After a two years hiatus in marking the International Quds Day due to Covid-19 restrictions, millions of Muslims in Iran and other countries are gearing up for condemning Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

International Quds Day is marked on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan every year. The occasion was designated at the initiative of Imam Khomeini. This year’s Quds Day rolls around on 29 April.

Massive preparations are underway across Iran to magnificently stage processions and online events. Mohammad Hossein Mousa Pour, chairman of the Islamic Advocacy Council, said on Wednesday that the Quds Day processions will be held in Tehran and 900 cities and villages around the country.

“This year, we are going to witness the holding of popular processions across the country after two years,” Mousa Pour, a cleric, said. “The Quds Intifada Commission was formed and it reviewed the strategies, plans, and slogans. Now, there is coordination and convergence for implementing the programs inside and outside the country,” he said.

According to the chairman, who is in charge of planning and coordinating the Quds Day activities, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) General Hossein Salami will deliver a speech at the University of Tehran, where the demonstrators will gather for the Friday Prayer. Other Iranian officials are expected to deliver speeches on the occasion.

Also, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian will take part in an online event on Palestine along with Ali Akbar Velayati, an advisor to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution of Iran Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei on international relations. The event, promoted as the biggest online International Quds Day ceremony, is dubbed “liberating Quds as the capital of Palestine.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Ayatollah Khamenei hailed this year’s Quds Days as being different from previous years.
Addressing a number of university students on Tuesday afternoon, the Leader said, “This year’s Quds Day is different from other years. The Palestinians have been making great sacrifices both during last year’s and this year’s Ramadan. The Zionist regime is committing the worst crimes, and the US and Europe are supporting them.”

He added, “Palestine is both oppressed and powerful; it’s an oppressed power. I said the same about Iran many years ago. Palestine is truly strong today. The Palestinian youth do not allow the question of Palestine to be forgotten and they’re standing up in opposition to the enemy’s crimes.”

Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar has said that the resistance of the Palestinians has become a source of concern for Israel given the coincidence of the Quds Day and the Day of Nakba, which falls on May 15.

“Despite the relative calm currently in force in the occupied Palestinian territories, it does not seem that the escalation will be delayed before it rears its head again. Israel is waiting for two occasions that constitute an annual date for Palestinian activities in the face of the occupation, namely Quds Day and the Nakba commemoration,” the newspaper said.

It described the security situation in Palestine as “fragile to the extent that any operational mistake could push towards a wide confrontation.” /T.T/

Iranian newspaper Tehran Times is going to hold an online event titled Remember Palestine” to raise awareness of the plight of Palestinians in the hands of the usurping Israeli regime.

The event is divided into two categories with each having its own sub-categories including posters, cartoons, video comments, and blogging which are supposed to be posted by would-be participants. / MNA/

The Ramsar Convention Museum will be launched in the northern city of Ramsar with the participation of the private sector, Shahram Fadakar, the director of the Ramsar regional center for education and research in Central and West Asia, has stated.

“This museum will be located in a part of the Mazandaran’s Ramsar museum palace and will include published sources and documents along with the approvals of the Ramsar Convention, historical images, and other items related to this convention that is exposed to the public and environmental enthusiasts in particular.

The Convention on Wetlands is an intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. Also, in order to introduce the role of wetlands, part of the museum’s untouched environment will be turned into an artificial wetland so that visitors at different levels are informed about the ecological functions of the wetlands,” he explained.

The Convention on Wetlands is an intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources.

It was adopted in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971 and came into force in 1975. Since then, almost 90% of UN member states, from all the world’s geographic regions, have acceded to becoming “Contracting Parties”.

Wetlands are indispensable for the countless benefits or “ecosystem services” that they provide humanity, ranging from freshwater supply, food and building materials, and biodiversity, to flood control, groundwater recharge, and climate change mitigation.

Yet study after study demonstrates that wetland area and quality continue to decline in most regions of the world. As a result, the ecosystem services that wetlands provide to people are compromised.

Managing wetlands is a global challenge and the Convention presently counts 172 countries as Contracting Parties, which recognize the value of having one international treaty dedicated to a single ecosystem.

The Convention uses a broad definition of wetlands. This includes all lakes and rivers, underground aquifers, swamps and marshes, wet grasslands, peatlands, oases, estuaries, deltas, tidal flats, mangroves, and other coastal areas, coral reefs, and all human-made sites such as fish ponds, rice paddies, reservoirs, and salt pans.

In Iran, 141 wetlands with ecological value with an area of over 3 million hectares have been identified, of which 25 wetlands are designated as wetlands of international importance (registered in the Ramsar Convention) covering more than 1.4 million hectares and four sites are biosphere reserves. //T.T/

The Innovation and Prosperity Fund has organized two events to expand the international markets for Iranian knowledge-based products in Russia and Armenia.

In this regard, fifteen knowledge-based firms will attend the International Specialized Exhibition of Medical and Health Equipment of Iran with the support of the Innovation and Prosperity Fund in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, from June 10 to 12.

In this exhibition, knowledge-based companies active in the fields of medical equipment will showcase their products, including operating room and emergency equipment, medical consumables, laboratory, and dental equipment, orthopedic supplies and products, hospital equipment and facilities, radiology and sonography equipment, diagnostic informatics products, nanotechnology, and medical innovations.

Five houses of innovation and technology have so far been inaugurated in Kenya, China, Russia, Syria, and Turkey to boost export of knowledge-based products. Moreover, the 29th exhibition of ‘Sundays for Exports’ was held at the Innovation and Prosperity Fund with the participation of domestic knowledge-based companies and the Russian business delegation.

In this technological event, Iranian knowledge-based companies exhibited various products and discussed with Russian marketers the issue of exporting their products.

In the previous 28 events, 15 companies succeeded to export their products to other countries.

Exporting technological products of Iranian knowledge-based companies is one of the important and key programs of the vice presidency for science and technology, and in this regard, five houses of innovation and technology were inaugurated in Kenya, China, Russia, Syria, and Turkey.

It is also planned to establish two innovation centers in Iraq and Armenia over the next six months.

Knowledge-based companies

Today, the country’s knowledge-based ecosystem accounts for more than 3 percent of GDP. And the figure is projected to reach 5 percent, however, the main goal is to step toward a 10 percent share in GDP, Sattari told Fars on February 13.

The share of knowledge-based companies in the country’s economy has exceeded 9 quadrillion rials (about $34 billion), and since 2019, it has experienced a growth of more than 450 percent, he stated.

There are currently 6,263 knowledge-based companies operating in the country, offering advanced products and services in various fields of technology to domestic and foreign markets, and some of them have entered international markets, Siavash Maleki, deputy head of the Fund, stated.

The fields of aircraft maintenance, steel, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, oil, and gas are among the sectors that researchers in technology companies have engaged in, leading to import reduction.  /T.T/

Iranian documentary ‘Water, Wind, Dust, Bread’ will take part in Hungarian and South Korean film festivals.

Directed by Mehdi Zamanpour Kiasari, ‘Water, Wind, Dust, Bread’ is slated to be screened at the 32nd edition of the MEDIAWAVE International Film in Hungary and the 10th Seoul Int’l Children’s Film Festival in South Korea.

The 25-minute documentary ‘Water, Wind, Dust, Bread’, which took more than a year to produce, is a delicate narrative of the life of two children named ‘Abolfazl’ and ‘Setayesh’ who experience a different life.

The documentary has been previously screened at the 18th edition of ZagrebDox, the International Documentary Film Festival and the 24th edition of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival in Greece and a special screening section of the 15th Miradasdoc International Film Festival in Spain. /MNA/

A team of Iranian researchers has managed to register a worldwide patent for an anti-coronavirus intranasal mask.

The pattern published by the World Intellectual Property on April 7, has been designed and developed by Meisam Akhlaghdoust, Alireza Zali, Atousa Hashemi, Neusha Arang, Fatemehzahra Hashemi, Ilia Mehrizi, and Poorya Davoodi.

Coronaviruses can be transmitted to others through droplets that are spread by coughing or exhaling from the mouth and nose of a Covid-19 infected person.

The most effective way to protect yourself and others is to wear a mask.

Studies show that prolonged wearing of face masks can result in some airway and skin allergies. Regular use of face masks in low-density populated areas or hot environments can be frustrating and the cause of dyspnea.

Lack of recognition in identity, face, and even a smile or various facial expressions can lead to future psychological problems.

Wearing face masks is impossible and difficult in the environments such as hair salons and restaurants where a person has to remove his mask which makes the person more exposed to the virus.

This invention has 5 layers of inhalation and exhalation air filtration which is inserted into the nasal cavities by two spiral cones.

It is interesting to note that the invention has won the silver prize at the First International Invention and Innovation Competition which was held online in Geneva, Switzerland in July 2021. /T.T/

Iran’s national freestyle wrestling team ranked first place in the Asian Wrestling Championships in Mongolia.

Rahman Amouzad, Yunes Emami, Ali Savadkoohi, Amir Hossein Firouzpour, Mohammad Hossein Mohammadian, and Yadollah Mohebi defeated their opponents and grabbed the gold medals for Iran in the 65 kg, 74 kg, 79 kg, 92 kg, 97 kg, 125 kg weight categories respectively at the Asian Wrestling Championships in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Also, Dariush Hazrat Gholizadeh (61 kg) won a silver medal at the event.

Earlier, the Iranian Greco-Roman wrestling team ranked second in the Asian competitions.

The 2022 Asian Wrestling Championships are the 35th edition of the Asian Wrestling Championships of combined events, and take place from April 19 to 24 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. / MNA/

Two rarely-seen copies of the Holy Quran have been put on show at the Reza Abbasi Museum in Tehran.

The manuscripts, dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries, are on display for the first time, the director of the museum has said.

The two manuscripts are illuminated and written in Naskh and Thuluth, Nahid Najafi Khalaj explained on Friday.

The museum continues to display these exquisite Qurans until further notice, she added.

The earliest Quran manuscripts were produced in the mid-to-late 7th century CE (1st century Hijrah), although it is difficult to be precise about their date because ancient copies from this period have not survived intact and exist only in fragments.

Experts say the importance of these fragments cannot be overestimated as they provide the only available evidence for the early development of the written recording of the Quran text.

Named after one of the greatest artists of the Safavid era, Reza Abbasi Museum embraces several permanent exhibition halls, each dedicated to an epoch of Iranian arts and history.

The museum’s treasure trove contains artifacts made of baked clay, metal, and stone from prehistoric times to pottery and metal objects, textile and lacquer paintings, manuscripts, and jewelry belonging to the Islamic period. The displays are set according to the time interval from the 7th millennium BC to the early 20th century.  /T.T/