International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) has announced the name of 12 participating teams at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.

Following the conclusion of the 2020 Afro Paralympic Qualifiers, the line-up for the men’s and women’s wheelchair basketball competition has been finalized.

Algeria men’s and women’s teams both won the 2020 Afro Paralympic Qualifiers in Johannesburg to complete the field.

In the men’s competition, 12 teams will be drawn into two groups of six, playing in a round robin in the preliminary stage with the top four in each group making their way through to the quarter-finals, followed by the semi-finals and final.

First to qualify for the men’s competition were the U.S., Canada, and Colombia from the Lima 2019 Parapan American Games. The European Zone were next with Great Britain, Spain, Turkey, and Germany securing their ticket. In the Asia Oceania Zone, Australia, Korea, and Iran are joined by hosts Japan, with Algeria taking the final spot, IWBF reported.

A total of 10 teams will compete in the women’s competition, split across two groups of five. They will play a round-robin in the preliminary stage to decide the top four placings in each group followed by quarter-finals, semi-finals and final.

World Champions Netherlands were first to secure their place at the Paralympic Games at the Women’s European Championships alongside Great Britain, Germany, and Spain. Canada and the U.S. were next to confirm their spots coming first and second respectively at the Lima 2019 Parapan American Games. China and Australia topped the Asia Oceania Championships to join hosts Japan.

Finally, it was Algeria who claimed the last spot from the Afro Paralympic Qualifiers.

The groups will be drawn on March 22 in Tokyo, Japan by representatives from the Japanese Wheelchair Basketball Federation and the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation.

Due to concerns surrounding the transmission of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) attendance at the draw will be limited, and it will not be open to any external guests, team representatives or media, but the draw will be streamed online with live updates via IWBF’s and JWBF’s social media channels. / T.T/

The Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) announced the country’s 1.2-percent economic growth for the first nine months of the present Iranian calendar year (March 21- December 21, 2019).

In an Instagram post, Abdolnaser Hemmati wrote: “According to the reports of the CBI, non-oil economic growth in the said months stood at 3.3 percent, while including oil, the growth rate reached 1.2 percent, in this period.”

“Sectors of agriculture, industry- mining and the services, with growth rates of %7.8, %7 and %1.2 respectively, had the main role in the gained growth rate,” he added.

The senior banking official hoped for production prosperity of Iran in near future and after beating coronavirus outburst.

In mid-February, Hemmati announced that Iran’s economy is getting out of recession, while major economic indices are experiencing stability.

Despite some efforts done to present a dark image of Iran’s economic future, CBI data proves economy to have a relative stability, stepping out of recession, the governor said.

“Main macro-economic indices including growth in non-oil sector and inflation rate are illustrating a relative stability and incremental improvement besides stepping out of recession,” Hemmati wrote on his Instagram page.

“This is in contrast with what the enemies expected and sought to reach,” he added. /MNA/

Two state TV channels in Iran are broadcasting educational programs after the closure of schools in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, IRIB news agency reported on Monday.

Amoozesh (Education) Channel started broadcasting programs on Saturday for students all over the country, Masoud Ahmadi, director of Amoozesh channel said, adding that Channel Four is broadcasting educational programs.
Through the first phase, the state TV started to broadcast 10-12 educational programs, which will reach up to 40 programs by the next week, he added.

Also, another channel specifically addresses the health issues for students and families, he highlighted.

Ahmadi further announced the possibility of adding another TV channel after the new year holidays (Noruz, starting March 21) to the educational networks.

In order to achieve the important goal of education, all educational staff should be in touch with each other on a daily basis, including district administrators, school administrators, as well as teachers and students, to ensure the full implementation of distance education according to each classroom curriculum, Education Minister Mohsen Hajimirzaei wrote on his Twitter account on March 5./T.T/

Iranian short animated piece ‘Malakout’, directed by Farnoosh Abedi, has been accepted into the competition program of the 10th edition of Capital City Film Festival in the US.

‘Malakout’ is about a piano player who tries to bring his wife back to life but the deal awakens the devil inside him.

The Iranian animation will be taking part at the 10th edition of Capital City Film Festival in Michigan, slated for April 9-18, 2020.

‘Malakout’ has recently won the best animation award at the first edition of Black Country Horror Shorts Film Festival in the UK.

It has also received the honorary diploma at the Silk Road International Film Festival (SRIFF) in Dublin, Ireland.

The animation is also set to compete at the 35th edition of the Guadalajara International Film Festival in Mexico, scheduled for March 20-27 March 2020. It will be qualified for the next year’s Academy Awards if it manages to win the best animation award at this festival. / MNA/

Iran spends about 20 trillion rials (nearly $477 million at the official rate of 42,000 rials) every year on the education of foreign national students residing in the country, head of the international affairs department of the Ministry of Education has said.

Over 558,000 foreign national children are receiving education in Iran completely free of charge, 474,000 of whom are Afghan children, ISNA quoted Gholamreza Karimi as saying on Wednesday.

Karimi said that there are currently about 137,000 undocumented Afghan students in the country, adding that their parents do not have valid residency documents, “but we have provided the conditions for enrolling them in schools.”

A number of foreign nationals from neighboring countries came to Iran over the past four decades due to numerous regional crises and civil wars, he lamented.

A decree was issued by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in May 2015, which allows all foreign nationals, even those who have no identification and are living in Iran illegally, to attend schools in the country./T.T/

Secretary of Biotechnology Development Headquarters of the Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology Mostafa Ghanei informed on Monday that Iranian knowledge-based companies will put their produced coronavirus test kits to the market next Iranian calendar month, Farvardin (Starting on March 21, 2020).

As Ghanei, who is also a member of COVID-19 Scientific Committee, elaborated, the available test kits have been provided to Iran by China, UNICEF, and WHO and there is a sufficient number of them to meet domestic demand within the next two months.

“To supply the demand in the country, the Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology asked Iranian knowledge-based companies to start production of the kits,” he said, “After conducting required research, five out of 50 applicant companies were selected to start production of the kits in Iran.”

“Their first products will go to the market as of March 21,” he said.

Since the beginning of entry of coronavirus, into the country, the Biotechnology Development Headquarters of the Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology in cooperation with Food and Drug Administration of Iran and Ministry of Health issued a call that if a knowledge-based company is able to produce a drug and/or kit, they should introduce themselves in order to meet the demand of the country in the field of rapid diagnosis of coronavirus and treatment of the disease.

As Ghanei informed earlier on Monday, the clinical trial of Iranian COVID-19 drugs started.

On March 2, WHO sent its first planeload of assistance to Iran to help fight coronavirus, dispatching six medics with tons of medical equipment and test kits aboard a UAE military aircraft, while the third consignment of test kits as part of aids to contain Covid-19 and first of UNICEF, arrived in Iran on the same day./MNA/

Iranian featherweight boxer Daniyal Shahbakhsh won against Yu Sing Tso of Hong Kong on Wednesday and secured a berth at the Tokyo Olympics 2020.

The Olympic Boxing Qualification event is underway in Amman, Jordan. Iran has sent eight boxers to participate in the tournament.

Tso, who was unbeaten in 22 paid fights, learndc a boxing lesson by the 19-year-old Shahbakhsh, who delivered a brilliant performance and won all the three rounds decisively.

Scoring a box-off victory, he claimed a spot in the men’s featherweight (57kg) division at the 2020 Asia & Oceania Qualification Tournament.

The other members of the Iranian boxing team, headed by Alireza Estaki, who will fight against rivals later today include Ashkan Rezaei (63kg) and Shahin Mousavi (75kg).

Five other Iranian boxers namely Omid Ahmadi Safa (52kg), Sajad Kazemzadeh (69kg), Ehsan Rouzbahani (81kg), Toofan Sharifi (91kg) and Iman Ramezanpour (+91kg) have been eliminated from the tournament.

A total of 151 boxers from 35 countries have participated in the event that concludes today (March 11).

Iran is scheduled to compete at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo from July 24 to August 9.

Since the nation’s debut in 1948, Iranian athletes have attended every edition of the Summer Olympic Games, with the exception of the 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics./MNA/