Imam Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, issued a message following the assassination of the Nuclear, Defense Scientist, Martyr Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The following is the full text of his message:

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

One of our country’s eminent scientists in the nuclear and defense fields – Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh – has been martyred by brutal mercenaries. With his great, enduring scientific efforts, he sacrificed his life on the path of God and the lofty status of martyrdom is his divine reward.

All relevant administrators must seriously place two crucial matters on their agendas: First to investigate this crime and firmly prosecute its perpetrators and its commanders, second to continue the martyr’s scientific and technological efforts in all the sectors where he was active.

I offer my condolences for this loss and my congratulations on his martyrdom to his respected family, the scientific community of the country as well as his colleagues and students in various sectors, and I ask God to elevate his rank.

Sayyid Ali Khamenei
November 28, 2020

Iran’s national basketball team gained a 71-64 win over Saudi Arabia on matchday three of the 2021 FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers.

Iran gained its third consecutive win in the event to continue its lead over Group E of the event. The qualifiers are being held in Qatar’s Doha.

Behnam Yakhchali was named the match’s best scorer with 27 points.

The Iranian team will take on Syria on November 30.

The team defeated Qatar and Syria in Tehran in the first window of the event in late February.

Iran sits atop of the group with six points, followed by Saudi Arabia (four points), Syria (three points), and Qatar (two points).

Only 16 out of 24 teams participating in the qualifiers will win quota to the 2021 Asia Cup. The top two teams of each group secure direct qualification while six third-placed teams will compete in a separate competition to win the remaining four places. /MNA/

In the “Festivals Festival” section of the 16th International Resistance Film Festival was a section dedicated to reviewing movies produced over the past 40 years on the Islamic Revolution.

Due to the normalization of ties among the Zionist regime of Israel and some certain Arab countries, the 16th edition of the festival pays due attention to the issue of Palestine.

“The Survivor”, by late Iranian director Seifollah Daad’s 1995 drama on the Palestine issue, was named the best film at the Resistance International Film Festival.
The films including “The Glass Agency” by Ebrahim Hatamikia, “From Karkheh to Rhein” by Ebrahim Hatamikia, “Standing in the Dust” by Mohammad Hossein Mahdavian, “The Survivor” by Seifollah Dad, “The Guardian” by Ebrahim Hatamikia, “The_Fateful Day” by Shahram Assadi, “Journey to Chazabeh” by Rasoul Molaqolipour, “Track 123” by Narges Abyar, “The Earth Child” by Mohhamd Ali Basheh Ahanar, ‘Villa Dwellers’ by Monir Gheydi, “Kimia” by Ahmad-Reza Darvish, “Hoor on Fire” by Azizollah Hamidnejad competed in this section of the festival.

One of the main characteristics of Survivor was the resistance against the Zionist regime, social relations, and friendship.
This film also portrayed love and devotion to the homeland.

Dr. Saeid, his wife (Latifah), and their infant (Farhan) were living in Haifa in 1948. Dr. Saeid saw Shamoon, his Jewish childhood neighbor, and playmate, while Shamoon tried to bomb in a train and he informed police about the incident. Shamoon who empowered in Haifa decided to revenge on Dr. Saeid by trying to make him leave the city. Dr. Saeid’s defied Shamoon but his Mother (Safieh) came to Haifa to persuade him to leave the city.

Lastly, Dr. Saeid persuaded to leave the city with his family, but on their last day in Haifa, Israeli forces invade the city, and Dr. Saeid and his wife were killed. Farhan, who was the only survivor, remained alone in their home for three days. A Jewish family settled in their home and undertook Farhan’s guardian. Safieh entered the house as the nanny to release a survivor from the Jewish family. Although she did not deny her descent, she used a fake identity and denounced Farhan’s parents to leave him alone in the home and evade their life. Safieh’s husband who was involving an armed fight against Israeli forces planned to bomb a train carried mostly Jewish people and troops. Safieh consented to help them by carrying the luggage containing bombs onboard. Shamoon, Farhan, and his Jewish guardians were among the passengers. As soon as Safieh’s real identity revealed, Safieh leaped from the train to the ground. Although she injured critically the survivor remained healthy. In the last scene, the explosion Flash was visible while Safieh whispered Quran and hugged the survivor.

Presided by Mahdi Azimi Mirabadi, the second section of the festival will be held from 21-27 November 2020.

MNA/

Iranian freestyle wrestler Komeil Ghasemi has been awarded gold medal of the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Iran’s Komeil Ghasemi and Russia’s Bilyal Makhov had initially both been awarded gold in the 120kg at London 2012 by the IOC in July but United World Wrestling has confirmed Ghasemi as the sole gold medalist.

Makhov – himself provisionally suspended following a positive drugs test – received the silver.

Uzbekistan’s Davit Modzmanashvili has been banned for six years after he was stripped of his Olympic wrestling silver medal for doping following the re-analysis of his sample from London 2012.

The Georgian, who switched allegiance to Uzbekistan in 2017 and won a bronze medal for the country at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang, was beaten in the 120kg final at London 2012 by Uzbekistan’s Artur Taymazov.

Taymazov was also caught up in the IOC’s re-tests and has been stripped of gold medals he won in the same category at Beijing 2008 and London 2012 for doping.

The IOC Disciplinary Commission (DC) rendered its decision against Taymazov who failed a reanalysis of his anti-doping test at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Taymazov tested positive for the prohibited substance dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (oral turinabol).

The Uzbek wrestler had earned a gold medal in freestyle wrestling at 120kg and his removal will re-shuffle the order of medalists at the 2012 London Games. Ghasemi will become the new gold medalist, Makhov remains silver, and Tervel Dlagnev (USA) and Daulet Shabanbay (KAZ) will be the newest bronze medalists./T.T/

The first joint Iran-Russia Sociology Forum will be held online in Moscow on November 16-18, IRNA reported.

Organized by the Russian Academy of Sciences, the conference aims to exchange views and discuss the social, economic, and demographic dimensions of the two countries’ development in the context of global challenges (including the coronavirus epidemic).

On the first day, at the opening ceremony of the forum, Nahal Naficie, commissioner of the International Cooperation of the Iranian Sociological Association, will make a short speech.

The first social atlas of Iran and Russia will also be unveiled at the conference.

The officials and representatives of the two countries will participate in the event and make speeches.

/T.T?

The value of Iran’s agricultural products export has risen 13.8 percent during the first seven months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-October 21), compared to the same period of time in the past year, according to an official with the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA).

Mehrdad Jamal Orounaqi, the IRICA deputy head for technical and customs affairs, put the value of exported products at $3.1 billion in the seven-month period of the present year, ISNA reported.

The official said the weight of agricultural products exported in the mentioned period has risen 26.7 percent to stand at 4.537 million tons.

According to Orounaqi, 3.599 million tons of agricultural products worth $2.7 billion had been exported during the first seven months of the previous year.

Iran exported over $5.8 billion worth of agricultural and foodstuff products in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19), Head of Agriculture Ministry’s Planning and Economic Affairs Department Shahrokh Shajari has announced.

According to the official, about 7.104 million tons of such products worth $5.821 billion were exported to foreign destinations last year.

In the mentioned period, over 6.941 million tons of agricultural and foodstuff products worth $6.392 billion were also imported into the country, according to Shajari.

Watermelons, apples, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and shallots were the top five exported products in the previous year in terms of weight, while in terms of value, pistachios, apples, tomatoes, pistachio kernels, and watermelons were the five major exported items.

Shajari further pointed to the major imported items in terms of weight, saying, corn, barley, soybean meal, soybean, and untreated sugar were the top five imported items, while in terms of value livestock corn, rice, barley, and soybeans were the top imported products. /Tehran/

President Hassan Rouhani will officially inaugurate some 1,550 educational, training, and welfare projects across the country on Thursday via video conferencing, ISNA reported on Wednesday.

The projects include 1,422 educational places with 8,051 classrooms, 124 training centers, and 4 welfare centers, measuring a total of 1.1 million square meters.

A sum of 360 trillion rials (nearly $8.5 billion at the official rate of 42,000 rials) have been spent in this regard, the report added, highlighting that about 70 percent of the funds have been provided by the school renovation organization and the rest by school-building benefactors.

Mehrollah Rakhshanimehr, director of the Organization for Development, Renovation and Equipping, said in August that some 30 percent of the country’s schools have been constructed by school-building benefactors; there are 450 school-building charities in Iran.

In line with the education reform plan, people who have a popular reputation are being invited as ambassadors to attract public participation for school construction even by buying a brick.

Iran has many school-building benefactors amounting to 650,000 people inside and 1,000 people outside the country.

There are some 107,000 schools nationwide with 530,000 classes, 160,000 of which are dilapidated, not meeting safety standards. Some 30 percent of the schools nationwide are old, of which some 12 percent must be completely rebuilt and 18 percent must be retrofitted.

The organization for renovation, development, and equipment of schools started operating in the Iranian calendar year 1396 (March 2017- March 2018), which received a budget of 8.5 trillion rials (about $200 million). /T.T/

Sajjad Jafari, a faculty member of the Amirkabir University of Technology, has won the COMSTECH 2019 award in Mathematics.

COMSTECH is the Ministerial Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Jafari was born in 1983. He received his BSc, MSc, and Ph.D. degrees in biomedical engineering in 2005, 2008, 2013 from the biomedical engineering department, Amirkabir University of Technology. He is currently an assistant professor there (since 2013).

His research interests include nonlinear and chaotic systems and signals, and mathematical biology. Also, he also works on complex networks and collective behaviors in them, such as synchronization, Chimera states, and spiral waves.

He serves as editor in the International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, International Journal of Electronics and Communications, and Radioengineering. He has been one of the highly cited researchers in 2019 and 2020 according to Clarivate Analytics.

COMSTECH was established in January 1981, to increase the capability of the Muslim countries in science and technology.

The COMSTECH Executive Committee decided in its 15th meeting in 1996 to institute awards to recognize outstanding research work carried out by scientists who are citizens of and working in, OIC member states. Each award carries a certificate, shield of honor, and cash prize.

These awards are given in four basic sciences; Biology and Chemistry alternating biennially with Mathematics and Physics. Each award carries a cash prize of $5,000. /T.T/

In Iran, 12 groups are making efforts to develop coronavirus vaccine, three of which have passed the animal testing, Iraj Harirchi, the deputy minister of health, has announced.

“Currently, some 25,000 diagnostic tests are performed daily, which is expected to reach 100,000” he stated, IRIB reported on Tuesday.

Harirchi added that 30 percent of COVID-19 cases in the country are caused by small gatherings and celebrations.

Last week, Health Minister Saeed Namaki expressed hope that the country will introduce the home-grown COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 19, 2021).

Due to the high prevalence of the disease, the National Headquarters for Coronavirus Control has approved to impose strict restrictions for 10 days as of Wednesday in 46 cities that have the highest rate of COVID-19 infection in the country.

Officials at the Medical Council have written a letter to President Hassan Rouhani that the deplorable condition of the pandemic in the country, and rising number of mortalities and new cases, requires a more serious review of the management methods of this crisis.

COVID-19 cases at a record high

In a press briefing on Tuesday, Health Ministry spokesperson Sima-Sadat Lari confirmed 8,932 new cases of COVID-19 infection, raising the total number of infections to 637,712. She added that 495,473 patients have so far recovered, but 5,378 still remain in critical conditions of the disease.

During the past 24 hours, coronavirus daily deaths and new cases hit the record high, as 422 patients have lost their lives, bringing the total number of deaths to 36,160, she added.

Lari noted that so far 5,036,633 COVID-19 tests have been conducted across the country.

She said the high-risk “red” zones include provinces of Tehran, Isfahan, Qom, East Azarbaijan, South Khorasan, Semnan, Qazvin, Lorestan, Ardebil, Khuzestan, Kermanshah, Kohgiluyeh-Boyerahmad, Gilan, Bushehr, Zanjan, Ilam, Khorasan Razavi, Mazandaran, Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari, Alborz, West Azarbaijan, Markazi, Kerman, North Khorasan, Hamedan, Yazd, and Kordestan.

The provinces of Hormozgan, Fars, and Golestan and Sistan-Baluchestan are also on alert. T.T/