The 11th International Exhibition of Cement, Concrete, Manufacturing Technology and Related Machinery (IRAN CEMENTEX 2020) and the 4th International Exhibition of Agriculture, Agricultural Machinery and Equipment, Input, Irrigation Systems (Iran Agri Show 2020) are running at the Tehran Permanent International Fairgrounds.

As reported by Shata, Iranian Industry, Mining and Trade Minister Reza Rahmani, Head of Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO) Khodadad Gharibpour and Deputy Industry Minister Hossein Modares Khiabani attended the opening ceremony of the Iran CEMENTEX 2020 exhibition.

As for the Iran Agri Show 2020, the exhibition’s opening ceremony was attended by senior officials including Iran’s Acting Agriculture Minister Abbas Keshavarz, Iranfair.com reported.

Several Iranian and foreign exhibitors gathered together in this event to showcase their latest products and services in the field of agriculture and related machinery.

Presenting the capabilities of Iranian companies and their latest industrial and technological achievements, creating opportunities for domestic and foreign participants to get to know each other and exchange experiences in order to introduce the world’s latest technological achievements into the country, as well as presenting domestic and foreign investment opportunities were reported to be some of the main goals of these four-day exhibitions which will wrap up on Friday. / T.T/

A lineup of nine Iranian movies will be reviewed during a special program named “Iranian Film Days” at the Beyoglu Academy in Istanbul.

The three-day festival, which will open on Friday, will screen “Today” by Reza Mirkarimi, “Azar, Shahdokht, Parviz and Others” by Behruz Afkhami, “Sweet Taste of Imagination” by Kamal Tabrizi, “Where Are My Shoes” by Kiumars Purahmad and “Track 143” by Narges Abyar.

The lineup also includes “Bodyguard” by Ebrahim Hatamikia, “Crazy Castle” by Abolhassan Davudi, “Mazar-i-Sharif” by Hassan Barzideh and “Once Upon a Time Love and Hatred” by Davud Bidel.

Iranian filmmaker Abolhassan Davudi and Turkish director Faysal Soysal are also scheduled to attend the festival.

Iran’s Cultural Office in Istanbul organizes the festival in collaboration with the Beyoglu District Municipality. / T.T/

Iran U19 Girl’s Futsal coach Niloofar Ardalan says her team will take part at the CAFA U19 Girl’s Futsal Championship 2020 Tajikistan.

The round-robin tournament will bring Tajikistan, Iran, Kyrgyz Republic, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan together in Dushanbe from Jan. 24 to 29.

“The CAFA futsal competition will be held for the first time and the participating teams will compete in the event with a mix of football and futsal players,” Ardalan said.

“I think we have to vie with Uzbekistan to win the title. We will participate in the competition with 14 players who play in Iran futsal league. The CAFA tournament can be a good preparatory tournament and we can identify what our strengths and weaknesses are,” she added.

The Central Asian Football Association (CAFA) is an association of the football playing nations in Central Asia. /T.T/

Iranian benefactor physician, Mohammad Reza Esparvarin, will construct 110 schools in deprived areas across the country, IRNA news agency reported on Monday.

These educational spaces will be built in collaboration with the Organization for Development, Renovation and Equipment of School meeting the latest standards and according to up-to-date technology.

By building these schools, more than 7,000 students will have access to safe and secure educational environment.

More than one fifth of the schools in Iran have been constructed by philanthropists, First Vice-President Es’haq Jahangiri has said.

Mehrollah Rakhshanimehr, director of the Organization for Development, Renovation and Equipping, has said that some 50 percent of the newly constructed schools which are to be inaugurated in the current school year (started September 23, 2019) have also been built by philanthropists.

Rakhshanimehr went on to say that provinces of Sistan-Baluchestan, North Khorasan, Alborz, Tehran, Qom, Gilan, Golestan, West Azarbaijan, Kerman, Khuzestan, and Khorasan Razavi are all short of adequate educational spaces.
He noted that one third of schools in Iran were dilapidated and require renovation. / T.T/

A plan on domestic production of 135 medicines is on the agenda, which will save up to $570 million per year, Mostafa Qane’ei, secretary of the Vice Presidency for Science and Technology for biotechnology development, has said.

“We have set a goal to reduce medicine imports by one billion dollars [per year],” he added.

According to the plan, one year after the production of 135 pharmaceutical products, $160 million in savings will be achieved, he noted.

Production of 44 out of the 135 products has started, of which seven are biological medicines and 37 are pharmaceutical raw materials, he explained.

According to Amir Hossein Mo’eini Zandi, vice president of the union of medicine importers, $1.373 billion was allocated to pharmaceutical companies for medicine imports in the past Iranian calendar year (ended March 20, 2019). / T.T/

The director general of Agriculture Ministry for Intl. Affairs said that Iran will hold Food Expo in Sulaymaniyah of Iraq on April 11-21, 2020.

According to the information received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it was agreed to hold Iran International Food Expo in Sulaymaniyah of Iraq in the beginning of coming year (to start March 21, 2020).

This expo will be held in cooperation with an Iraqi company and Iraq’s Commercial Services Company. / MNA/

Iranian director Behzad Sheikh has dedicated his latest documentary “Aqil” to Quds Force commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani and the deputy commander of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMU), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who were assassinated in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad on Friday.

The documentary had its premiere during the 10th Ammar Popular Film Festival in Tehran on Tuesday.

It tells the story of a young Iranian man name Aqil whose father asked in his will for one of his rings to be donated to the holy shrine of Imam Hussein (AS) in the Iraqi city of Karbala.

Aqil decides to take the ring to Karbala during the Arbaeen march, in which Iranians and Shia Muslims from other countries embark on a journey to Karbala to observe the day of Arbaeen, which marks the end of the 40-day mourning period following the martyrdom of the Imam and his loyal companions on Ashura.

“If we had not had great men such as martyrs Soleimani and Abu Mahdi, Iranians would never see great Shia gatherings such as the Arbaeen march, and consequently, the documentary would never have been made,” the film crew said in a statement before the screening of “Aqil”.

Amir-Hassan Khajavi is the producer of the documentary, which was filmed in Iran and Iraq.

The 10th Ammar Popular Film Festival will come to an end tonight. / T.T/

Nine plans are contending for the Vista Contemporary Art Prize during the third edition of the annual award established by Tehran’s Vista Gallery to honor the best artistic idea from young Iranian artists.

One of the plans has been provided by Hamidreza Azad to organize an installation exhibition, in which a horn-shaped figure produces voices, causing visitors to refer to history in a reflective way.

In another plan, Sanahin Babajanian will create solids representing geometrical motifs from Iranian architecture and paintings of Christian monuments.

In a plan for an installation, Iman Jesmi represents some perfect characters of the sounds being produced by objects and visitors’ reactions to them.

Hufer Haqiqi displays some imaginary landscapes of Tehran in a delicate process in his plan.

In her plan, Ulduz Nabizadeh develops new concepts and functions of ceramics.

Shana Abdollahian and Ehsan Alizadeh are jointly competing with a single plan.

Plans by Kolsum Salehi, Aisa Rashid and Samira Rohbani have been selected to compete for the prize.

The winner will be honored with a check worth 300 million rials (about $7,200) during a special ceremony at the gallery on Friday. The organizers also will help the winner accomplish his/her new project in an exhibition at the gallery./T.T/

The medicine of Edaravone Alsava for ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) patients was unveiled on Sunday morning in the presence of Iran’s Vice President for Science and Technology.

The medicine for patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) was unveiled in the form of Edaravone injection vials by a knowledge-based company in the Growth Center of Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS).

It is for two months that the medicine has hit the domestic consumer market and about 50 patients have used it.

Edaravone Injection Vial is a thick product which is prescribed for patients with ALS.

ALS disease causes destruction of mobile cells in the spinal cord and is considered as a type of degenerative disease.

Statistics showed that 10 and 90 percent of patients with ALS have either been genetically or diagnosed with the disease respectively.

According to neurologists, the ALS disease is a degenerative disease that cannot be cured. /MNA/

The US assassination of IRGC’s Quds Force commander, Lt. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, on Trump’s order has sparked wide criticism amid American celebrities.

“Dear #Iran, The USA has disrespected your country, your flag, your people. 52% of us humbly apologize. We want peace with your nation. We are being held hostage by a terrorist regime. We do not know how to escape. Please do not kill us. #Soleimani,” wrote American actress, activist, and author Rose McGowan in a tweet.

Her tweet received backlash from several accounts, prompting her to add in another tweet that she was scared of the prospect of an impending war.

Kathleen Mary Griffin, an American comedian and actress, also took to Twitter to voice her opposition to the US move by saying “Donald Trump has put every American, all over the world, in grave danger by this incredibly ignorant and thoughtless act of war.”

American documentary filmmaker and author Michael Moore also slammed Trump for his airstrike, saying that Americans are being led into an unwitting war with Iran.

The United States terrorist forces assassinated Lt. General Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s pro-government Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) — better known as Hashd al-Sha’abi — in an airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport early on Friday. The Pentagon said in a statement that US President Donald Trump had ordered the attack.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump claimed in a Saturday tweet that his military would hit “very important” targets related to Iran and the “Iranian culture” in case of retaliatory action against the US for the assassination of the senior Iranian military commander.

The threat came under severe backlash for its blatant nature of pertaining to a war crime, which targets civilization and cultural monuments instead of military sites. /MNA/