the dialogue between the Taliban and the US in Abu Dhabi.

“Let us pray that this leads to peace and ends almost three decades of suffering of the brave Afghan people,” PM Khan wrote on his Twitter. “Pakistan will be doing everything within its power to further the peace process,” he said.


Two anti-Pakistan figures nominated to top security posts in Afghanistan

Political commentator: No conflicts between Muslim countries in United Muslim Ummah

1 The talks between the Taliban and the U.S. took place in Abu Dhabi last week, which was attended among others by a Pakistani government delegation also. The U.S. side by represented by former diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad.

The nomination of Saleh and Khaled to two important ministries, observers fear, might discourage Islamabad from actively taking part in peace negotiations. The two men, known for speaking their mind, would issue statements that may not go down well with hawks in Islamabad.

Mosharraf Zaidi, a noted political commentator from Pakistan, said Amrullah Saleh’s appointment as the minis-ter of interior was “peak desperation” by President Ghani, which signals the Afghan government’s intent to “increase tensions with its most important neighbour.”

“Hard to imagine what Saleh’s role is, other than to pro-voke Pakistani officials,” Zaidi tweeted.

Ahmad Mukhtar, a Kabul-based journalist, said the appointment of Saleh and Khaled will “unquestionably anger Islamabad and Taliban” at a time when Pakistan

is facilitating peace between the Afghan government and Taliban, echoing Zaidi. However, Afghanistan’s long-time watcher and author Bernett Rubin said it signals one or both of two things: responding to the security challenge by appointing the most qualified people to the top posts,

regardless of past political friction or coopting potential supporters of opponents in the upcoming presidential election.

Afghan media mogul Saad Mohseni, however, welcomed the decision and said their appointment inspires hope. “You can’t talk peace unless you have the upper hand on the battlefield. With Assadullah Khaled at Defence and Amrullah Saleh at Interior that momentum can be regained,” he tweeted.

Meanwhile, some see it as President Ghani’s masterstroke in the run up to general elections next year.

Saleh, a powerful Tajik voice, had campaigned against Ghani in the last general elections and Khaled who has his own political party is certainly not part of Ghani team. With this move, experts believe, Ghani may be able to gain their allegiance and support for elections.

Ghani is expected to run for a second five-year term, and against him are many old warhorses. The developments in coming weeks would make the puzzle clearer.

TEHRAN (FNA) — Ahmad Haj-Ali, Jour-nalist and Political Commentator said the Muslim countries need to be united against the threats posed by world’s hegemonic powers.

Commenting on the practical steps Islamic countries should take to unite, he mentioned the duty of Muslim spiritual leaders to rise and walk in Imam Khomeini’s path of uniting Muslim nations.

Ahmad Haj-Ali is a Lebanese Moscow-based journalist and political commentator. He attended the 32nd International Islamic Unity Conference in the Iranian capital, Teh-ran, in late November 2018.

FNA has conducted an interview with Ah-mad Haj-Ali on the necessity of unity among Muslims countries and the role Tehran’s Is-lamic Unity Conference plays to this end.

Below is the full text of the interview: How do you believe promoting unity

and interfaith dialogue among Muslims can counter the onslaught against Islam?

A) Hegemonic powers initiated the crisis among Muslim nations, using a fascist doc-trine alien to Islam: the doctrine of “ISIS”, “al-Nusra” and their affiliated groups. Tak-firis killed and slaughtered Sunnis as well as Shiites. Hegemonic powers wanted them to dominate the Islamic world, targeting all traditional Islamic schools and sects. The United States, Zionist regime and Persian Gulf so-called kingdoms want to put the con-frontation between Sunnis against Shiites. A united Muslim Ummah avoids confrontation between its parts; hence no more conflicts or crisis between Muslim countries.

“Unity cannot be achieved with words and requires collective action.” What steps are needed to be taken to unite the Muslim Ummah?

A) We have to be closer to the spirit of Imam Khomeini’s revolution, to avoid Sunni Vs. Shiite communities. We need every effort to be implemented to fight Takfiris and hegemonic

powers. Now, it is the duty of the Spiritual references to do what Imam Khomeini did decades ago. Imam Khomeini’s revolution was neither a Shiite nor Sunni revolution, but it was and still is an Islamic revolution uniting the Muslims. Arab Sunni world should rise and join the axis of resistance. It should get involved in the resistance against world’s hegemonic powers.

Some Arab countries pay billions of dollars buying arms from the US, which in

return, regard them as a milk cow which had to be milked. Why do they get the support of the West rather than a united Islamic nations to guaranty their security?

A) As far as the Arabic capitals and eco-nomic assets all over the world are in the hands of the United States and the Zionist lobbies, these marionettes so-called Arab Kings and princes are slaves to their western masters. So, majority of Arab leaders are not free in their political choices.

Other Muslim countries should break the western economic hegemony, for instance, by using their national currencies instead of US dollars. There will be some tough years, but it will bring freedom of political choices as well as freedom of our future generations.

What role did Tehran 32nd Inter-national Islamic Unity Conference play in uniting Muslims? What was the significance of the conference?

A) In spite of the US-imposed sanctions, the Unity Conference witnessed more and more people attending the event, 32 years after it was first launched. The attendants were leaders of the Islamic world and well-known activ-ists with progressive ideologies. They are part of the global resistance against the unipolar globalization and hegemony. The conference got more significance after Americans and Sau-dis threatened the guests of this round of the conference not to travel to Tehran; however, the attendants came to say they are a part of Imam Khomeini’s revolution and a support to meet his call to free Palestine.

Is there room for non-Muslim countries to have ties with a united Islamic Ummah?

A) We have to work for unity not only among Muslims, but also among all conscious powers opposed to hegemony. Muslims have their allies all over the world, in all continents. Any resistance to the unipolar globalization can rely on the Muslim Ummah’s help and collaboration.

An instance is Russia, with the popula-tion of over 10 million Muslims. They were attacked by Wahhabi ideologies after the fall of the Soviet Union. Later, Russian Muslims started to realize the danger of Wahhabism. This made the historical pivotal event which was when the Russian Air Force came to the field to fight along with powers of resistance against the same enemy in Syria. Russian Muslims are partners in victories against Takfiri groups in Syria and Iraq.

Hegemonic powers initiated the crisis among Muslim nations, using a fascist doctrine alien to Islam: the doctrine of “ISIS”, “al-Nusra” and their affiliated

groups. Takfiris killed and slaughtered Sunnis as well as Shiites. Hegemonic powers wanted them to dominate the

Islamic world, targeting all traditional Islamic schools and sects.


ساعت: امضاء سردبیر: ساعت: امضاء ادیتور: ساعت: امضاء مسئول صفحه: ساعت: امضاء صفحه آرا:

DECEMBER 25, 2018 ANALYSIS & INTERVIEW

Islam is at stake in Northern Nigeria

ABUJA - Professor Dahiru Yahya delivered a speech at the Conference on Opportunities and Challenges in Nigeria in which he called on the international commu-nity to demand accountability from the Nigerian Federal Government for atrocities it has committed in Nigeria.

In the conference that took place in Washington on December 17, Prof Yahya requested excess political and diplomatic pressure on the government of Nigeria until it ends “religious minority suppression” and sticks with the “human rights law” and “principles of rule of law”.

Below is the full text of Prof Yahya’s speech. Background

When the Americans fought their Wars of Independence (1775-1783), commonly known as the American Revolution, the rest of the world was not asleep. The American Revo-lution was not the first or the most important revolution that the world had witnessed, but the Americans paved the revolutionary path in the modern age. Some others, especially the French, the Russians, the Chinese and the Iranians, followed suit.

Man had undergone more pronounced revolutions that have inspired him. Since Adam (Koran al-Qur’an 7:23-27) who found solutions in confession and repentance, man decided to fight against arrogance and accepted the possibility personal redemption through reforms. With Noah (Koran 11:45-47), man developed the understanding that judgement must be based on knowledge and the truth, not on nepotism, the mother of all forms of exclusion including tribalism, racism and nationalism.

Abraham, the Father of Faith for the Jews, the Chris-tians and the Muslims, established faith and freedom of choice as the backbone of human existence.

“When the child was old enough to share his father’s endeavour, the latter said, ‘O my dear son, I have seen in a dream that I should sacrifice you, consider then what will be thy view!’ O father, do as you are commanded, you will find me, if God so wills, among those who are patient in adversity” (Koran -al-Quran 37:102).

Many a man is patient in adversity and even sacrifices his life for what he believes in and out of his free choice. We need to be redeemed even as Abraham was redeemed with a sacrificial lamb.

The Commandments (Koran 17:101) introduced law to save the weak from the strong and the strong from himself. The Rule of Law is crucial to the survival of man and the human civilisation. Moses stands for all of us as the Father of Law. The President of Federal Republic of Nigeria rejected publicly the Rule of Law. Then, where does the weak and the strong stand? Where is the divid-ing line between right and wrong and between truth and falsehood?

Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, introduced the notion of the “milk of human kindness” to buttress and sup-plement the law. The Koran (Koran 19:21) said he was a mercy to mankind. The activities of ICON and USCIRF are certainly within the purview of his teachings. Nigeria is a nation that SEEMS to have expunged the Christ within it.

As Muslims, we see Muhammad as the Father of Ration-ality; for he has imbued us with all these teachings. The belief in all these teachers is a precondition to becoming a Muslim (Quran 2:136).

“Say, ‘We believe in God and in that which is revealed to us and which has been revealed to Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and their descendants and which was given to Moses and Jesus and other Prophets from their Sustainer. We make no distinction between any of them and it is unto Him that we surrender ourselves.’Fur-thermore, There is no coercion in matters of faith...,” the Koran (2:256) declares. “And proclaim, ‘This is the truth from your Sustained. Let him, then, who wills believe in it and let him who wills reject it.” (Koran 18:29).

Then, where is the rationality in the Islam of the Ni-gerian Muslim leaders?

In the great race of humanity against evil in its journey on earth, religion, defined here as Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is a competitor against brutality, exclusion and otherness. Religion takes the journey of life, as a relay race that must not lose a moment in its momen-tum; Judaism handing the baton of Commandments to Christianity and Christianity, its baton of Beatitude to the Rationality of Islam, and immediately too, is a most likely way to win the race.

Mutual recognition and spiritual zeal maintain the mo-mentum in a life where our innermost negative impulses suggest otherwise. All revolutions, ancient and modern, are about human dignity and human responsibility. Freedom from oppression and related issues take the centre stage.

The deterioration of Islam in NigeriaThere was a well-documented Islamic Revolution in

Northern Nigeria around the time of the American Wars of Independence, quite different from those in the Western world, but advocating the same value system. That revo-lution was led by Shaykh ‘Uthman ?an Fodio, which led to the amalgamation of 32 pre-colonial African states in the 19th century and establishing the basic foundations of the modern state of Nigeria. When the British colonised the Sokoto Caliphate, the present Northern Nigeria more or less, a hundred years later, they built the colonial state on the foundations of the defunct Caliphate. For the security of colonial policy, the British instituted a Muslim ruling class who saw eye to eye with the colonial policies and identified them as their own. The type of colonial policies USA overthrew to claim its independence and a revolution.

By the time the British came, the values of the Caliphate as established by the Founding Fathers of the Caliphate had dissipated and sacrificed on the altar of the TWO permanent pillars for the destruction of value, state and society, NATIONAL SECURITY and GREED. This led to the destruction of values, the society and the nation. Under the original charter of the Sokoto Caliphate reli-gious rights were protected. It was illegal to coerce any non-Muslim to become a Muslim. The successors of the Founding Fathers misread that policy to deny the right of non-Muslims to become Muslims; a situation they thought would drain the state treasury. These people, as Muslims, could not be enslaved and slavery was an important part of the state economy. With the coming of the British colonial rule, the abolishment of slavery and free access to Western education, these non-Muslims became Chris-

tians and free, but political power has eluded them. Their pre-colonial status remains submissive and they continue to be subject to raids. They engage in counter raids too to protect themselves. In the end, peace was the victim.

Background to backwardness and terrorism in Northern Nigeria

Presently, the Muslim establishment in Northern Nigeria has become myopic. The Sultan and his emirs parade themselves as the Muslim leaders on the claims that they are blood successors of the Founding Fathers of the Sokoto Caliphate. Such claims are unacceptable and lacking intelligent consideration at any time in his-tory. Such leadership shows no positive results. They cut themselves off from Islamic education and values and the consistent truth that history is dynamic and change is inevitable. On the basis of falsity of National Security fuelled by Greed, they connive with any government of the day at the expense of the Rule of Law and the com-mon interests.

These so-called Muslim leaders are unproductive and poor, which leads them to rely on the state treasury, charity and corruption for survival. They have emasculated the Muslim society. They turn children away from schools to becoming street beggars, ready for recruitment by terrorist organisations. They turn youth unemployable and murderous fanatics grounded in hatred. They sup-port corruption and through purchase, they install the corrupt elements with self-deceiving titles. They render the aged and the physically handicapped into permanent destitution and street begging.

The story of Islamic terrorism in Northern Nigeria began in the 1960’s when these Muslim leaders invited the Saudi Arabs into the Northern Nigerian politics with the hope of attaining to religious ascendancy. The Saudis use the weapon of money to infiltrate the Nigerian political class and the military and imbue them with total hatred of those who do not subscribe to Wahhabi murderous doctrines. This is the worldwide policy of the Saudis, which US gov-ernment considered recently as dangerous to world peace and directed the Saudis to remove the violent elements of their teachings from the curricula of the mosques and schools that they had built worldwide.

The Islamic Movement in NigeriaAs an indigenous Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN),

which is absolutely self-sustaining financially as a matter of policy and survival, members of the IMN give weekly donations to sustain their programmes. This fund angered the Sokoto Caliphate establishment, which thought the Sultan should have a share to maintain his horses and the sycophants in the palace.

The relationship of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria with Iran is purely doctrinal and certainly not political. The Revolution led by Shaykh ‘Uthman ?an Fodio two hundred years ago in Northern Nigeria, the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the last century and the Islamic Movement in Nigeria drew inspirations from the same common source in the House of the Prophet, Ahl al-Bayt, the tradition of which the Shi‘ah branch of Islam sustains. The Saudis sustain an alternative tradition of the corrupt enemies of the Prophet in intransigent and violent schools (i.e. of Abu Jahl, Abu Lahab and Abu Sufyan). These violent and unjust schools are actively supported and protected by Northern Nigerian Muslim leaders, especially under the auspices Jama’atu Nasril Islam, a criminally inclined pseudo politico-religious organisation.

The Islamic Movement in Nigeria stands on the fol-lowing practices:

- Self-determination: They operate schools from kin-dergarten through primary to secondary schools. The graduates of these schools easily acquire admission to Nigerian and foreign universities. They do not allow their children to beg for survival in the street as the children of some other Muslims do.

- Politeness and civility to all and sundry are their hallmark. They are different from the uncouth Wahhabi Izala youth.

- Law abiding, but resist oppression in any form and attach importance to persistent acquisition of knowledge. They are good citizens. They use Nigerian passport and pay their taxes promptly.

- Efficiency, punctuality and truthfulness in conduct in working and marketplaces make them unique in the

Muslim society. Their medical doctors assist the public in times of need irrespective of religious beliefs. They provide services where government fails to do so.

- The IMN does not believe in violence in whatever form and manner. They demonstrate occasionally in Abuja against one injustice or another, but not a single window glass in the government offices is broken even when they are being killed

The Islamic Movement in Nigeria sees opportunity in the concept of La Convivencia, coexistence and cooper-ation between Muslims, Christians, Jews and others for the promotion of world peace. The policy will establish an enduring legacy encompassing all faiths. Interfaith approach will provide possibilities for all across divides. To this end, the IMN extends its hands of co-operation and solidarity with Christians against religious bigotry, persecution, oppression and brutality against religious minorities in all locations – specifically in Northern Ni-geria. The result could prove promising.

State brutalityIn the last forty years, members of the Islamic Move-

ment in Nigeria (IMN) suffer untold hardship, which the brutal Wahhabi Izala influenced Nigerian military who are reported to receive illegal private grants from Saudi Arabia mete on them. They kill them in the thousands with active connivance of Muslim leaders or their conspiratorial silence as the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria keeps a definite and undig-nified silence of approval. The Nigerian State confiscate their property illegally, imprison them without trial and where the courts acquit them, court orders are ignored as in the celebrated case of Shaykh Ibrahim az-Zakzaky. It is believed that the Sultan ordered publicly his subjects whose children were members of the IMN to be pub-licly massacred. Many people were forced to leave their homes in fear of their lives as many members of the IMN continue to lose their lives – while many are still in prison and several thousands are unaccounted for.

The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria denounced the Rule of Law in a pub-lic address to Nigerian lawyers to the chagrin of many Nigerians and continues to disobey any court decision that he believes encroaches on State Security. Even an unarmed group, such as the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, is considered as inimical to state se-curity.

There is a need for the international com-munity to demand ac-countability from the Nigerian Federal Gov-ernment – like ICON and USCIRF are doing here today. Increase political and diplomatic pressure on the govern-ment to end religious minority suppression until a genuine commit-ment to the principles of Rule of Law, justice, religious freedom and human rights can be demonstrated beyond rhetoric and half-heart-ed measures by the Ni-gerian government.

7

1 With no doubt, Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labor Party was the winner of the last year’s election in Britain. Jeremy Corbyn could prevent the Conservatives to win the majority of the House of Commons’ seats within a very short time (about a month and a half).

Certainly, if Corbyn and his companions were not involved, Theresa May would achieve her goal of winning the majority of seats in the House of Commons. Of course, the conservative lead-ers and some British analysts accused Corbyn of using populist methods in the previous election. But the leader of the Labor Party denied all the accusations.

We are currently witnessing the strengthening of Jeremy Cor-byn’s position at the head of the Labor Party in the UK. Corbyn has now entered the scene with one specific goal: Brexit. Corbyn’s inner-party opponents sought to provide ground for his removal after the party’s estimated defeat in the last year’s general election.

As mentioned, politicians such as the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (from the Labor Par-ty) has been among the main opponents of Corbyn’s presence in the leadership of the party.

The Guardian wrote accordingly; “While Corbyn has al-ready faced criticism from the centrist wing of his party, which has long been skeptical of

his approach to Brexit, the expressions of dismay from his base will raise concerns of broader disillusionment with his strategy”.

This British newspaper also noted that following Corbyn’s interview with the Guardian on Saturday, in which he said he would recommend the party advocates Brexit in the event of a fresh vote and criticized EU laws on state aid, which he said blocked investment, Momentum activists and MPs from Labor’s left who have consistently backed Jeremy Corbyn have warned the leader’s decision to support Brexit even if there is a second referendum could demotivate campaigners and cost the party seats.

While the EU’s deadline for the UK is about to expire, the internal and foreign policy in Britain remain foggy. Under such circumstances, it’s not clear that how would Theresa May direct and manage the Brexit negotiations. The UK’s delay in beginning the negotiations, and the recent events in the country’s parlia-mentary elections has caused European leaders not to have a positive outlook towards the talks.

The fact is that Theresa May couldn’t achieve her determined goals during the negotiations with Brussels. The critical attitudes among the conservatives, Jeremy Corbyn’s stances, and the worried face of the European leaders…, all these factors hurt the British Prime Minister at this critical period.

Corbyn targeting the Brexit talks

If Corbyn and his companions were not involved, Theresa May would achieve her goal of winning the majority of seats in the House ofCommons.


DECEMBER 25, 2018

N.I.O.C1397.4989

National IranianDrilling Company

First Announcement

تهران تایمز نوبت اول 97/10/4نوبت دوم 97/10/5

(Foreign Procurement Dept.) More of this & other tenders are accessible by click on:

www.nidc.ir http://sapp.ir/nidc_pr

Call for public tender (First/Second publish)One -Stages tender

Subject of Tender: P/F “MI CO.”, MUD CLEANER & SHALE SHAKER

ANALYSIS & INTERVIEW

National Iranian

Drilling Company

N.I.O.C

1397.4989

Call for public tender (First/Second publish)

One -Stages tender

Subject of Tender: P/F "MI CO.", MUD CLEANER & SHALE SHAKER

Tender descriptions:

Estimated value

(Rial)

Tender No.

/Indent No. Registration No. through national electronic tendering system The Tender holder

5,895,780,000 Tender No. :FP/09-97/049

Indent No.:08-22-9745081 3,185,538 National Iranian Drilling Company

Qualitative evaluation of tenderers

Qualification process will be done in plain mode in offers opening session according to presentation of valid practice certificate / legal documents (certificate of corporation/ supply announcement up to latest changes) which should be related to tender subject.

Method 1- Applicants who have more than 4 in process contracts with NIDC are not allowed to participate in this tender.

2- Applicants which have more than 2 in process contracts with NIDC in similar subject ( exclusively same subject) are not allowed to participate in another tender

Purchasing & Submitting

The distribution of the documents will be started one day after the publishing of second advertisement and ended on the following tenth day thereof.

Tender Document Distribution by Company

Hall No.:113, 1thfloor, Foreign Procurement Dept., National Iranian Drilling Company, Airport square, Ahwaz, IRAN – Tel : 061 34148601

Distribution Place

Submitting one original Bank Fund Receipt in the amount of 510,000 Iranian Rials under account number 4001114004020491 (Shaba No. IR 520100004001114004020491) in name of “NIDC Incomes Centralized Fund” issued by I.R. of Iran Central Bank.

Submitting format Request for the purpose of receiving Tender Documents.

Submitting Method

35 Days after the last time of Purchasing. Closing date

Documents Receiving Method Hall No. 107, 1stfloor, Tender Committee, Operation building, National Iranian Drilling Company, Airport square, Ahwaz, IRAN. Tel: +98-61-34148580 +98-61-34148569

Address

Tender Guarantee

295,000,000 Rial/ 6,211 Euro Value of guarantee

Bank guarantees or guarantees issued by non-bank institutions that obtain activity license from the central bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Submitting one original Bank Fund Receipt under account number 4001114006376636 (Shaba No. IR 350100004001114006376636) in name of “NIDC saving account” by the central bank of Islamic Republic of Iran.

Type of guarantee

Tender Guarantee should be valid for 90 days and extendable maximum for one time in initial validity duration. Duration of credit & quotation

(Foreign Procurement Dept.)

More of this & other tenders are accessible by click on: www.nidc.ir http://sapp.ir/nidc_pr

5/10/97نوبت دوم 4/10/97تهران تایمز نوبت اول

DECEMBER 25, 20188I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

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H E A L T H

H E A L T Hd e s k

H E A L T Hd e s k

DECEMBER 25, 2018

TEHRAN — Providing financial aids for treat-

ment of infertile couples is on the agenda of the Ministry of Health, deputy health minister Qasem Babajani has said.

Prevalence of infertility among Iranian couples nationwide is about 15 percent, Mehr news agency quoted Babajani as saying on Saturday.

Based on the figures released by population office of the Ministry of Health some 3 million Iranian couples have experienced primary and secondary infertility, he explained.

Primary infertility refers to couples who have not become pregnant after at least 1 year without using birth control methods. Secondary infertility refers to couples who have been able to get pregnant at least once, but now are unable.

He went on to say that annually some 88,000 infertile couples are added to this group.

“Every year some 35 percent of infertile couples need assisted reproductive tech-nology (ART) an in general 75 percent of such assistance are provided to the couples experiencing primary infertility.”

According to WebMD infertility in men and woman can be treated ART. There are several types of ART including IUI (intrauter-ine insemination), IVF (in vitro fertilization) and GIFT (gamete intrafallopian transfer) and ZIFT (zygote intrafallopian transfer).

Treating infertile couples is a major priority for the Ministry of Health, and following the population policies increasing accessibility to infertility treatment particu-

larly for the underprivileged has become a pressing matter, he added.

In 2014, Leader of the Islamic Rev-olution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei

outlined general policies of the country’s population plans, stressing the need for making comprehensive plans to promote the country’s economic, social and cultural situations for population growth.

Decreasing out-of-pocket costs for treatment of infertility and covering ex-penses for preserving fertility in men and women with cancer, are some of the other services provided to the infertile couples nationwide, he highlighted.

Babajani added that currently 40 centers offering treatments for infertility are up and running in the country.

WHO explains that global infertility prevalence rates are difficult to determine, due to the presence of both male and female factors which complicate any estimate which may only address the woman and an outcome of a pregnancy diagnosis or live birth.

One in every four couples in developing countries had been found to be affected by infertility, when an evaluation of responses from women in Demographic and Health Surveys from 1990 was completed in col-laboration with WHO in 2004.

The burden remains high. A WHO study, published at the end of 2012, has shown that the overall burden of infer-tility in women from 190 countries has remained similar in estimated levels and trends from 1990 to 2010.

Financial support for infertile couples on agenda: health official

Based on the figures released by population office of the Ministry of Health some 3

million Iranian couples have experienced primary and secondary infertility.

The two hemispheres of our brain — left and right — specialize in different tasks. A recent study asks how this occurs and reaches a surprising conclusion.

Exactly how do the left and right brain compete for dominance?

Hemispheric dominance, also known as lateralization of brain function, describes the tendency for either the left or the right side of the brain to carry out specific brain activities.

Even though both sides of the brain are almost identi-cal, one hemisphere primarily carries out some functions over others.

For instance, the left hemisphere houses brain regions linked to speech (or the right hemisphere in left-handed people).

Previously, scientists thought humans were the only creatures to exhibit this phenomenon. However, recent

research has found lateralized brain function throughout the animal kingdom — from insects, such as honeybees, to aquatic mammals, including killer whales.

The corpus callosum — a thick tract of nerve cells, known as commissural fibers — connects the two hemispheres. Exactly how dominance is produced remains uncertain.

Recently, researchers from Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany set out to investigate this question. They chose to study the visual system of pigeons, and they have published their findings in the journal Cell Reports.

Bird brains and old ideasPreviously, scientists have theorized that one side of the

brain simply inhibits the other, allowing it to take dominance.Co-lead author Prof. Onur Güntürkün explains that

“[i]n the past, it had been assumed that the dominant

hemisphere transmits inhibitory signals to the other hem-isphere via the commissures, thus suppressing specific functions in that region.”

In effect, the dominant hemisphere is thought to over-power its neighbor. However, scientists have also noted that excitatory messages run both ways, so there must be more to this interaction.

The researchers decided to use a pigeon model because other studies have described hemispheric dominance in this species in some detail over recent years.

For instance, in pigeon brains, the left hemisphere takes the lead when it comes to visual processing of patterns and colors. Conversely, the right brain more often deals with social or emotionally charged stimuli.

(Source: Medical News Today)

Left brain vs. right brain: How does one dominate?

Iran ready for increased medical co-op with Iraq

TEHRAN — Iran is ready to expand medical cooperation with Iraq, Iranian deputy health

minister Mohsen Asadi Lari said in a meeting in Iraq with Iraqi Minister of Health Ala Abdessaheb al-Alwan.

The two sides also exchanged views on medical cooperation at Arba’een pilgrimage (a journey gathering from various nation-alities and religions altogether walking towards the holy shrine of Imam Hussein (AS) commemorating the 40th day of his mar-tyrdom in the battle of Karbala), addressing communicable and non-communicable diseases, as well as medical tourism.

The Iraqi official, for his part, explained that Iraq is fully com-mitted to expand ties in medical and healthcare fields with Iran, Fars news agency reported on Monday.

He also highlighted that current cooperation levels should increase as the two countries have sufficient grounds for greater collaborations.

Upon his visit Asadi Lari also invited Minister al-Alwan to visit Iran as well.

In late October following a memorandum of understanding inked between Iraq’s Red Crescent Society and Iran’s Red Crescent Society it was announced that a hospital will be jointly built in the Iraqi city of Karbala.

Killer diseases could be missed by overstressed doctors in busy winter months

Warning signs of potentially deadly illnesses could be missed during the winter rush as overstretched GPs deal with 100 patients a day, the chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners has warned.

Pressures from seasonal ailments and people trying to get appointments before the holidays mean many GPs are left fretting at the end of the day about whether they might have missed something.

“It’s incredibly stressful,” said the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) chair Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard after warning that in recent weeks she had dealt with more than 100 patients in a day, including phone consultations and emails.

A recent survey of NHS GP workloads found one in five were seeing more than 50 patients a day, but European Union medics have a safe limit of 20 patient contacts.

Declining GP numbers have hampered attempts to extend consultations beyond the standard 10 minutes, with the extra pressures of responding to letters and updating notes being com-pleted in GPs’ own time.

An RCGP survey of 1,000 GPs found four out of five respondents believe the care they give is compromised over the winter period.

“The thing that causes the greatest stress is not being able to do a safe job, a good job,” Professor Stokes-Lampard said.

(Source: The Independent)

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HERITAGE & TOURISM DECEMBER 25, 2018

1 “It is the third time that sites in Iran and Spain are added to the global agricultural heritage systems list and the second time for Morocco. FAO’s global agricultural heritage network now consists of 57 remarkable land-scapes in 21 countries around the globe,” the website wrote.

Cultivation of saffron is practiced in Iran’s central plateau that has an arid and semi-arid climate. Severe water shortages in the area pose major threats to food security and live-lihoods of local communities.

However, proper use of water resources supplied by the Qanat (or aqueduct) irrigation system and production of high value added products, especially saffron, have created a unique opportunity for farmers and residents

of the region to improve their livelihoods.Saffron does not require large quantities

of water compared to cereals, which has re-sulted in allocation of more areas for the cultivation of this invaluable crop making it a major source of income for many farmer households. Today it plays a key role in cre-ating job opportunities, reducing migration, providing sustainable livelihoods, improving efficiency in water use and productivity as well as developing eco-tourism in the area.

The Ministry of Agriculture announced in November that the saffron output in the country will reach 400 tons by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2019). The annual saffron production stood at 320 tons during the previous year.

T O U R I S Md e s k

T O U R I S Md e s k

Iran’s saffron farming system wins FAO world heritage status

TEHRAN — Some 290,000 foreign nationals visited Isfahan province, central Iran, over the

first half of the current Iranian calendar year (started March 21), a Foreign Ministry’s representative in Isfahan has said.

“A majority of the visitors came from Iraq and Afghanistan,” IRNA quoted Alireza Salarian as saying on Monday.

The official described Isfahan’s tourism market as “weak”, adding “Some five million foreigners arrived in the country last year, 500,000 of them visited Isfahan.”

Isfahan is Iran’s top tourist destination for good reasons. Its profusion of tree-lined boulevards, Persian gardens and important Islamic buildings gives it a visual appeal unmatched by any other Iranian city, and the many artisans working here underpin its reputation as a living museum of traditional culture.

Isfahan attracts 290,000 foreign travelers in H1

Urnes Stave Church

The wooden church of Urnes (the stavkirke) stands in the natural setting of Sogn og Fjordane, Norway.

The stave churches constitute one of the most elaborate and technologically advanced types of wooden construction that existed in North-Western Europe during the Middle Ages. The churches were built on the classic basilica plan, but entirely of wood.

The roof frames were lined with boards and the roof itself covered with shingles in accordance with construction tech-niques which were widespread in Scandinavian countries.

Among the roughly 1,300 medieval stave churches indexed, 28 are preserved in Norway today. Some of them are very large, such as Borgund, Hopperstad or Heddal churches, whereas others, such as Torpo or Underdal, are tiny.

The church expresses in wood the language and spatial structures of Romanesque stone architecture, characterized by the use of cylindrical columns with cubic capitals and semi-circular arches.

The wood carving and sculpted decor of exquisite quality on the outside includes strap-work panels and elements of Viking tradition from the previous building (11th century) which constitute the origin of the “Urnes style”, also found in other parts of Scandinavia and North-Western Europe.

These carvings are found on the northern wall with a carved decoration of interlaced, fighting animals. Similar carvings cover the western gable triangle of the nave and the eastern gable of the choir. In the interior of the church, there is an extraordinary series of 12th century carved figurative capitals.

(Source: UNESCO)

ROUND THE GLOBE

Christmas is one of the most important — and perhaps the most treasured — celebration of Christianity, filled with joy and love. Countries around the world celebrate with different customs which have deep roots within history and tradition. If you look closely, you can see a variety of simi-larities between the commemoration of the birth of Christ and the worship of Dionysus in ancient Greece.

In December, the ancient Greeks celebrated the birth of Dionysus, calling him “Savior” and “divine infant.” Accord-ing to Greek mythology, his mother, Semele, was a mortal woman, but his father was Zeus, the king of all gods. The priest of Dionysus held a pastoral staff, as did the Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Ancient Greeks commemorated his rebirth on December 30th every year.

One of the most well-known Christmas customs throughout the Christian world is singing carols, songs which have been written for the occasion. But in ancient Greece there also were specific “carols” celebrating the rebirth of Dionysus.

The great writer Homer himself composed some of the Dionysian carols during his stay on the island of Samos, along with a group of children. In ancient Greece, carols symbolized joy, wealth and peace, and the children sang the carols only in the homes of the rich.

Children would go from house to house, holding an olive or a laurel branch adorned with wool (a symbol of health and beauty) and different kinds of fruits. The children then

brought the olive branch to their homes and hung it on the doors, where it would remain for the rest of the year.

The modern Christmas tree appeared for the first time in Germany at the end of the 16th century. However, it was first used as a symbol of Christianity by St. Boniface of England, who served as a missionary in pagan Germany in the 700’s.

The local tribes there worshipped trees, and believed the world would end if their largest tree, in a central area of what is now Germany, was cut down. St. Boniface cut the tree down himself, showing the tribes that the world indeed did not end with the downing of the tree. Thereafter, a living tree was the symbol of Jesus’ resurrection throughout Germany.

Christmas trees emerged from Germany to became globally popular in the 19th century as beautiful symbols of rejoicing

over the birth of Jesus Christ. The tree was adorned first with fruit, and later with candles. The modern Christmas tree tradition made its way to Greece for the first time in 1833, when Bavarians arrived to decorate the palace of King Otto.

Ancient Greeks also used to decorate the ancient temples with trees, symbolizing sacrifices made to the gods.

Santa Claus, who travels around the world on Christmas Eve delivering gifts in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, is another impressive likeness to ancient pagan times. A similar tradition also existed during the celebration of Dionysus in ancient Greece. On December 30th every year, his chariot was believed to transform into a sleigh, and horses transformed into flying horses to celebrate their god of light.

The New Year’s cake, which since early Chriatian times has been called Vasilopita, or St. Basil’s cake, also holds a bit of resemblance to an ancient Greek custom. Ancient Greeks used to offer Gods the “festive bread” during the rural festivals, such as the Thalysia or the Thesmophoria.

In Christian times, St. Basil was believed to have stuffed a cake with the jewelry which people had used to pay their taxes to the government. The saint thought the tax was exces-sive, and ordered that the jewelry be returned to the people.

By that time it was impossible to determine whose jewelry belonged to whom, so all the items were baked into a cake, and the pieces were proportioned out to everyone.

(Source: Greek Reporter)

Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has announced that it will issue electronic visas (e-visas) to citizens of 52 countries from January 1, 2019, in an extended range of visa categories.

“Starting from January 1, 2019, the MFA has introduced an extended range of Ukraine’s e-visas categories (as per the purpose of travel to Ukraine: business, private, tourism, medical treatment, cultural/scientific/educational/sports activities, foreign mass media staff

visits,” the MFA announced on its website. Such visas will be issued to citizens of

the following 52 countries: Australia, Ba-hamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Columbia, Costa Rica, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Grenada, Guate-mala, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kiribati, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, the Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia, Myanmar, Nauru, Nepal, New

Zealand, Nicaragua, Oman, Palau, Peru, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, Suriname, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

To apply, a foreign citizen should first register at the MFA web-platform https://evisa.mfa.gov.ua/; then fill in an application form online and upload copies of necessary documents (photo, passport, health insurance

policy with EUR 30,000 coverage, proof of sufficient funds, document confirming the purpose of the visit, others). The payment for the e-visa (US$85) could be handled online by a MasterCard/Visa card. All e-Visa applica-tions are processed within nine business days.

An e-Visa or visa refusal letter is sent to an applicant’s email address in pdf format; e-Visas are issued as single entry visas valid for up to 30 days.

(Source: UNIAN)

TEHRAN — Follow-ing sustained efforts

to earn UNESCO tags for Masouleh and Hyrcanian Forest, Iran tourism chief on Sunday said they are to be assessed as a single property.

“Masouleh will be presented at the World Heritage summit in the context of the Hyrcanian Forests next July and it is hoped that the file will be registered in the World Heritage list,” IRNA quoted Ali-Asghar Mounesan as saying.

Ancient Masouleh is one of the most famous villages in Iran– and hence one of its most touristic ones. It features the earth-colored houses that are stacked pho-togenically on top of one another like giant Lego blocks, clinging to a mountainside so steep that the roof of one house forms the

pathway for the next.In October, a delegation of international

experts visited four provinces of Golestan, Mazandaran, Semnan and Gilan in a span of nine days in order to weigh Hyrcanian Forest (also known as Caspian Forest).

The forest covers the northern slope of the Alborz Mountain at the southern edge of the Caspian Sea and it contains very rich ecosystems due to the particular orographic and climatic situation (precipitation rich, warm-temper-ate, high moisture from the Caspian Sea and damming effect of the Alborz Mountain range).

The nomination of the Hyrcanian Forests as a UNESCO World Heritage site had been under attention since 2001 prior to become the recent focus and one of the priorities of the Iranian government in 2017.

TEHRAN – An American fashion psy-chologist who accidentally landed in Iran

believes that her perception of the country is totally different from what mainstream Western media outlets portray.

Ashely Duncan told IRNA in an interview released on Sunday that “As an American, I did have a pleasant experience. I did not allow the politics and the diplomatic relationship to taint my view of Iran’s people.”

Duncan’s flight made an emergency landing in Shiraz on December 14, she says the incident provided her with an opportunity to have a better understanding about the Iranian people.

The Boeing plane en route to Oslo, Norway, from Dubai, had to make an emergency landing in Shiraz international airport due to technical problems.

Due to the time required for sending a relief aircraft by Norwegian officials to Shiraz, passengers were accommo-dated in a hotel in the southern Iranian city.

“The Iranian people allowed me to have a pleasant experience contrary to what has been promulgated in the media.”

“So, I just want to thank them for their hospitality,” she reiterated.

She went on to raise examples of the Iranians’ hospitality and kindness, saying she was able to ask an Iranian for his personal hotspot so that she could use WiFi to talk to her

family and let them know that she was safe in Iran.“I was also able to talk to a local Iranian woman on how

to wear a shawl properly,’ Duncan, who works as a fashion psychologist in 35 countries,” she added.

Elaborating on her fear which turned out to be an oppor-tunity, she explained, “Although it was a horrific experience- having the engine shut off and descending unexpectedly in Shiraz- the Iranian people were very hospitable and very kind. I was able to learn about the fashion psychology- the science behind what the Iranian women wore- to increase my knowledge and to expand my field of study.”

“As a fashion psychologist, I am all about studying the science behind why we wear and what we wear so I was able to learn about the Middle Eastern culture by way of fashion by the way of what the Iranian women wear.”

“It was a very humbling and enriching experience, “she stressed.

Many visitors to Iran believe that Western media of-ten portrays Iran negatively, saying there is a widespread misunderstanding about the true nature and safety of the country, which is tainted by the reputation of some of its more politically unstable neighbors.

The 2019 Travel Risk Map, which shows the risk level around the world, puts Iran among countries with “insignifi-cant risk”, a category where the UK, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway, and Finland are placed in.

The ancient Greek roots of Christmas celebrations

Citizens of 52 countries to be able to apply for Ukraine’s e-visa

Single UNESCO dossier compiled for Masouleh, Hyrcanian Forest

Experience contradicts Western media image of Iran

Archaeologists have unearthed the petrified remains of a har-nessed horse and saddle in the stable of an ancient villa in a Pompeii suburb.

Pompeii archaeological park head Massimo Osanna told Ital-ian news agency ANSA that the villa belonged to a high-ranking military officer, perhaps a general, during ancient Roman times.

Osanna was quoted on Sunday as saying the remains of two or three other horses were also discovered.

The villa’s terraces had views of the Bay of Naples and Capri island. The area was previously excavated, during the early 1900s, but later re-buried.

The volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius destroyed flourishing Pompeii, near present-day Naples, in 79 CE.

Osanna says suffocating volcanic ash or boiling vapors killed the horses. He hopes the villa eventually will be open for public visits.

(Source: phys.org)

Harnessed horse unearthed in ancient stable near Pompeii

H E R I T A G Ed e s k

Genetic detective work has illuminated the important role of Jewish culture in the widespread adoption of citrus fruit by early Mediterranean societies.

The fascinating find came to light in an investigation into a bizarre acidless mutation which makes citrus juice 1000 times less acidic.

John Innes Centre researchers used genetic analysis to trace the acidless mutations in citron, the first citrus species to be cultivated in the Mediterranean.

“Some people thought that this was a recent mutation that originated in Corsica, or somewhere in the Mediterranean, but we have found that this is not new. It’s an ancient mutation that is present in Chinese fingered citrons known as Buddha’s Hands and those used in the Sukkot Jewish ritual,” explains Dr. Eugenio Butelli of the John Innes Centre and first author of the paper.

Acidless mutationsThe acidless mutations have captivated

botanists and breeders for centuries and ap-pear in many citrus varieties including citron, sweet lime, limetta, lemon and sweet orange.

Acidless citrus fruit have also lost the ability to produce anthocyanin pigments that give a blush of dark red to leaves, flowers and, sometimes, flesh.

The researchers identified a gene, which they called Noemi, as the key factor behind the regulation of fruit acidity. Analysis also revealed that this gene works in partnership with another, named Ruby, to control antho-cyanin production.

The study identified specific mutations affecting the Noemi gene in several acidless citrus species and hybrids. These acidless fruits are often referred to as sweet or insipid

because of the reduction in fruit acidity and are highly prized citrons (Etrog in Hebrew) used in the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot.

One of these mutations matched those found

in fingered citron varieties first cultivated in China 3300 years ago. This confirmed that this mutation originated before the arrival of citron into the Mediterranean.

Further analysis revealed that the same ancient Noemi allele characteristic of the acid-less trait was present in the Yemen citron, an ancient variety traditionally used in the Sukkot tradition since the time of the destruction of the first temple in 587 B.C.E. Another variety traditionally used in the Sukkot ritual, the Greek citron, also bore the same genetic hallmark.

Sweet citronThe analysis suggests that the authentic

Jewish Etrog used ritually was an acidless one, an idea supported by a reference to “sweet citron” in the Jewish legal text, the Talmud, dating from 200 C.E.

The study which appears in Current Biology illuminates the path of domestication of citron. It supports the view that the spread of citron in Mediterranean regions was facilitated by its adoption in Jewish culture as an important religious symbol. Some scholars speculate that Jews in exile in Babylonia brought the citron back to Palestine.

Why was this sweet, or insipid citrus, with plain white flowers and leaves drained of color, the chosen fruit?

“Citron was first cultivated for its medicinal properties in China and its rind was used as a medicinal product, not as a food” explains Professor Cathie Martin of the John Innes Centre and a co-author on the study.

“By the time it reached the Mediterranean in Roman times, citron was a luxury item used for its fragrance to keep linen fresh. The pres-ence of white flowers in the acidless mutation seems important because they are a symbol of purity and we speculate that there was a strong selection for the loss of anthocyanins, which normally add color to leaves and flowers.”

(Source: eurekalert.org)

Inspired by human lungs, researchers at Stanford University have created a bio-mim-icking device that makes clean hydrogen fuel by splitting water molecules. The lung-like apparatus could improve the efficiency of fuel cells, which are used to power hydrogen vehicles or even cities.

By the time you finished reading the previous sentence, you must have inhaled and exhaled a couple of times, which didn’t even consciously register. But just because breathing is automatic doesn’t mean it’s simple. Our breathing system is consists of very sophisticated biological machinery that enables two-way gas exchange. When we breathe in, air moves through tiny pores called bronchioles until it reaches the alveoli — small sacs at the end of the respiratory tree where carbon dioxide leaves the blood and oxygen enters it.

The alveoli have a unique structure com-posed of a micron-thick membrane that re-pels water on the inside but attracts it on the outer surface. This way, harmful bubbles are prevented from forming, allowing oxygen to pass into the bloodstream safely and highly efficiently.

Chemical reactionScientists at Stanford University mimicked

the structure of the alveoli in order to come up with better electrocatalysts — materials that increase the rate of a chemical reac-tion at an electrode — for both electrolysis (splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen) and fuel cells (that run in reverse, ‘burning’

hydrogen for energy and outputting water as a byproduct).

“Clean energy technologies have demon-strated the capability of fast gas reactant de-livery to the reaction interface, but the reverse pathway–efficient gas product evolution from the catalyst/electrolyte interface–remains challenging,” says Jun Li, the first author of the study.

The team led by Yi Cui, a professor of material science and engineering at Stanford, first made a 12-nanometer-thick plastic film with tiny pores on one side — this repels water. On the other side of the material, gold and platinum nanoparticles were added, which speed up chemical reactions. Finally, the film was rolled with the metal layer on the inside and sealed at the edges.

Lung-like deviceTo demonstrate their system, the research-

ers first split water into its constituent parts: hydrogen and oxygen. The gases then trave-led through the lung-like device without the energy costs of forming bubbles, unlike the carbon-based films that are usually used in fuel cells. This part of the process resembles exhalation.

That’s not all. Oxygen gas is delivered to a catalyst at the electrode surface, so it can be used as a reactant during electrochemical reactions. Through a reaction that consumes oxygen, energy can be generated. This process is akin to inhalation.

Ultimately, the lung-like apparatus was 32% more efficient at converting energy than the same membrane in a flat configuration, which highlights the importance of geometry.

What was particularly impressive was the system’s robustness and stability. The lung-like system retained 97% of its catalyt-ic activity after 250 hours of use, whereas a conventional carbon-based membrane decayed to 74% in just 75 hours of activity.

All of these findings are extremely prom-ising, although there is also room for im-provement. The nano-polyethylene membrane used in the study degrades at temperatures higher than 100 degrees Celsius, making it unsuitable for a range of applications. The researchers are now trying out other nan-oporous membranes that have better heat tolerance.

(Source: zmescience.com)

S C I E N C EDECEMBER 25, 2018 11I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

A newfound kind of super-Earth alien planet might glitter with rubies and sapphires, a new study finds.

As researchers have discovered worlds around other stars, one class of these exoplanets that popped up was the super-Earths: rocky planets that can reach up to 10 times the mass of our own. Much remains a mystery about super-Earths, since none are known in the Solar System.

To shed light on super-Earths, a group of researchers working in Switzerland and England investigated how they might form. Planets coalesce from protoplanetary disks of gas and dust that surround newborn stars.

Temperatures vary within these disks, depending on how close or far their ingredients are to or from stars, which influences what minerals form across the disks. The scientists reasoned that this could lead to the formation of a variety of planets that differed from one another, based on composition.

Now the researchers suggest they may have discovered a new class of super-Earth — one that’s rich in sapphires and rubies.

Diversity of planets“We showed that the compositional

diversity of planets — super-Earths in particular — might be much larger than previously thought,” lead study author Caroline Dorn, an exoplanet scientist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, said.

Scientists conducting previous research have often thought of super-Earths as rich in iron, much like Earth, Dorn said.

These would have formed in the cooler parts of protoplanetary disks.

However, Dorn and her colleagues suggest this new type of super-Earth is loaded with calcium and aluminum, as well as minerals rich in these elements, including sapphires and rubies. These planets would have formed in the hotter parts of protoplanetary disks.

The scientists calculated that this new class of super-Earth should be 10 to 20 percent less dense than Earth. Moreover, they noted previous research has discovered super-Earths that match this description.

For example, Dorn and her colleagues examined the super-Earths 55 Cancri e and WASP-47 e, which prior work suggested had unusually light densities. One potential explanation for these low overall densities might be that they have thick atmospheres, but they discounted that possibility, since the planets orbit their stars so closely they are extraordinarily hot, which makes it likely that any thick atmosphere they had would have evaporated away long ago. A third previously studied planet, HD 219134 b, appears to have this composition as well.

“Given our models and the observations, there are good chances that the studied planets have very different interior compositions compared to the majority of super-Earths,” Dorn said.

The scientists detailed their findings online Dec. 18 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

(Source: space.com)

A new class of ‘light’ super-Earth may be heavy in rubies and sapphires

Modern galaxies show a wide diversity, including dwarf galaxies, irregular galax-ies, spiral galaxies, and massive elliptical galaxies. This final type, massive elliptical galaxies, provides astronomers with a puz-zle. Although they are the most massive galaxies with the most stars, almost all of their stars are old.

At some time during the past the pro-genitors of massive elliptical galaxies must have rapidly formed many stars and then stopped for some reason.

Fortunately, the finite speed of light gives scientists a way to turn back the clock and view the early universe. If a galaxy is located 12 billion light-years away, then light from that galaxy must have traveled for 12 billion years before it reached Earth. This means that the light we observe today must have left the galaxy 12 billion years ago.

In other words the light is the image of what the galaxy looked like 12 billion years ago. By observing galaxies at various distances from Earth, astronomers can reconstruct the history of the universe.

An international team including re-searchers from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), the Univer-sity of Tokyo, and Copenhagen University used data from NAOJ’s Subaru Telescope and other telescopes to search for galaxies located 12 billion light-years away. Among this sample they identified massive quies-cent galaxies, meaning massive galaxies without active star formation, as the prob-able progenitors of modern giant elliptical galaxies. It is surprising that mature giant

galaxies already existed very early, when the universe was only about ~13% of its current age.

Quiescent galaxiesThe team then used the Subaru Tel-

escope to perform high resolution fol-low-up observations in near infrared for the 5 brightest massive quiescent galaxies located 12 billion light-years away.

The results show that although the massive quiescent galaxies are compact (only about 2% the size of the Milky Way) they are almost as heavy as modern gal-axies. This means that to become modern giant elliptical galaxies they must puff up about 100 times in size, but only increase in mass by about 5 times.

Comparing the observations to toy mod-els, the team showed that this would be possible if the growth was driven, not by major mergers where two similar galaxies merge to form a larger one, but by minor mergers where a large galaxy cannibalizes smaller ones.

“We are very excited about the implica-tions of our findings,” explains correspond-ing author Mariko Kubo, a post-doctoral researcher at NAOJ. “But we are now at the resolution limit of existing telescopes.

The superior spatial resolution of the Thirty Meter Telescope currently under development will allow us to study the morphologies of distant galaxies more pre-cisely. For more distant galaxies beyond 12 billion light-years, we need the next generation James Webb Space Telescope.”

(Source: phys.org)

Seeds of giant galaxies formed in the early universe, scientists say

Genetic study reveals how citrus became the Med’s favorite squeeze

Scientists program proteins to pair exactlyProteins designed in the lab can now zip together in much the same way that DNA molecules zip up to form a double helix. The technique could enable the design of protein nanomachines that can potentially help diagnose and treat disease, allow for the more exact engineering of cells and perform a wide variety of other tasks.

This technique provides scientists a precise, programmable way to control how protein machines interact.

Proteins have now been designed in the lab to zip together in much the same way that DNA molecules zip up to form a double helix.

The technique, whose development was led by University of Washington School of Medicine scientists, could enable the design of protein nanomachines that can potentially help diagnose and treat disease, allow for the more exact engineering of cells and perform a wide variety of other tasks.

“For any machine to work, its parts must come together precisely,” said Zibo Chen, the lead author of the paper and a UW graduate student in biochemistry. “This technique makes it possible for you to design proteins so they come together exactly how you want them to.”

The research was performed at UW Medicine’s Institute of Protein Design, directed by David Baker, professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington School of Medicine and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. The researchers reported their findings in the December 19 issue of the journal Nature.

In the past, researchers interested in designing biomolecu-lar nanomachines have often used DNA as a major component. This is because DNA strands come together and form hydrogen bonds to create DNA’s double helix, but only if their sequences are complementary. (Source: sciencedaily.com)

SpaceX opens new GPS era with launch of ‘Vespucci’ from Cape CanaveralMore than 500 years ago, Italian navigator and explorer Amerigo Vespucci figured out a precise calculation of longitude that ena-bled him to measure Earth’s circumference to within 48 miles.

“And he did it in 1499,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson marveled during a visit to Kennedy Space Center last week. “His discoveries improved maps for explorers who would follow.”

On Sunday, a satellite named in Vespucci’s honor began a mission to modernize the Air Force’s Global Positioning System, the constellation so vital to the military, explorers and anyone looking up directions on a smart phone.

On its fourth attempt, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fired nine Merlin main engines at 08:51 A.M. to rumble into brisk, clear skies above Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Com-plex 40, starting the 20th and final launch of the year from the Space Coast.

“Merry Christmas, GPS,” said Julia Black, a senior launch engineer calling the liftoff from SpaceX’s launch control center near Port Canaveral.

About two hours later, a camera showed springs on the rocket’s upper stage gently push away the first of 10 satellites in the $5.8 billion GPS III program, bound for an orbit 12,500 miles high.

Once related ground systems are fully upgraded in the next few years, the new generation of GPS, built by Lockheed Martin and designed to last at least 15 years, will offer three times better accuracy and eight times better protection against signal jamming.

“Every inch is a matter of importance when you’re in the battlefield,” said Col. Steve Whitney, director of the Global Posi-tioning Systems Directorate at the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles. “If you know where you are at and you’re able to get closer, maybe you can get a shot off that you couldn’t normally see, right? And that all matters to our men and women down range.” (Source: Tech Times)

There’ll be a domino effect as we trigger ecosystem tipping pointsThere are lots of tipping points in ecosystems and the climate, and many are interconnected. That means the massive changes we are wreaking will have many unexpected consequences.

The “world is a much more surprising place then generally assumed,” says Garry Peterson of the Stockholm Resilience Cen-tre in Sweden. As an example, in 2016 the retreat of a glacier in Canada led to a river changing direction.

Peterson’s team has analyzed 300 ecosystems with potential tipping points or regime changes. For instance, as rainfall in-creases grasslands can suddenly turn into forests, and vice versa.

The study suggests that almost half of them are linked. For example, more extreme rainfall from global heating can greatly increase soil erosion, especially on degraded farmland, and carry more phosphorus into rivers, lakes and the sea. This can trigger algal blooms and red tides, and amplify the decline in oxygen that occurs as waters warm. This leads to even bigger aquatic “dead zones” with low oxygen, which can have further knock-on effects.

What the team’s work shows is that crossing one tipping point increases the risk of crossing another and so triggering a whole cascade of effects. And we may not even recognize the danger until it is too late, Peterson says.

Take the West Antarctic ice sheet, which will raise sea level three meters if it melts. The idea that we might be nearing the tipping point beyond which it will collapse was ridiculed when it was suggested in the 1970s. Now it appears we’ve already passed the tipping point.

Scientists specialize in narrow areas and often fail to spot the connections between different earth systems, Peterson says. We also assume the future will be more or less a continuation of what’s happening now. Computer modelers often specifically exclude things that lead to sudden, discontinuous changes because they make the models too unstable.

(Source: newscientist.com)

“Citron was first cultivated for its medicinal properties in China and its rind was used as a medicinal product, not as a food” explains Professor Cathie Martin of the John Innes

Centre and a co-author on the study.

Scientists create lung-inspired device, cleans fuel from water


S O C I E T Y DECEMBER 25, 2018

Those who are against the bill explain that simply banning young girls from marriage won’t necessarily solve the issue as many,

specially parents who force their children to marry, would not register the marriage to

circumvent the law.

Discrimination levelled at women in the work-place comes in a whole host of different forms. If they choose to have children, they risk being overlooked for promotion. If women are assertive, they’re labelled “bossy” or “bitchy.” More often than not, professional women are held to a higher ethical standard than men.

And research has shown women are far more likely to be judged based on their appearance at work – not just their clothes, hair and makeup, but also their weight. It’s called size discrimination and it’s a very real, and often overlooked, problem that disproportionately affects women at work.

According to research published earlier this year by LinkedIn, discrimination regarding weight is common in UK workplaces. Workers classed as obese are paid £1,940 ($2,457) less per year than their colleagues, with women classed as “overweight” or “obese” — according to their BMI — receiving £8,919 less on average each year than their male coworkers.

Researchers also found that almost a quarter of workers (21%) who are overweight felt they had been passed over for a job or a promotion because of their weight. In addition, more than half of those classed as plus-sized said they felt they had been left out of a team because of their weight.

And size discrimination doesn’t just affect women once they’re in a job, it also makes them less likely to be hired in the first place.

In a 2016 study by Sheffield Hallam University, participants were asked to evaluate candidates for different types of jobs based on their hypothetical CVs and photos featuring people of different weights. The results revealed that participants rated the obese job seekers as less suitable for employment, compared with slimmer candidates – and obese women were the least likely to be given jobs.

Last year, the jobs site Fairygodboss carried out a survey of 500 hiring professionals, who were

shown a photo of an overweight woman and asked if they would consider employing her. Only 15.6% of them said they would — and 20% said they thought she was “lazy.”

So why are overweight women more likely to be discriminated against when it comes to work? Firstly, it’s well-known by now that women are subject to constant scrutiny when it comes to their bodies and they are under pressure to conform to certain “beauty ideals” — which generally differ depending on where you live. Those who don’t fit these “ideals” are often treated unfairly.

Additionally, though, the discrimination of overweight women in the workplace is also likely to do with the stereotyping of obese people as “less physically capable and slothful,” according to the Sheffield Hallam researchers.

(Source:uk.finance.yahoo.com)

How women, not men, face discrimination at

work for being overweight

TEHRAN — Statistics released in the Iranian calendar year 1396 (March

2017-March 2018) indicate that the highest divorce rate is related to women between 15 and 19 years old, making up 29.84 percent of the divorced women, Parvaneh Mafi, a member of Majlis (Iranian parliament) has said.

At the same period of time, the highest divorce rate was in men aged 20-24 constituting 23.5 percent of divorced men, Tasnim quoted Mafi as saying.

The official added that 45 percent of divorces were for spouses of the same decade.

Among women, the highest proportion (40%) is for those who are in their third decade of life (21-30 years old) and men between 31 and 41 years old make up a majority of divorced ones, Mafi said.

A total number of 1,850 divorce cases for women and 6,384 cases for men are also registered for both genders living in their 60s, she said, adding this makes up 4 percent of total divorces.

In reference to decreasing rate of divorce, in the first six months of the current Iranian calendar year 1397 (started

March 21) Mafi called for related organizations to present executive policies in order to decrease and control divorce rate and prevent family vulnerabilities resulted from divorce.

According to statistics released in the [Iranian calendar] year 1396 there has been about 8 percent decrease in the number of registered marriages comparing to the same pe-

riod in the year 1395 (March 2016-March 2017) while the number of divorces has reached record levels up to 175,000 cases hitting the annual record of divorce cases in Iran’s history, the MP stated.

For every 1,000 people, two divorces were registered in the year 1396, and statistics regarding Tehran province shows three divorce cases per every one thousand people, she elaborated.

Sistan-Baluchestan province has the lowest rate of divorce for less than one divorce per every one thousand people, Mafi added.

A five-year comparison between years 1392 and 1396 shows a decrease of five to three cases of marriage all over the country, the official noted.

Statistics show that the divorce rates in provinces of Teh-ran, Kermanshah, Gilan, Kordestan, Qom, Mazandaran, Kohgiluyeh and Boyerahmad, Alborz, Khorasan Razavi and Markazi, are being higher than the average rate of the country.

The female member of the parliament further called for more attention to be paid to identify the underlying prob-lems and making attempts for preserving endangered lives.

Women aged 15-19 make up highest rate of divorce: MP

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

W O M E Nd e s k

W O M E Nd e s k

TEHRAN — Majlis [Iranian parliament] has

voted against a bill on increasing marriage age, the minimum age at which a person is allowed by law to marry, Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday.

Allahyar Malekshahi, head of the judicial group of Majlis, said on Sunday that the bill suggested girls aged under 13 should be banned from getting married and girls aged between 13 and 16 are only allowed to marry provided that their legal guardian approve the marriage.

The bill was put for vote, but the majority of the parliament members opposed the proposal, Malekshahi explained, adding that the judicial group is tasked with making amendments to the bill.

Various medical specialists as well as ex-perts in law and fiqh (religious jurisprudence, the theory or philosophy of Islamic law, based on the teachings of the holy Quran and the traditions of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)) expressed their views on the issue, he added.

It was concluded that the bill was highly debatable socially and with regard to Is-

lamic law, he noted. The bill has become controversial and

different groups including law makers as well as social activists, psychologist, lawyers and medical experts have voiced their opinions about it over the past few months.

Those in favor of the bill argue that increas-ing the marriageable age would decrease the chances of children being forced to marry, maternal death at young age and divorces along with other social harms.

However, those who are against the bill explain that simply banning young girls from marriage won’t necessarily solve the issue as many, specially parents who force their children to marry, would not register the marriage to circumvent the law.

In mid-November Abbasali Kadkhodaei, spokesman of the Guardian Council, explained that marriageable age is a cultural issue and looking for legal approaches to resolve it is not the only way as they may not be fruitful.

“[Addressing] cultural issues require cultural approaches,” he wrote in Persian on his twitter account.

12Majlis opposes bill on increasing marriage age

Soft Christmas cookies“Soft cut out sugar cookie that I have used for years. I sprinkle with colored sugar before baking or you could also try icing them when cool.”

Ingredients:

3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour1 teaspoon baking powder1/2 teaspoon salt1 cup margarine, softened1 1/2 cups white sugar2 eggs2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together, set aside. In a

large bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Gradually blend in the sifted ingredients until fully absorbed. Cover dough, and chill for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets. On a clean floured surface, roll out small portions of chilled dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out shapes using cookie cutters.

Bake 6 to 8 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are barely brown. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.

TipAluminum foil can be used to keep food moist, cook it evenly,

and make clean-up easier.

Women-only gyms and fitness groups draw Australian Muslims

Australians like a good workout, as the country’s many gyms and joggers on the streets attest. But for some fitness-minded women, unwanted male attention can be a deterrent.

Enter women-only gyms and exercise groups, places where wom-en can go to work up a sweat away from the prying eyes of men. Demand is particularly strong among immigrants, many of whom have, for religious or cultural reasons, a strong sense of modesty.

On a summer day in December, a group of about 20 women, all clad in black long-sleeve T-shirts and long pants, were working out in a Sydney park. Leading the group, called Dolly’s Bootcamp, is Dalal Karra-Hassan. Born to a family of Lebanese immigrants, she was forbidden by her father to go to the gym. When she finally set foot in one at age 21, she was hooked.

As a Muslim, however, she felt that it was immoral to attract the gaze of men. So she came up with the idea of an exercise group exclusively for women. That launched her career as an independent fitness trainer in 2013 and now the 29-year-old Karra-Hassan has 160 clients, most of whom are Muslims. She charges a monthly fee of 200 Australian dollars ($144). (Source:Nikkei Asian Review)

L E A R N E N G L I S HMaking A Sandwich A: Welcome to our show! Today, I am going to show you how to make the perfect mouthwatering sandwich!Are you ready? Let’s get started!A: Let’s start with the basics: bread. Bread is an important ingredient here. You need to remember one thing -choose the bread according to the following criteria: freshness, crumb and color. If you want a closed sandwich I recommend you first toast your bread in a toaster or oven, or grill it slightly until it gets a light brown color.A: Now that our bread is ready, let’s talk about the ingredients! Of course, each person’s palate is different, but I’m going to give you a few tips that you’ll be able to use when turning any sandwich into the perfect sandwich. I would strongly recommend you put fresh vegetables in your sandwich.A: Do not undervalue them as they play a big role in forming the taste and will make the sandwich more refreshing and light. The best choices here are evident- cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, sweet pepper or chili, lettuce and, of course, herbs- you can’t go wrong with them. As for aubergines, mushrooms and asparagus, I would recommend you first grill them slightly with a little touch of olive oil.A: Last but not least, we have a wide variety of condiments that we can add to our perfect sandwich. We can be subtle and just add a touch of salt and pepper, or we can combine mustard sauce, mayonnaise, ketchup or even caviar to achieve a stronger flavor! It’s always a good idea to cut your sandwich in triangles or manageable pieces to avoid all your ingredients falling out and staining your shirt!A: That’s all the time we have for today, but join us next time where we’ll be going over how to make the perfect lasagna! Till next time!

Key vocabularymouthwatering: food that is mouth-watering looks or smells extremely goodcriteria: a standard that you use to judge something or make a decision about somethingcrumb: a very small piece of dry food, especially bread or cakepalate: the sense of taste, and especially your ability to enjoy or judge foodto undervalue: to put too low a value onrefreshing: to provide new vigor and energy by rest, food, etc.aubergine: a large dark purple vegetable; eggplantasparagus: a long thin green vegetable with a point at one enda touch: a slight quantity or degreesubtle: so slight as to be difficult to detect or describemanageable: that can be managed or controlledstain: to accidentally make a mark on something, especially one that cannot be removed, or to be marked in this way

Supplementary vocabularyPanini: originally an Italian style sandwich made with a small loaf of breaddeli: a store where you can buy sandwich meats and bread cooking show: a show which teaches people how to cookwheat bread: a dark brown bread considered to be healthier to eatpickles: a cucumber which has been fermented in a vinegar solution

(Source: irlanguage.com)

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Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 2019

WORLD IN FOCUS 13I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has denounced as “illegitimate” the military pres-ence of American troops in Syria, stressing that the U.S. continues to violate the main resolutions of the UN Security Council on the war-torn Arab country despite a troop withdrawal announcement.

Lavrov made the remark in an inter-view with Russia’s Sputnik news agency on Monday as he was commenting on a recent announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump on the future of American armed forces in Syria.

“The solution to the illegitimate and armed presence of the U.S. in Syria might be difficult,” Russian foreign minister said.

“Washington continually puts new con-ditions that violate the sovereignty and ter-ritorial integrity of Syria despite of [the fact] that these principles are mentioned by the main resolutions of the Security Council,” Lavrov said, adding, “Let’s see what the re-sult of leaving Syria, which was announced by US President Donald Trump will be.”

Last week, Trump declared victory against Daesh in Syria and announced to pull out American troops from the country, saying that U.S. troops cannot stay in Syria “forever.”

More than 1,000 displaced Syrians return home from neigh-boring Lebanon

More than 1,000 Syrian refugees have returned to their homeland from various areas in neighboring Lebanon after Syrian government forces and allied fighters from popular defense groups managed to liber-ate their home towns from the clutches of foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorist groups.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported that the return of refugees took place in the southern Lebanese cites and districts of Tripoli, Arsal, Tyre and Nabatieh, and under the supervision of Lebanon’s General Security in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Refugees returned home using buses sent by Syrian authorities, and arrived at al-Zamrani, Jdeidat Yabous, al-Dabbousiya border crossings from Lebanese territories on Monday afternoon.

The refugees underwent medical checks and anti-polio vaccines were administered to children. They were then transferred to Syria’s northern and central provinces of Idlib and Homs in addition to other areas in the crisis-stricken country.

On December 16, over 1,000 Syrian refugees returned to their homeland from different areas in Lebanon, including Na-batieh, Bekaa, Tripoli and Shabaa.

Arabic-language Elnashra online inde-pendent newspaper reported that the return of refugees took place under the supervision of Lebanon’s General Security in cooperation with the Lebanese army.

More than one million Syrian refugees are registered with the UNHCR in Lebanon.

Beirut estimates that the true number of Syrians in Lebanon stands at 1.5 million.

Assad aide in Egypt as world warms up to Damascus

Meantime, a senior adviser to Syria’s Pres-ident Bashar al-Assad has visited Egypt at the invitation of the Egyptian intelligence chief amid efforts by world countries to embrace the country.

Head of Syria’s National Security Bureau Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk arrived in Egypt on Saturday to discuss political and security issues, including counter-terrorism efforts, the official Syrian Arab News Agency re-ported on Sunday.

Mamlouk visited Egypt last time in 2016 when Cairo kept up security contacts with Damascus despite a general snub among Arab states. Cairo has reportedly negotiated some of the reconciliation deals between the Syrian government and militant groups.

On Sunday, Saudi-owned al-Arabiya news network reported that Jordan was also seeking to restore its ties with Syria, putting it down to Syria’s military gains that have secured their common border.

The broadcaster said a Jordanian par-liamentary delegation had recently visited the Syrian capital and taken back a message from President Assad to King Abdullah II.

Earlier this month, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir arrived in Damascus in the first such visit by an Arab leader since Syria found itself in the clutches of foreign-backed militancy in 2011.

Under the influence of Persian Gulf mon-archies, the Arab League (AL) suspended Syria’s membership at the end of that year, and many Arab states closed their embassies or downgraded their ties with Damascus.

However, there have been growing calls within Arab states in recent months to nor-malize ties with Syria, and last week the Arab Parliament called on the Arab League to end its suspension of Syria’s membership at the 22-member body.

A French delegation, headed by former transport minister Thierry Mariani, met with Syrian government officials in Damascus earlier this month and condemned France’s hostile policies toward the country.

Last Monday, the United States said it was no longer seeking to topple President Assad but reiterated that it would not fund reconstruction unless the government is “fundamentally different.”

James Jeffrey, the U.S. special represent-ative in Syria, said Assad needed to com-promise as he had not yet won the brutal seven-year war, estimating that some 100,000 militants remained in Syria.

Pentagon signs order for U.S. pullout from Syria

Elsewhere, the U.S. military has an-nounced that the order to pull the American

forces out of Syria has been signed, after the U.S. and Turkish presidents agreed on subsequent measures.

President Donald Trump unexpectedly announced on Wednesday that the U.S. would be pulling all its 2,000 forces out of Syria. He also claimed victory over the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh) Takfiri terrorist outfit in the war-torn state.

“The execute order for Syria has been signed,” a U.S. military spokesperson told AFP when asked about the pullout order, without elaborating.

The news came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had spoken with Trump by phone on Sunday and “agreed to ensure coordination between their coun-tries’ military, diplomatic and other officials.”

Ankara welcomed Washington’s decision to withdraw from Syria. Observers say it ap-pears that the U.S. has chosen to strengthen its alliance with Turkey at the expense of its Kurdish allies in Syria.

On Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron rebuked Trump over his decision to withdraw troops from Syria, saying “an ally must be reliable.”

France, a leading member of the U.S.-led coalition, has said it would keep troops in Syria.

Trump’s decision has sparked turmoil within his administration, prompting the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Brett McGurk, the special envoy to the so-called anti-ISIL coalition.

Trump later named Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan as the acting Pentagon chief, saying he will replace Mattis starting January 1, earlier than previously scheduled.

Trump’s decision on Syria was reportedly preceded by the deployment of forces from its Arab allies to Syria.

Corker ‘badmouths me for wanting to bring’ U.S. troops home: Trump

The development followed as Trump has reignited his feud with Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), saying he “badmouths me for wanting to bring our young people safely back home.”

Trump claimed on Sunday that Corker, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is retiring because his poll num-bers “tanked” because he failed to obtain his endorsement.

“Senator Bob Corker just stated that, ‘I’m so privileged [sic] to serve in the Senate for twelve years, and that’s what I told the peo-ple of our state that’s what I’d do, serve for two terms,’” Trump tweeted. “But that is Not True - wanted to run but poll numbers TANKED when I wouldn’t endorse him.”

Several senators, including Corker, have accused Trump of making a hasty decision.

“I’m just saddened for our country. I’m saddened for the broken relationships with countries that have been with us. I’m sad-dened for the many Kurds and others who will likely be killed and slaughtered by either the Syrians or the Turks. I’m saddened for our country in being so unreliable,” Corker said.

Sen. Paul supports U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria

Meanwhile, Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky defended Trump’s decision to withdraw the American troops in Syria and asked him to end the 17-year-old war in Afghanistan as well.

“I’m very proud of the President. This is exactly what he promised. And I think the people agree with him, actually,” Paul said on Sunday on CNN.

“I think people believe that we’ve been at war too long and in too many places. And that we do need to turn attention to problems we have at home here,” he said.

“We have a lot of problems in our country and I think people are tired of spending. You know, we spent several trillion dollars on these wars everywhere and I think the President promised that he’d be different,” he added.

“We’ve been there 17 years. We think now we’re going to take one more village and we’ll get a better negotiated deal?” Paul said on CBS News, referring to the war in Afghanistan, which began in October 2001.

UAE, Saudi, Sudanese troops deployed to Syria

Moreover, the Arabic-language al-Manar newspaper reported on Sunday that forc-es from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the House of Saud regime, Sudan and other nations of the so-called axis of moderation had been deployed to the east of Euphrates River in Syria, adding that the move came in coordination with the U.S. and France.

The paper quoted informed sources as saying that the deployment took place be-fore Trump’s announcement of the pullout plan. It said a number of Emirati and Saudi regime officers had been deployed to the region about a month before.

The sources also told al-Manar that the U.S. had provided terrorists operating in the region, most of them ISIL members, with additional weapons, and transferred hundreds of them to areas in North Africa, Libya and Egypt’s Sinai as part of a process to redistribute them after their heavy losses against Syrian army troops.

The report said that Washington had also sent a number of terrorists to Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and areas near the Iranian and Russian borders.

Washington and Arab allies, the newspaper said, claim that such moves would diminish the perceived threat posed by the presence of Iranian military advisers and Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement in Syria.

(Source: Press TV)

‘Very possible’ shutdown stretches into 2019: officialA top White House official warned Sunday that it’s “very possible” the partial government shutdown stretches into the new year and that how quickly numerous shuttered Cabinet departments and agencies resume doing the people’s business is up to Congress. “The ball is in the Senate’s court,” acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said.

Senate Democrats, who oppose funding for President Donald Trump’s promised border wall, contend government could reopen immediately if Trump drops his demand to extend a physical barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border.

A stalemate over the wall led parts of the government to shut down Saturday after funding for numerous departments and agencies expired.

Mulvaney, who is also director of the White House budget office, said he’s awaiting word from Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York after the administration Saturday presented Schumer with a counteroffer in the long-running dis-pute over funding the wall.

Mulvaney withheld specifics but placed the offer between Trump’s $5.7 billion request and $1.3 billion offered by Democrats.

The shutdown was expected to last through Thursday after the House and Senate, which held rare weekend sessions, adjourned until later in the week. Monday and Tuesday, Christmas Eve and Christmas, respectively, are federal holidays, meaning much of the federal government would already be closed.

Wednesday is the first day taxpayers could begin to feel the effects of a shutdown, Mulvaney said. But he predicted it could last beyond Thursday, when Congress is next scheduled to come into session.

“It’s very possible that this shutdown will go beyond the 28 and into the new Congress,” he said.

Democrats held firm Sunday in opposition to paying for a border wall, which was a central promise of Trump’s campaign for president. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said the administration is sitting on most of the money Congress gave Trump last year for border security, excluding a wall.

“If you’re not going to spend nine out of 10 dollars on an issue, you obviously don’t care about it that much,” Merkley said. “This is politics, not policy.”

Mulvaney countered that “the president’s not going to not accept money for a border wall.”

On the second day of the federal closure, Trump tweeted Sunday that what the country needs is “a good old fashioned WALL that works,” as opposed to aerial drones and other measures that “are wonderful and lots of fun” but not the right answer to address “drugs, gangs, human trafficking, criminal elements and much else from coming into” the United States.

The disruption has affected many government operations and the routines of 800,000 federal employees. Roughly 420,000 workers were deemed essential and were expected to work un-paid. An additional 380,000 were to be furloughed, meaning they will stay home without pay. The Senate had already passed legislation ensuring that workers will receive back pay, and the House was likely to follow suit.

Unlike past shutdowns, this one seemed to lack urgency, coming during the long holiday weekend after Trump had already declared Christmas Eve a federal holiday. Rather than work around the clock to try to end the shutdown, as they had done in the past, the leaders of the House and the Senate effectively closed up shop. But they didn’t rule out action if a deal were struck.

“Listen, anything can happen,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters after he closed the Senate’s rare Sat-urday session hours after it opened.

But after ushering Vice President Mike Pence through the Capitol for another round of negotiations, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said a quick end to the shutdown was “not probable.”

Trump had lunch at the White House Saturday with conser-vative lawmakers. Absent were GOP leaders or Democrats who would be needed for a deal.

The White House said Trump would spend Christmas in Washington because of the shutdown.

With Democrats set to take control of the House on Jan. 3, and Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., on his way out, the shutdown was providing a last gasp of the conservative majority before the new Congress.

(Source: AP)

U.S. has no right to claim that Iran is “violating” 2231: Jenkins

1 A: It’s not really for me to say what is or is not logo-ical for Iran. But if I were an Iranian citizen, I would want my government to possess means of deterring hostile states from attacking Iran. As a British citizen I wish the British government to be capable of deterring hostile attacks on the United Kingdom. If the Iranian governments believes that it needs missiles as a component of an Iranian deterrent, which seems to me more deserving of comprehension than condemnation. My view would be entirely different if the Iranian government were to set about acquiring nuclear weapons, since Iran is under a legally-binding obligation to refrain from doing so, and currently all other states under that obligation are respecting it.

U.S. claim that Iran missile program is in the contrary of 2231 resolution of UNSC. Do you agree?

A: The answer to this question depends on the meaning you assign to “contrary”. UNSC 2231 “calls upon” Iran to refrain from developing a certain category of missiles. “Call upon” is not a legally-binding formulation. So the United States has no right to claim that Iran is “violating” 2231 (as it is itself) or “in non-compliance” with 2231, or “failing to comply” with 2231. But it would be reasonable to claim that Iran is “acting inconsistently with 2231” or “ignoring the wishes of the UN Security Council”.

In period of Saddam in Iraq, Sadaam Hussein bombed the Iran’ cities by his missiles. Iran did not have any missile for protecting itself from this attack. Suppose Iran ignore its missile program, then which countries will protect Iran from a threat like Saddam period in the region that there are governor look like Sadaam?

A: This is another question that it is difficult for an outsider to answer. It could be that the Iranian government has a secret understanding with one or more foreign governments that those governments will threaten to make any state that attacks Iran pay a very heavy price for that act of aggression – and that this threat would have sufficient credibility to deter the would-be aggressor. But at this point there are no grounds to suppose that such an understanding exists, and this suggests that it would be prudent for Iran to look to its own resources if it judges that it needs a capability to deter.

ساعت: امضاء سردبیر: ساعت: امضاء ادیتور: ساعت: امضاء مسئول صفحه: ساعت: 19:40 امضاء صفحه آرا:

U.S. continues to violate UN resolutions on Syria

Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri says the govern-ment formation process in the country has been derailed as there are parties that do not want a new cabinet to be formed.

“What happened confirms there are parties that do not want the government to be born at all,” Berri told al-Akhbar newspaper in remarks published on Monday.

The country has been facing a political deadlock since its first parliamentary vote in nine years was held in May.

Berri expressed concern about regarding “what awaits the country in the coming period.”

According to official results, the resistance movement of Hezbollah, which defends the country against the Israeli aggression, and its political allies won more than 70 of the 128 seats.

Hezbollah’s allies include the Amal Movement, led by

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, and the Christian Free Patriotic Movement, founded by President Michel Aoun.

The Western- and Saudi-backed Saad Hariri, however, lost more than a third of the seats held by his party’s lawmakers.

The cabinet seats must be allocated among rival groups according to a sectarian system that permits Sunnis, Shias and Christians to represent the portfolios.

Hariri, himself a Sunni Muslim, has resisted a seat de-manded by a group of six Sunni parliamentarians allied to Hezbollah.

The most powerful ministries have already been allocated but fresh disputes have reportedly arisen over portfolios of secondary significance.

Offering his analysis of the situation, Berri said, “The matter appears to be bigger than a blocking third, portfo-

lios, and shares.”Lebanon is in dire need of an administration because

the country is heavily indebted and suffering from low economic growth.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in the capi-tal Beirut on Sunday to protest rampant corruption, poor living conditions and deteriorating economic conditions in the country.

The protesters gathered near the government headquarters, with some of them wearing yellow vests echoing France’s “yellow vest” protests of recent weeks.

A scuffle broke out with soldiers as the protesters spilled into the streets and set trash cans ablaze on one main road around Beirut.

(Source: Press TV)

1 “Yesterday units from the Syrian National Army headed towards the Manbij front and took preliminary positions (in preparation) for the battle,” said Major Youssef Hamoud, the spokesman for the National Army, the main Turkey-backed rebel force in the area. The group is aimed at unifying disparate factions in north-west Syria.

Manbij has been a major flashpoint be-tween Ankara and Washington. In June,

the NATO allies reached an agreement that would see the YPG ousted from the town but Turkey has said the deal has been delayed.

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Dec. 14 that Turkish forces would enter the town if the United States does not remove the Kurdish fighters.

U.S. forces still remain in Manbij, and the Turkey-backed fighters will not advance until they withdraw, Hamoud told Reuters.

The YPG has been the main U.S. ally in the

fight against Islamic State in Syria. Ankara says the YPG is a terrorist organization and an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency in Turkey since the 1980s.

Erdogan has said Ankara will post-pone a planned military operation against the YPG east of the Euphrates river in northern Syria following the U.S. deci-sion to pull out.

Erdogan and Trump agreed in a phone

call on Sunday to coordinate to prevent an authority vacuum from developing as the United States withdraws from Syria, the Turkish presidency said.

On Sunday, a Reuters witness saw hun-dreds of vehicles head to the southern border province of Kilis after leaving Hatay, another border province. The convoy included tanks, howitzers, machine guns and buses carrying commandos, the witness said.

(Source: Reuters)

1 Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of Hadi back to power and crushing Ansarullah movement.

According to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-re-search organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed

the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis. The Saudi-led war has also taken a heavy toll on the

country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most

severe famine in more than 100 years.A number of Western countries, the U.S. and Britain in

particular, are also accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance.

(Source: Press TV)

Some parties don’t want govt. formed: Lebanon’s parliament speaker

Turkish-backed rebels reinforce front around Manbij as U.S. prepares to pull out

‘UAE trying to nix agreements reached in Yemen talks’

DECEMBER 25, 2018


W O R L D S P O R T S DECEMBER 25, 201814

Klopp open to Liverpool signings in January

Sudanese police fire tear gas at protesting soccer fans

The end of the Messi-Ronaldo era? Football rings the changes in 2018

One of the enduring images from 2018 will remain Kylian Mbappe consoling Lionel Messi in the Russian city of Kazan, just after the final whistle in France’s 4-3 win over Argentina in the last 16 of the World Cup.

This was to a large extent Mbappe’s year, as the teenage superstar exploded on the world stage by scoring twice in that game, the first World Cup brace by a teenager since Pele in 1958.

Still just 19 at the time, Paris Saint-Ger-main forward Mbappe also became the first teenager to score in a World Cup final since Pele as France won the trophy for the second time by beating Luka Modric’s Croatia 4-2 in the final on a dark and damp Sunday in Moscow.

The World Cup itself was a joy to watch, a richly entertaining tournament full of memorable games and concluding with the highest-scoring final since 1966.

From Spain’s 3-3 draw with Portugal in the group stage, featuring a Cristiano Ronaldo hat-trick, to Belgium’s 2-1 quarter-final win over Brazil and Croatia’s epic semi-final de-feat of England in extra time, it was studded with memorable matches.

But it was much more than that. “Maybe this is one of the weirdest World Cups,” said Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic.

His team’s remarkable run to the final and the premature exits of Germany, Spain and Argentina showed that international football can still be unpredictable.

It will also probably be remembered as the tournament that marked the end of Messi and

Ronaldo’s dreams of lifting the World Cup.They were eliminated on the same day in

the last 16, and 2018 could be remembered as the year when the Messi-Ronaldo era ended.

Both enjoyed prolific years, with the Argentine driving Barcelona to a Spanish league and cup double and Ronaldo win-ning another Champions League with Real Madrid before moving to Juventus in the transfer of the year.

Modric takes Ballon d’Or However, their numbers are down on

the phenomenal figures of past years, and

instead it was the impish playmaker Modric who won the Ballon d’Or, and FIFA’s best player award, on the strength of his role in Madrid’s Champions League triumph and Croatia’s World Cup run. He was also the best player in Russia.

Ronaldo and Messi had shared the Bal-lon d’Or between them for the last decade, winning five each. Ronaldo was second this time, while Messi was fifth, behind Antoine Griezmann and Mbappe.

“Nobody has the right to compare them-selves to them. They are among the best in

the history of the sport,” Modric told France Football. “To follow on from them is incred-ible, and I am proud of it.”

Crowned the best young player, Mbappe will hope the future belongs to him.

At club level, his PSG side are among the teams desperate to end Real’s run of three straight Champions League titles.

The Spaniards beat Liverpool in this year’s final in Kiev with Gareth Bale scoring twice, and will hope to retain the trophy next year with the final in Madrid.

Meanwhile, there is lots to look forward to at international level in 2019.

Nations League finals The new UEFA Nations League has been

an instant hit. It will conclude with the four-team finals in Portugal in June, with the hosts facing Switzerland and England playing the Netherlands in the last four.

“We want to go beyond where we went last summer, and we’re in the mix for what is a really important staging post in our de-velopment,” said England manager Gareth Southgate of that competition.

However, the main international events in 2019 are elsewhere.

The first 24-team Asian Cup takes place in the UAE in January and February, before Brazil hosts the Copa America and the United States defend the CONCACAF Gold Cup.

France are hoping to win another World Cup, as they host the 24-team women’s tour-nament in June and July, with the USA the defending champions.

(Source: AFP)

Liverpool will be open to signing players in the January transfer window should they need reinforcements to aid their Premier League title challenge, manager Juergen Klopp said on Monday.

Klopp’s side has suffered a number of casualties in recent weeks, with defenders Joel Matip and Joe Gomez ruled out until mid-January with injuries.

While full back Trent Alexander-Arnold and midfielder Naby Keita could return against Newcastle United on Wednesday, Klopp sug-gested further fitness problems could force him to rethink his transfer strategy.

“I’m very happy with what I’ve got, but you don’t know. That’s why I always keep the door open, in case something happens and we need to have a look,” Klopp told a news conference.

“If a few more things happen then we need to have a look because there are a monstrous number of games still and it’s really important that we can always react.

“If something will dramatically change then we need to have a look, that’s all. If nothing happens, then I would say we will not do anything.”

Liverpool powered past Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-0 on Friday to extend their lead to four points after rivals Manchester

City suffered a shock 3-2 defeat by Crystal Palace. Klopp has urged his players to main-tain their focus when they host Newcastle at Anfield on Boxing Day, with potentially season-defining games against Arsenal and Manchester City on the horizon.

“The most important thing for us is (the reaction) after you win the last game - that is why the Wolves game was such a big challenge (after win against Manchester United),” he added.

“So I was really happy with our attitude. That is what we need - to stay angry, greedy and in the job. That is what we have to do against Newcastle.”

Klopp expects former Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez to receive a warm welcome when he returns to Anfield for the fifth time as a visiting team manager.

Benitez, who won the 2005 Champi-ons League with Liverpool, has endured a difficult season with Newcastle, who are 15th in the league and five points clear of the bottom three.

“I think the supporters of this club are famous not to forget people who did an outstanding job here,” said Klopp.

“I heard that nobody was really happy with the amount of money they (Newcastle) had to sign players.

(Source: Reuters)

Sudanese police fired tear gas after hundreds of protesters spilling out of a soccer match marched down a major road leading towards the centre of the capital, Khartoum, late on Sunday, demonstrating against President Omar al-Bashir’s rule, a Reuters witness said. Amid a heavy police presence, the protesters gathered in Omdurman, just across the River Nile from central Khartoum, and chanted, “The people want the fall of the regime” and “Freedom! Freedom!”.

About 4km (2.5 miles) from the stadi-um, security units, including elite forces, prevented them from crossing a bridge that leads towards the heart of the capital and the presidential palace.

Cities across Sudan have been shaken by five days of protests over price rises, shortages of basic commodities and a cash crisis. Protesters have repeatedly targeted the offices of Bashir’s party and called for an end to his 29-year rule.

Since the demonstrations started spread-ing on Wednesday, police have dispersed protesters with tear gas as well as using live ammunition in some cases, residents say. Authorities have declared states of emergency and curfews in several states.

Government officials have blamed the unrest on “infiltrators”. Officials and witness-es have recorded at least 12 deaths, though

exact casualty figures are hard to ascertain.After the soccer match on Sunday

evening, security forces had cordoned off main streets around the stadium and more than 30 trucks carrying police in riot gear were spread across the area.

When the match ended, fans marched down Al Arbaeen street in Omdurman singing and chanting until they got close to the river, where they were blocked by security forces, one witness told Reuters.

“They encircled them in four-wheel drives from the back and confronted them with vehicles coming from the White Nile bridge, forcing some of the protesters to enter the military hospital,” he said.

Earlier on Sunday in Um Rawaba in North Kordofan state, three people were wounded as police dispersed protesters, according to a witness in the southern town.

Security forces had changed tactics by moving more quickly to break up protests as soon as they started, he said.

Bashir, one of the longest-serving leaders in African and the Arab world, took power in an Islamist and military-backed coup in 1989.

Members of parliament this month proposed a constitutional amendment to extend term limits that would have required him to step down in 2020.

(Source: Reuters)

Stephen Curry scored the last of his 42 points on a driving layup with a half-second remaining Sunday and reigning NBA champion Golden State edged the Los Angeles Clip-pers 129-127.

Kevin Durant added 35 points and 12 rebounds for the Warriors (23-11), who won for the eighth time in 10 games despite the Clippers hitting 18-of-23 three-point attempts.

Curry did not play when the Clippers beat the Warriors in overtime earlier this season but the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player lifted Golden State on his shoulders in the rematch and closed out the victory with his dramatic win-ning shot. “Just got to make a play and not rush and beat them downhill and I made the play,” Curry said. “It was a great way to finish.”

The Warriors are 15-3 at home but have stumbled early and are in a fight for the Western Conference lead.

“Teams get hot and we have some slip-ups,” Curry said. “We just have to figure out how to weather the storm and get the win.”

Durant was powerful defensively, blocking three shots, and all his rebounds came on the defensive end.

“We buckled down in the third and fourth quarter and it was good to make them have to make some tough shots,” Durant said. “Steph got it going. We wanted to keep feeding him and make it easy for us. The last play was phenomenal.”

Durant said being tested early will toughen the Warriors for games later in the season as they chase a fourth NBA crown in five seasons.

“I like the groove we’re in,” Durant said. “We’ve won some tight games. That experience of playing in some tight games. That’s going to help us down the stretch.”

In another dramatic finish, Oklahoma City’s Paul George missed a three-point shot at the buzzer and Minnesota held off the Thunder to win 114-112.

Andrew Wiggins scored 30 points to lead the Timberwolves

while George had a game-high 31 points and 11 rebounds.Russell Westbrook had a triple double in a losing cause

with 23 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists.Kyrie Irving scored 25 points to lead the Boston Celtics over

visiting Charlotte 119-103 while Tyler Johnson scored 20 of his 25 points in the third quarter of Miami’s 115-91 win at Orlando.

Jaren Jackson scored a game-high 27 points to lead vis-iting Memphis over the Los Angeles Lakers 107-99 despite 22 points, a game-high 14 rebounds and seven assists by LeBron James. Bahamas big man Deandre Ayton, the top pick in June’s NBA Draft by Phoenix, scored 26 points and grabbed 18 rebounds in a losing cause as Brooklyn ripped the visiting Suns 111-103.

Damian Lillard scored a game-high 33 points to lead Portland over Dallas 121-118 in overtime. Luka Doncic, a 19-year-old Slovenian rookie forward, sank a three-pointer at the buzzer to pull Dallas level at 107-107 and force overtime.

Finnish forward Lauri Markkanen scored 31 points, hitting 5-of-10 three-point shots, to lead the Chicago Bulls over host Cleveland 112-92.

Sacramento’s Buddy Hield scored 28 points while Willie Cauley-Stein added 22 points and a career-high 17 rebounds as the Sacramento Kings rallied from 11 points down in the fourth quarter to defeat visiting New Orleans 122-117.

(Source: France24)

Curry, Durant lift Warriors over Clippers in NBA thriller

Rafael Benitez believes it will be “another miracle” if his Newcastle side retain their Premier League status.

The Spanish manager said finishing 10th last season was an extraordinary performance but added that would be matched simply by beating the drop this term give the fact that the Magpies’ relegation rivals had all outspent the north-east side in pre-season.

Newcastle’s position has also been complicated by owner Mike Ashley being frustrated in his wish to sell the club.

“We have to be realistic and understand that we will be in the bottom half during the whole season,” said Benitez ahead of the Boxing Day clash away to his former side Liverpool who are looking to cement their lead at the top of the table.

“For me, it is almost clear and if we can be better than three teams, it will be another miracle. “It was a miracle last year. People were thinking, ‘Oh, you finished 10th...’, but with a couple fewer wins, we could have been in the bottom five, so it was a miracle.

“If we do the same this year with teams spending even more money than last year, it will be a miracle.”

He added: “I know what is coming now and I know where we are. You can see the team -- the team is trying a lot of things, but still it’s not enough sometimes to get the points, and it will be like that. “If we are under pressure and we feel this pressure, we will not be better, we can make more mistakes,” explained Benitez.

Newcastle are currently five points above the bottom three heading into the busy holiday period after last weekend’s goalless draw with Fulham.

(Source: Mirror)

Benitez says Newcastle need ‘another miracle’ to stay up

Five weightlifters, including two Olympic champions, have been provisionally suspended after reanalyzis of urine samples provided during the 2012 London Olympics, the International Weightlifting Federation announced on Monday.

Ukrainian Oleksiy Torokhtiy, Olympic -105kg gold medallist six years ago, and Uzbek Ruslan Nurudinov, who won the same category in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, both tested positive for anabolic steroids.

Only Torokhtiy stands to lose his title, as the samples retested were given four years before Nurudinov’s gold-medal winning performance in Brazil.

Valentin Hristov of Azerbaijan, currently serving an eight-year ban following two positive doping tests in 2013 and 2015, could lose his 2012 bronze medal from the -56kg category after also testing positive for an anabolic agent.

The other two athletes to test positive -- Armenia’s Meline Daluzyan and Belarusian Mikalai Novikau -- did not win medals in London.

Last month, the International Olympic Committee announced that new analysis of samples from the 2012 Games using “the most recent scientific methods” would be entrusted to the new-ly-formed International Testing Agency.

(Source: AFP)

The winter transfer window is already beginning to get its wheels in motion and Real Madrid are often at the heart of the spec-ulation, with the latest player linked being Lyon’s Nabil Fekir.

The 25-year-old playmaker was linked with a move to the Santiago Bernabeu in the summer, too.

Barcelona were also reported to be interested in him, though they have switched their focus to Ajax midfielder Frenkie de Jong, despite competition from Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City.

His existing contract in France is set to expire in 2020 and club president Jean-Michel Aulas has become increasingly nervous as he refuses to extend his deal, which could lead to a sale, either in January or in the summer.

The French international has played 16 games this season, scoring six goals and providing four assists, as he has shown what he has to offer. Madrid are studying the possibility of making a move for Fekir, as they are on the hunt for an offensive midfielder who could play a similar role to Luka Modric in the future.

For now, those in charge are focused on agreeing a deal for Exequiel Palaciosfrom River Plate, with an agreement seeming further away with every passing day.

(Source: Marca)

Five weightlifters banned after 2012 Olympic tests reanalyzed

Nabil Fekir has been offered to Real Madrid

Major League Soccer champion Atlanta United have named re-tired Dutch star Frank de Boer as the club’s new coach, replacing Argentina’s Gerardo Martino.

The 48-year-old Dutchman guided his former club Ajax to four consecutive Dutch league titles but less successful stints followed at Inter Milan and England’s Crystal Palace.

In announcing last October that he was leaving Atlanta, Mar-tino said the grind of a club campaign kept him from going home as much as he wanted. But he has been linked to the Mexican national team. De Boer takes over on January 1 with United set for a pre-season match January 14 and a CONCACAF Champions League campaign that begins in February.

“The club’s sportive ambitions, as set out in a long-term strat-egy to be the best in class, clearly fits my personal ambitions,” de Boer said.

“I would like to build on the current success to develop a secure, solid foundation for the club at the top of MLS and beyond.”

De Boer lasted only 85 days at Inter Milan after losing four of five Serie A matches and was gone after 10 weeks from Crystal Palace after a 0-4 start in the 2017-18 Premier League.

“Frank de Boer has a distinguished background, both as man-ager and player, and we’re ecstatic to welcome him to our club,” Atlanta United president Darren Eales said.

(Source: Goal)

MLS champion Atlanta names Dutchman de Boer as coach

S P O R T S 15I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

United Arab Emirates, hoping to win the AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019 on home soil, have announced their 23-man squad.

In the squad named by head coach Al-berto Zaccheroni, 2015 AFC Player of the Year Ahmed Khalil and Ali Makbhout will be leading the charge for goals in a team that will be missing the talismanic Omar Abdulrahman.

Abdulrahman was ruled out earlier after suffering a season ending knee injury in October.

Al Ain, fresh from their runners-up finish in the FIFA Club World Cup UAE 2019, have seven players in the squad.

Al Jazira are well represented as well with Zaccheroni selecting five players.

UAE open their Group A campaign against

Bahrain on January 5. They play India five days later and Thailand on January 14.

UAE will be looking to better their finish from the last time they hosted the AFC Asian Cup in 1995, when they finished runners-up.

UAE SquadKhalid Essa, Bandar Al Ahbabi, Mohamed

Ahmed, Ismail Ahmed, Amer Abdulrahman, Rayan Yaslam, Mohamed Abdulrahman (Al

Ain); Ali Khaseif, Khalifa Al Hammadi, Fares Juma, Khalfan Mubarak, Ali Mabkhout (Al Jazira); Khalifa Mubarak, Mahmoud Khamis (Al Nasr); Walid Abbas, Majed Hassan, Is-mail Al Hammadi, Ahmed Khalil (Shabab Al Ahli Dubai Club); Saif Rashid (Sharjah); Mohamed Al Shamsi, Ismail Matar (Al Wah-da); Ali Salmeen, Khamis Esmail (Al Wasl).

(Source: the-afc)

Football Federation Australia (FFA) has confirmed that Aus-tria-based midfielder James Jeggo will replace Aaron Mooy in the Socceroos squad for the AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019.

Jeggo, 26, has been playing regularly in the Austrian Bundesliga for his club FK Austria Wien this season and will add a defensive option to Graham Arnold’s midfield mix for the tournament.

Socceroos head coach Arnold said: “James has been performing really well in Austria and is a fantastic char-

acter, so we are very happy to have him join the squad. Initially James was very unlucky to miss out on the squad, but sometimes these things happen in football and we are glad we can provide him with this opportunity.

“James has thrived at club level playing in a defensive midfield role and with three attacking central midfielders already in the squad, we felt we needed someone with James’ attributes to provide some depth in that area.”

(Source: Four Four Two)

Zaccheroni names UAE squad for challenge

Jeggo replaces Mooy in Socceroos squad

S P O R T Sd e s k

TEHRAN — Iran na-tional football team

were held to a 1-1 draw by Palestine in a friendly match on Monday.

In the match held in Doha’s Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium, Mehdi Taremi put the Persians into the lead in the 50th minute.

Team Melli could have scored more goals by they lacked of a cutting edge.

Palestine midfielder Jonathan Cantillana equalized the match in the added time.

Team Melli, headed by Carlos Queiroz, is also scheduled to play Qatar on Dec. 31, Iran football federation’s website announced.

Iran have started training camp in Doha from Dec. 17.

Queiroz also wanted to play India the buildup to the tournament, but Stephen Constantine turned down the Portuguese’s request since the Blue Tigers already had scheduled on December 27 and Decem-ber 30.

Iran national football team have been drawn along with Iraq, Yemen and Vietnam in Group D.

The 2019 AFC Asian Cup will be held in the United Arab Emirates from January 5 to February 1.

Iran held by Palestine in friendly

TEHRAN — Former Iran national football

team and Persepolis club coach Stanko Poklepovic passed away at the age of 81.

Poklepovic died after a long illness at the Split Hospital in the early hours of December 24th.

He made his impact in the 1984–85 Yugoslav First League as the manager of Hajduk Split when he took over the Yu-goslav powerhouse at the time when a lot of important players left the club and a lot of young players like Asanovic, Andrija-sevic and Spanjic joined the club with no

experience. In 1994, he was named as the head coach

of the Iranian national football team and Persepolis. He won back-to-back Azade-gan League titles with Persepolis in 1996 and 1997.

Poklepovic replaced Ali Parvin as Team Melli coach in 1994 after the Iranian leg-endary coach failed to qualify for World Cup 1994.

Poklepovic also coached Iranian football clubs Sepahan and Damash Gilan.

The Tehran Times staff offer heartfelt condolences to his bereaved family.

Former Iran and Persepolis coach Stanko Poklepovic dies

DECEMBER 25, 2018

S P O R T Sd e s k

S P O R T Sd e s k

Ali Akbari named 2018 world best Kurash playerMNA — The International Kurash Association has chosen Ira-nian Kurash practitioner Elyas Ali Akbari as the world best male player in 2018.

Ali Akbari, who fights in 81kg category, won three gold medals in international Kurash competitions of 2018.

The Iranian athlete won a gold medal in 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta by outplaying all his rivals and without conceding even one point to them.

He also snatched two other gold medals, one at Asian Cham-pionship in India’s Pune and another at VII International Kurash tournament in Uzbekistan.

The International Kurash Association announced on Mon-day the winners in the traditional nominations “Best events and people of 2018”. This year the IKA identified best events, athletes and officials in nine different categories evaluating their overall performance and contribution to Kurash promotion in their re-spective countries, continents and in the world.

Rakhshani nominee for President of APC Women in Sports Committee

Fatemeh Rakhshani from Iran has been nominated for the President of the Asian Paralympic Committee (APC) Women in Sports Committee.

The APC have released the names of all 13 candidates stand-ing for election across six Executive Board positions including vice-president, members at large and chair of the Women in Sport Committee.

Rakhshani will vie with Mongolia’s Nasanbat Oyunbat and Sara Alshawi from Bahrain for the chair.

Majid Rashed will stand unopposed for re-election as President of the APC when the body holds its General Assembly February 6 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Those standing for vice-president are Jang Hyang Sook from South Korea, Keng Chuan Ng from Malaysia, Masayuki Mizuno from Japan, India’s Satya Parkash and Pakistan’s Tariq Mustafa.

Chuan Ng is also running to become a member at large but can only be voted into one position.

(Source: Insidethegames)

Iran ready for winning AFC Asian Cup: Taj

IRNA — President of Iran’s Football Federation (FFIRI) Mehdi Taj says that Iran’s national team are ready to clinch the title of 2019 AFC Asian Cup.

Iran’s national team have set up a beneficial camp in Qatar, which will be followed by another camp in Iran’s southern island of Kish before the 2019 AFC tournament, said Taj.

Saying that Iran have not won the title of AFC Asian Cup in the last 43 years, he expressed hope that the country can get favorable results despite their low budget compared to countries like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Japan.

He noted that the decision on renewing the contract with the current national team’s head coach Carlos Queiroz will be made after AFC Cup.

Taj traveled to Orumiyeh city in Wester Azarbaijan Province to take part in the meeting of the province’s football committee.

The 17th edition of the AFC Asian Cup will be held from Jan-uary 5 to February 1, 2019 in the United Arab Emirates with the participation of 24 Asian national teams including Iran.

Anthony Stokes close to returning to Tractor Sazi

TASNIM — Irish striker Anthony Stokes is on the verge of re-turning to Iranian football club Tractor Sazi.

The 30-year-old forward left Tractor Sazi in late November due to the personal issues.

Anthony Stokes, who has played for Republic of Ireland from 2007 to 2014, scored 10 goals in 11 matches for the Tabriz-based football team.

“I am very happy for returning to Tractor Sazi once again. I want to come back to Tractor Sazi better than ever,” Stokes said in an interview with the club’s website.

Tractor Sazi Scottish striker Lee Harry Erwin had already announced he would not return to Tabriz due to feelings of homesickness.

Five Iranian female karatekas to participate in Paris event

TASNIM — Five female karatekas will represent Iran in the 2019 Karate 1-Premier League.

Iran coach Setareh Mousavi has invited Sara Bahmanyar, Taravat Khaksar, Rozita Alipour, Shima Ale Sadi and Hamideh Abbasali to the training camp for the event.

The 2019 Karate 1-Premier League will be held in January 25-27 in Paris, France, in one of Karate’s signature events.

The competition will move to Dubai, the UAE in February while Rabat, Morocco will continue being one of the highlights of the year with the tournament scheduled for April.

Ex-Iran striker Azizi launches scathing attack on Queiroz

TEHRAN — Former Iran national football

team striker Khodadad Azizi has launched a scathing attack on Carlos Queiroz following his comment about Team Melli’s dream of reaching final four of the 2019 AFC Asian Cup.

On Sunday, Queiroz told reporters their dream is to reach to the final four. According to the Portuguese coach, defending cham-pions Australia, Japan and South Korea will most likely qualify for the semifinals and Iran, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and China have to fight for the remaining place.

The last of Iran’s three triumphs in the AFC Asian Cup was in 1976, meaning that it will be 43 years since the Persians last won the title by the time the action in the UAE 2019 kicks off next January.

Iran are pitted against Yemen, Viet-nam and Iraq in Group D of the 2019 AFC Asian Cup.

Azizi was a member of Iran national

football team who finished third place in the 1996 AFC Asian Cup. He says there is no excuse for Queiroz and he must meet the Iranian fans’ expectations.

Azizi is best remembered for scoring the equalizer against Australia in the second leg World Cup qualifier in November 1997, sending Iran into France 98.

“We are not stupid people Mr. Queiroz. To be among the final four is your dream not our dream. In 1996 AFC Asian Cup, we came third without any warm up match. Team Melli were named the best team of the tournament and Ali Daei was named as the best goalscorer. We also picked up the Fair Play Award,” Azizi said.

“Now, Queiroz says he is dreaming of a place in the last four. No, he is leading Team Melli for eight years and is one of the highest-earning coach in the world. We need a coach to end title drought for Iran national football team,” the 47-year-old coach noted.

2000 AFC Asian Cup Top Scorer Lee Dong-gook be-lieves Hector Cuper’s side can build on the promise shown at the 2018 AFC U23 Championship and 2018 Asian Games.

With 14 AFC Asian Cup goals - second only to Islamic Republic of Iran legend Ali Daei in the all-time list - Korea Republic icon Lee knows a thing or two about success at the continent’s most prestigious tournament.

And, while he does believe that it could be Korea Re-public’s time to end their 58-year Asian Cup title drought at UAE 2019, it is another nation that also intrigues the 39-year-old veteran.

“A real possibility as a surprise team, or dark horse, at UAE 2019 is Uzbekistan,” says Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors striker Lee.

“They have a young and talented squad, maybe we could even call it a golden generation.

“If not this Asian Cup then maybe the next one they could be the best side. They’ve grown up together, played togeth-er from the beginning, and such unity and understanding amongst the players could be a threat to other teams.

“I saw them in the recent Asian Games and they were very impressive.”

As for his home nation, while Lee is not keen to outright state that the title is their’s for the taking, he is certain on

which team he and the Korean public would like to see the Taeguk Warriors face in the AFC Asian Cup final should they get there.

“The most exciting scenario for fans would be for Korea to play Japan in the final,” says Lee, who took part in three AFC Asian Cup campaigns in 2000, 2004 and 2007.

“If Korea could beat Japan in the final, the whole country would go crazy. It’s always been like that. Many fans would love to see Korea play Japan in the final.”

For Korea to have any chance of reaching this much-an-ticipated showdown, Lee admits that Paulo Bento’s men will need to find another attacking outlet to compliment superstar forward Son Heung-min, someone more in the mould of a traditional front man - a new Lee Dong-gook.

“Having that option would absolutely make the whole team stronger. I believe Son Heung-min can get more chances to score when he is playing off a striker who is seen as the central threat,” he says.

“If this targetman can take away defenders from Son, then he will have less pressure, more space to operate on the field, and chances to score.”

One player that seems to be the leading candidate is Gamba Osaka striker Hwang Ui-jo, who capped off an impressive 2018 season by being named the club’s MVP.

“Yes, I believe that Hwang Ui-jo is the guy who should play with Son as a teammate. Hwang is very talented and has a good positional sense,” adds Lee.

“He is also a fine finisher but he needs to know how to play against teams that defend deeply in numbers. If he can improve himself and go up a level, then it will be positive for Son too.

“In that situation, we have a better chance of going all the way to the final.”

(Source: the-afc)

Lee Dong-gook tips Uzbekistan to impress

TEHRAN – Marzieh Borumand, the director of TV series such as “House of

Grandma”, “The City of Mice”, “School of Mice” and “Ziba Barbershop” that stir fond memories of the 1980s and 1990s, was honored for her lifetime achievements at the National Library and Archives of Iran on Sunday.

“I believe in what I’ve made,” Borumand, 67, said during her speech and added, “I don’t believe in absolute evil and absolute good and I have no absolute bad character or absolute good character in my works.”

Borumand who is also the writer of her own series and movies noted, “The ability for storytelling is instinctive and writers have the skill in their nature.”

She said that people should be curious and read to improve their skills in writing.

She also remembered her parents and chemistry teacher Manzar Hashemi-Siahpush who launched a library with the support of schoolchildren when she was 13.

“We had to read one book each week and we also had to progress in our chemistry. In the books, I travelled to the lands where the stories were set in; I felt the pains and grief, and telling story made my way to speak and express my ideals,” she stated.

Critics Sergei Barseghian and Ali Masudinia, set designer Amir Esbati and screenwriter Farhad Tohidi also delivered speeches about Borumand.

“She is a director who mostly makes films for children,” Esbati said. “She is a storyteller and is a pioneer in puppetry, and should be considered an ardent supporter of puppeteers.”

He also praised Borumand for her social activities, and noted that she is always straightforward.

TEHRAN – An exhibition of Iranian

film posters is currently underway at the Svetozor Cinema in Prague, Czech Republic.

Over 50 original posters of films produced by the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults during the 1970s and 1990s have been selected for the exhibition, the Iranian curator of the exhibit, Ali Bakhtiari, said in a press release on Monday.

Posters for “Wooden Pistols” by Shapur Qarib, “Black and White” by Sohrab

Shahid-Saless and “Key” by Ebrahim Foruzesh are seen in the collection.

In addition, posters for Abbas Kiarostami’s movies “Homework”, “Life and Nothing More” and “A Wedding Suit” are on view at the exhibition.

Most of the posters have been created by Kiarostami and other Iranian artists such as Morteza Momayyez, Farshid Mesqali and Ebrahim Haqiqi.

The exhibit, which will be running until January 20, 2019, is a prelude to an Iranian film festival that will take place in Czech and Slovakia from January 15 to 26.

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Filmmaker Marzieh Borumand honored at national library

GUIDE TO SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

The heart gets wearied like the body and spirit, so, provide it with art and learning to occupy it.

Imam Ali (AS)

Marzieh Borumand attends a ceremony organized at the National Library and Archives of Iran on December 23, 2018 to honor the veteran filmmaker for her lifetime achievements. (Honaronline/Ramona Mirian)

Afghan artists display works at Tehran exhibit

TEHRAN – Works by a number of Iran-based Afghan calligraphers and paintings are on view

in an exhibition at the National Library and Archives of Iran in Tehran.

The exhibition titled “Lapis Lazuli Pens” is being organized under the auspices of the Iranian National Commission for UNESCO.

Speaking to IRAN during his visit to the exhibit, Iranian National Commission for UNESCO director Hojjatollah Ayyubi said, “We should prepare the ground for migrants to learn art and to showcase their artworks at galleries.”

“This showcase has provided an opportunity for the Afghan artists to create their own artworks, which have been blended with Iranian art,” he added.

The exhibition opened on Friday and will run until December 26.

A poster for the Afghan artists’ exhibition “Lapis Lazuli Pens” at the National Library and Archives of Iran.

“Return” wins grand prix at Russian short film festival

TEHRAN – Iranian director Shahriar Purseyyedian’s film “Return” has won the

grand prix of the 3rd edition of the Alternative Film Territory, an international festival of short films in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

The film is about Rahim, a man who returns after 23 years in prison to his hometown to meet his brother.

“This Script” by Sergei Znamensky from Russia received the best film award, the organizers announced on December 20.

“The Last Mystery of Antonov” by Russian director Tatyana Efimova was selected as best documentary.

Rediscovering truth: African storytellers tap into rich traditionNAIROBI (Reuters) — Why don’t chickens fly? When did the moon learn to be kind?

Those and other mysteries were unraveled by dozens of African storytellers in Nairobi on Saturday, helping keep alive oral traditions increasingly under threat in the internet and smartphone age.

“To have that storyteller in front of you with an audience being able to interact is something very precious that we are in danger of losing,” said Maimouna Jallow, who organized the one-day Re-Imagined Storytelling Festival in Kenya’s capital.

Although written history has existed for centuries in West Africa, elsewhere on the continent knowledge and morality have mostly been transmitted through performance art, including the spoken word.

For her research, Jallow collected folk tales from East African villages. “Nearly everywhere I went people had no recollection of their own stories, and the generation who used to tell these stories are now in their 80s,” she told Reuters.

“For me it was really important to see how we preserve not only the stories but in particular the culture of telling (them).”

With nods to giants of African culture such as Thomas Sankara and Fela Kuti, those narrated in Nairobi addressed issues common to African societies, ranging from war and materialism to humility and respect for children, often with a contemporary twist.

For Alim Kamara, a rapper from Sierra Leone who grew up in London, storytelling has never been more relevant or topical.

“There’s a story about truth, and how truth knocked on people’s doors, and was always rejected and turned away,” he told Reuters.

“One day, parable took truth home, and fed truth and clothed truth in story. “Now truth... knocked on those people’s doors and this time was readily welcomed.”

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Iranian film posters on display in Prague

This undated photo shows people visiting an exhibition of Iranian film posters currently un-derway at the Svetozor Cinema in Prague, Czech Republic.

“Aquaman” debuts at No. 1 with $72 million,

“Mary Poppins Returns” beats “Bumblebee”

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) — Jason Momoa’s “Aquaman” is the King of the Seven Seas — and now the box office. The DC adventure dominated in North America with a splashy $72 million debut, including previews.

That’s a hefty start during a month that, aside from “Star Wars” movies, tends to field smaller opening weekends that pick up steam as audiences have off from work and school between Christmas and New Years. As expected, “Aquaman” easily fended off fellow newcomers “Mary Poppins Returns” and “Bumblebee.” Those two titles were in a close race for No. 2, though Sunday estimates show “Mary Poppins Returns” narrowly defeating “Bumblebee.”

Disney’s “Mary Poppins Returns” was the de facto choice for moviegoers with young kids, pocketing $22.2 million over the three-day frame and $31 million during its first five days of release. Musicals don’t typically see sizable opening weekends, and Disney’s live-action sequel looks to have a healthy life at multiplexes during the holiday stretch. Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda co-star in the follow-up, which pocketed $20 million overseas for a worldwide start of $51 million. Rob Marshall, who previously teamed with Blunt and Disney on “Into the Woods,” handled directing duties on the film, which has a $130 production budget.

Paramount’s “Transformers” origin story “Bumblebee” landed in third place, generating $20.9 million from 3,550 screens. While that’s the lowest start for a “Transformers” title, the sci-fi prequel directed by Travis Knight has generated some of the best reviews of the franchise and has time to build momentum in weeks to come.

“Bumblebee” the first “Transformers” movie that Michael Bay didn’t direct, though he’s still on board as a producer. Hailee Steinfeld and John Cena star in the CGI spectacle based on the popular toys, which carries a $100 million price tag, making it much cheaper to produce than the Bay films.

James Wan directed “Aquaman,” which has already amassed $410 million overseas for a global total of $482.8 million. Males accounted for 55 percent of U.S. audiences, while 60 percent of crowds were under 35 years old. Imax screens accounted for $9.9 million of domestic ticket sales. Superhero fans were much more receptive to “Aquaman” than previous DC titles, branding this entry with an A- CinemaScore. “Aquaman” cost a hefty $200 million to produce and is Warner Bros.’ first DC stand-alone adventure since “Wonder Woman,” which opened in 2017 to a massive $103 million.

STX’s “Second Act” launched in seventh place with $6.5 million from 2,607 locations. The romantic comedy starring Jennifer Lopez, Vanessa Hudgens, and Leah Remini cost $16 million to make. As anticipated, 70% of moviegoers were female, and over half were between the ages of 25 and 44.

“Return” by Iranian director Shahriar Purseyyedian.