The 3rd Slemani Film Festival in Iraqi Kurdistan named its winners last night, giving out four awards, including Best Film and Best Director, to films representing Iranian cinema.

The 3rd Slemani International Film Festival kicked off on October 10 and wrapped up on October 16 in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan.

The festival’s Best Director award went to Majid Majidi for ‘Beyond the Clouds’. The film is a 2017 Indian drama written and directed by Majidi with music composed by two-time Oscar winner A. R. Rahman and lensed by Anil Mehta. It tells the story of a brother and sister who grew up in the slums of Mumbai. When Tara (Mohanan) is arrested on charges of attempted murder, her bond with her brother Amir (Khatter) is put to the test.

‘3 Faces’ by Jafar Panahi won the Best Film award at the festival. The film stars actress Behnaz Jafari as herself, who becomes distraught when she comes across a young girl’s video plea for help after her family prevents her from taking up her studies at the Tehran drama conservatory. Behnaz abandons her shoot and turns to filmmaker Jafar Panahi to help with the young girl’s troubles.

Meanwhile, Navid Mohammadzadeh won the Best Actor award for ‘No Sign, No Signature’, directed by Vahid Jalilvand.

The drama narrates the story of a forensic pathologist Dr. Kaveh Nariman (played by Amir Aghaei), a principled and virtuous man, who gets involved in an accident and faces a dilemma of whether he is responsible for the death of a child or if the cause of death is unrelated to his doing.

‘No Date, No Signature’ has been selected as Iran’s submission for a foreign-language Academy Award in 2019.

The festival’s fourth award for Iranian titles went to Morteza Shams for his short film ‘Blister’. /MNA/

Iranian researchers produced an anti-fog glass-coating product via nanotechnology.When fogging occurs, thousands of tiny water droplets condense on glass and other surfaces. The droplets scatter light in random patterns, causing the surfaces to become translucent or foggy. This often occurs when a cold surface suddenly comes into contact with warm, moist air.

Iranian researchers produced a new coating via nanotechnology which prevents this process from occurring.

Fogged-up eyeglasses, helmet visors, camera lenses, skiing goggles, bathroom mirrors, shower screens, windshields will soon be a thing of the past; a new Iranian product will ensure better visibility in glassy things.

Fogged eyewear is a real pain and can be dangerous. Steaming on glasses in different places is one of the problems most people face.

Iranian researchers have used nanotechnology to produce anti-fogging coatings which prevent glassy surfaces from fogging or steaming up.

This product has a high shelf-life of up to 9 times of fogging up and has a self-cleansing nature.

The coating prevents fogging by attracting the water droplets and reducing their contact angles with the surface. As a result, the droplets merge into a uniform, transparent sheet rather than forming countless individual light-scattering spheres. /MNA /

Some five tons of caviar have been produced in the country since the beginning of current Iranian calendar year (March 21), the managing director of Agricultural Services Specialized Holding Company announced.

Abbas Rajaee said the country’s Sixth Five-Year National Development Plan (2016-2021) has envisaged the annual caviar output of 20 tons, IRIB reported.

He made the remarks on the sidelines of the 3rd edition of Iran’s International Fisheries Industry Exhibition (IFEX 2018) running from October 3 to 6 at the Tehran Permeant International Fairground. / Tehran times /

Head of Iranian Defense Ministry’s Marine Industries Organization Rear Admiral Amir Rastegari said that Islamic Republic of Iran has enjoyed high technical know-how in manufacturing seagoing vessels.

Speaking on the sidelines of his visit to the 3rd International Fisheries Exhibition dubbed “IFEX 2018” in Tehran Permanent International Fairgrounds, he pointed to the salient measures taken by his organization in the field of building vessels required for marine industry of the country, saying “plan on the development of marine industry of the country based on Resistance Economy was approved by the Supreme Council of Marine Industry in the past year (ended March 20, 2018) in line with substituting rental vessels and also renovating marine transport fleet.”

In this comprehensive plan, 176 marine vessels, valued at half a million euro, will be constructed by four industrial organizations in the country, Rastegari opined.

Marine Industries Organization of the Defense Ministry is also responsible to build 80 marine vessels, he said, adding, “these marine vessels will be launched in the field of offshore and logistic services.”

Moreover, manufacturing vessels for naval forces of the country, the organization has so far designed and manufactured more than 180 non-military marine vessels, he maintained./MNA/

According to Scopus, the publication of scientific journals in Persian has increased forty-fold in the last 20 years, giving Persian language a ranking of 15th in the world in terms of quantity of scientific production.

The announcement was made by Mohammad Javad Dehghani, President of Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC), on the sidelines of the 13th International Conference for the Promotion of Persian Language and Literature currently underway in Shiraz.

According to the Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, the publication of scientific journals in Persian from 1997 to the end of 2017 has increased by forty times, which has improved the global ranking of Persian language in terms of quantity of scientific production from 30th to 15th place. / MNA /

Iran’s balance of trades for flower and ornamental plants in the past Iranian year (ended on March 20) remained positive amounting to some $11 million, which is expected to observe a significant growth this year, a senior official at the Ministry of Agriculture said.

According to the head of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Greenhouse, Medicinal Plants and Edible Mushroom Affairs Bureau, Gholamreza Taqavi, the country’s exports of flower plants, seedlings and bulbs amounted to $25 million last year, while the imports the floral products stood at around $14 million.

Taqavi noted that the recent fluctuations in the currency market and the huge gap between the prices of the domestically-produced and imported flowers have heated the domestic flower market.

Noting that domestic market needs some 4 million cut flowers in a year, he added “previously, we needed to import some 60 million floral plants, seedlings, bulbs, but the number has been halved due to the increase in domestic production.”

According to the official, over 2.5 billion cut flowers were harvested in the country in the first half of the current year (through Sep. 22).

Over 6,599 hectares of land are under the cultivation of ornamental plants and flowers in Iran, some 2,400 hectares of which belong to greenhouse cultivation while the remaining pertain to outdoor cultivation.

Noting that Iran ranks second globally in the expansion of greenhouse area, said plans are on the agenda to increase the share of Iranian green products in the foreign markets vial facilitating and outsourcing the exports. Iran is home to hardly 0.3% of the world’s greenhouses. / MNA/

China’s possible decision to increase its imports of Iranian oil could offset the negative impact of US sanctions on Iran’s oil industry, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Thursday.
Chinese increase in Iran oil imports could offset impact of US sanctions: Novak
‘We do not fully understand how the consumers from the Asia-Pacific region will react, and whether China will increase its imports [of Iranian oil]. There will be no change [on the market] if the flow of Iranian oil is redirected. There are a lot of uncertainties that we do not fully understand today,’ Novak said on the sidelines of the Russian Energy Week, Sputnik reported.

Novak pointed out that the move would affect Chinese-US trade relations, triggering another stage of trade war between Beijing and Washington.

‘These volumes are insignificant for the Chinese economy, so if there is a decision [to stop importing US oil], the People’s Republic of China will be able to shift to other sources without any problems,’ the Russian minister added.

Media reported on Wednesday citing the president of China Merchants Energy Shipping Co (CMES) that shipments of US crude oil to China had been stopped amid the escalating China-US trade war.

Iran’s envoy to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Hossein Kazempour Ardabili said in late September that other OPEC members will be unable to compensate for missing Iranian oil supplies on the market after US sanctions against Tehran go into force.

The United States started reimposing sanctions on Iran after withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal in May. In early August, Washington imposed the first package of sanctions targeting Iran’s purchase of US dollar banknotes, trade in gold and other metals as well as transactions involving its national currency.

The second package is set to be introduced in early November and hit Iran’s energy sector and oil exports, among other things. /IRNA /

Iranian women para-shooters gained two gold medals on Monday in the 2018 Asian Para Games.

In mixed 50m free pistol class of P4, 2016 Rio Paralympics gold medalist Sareh Javanmardi snatched the gold medal ahead of his two Indian men rivals Manish Narwal and Singhraj Singhraj.

Also, in women’s 10m air rifle standing class of R2, Iran’s Roghayeh Shojaei scored a high of 247 points and won the gold medal. Two Chinese representatives stood next with 246.1 and 224.9 points. This was the first participation of 30-year-old Shojaie in Asian Para Games.

2018 Asian Para Games kicked off on Saturday in Jakarta and will continue through October 13. Some 2,831 athletes from 43 countries have participated in the event. A total of 209 athletes, consisting of 137 men and 73 women, represent Iran in the 2018 Asian Para Games in 13 sports.

Gaining a total of 11 medals, including 4 gold, 1 silver, and 6 bronze, Iran currently ranks fifth in the medal tally. China, Japan, South Korea, and Uzbekistan have the top rankings./ MNA/

A deputy agriculture minister said Iran is placed in the 12th rank of the global egg production, calling for provision of the grounds to facilitate exports.

According to Deputy Agriculture Minister Morteza Rezaei, the country’s egg production will amount to 500,000 tons in the current fiscal year (ends on March 20, 2019).

The figure indicates that the per capita egg production stands at 6.25 kilograms in the country, with a population of over 80 million.

This is while, he added, each Iranian consumes 185 to 198 eggs or per year, which is below the average for many other countries and brings a surplus in the domestic market.

The official stressed the need to take effective measures including better quality and health supervision so as to enhance the exports of the surplus eggs, because it is inevitable and highly important to have a bigger share in international markets.

According to him, Iran is among the main suppliers of egg in the region and many countries choose Iranian egg.

According to Farzad Talakesh, s the secretary-general of Iran’s Association of Producers of Egg-Laying Hen, Iran’s egg exports boomed in the fiscal 2015-16 when the country exported some 95,000 tons of eggs to Afghanistan, Iraq and Oman, registering a 52,000-ton increase year-on-year. However, the figure dwindled to 40,000 a year later.

Other measures such as tax exemption or providing export incentives can also help exporters gain a considerable share in the regional markets. / MNA /

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between the Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology and Iran-Uganda Holding with the aim of boosting Iranian knowledge-based companies’ footprint in the African country’s agricultural sector.

The MoU was inked by Mostafa Ghanei, Vice Presidency’s director of biotechnology development department, and Seyed Mohammad Ali Mousavi, the representative of the holding.

As per the agreement, the Vice Presidency will be obliged to help Iranian companies in different aspects including mainating activity in Uganda’s agriculture sector through provision of appropriate farmlands, facilitating the exports of knowledge-based firms’ services to the African country, transfering technology on biotechnological agriculture, and conducting comprehensive studies about agricultural status and conditions in Africa, particularly Uganda.

The MoU is valid for a period of three year, and will be renewed in case of consent. / MNA/