Pakistan’s Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Welfare and Poverty Alleviation Sania Nishtar said that Iran’s health system is pioneer in the Islamic world.

She made the remarks in an interview with IRNA on Sat. and added, “salient achievements gained by Iran in the field of healthcare are on par with the developed countries, and Pakistan is ready to take advantage of high potentials and capabilities of Iran in this field.”

Iran is a friend and neighboring country to Pakistan and the two countries have established amicable and intimate relations with each other for a very long time period.

She termed activity of higher education centers, medical universities and other health services organizations in Iran as ‘significant’, adding, “we can make use of the capacities and potentials of Iran in the fields of research and training.”

Pakistan has taken remarkable measures in line with supporting the low-income families such as alleviation of poverty among women in the society, she emphasized.

Pakistan’s Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Welfare and Poverty Alleviation Sania Nishtar also appreciated policies taken by the Islamic Republic of Iran with regards to empowering women in the country./MNA/

Head of Iran’s Budget and Planning Organization (BPO) said the government has paid 395 trillion rials (over $9.4 billion) for financing development projects across the country in the first nine months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-December 22).

Speaking in a ceremony for inauguration of a housing project in the northeastern province of South Khorasan, Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht said: “Based on the statistics for the last nine months, we have paid 35 trillion tomans [350 trillion rials] for various development projects throughout the country and thousands of billions more will be paid in the coming months”, ILNA reported.

“In spite of all the difficulties, we are still paying all our dues including government employees’ wages, retirees’ pensions, and the payments to all the groups covered by support agencies, just like before,” he said.

Back in October, Nobakht announced that the government is going to allocate all revenues from oil sales to the development projects following structural reforms in the next Iranian calendar year’s (March 2020-March 2021) budget bill.

According to the official, 430 trillion rials (about $10.2 billion) is allocated for development projects in the next year’s budget plan, up 53 percent from the figure for the current year.

“We intend to invest as much as we can in the development sector in the next [Iranian calendar] year (starts on March 19, 2020), so we have increased the budget for this sector by 53 percent to achieve significant growth,” Nobakht said.

President Hassan Rouhani submitted the administration’s draft of the national budget bill for the next Iranian calendar year 1399, which starts on March 20, 2020, to the Majlis in early December.

The main characteristic of the next year’s budget bill which makes it different from previous years’ budget bills, is the impact of the U.S. sanctions on the country’s economy and the consequent considerations which have been taken into account in preparing it.

The next year’s budget bill has been modified in terms of resources, expenditures, policies, and objectives, considering the resistance against the U.S. sanctions. /T.T/

Iranian documentary ‘Beloved’, directed by Yaser Talebi, has snatched awards from three international film festivals in Spain, France, and China.

‘Beloved’ follows the life of an 80-year-old mother named Firouzeh who is fond of her isolated lifestyle in nature with her cows. The film shows her kind and loving character and demonstrates her bravery and strength tackling the hardship of life in the Alborz Mountains without the modern comforts of technology. She believes happiness lies in the simplicity of life.

The Iranian documentary won the Best Film about Mountain Culture award at Torello’s International Festival of Mountain and Adventure Films in Spain.

It also grabbed the Remarkable Film Award at China International Green Film Week.

The grand prix of the International Mountain Film Festival of Autrans in France also went to ‘Beloved’.

The successful Iranian documentary will next take part at the 18th Dhaka International Film Festival in Bangladesh. /MNA/

Deputy Head of Trade Promotion Organization of Iran (TPOI) for Foreign Markets Masoud Kamali Ardakani put Iran’s total foreign trade value in the first eight months of the current year (March 21 – Nov. 22) at $55 billion.

He made the remarks on Sat. in the ceremony of honoring exemplary exporters of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province and emphasized, “of total $55 billion imports-exports value, $27 billion of which is related to exports which showed a 16 percent hike in weight as compared to the same period of last year.”

Turning to the export of Iranian products to seven target markets in the world, he said, “it is estimated that Iran’s export share of products to 15 neighboring countries by 2021 will hit two to four percent at large.”

Kamali Ardakani pointed out that $24 billion worth of products are exported from Iran to neighboring countries annually, adding, “presently, Iran enjoys high potentials to increase its exports value of products to neighboring countries by $100 billion at large.”

About $300 billion worth of products are exported to Eurasian markets annually in a way that Iran accounts for less than $1 billion export share in this lucrative market, he stressed.

For this purpose, a permanent office has been set up at Trade Promotion Organization of Iran (TPOI) in order to increase export volume to the Eurasian market, he said. /MNA/

Head of Iran Space Agency (ISA) Morteza Barari and Deputy ICT minister said that progress of “Pars 1” Remote Sensing Satellite is ‘satisfactory’.

He made the remarks on Sun. in his meeting with the Head of Iran Space Research Center (ISRC) Hossein Samimi and was briefed on the latest situation of Pars 1” satellite.

The deputy minister of Communications and Information Technology (ICT) seized this opportunity to express his thanks on the round-the-clock and unflinching efforts of specialists and exports of space field for the completion and delivery of “Pars 1” satellite and called on responsible authorities to throw their weights behind expert engineers in materializing objectives of the agency in relevant field.

It is hoped that cooperation and collaboration of Iran Space Agency (ISA) and Iran Space Research Center (ISRC) will lead to the successful launch of satellites in the Orbit, Barari added./MNA/

The 22nd International Storytelling Festival will open in Tehran on Tuesday at the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (IIDCYA) with narrators from Iran and several other countries.

Eight Iranian storytellers along with narrators from Turkey, Lebanon, Japan and Spain will perform in the international section category, the director of the festival, Mohammad Zomorrodian, said during a press conference on Saturday.

“The festival is comprised of different sections with participants ranging from children to grandmothers and grandfathers,” he added.

“Like the previous edition, those individuals who could not take part in the festival recorded their stories and will be competing in the 90-second section of the festival,” he added.

“Writer Mostafa Rahmandust, children’s TV programmers Majid Qannad and Giti Khameneh, and actor Reza Kianian will be telling stories in the guest section during the event,” he added.

The artistic director of the festival, Sorush Sehat, also praised the IIDCYA for its efforts to promote reading among children.

The festival, which aims to promote storytelling traditions among the younger generation, will be running until December 21. /T.T/

Iran’s Department of Environment deputy chief, Masoud Tajrishi, and Spanish Secretary of State for Environment, Hugo Alfonso Moran Fernandez, discussed ways to expand environmental cooperation.

The two officials met on Tuesday on the sidelines of the 25th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25), which is being held in Madrid on December 2-13.

Tajrishi explained Iran’s plans and actions toward environment protection such as improving energy consumption patterns and enhancing efficiency and productivity of industrial units while criticizing the U.S. sanctions on Iran’s access to green technologies.

He called on Spanish officials to cooperate in waste management in industrial and mining units, reducing air pollution and tackling sand and dust storms.
The Spanish official for his part welcomed Iran’s environment protection plans and announced his country’s readiness to cooperate with Iran’s public and private sector projects. / T.T/

“Hava, Maryam, Ayesha”, a co-production between Iran and Afghanistan by Afghan director Sahra Karimi, was screened at the Iranian Artists Forum on Tuesday with the producer Katayun Shahabi and director Karimi in attendance.

Karimi’s debut movie is about three pregnant Afghan women from different social backgrounds living in Kabul, each of whom is facing a big challenge in her life and must solve her problem by herself for the first time.

Speaking at the ceremony, Shahabi expressed thanks to the participants, and said that cinema requires teamwork and that no one can do it on her/his own, the public relations team of the film announced in a press release on Wednesday.

“I must also thank the Art and Experience Cinema which provided an opportunity to screen this movie,” she added.

Shahbi added that after screening the film at the Art and Experience Cinema halls, the film will also be available on Filimo, an online VOD service on which users can stream videos online.

Karimi, a filmmaker born and raised in Tehran but living in Afghanistan since 2012, also thanked Shahabi, who invested in her movie, Mastaneh Mohajer, who edited the film, and the sound engineer, Mohamamdreza Delpak, who collaborated in the project.

“I must also thank my fellow Iranian citizens. I was born and raised in Iran, Iran is my homeland and I am happy you are here to see my movie tonight,” she added.

“‘Hava, Maryam, Ayesha’ does not claim to be a good movie abut we are proud that we could make a feature in the unsafe land of Afghanistan despite all the problems in the country,” Karimi, who is the head of the state-run Afghan Film Organization, added.

“We tried to introduce a new narration of Afghanistan to the world. The film was not possible without the assistance of Iranian colleagues. This is film is the joint language of cooperation between Iran and Afghanistan. This shows that we can show our unity to the world through art and cinema,” she concluded.

Government spokesman Ali Rabiei, the former director of the Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Tourism, Mohammad Beheshti, and Shafiq Sharq, the Cultural Attaché of Afghanistan were among the participating guests.

Photo: A scene from “Hava, Maryam, Ayesha” by Afghan director Sahra Karimi. / T.T/

An exhibition of photos by Javad Qarai, the director of the popular documentary series “Irangard”, will open Friday at the Niavaran Cultural-Historical Complex in Tehran.

Entitled “Incredible Iran”, the exhibition will feature a collection of photos taken by Qarai of different Iranian landscapes and people during his travels around the country to produce his documentary series.

“Irangard” was produced in three seasons from 2010 to 2018 and was aired on several TV channels.

The series, highlighting Iran’s natural and cultural attractions, has received several awards in different festivals including best documentary award at the Jame Jam Television Festival in March.

Qarai is a graduate of tourism management and has been traveling for over 20 years.

The “Incredible Iran” photo exhibition will be running until December 18. / T.T/