Iranian taekwondo practitioners snatched seven colorful medals to become first at the Turkey Open 2023–G2. Iranian men national squad won 4 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze medals and became champion at the Turkey Open 2023–G2.

Mehdi Haji Musaei (weight -54 kg), Abolfazl Zandi (-58 kg), Mateen Rezaei (-63 kg), and Arian Salimi (- 87 kg) received gold medals in the sporting event.

Other Iranian fighters Mehran Barkhordari (- 80 kg) and Abulfazl Abbasi (+ 87 kg) won silver medals, while Erfan Bozorghi (-68 kg) gained the bronze medal in the tournament.

Bizhan Moghanlou led the men’s teams at the tournament.

The Turkish Open Taekwondo Tournament was held in Ankara, Turkey on July 06-09, 2023. /MNA/

The simulator system for MiG-29 fighter jets was put into operation in a ceremony at Shahid Sattari Aeronautical University on Sunday.

The ceremony was attended by the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Major General Abolrahim Mousavi.

Mousavi appreciated the elites of the Army Air Force at Shahid Sattari University for producing this simulator system for MiG-29 fighter jets.

He also attached great importance to the construction and production of such a simulator, which has already been built for other aircraft.

Stating that the MiG-29 electronic warfare training simulator has passed successful tests, Mousavi added that it will definitely be effective in improving the combat capability of the Air Force.

These simulator systems will be delivered to bases that are equipped with MiG-29 fighters in the coming days. /MNA/

The value of trade exchanges between the US and Iran in the first five months of 2023 has reached $22.4 million, indicating a 5% YOY growth.

According to the latest report released on Sunday by the United States Department of Commerce, the value of trade exchanges between the US and Iran from January to May 2023 reached $22.4 billion that shows 5 percent growth as compared to the corresponding period the year before although the figure is negligible as compared to the total trade exchanges of the two countries with the world.

US export to Iran during the first five months of 2023 reached $21.9 million which shows a 34% YOY increase, while Iran’s exports to the US during the mentioned period reached % 0.5 million indicating an 89% YOY decrease.

Iran ranked 175th among US target export markets in the said period, the report noted. /MNA/

The Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC) has released the latest ranking of universities by subject, according to which 44 universities from Iran are among the top 224 universities from Islamic countries.

As an international scientific organization, ISC has ranked universities and research institutes in Iran by forming an internal working group.

ISC, as an avant-garde citation system in the Muslim world, published Islamic World University Rankings in 2013. Building on past experience, ISC’s Department of Universities Ranking published the new ISC World University Rankings in 2018.

In 2021, there were 42 Iranian universities on the ISC ranking by subject from 215 universities in Islamic countries.

The six subjects included natural sciences (biological sciences, chemical sciences, computer and information sciences, earth and related environmental sciences, mathematics, physical sciences, and other natural sciences (multidisciplinary sciences); engineering and technology ( chemical engineering, civil engineering, electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering, environmental biotechnology, environmental engineering, industrial biotechnology, materials engineering, mechanical engineering, medical engineering, nano-technology, and other engineering and technologies (engineering, multidisciplinary; engineering, industrial; engineering, manufacturing; food science and technology; instrumentation and instrumentation; microscopy; imaging science and photographic technology; spectroscopy); medical and health sciences (basic medicine, clinical medicine, health sciences, medical biotechnology, and other medical science; agricultural and veterinary sciences (agricultural biotechnology, agriculture, forestry, fisheries animal and dairy science, veterinary science, and other agricultural science (agricultural engineering; agricultural economics and policy; food science and technology); humanities and the arts (art, history and archaeology, languages and literature, philosophy, ethics and religion, and other humanities (humanities, multidisciplinary); social sciences (economics and business, education, law, media and communication, political science, psychology and cognitive sciences, social and economic geography, sociology, and other social sciences (hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism; asian studies; cultural studies; social sciences, interdisciplinary).

The number of top Iranian universities and research institutes in the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) database has increased from 112 last year (March 2022-March 2023) to 115 this year, the Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC) has reported.

The number of top Iranian universities and research institutes in this database has increased from 112 last year to 115 this year.

Iran’s top universities and research institutes are present in 19 subject areas, and the largest number is in the engineering subject area with 59 universities and research institutes.

The number of institutions in the fields of clinical medicine was 57, chemistry 50, material sciences 25, agricultural sciences 23, pharmacology and toxicology 19, plant and animal sciences 16, environment/ecology 15, social sciences, biology and biochemistry, and computer sciences 13 each.

Meanwhile, the number of institutions in the fields of neuroscience and behavior was 7, geology 6, physics and immunology 5 each, molecular biology and genetics 4, mathematics and microbiology 2 each, and psychiatry/psychology 1.

Reviewing the status of universities worldwide shows that the number of Iranian universities has increased in nearly all subject rankings.

At the beginning of its formation, rating systems provided a comprehensive view of institutions and evaluated them from all aspects and as a whole. But in the past few years, many of these systems evaluate and rank institutions in various scientific fields.

This new ranking method has emerged to meet the needs of users who seek to know the position of an institution in a special field.

Some of these systems evaluate broad scientific fields such as humanities and social sciences, technical and engineering, and medicine, and others measure special fields such as chemistry, mathematics, artificial intelligence, anthropology, and nursing in institutions.

The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2023 has placed 65 Iranian universities among the top Asian institutions.

The Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2023 use the same 13 performance indicators as the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, but they are recalibrated to reflect the attributes of Asia’s institutions.

The universities are judged across all their core missions – teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook – to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons available.

The Sharif University of Technology is ranked first in the country and 64th in Asia. The position of two Iranian institutions is also mentioned as a reporter.

In the 2023 edition of the Times Higher Education’s Asian University Ranking System, the names of 928 institutions from 36 Asian countries are included in the final list. In the previous edition of this ranking system, 58 universities from Iran were among the top institutions in Asia, IRNA reported. /T.T/

The latest ranking of the best taekwondo athletes in the world indicates the rise of the Iranian taekwondo athlete Nahid Kiyani to the top of the world rankings.

The official website of the World Taekwondo released the world and Olympic rankings for July 2023 after registering the scores of the World Championships and the Rome Grand Prix.

Nahid Kiyani accumulated 311.07 points in the Olympic ranking for the 57-kg category, and climbed 10 steps to reach the fifth spot in Olympics rankings. /MNA/

An ancient inscription has recently been found in the southern province of Fars, ILNA reported on Monday. Archaeologists have recently discovered a petroglyph in the region bearing the name Allah, said Iranian archaeologist Abolhassan Atabaki.

The rock carving is estimated to date back to the early-Islamic era, he added.

Ancient works and stone inscriptions discovered in the region over the past few years have always captured the interest of archaeologists, historians, and people interested in ancient languages.

In January, Atabaki announced that a Sassanid-era petroglyph, written on the subject of wishing for a holy marriage for an Iranian lady, was discovered in the region.

An ancient rock drawing of a Sassanid-era horseman was also discovered in Marvdasht plain in the province, he mentioned.

Moreover, in February, a petroglyph containing verses from a poem by the Persian poet Sheikh Muslih od-Din Sadi Shirazi was discovered in the province.

The ancient region of Fars, known as Pars or Persis, was the heart of the Achaemenid Empire founded by Cyrus the Great and had its capital in Pasargadae. Darius I the Great moved the capital to nearby Persepolis in the late 6th or early 5th century BC. Alexander the Great defeated the Achaemenian army at Arbela in 331 and burned Persepolis apparently as revenge against the Persians because it seems the Persian King Xerxes had burnt the Greek City of Athens around 150 years earlier.

Persis became part of the Seleucid kingdom in 312 after Alexander’s death. The Parthian empire (247 BC– 224 CE) of the Arsacids (corresponding roughly to the modern Khorasan in Iran) replaced the Seleucids’ rule in Persis during 170–138 BC. The Sasanid Empire (224 CE–651) had its capital at Istkhr. Not until the 18th century, under the Zand dynasty (1750–79) of southern Iran, did Fars again become the heart of an empire./ T.T/

Iran’s saffron export increased by 57 percent in the first two months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-May 21) compared to the same period of time in the previous year, according to Gholamreza Miri, the chairman of Iranian Saffron Exporters and Sellers Union.

According to Miri, Iranian saffron farmers exported 239,000 tons of the product in the previous calendar year, IRNA reported.

Iran is one of the world’s top saffron producers and over 90 percent of its production is exported to foreign destinations. / T.T/

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in a report put Iran’s oil revenue in 2022 at $54 billion, up $17 billion from the country’s oil income in 2021. The EIA’s report also put the Islamic Republic’s oil revenue in the first five months of 2023 at $19 billion.

Back in January, the EIA in a report put Iran’s average oil production in 2022 at 2.54 million barrels per day (bpd), 140,000 bpd more than the previous year.

In late April, the European Union’s statistics office Eurostat announced the import of Iranian oil by three European Union (EU) members in 2022, and introduced Bulgaria as the newest customer of Iranian oil in this union.

The information published by Eurostat shows that the European Union imported 4,181 tons of crude oil or oil products from Iran last year.

Although the amount of EU oil imports from Iran is not a significant figure, it indicates the desire of European refineries to ignore the U.S. sanctions against Iran, and the inclusion of these figures in the official European oil import statistics shows the desire of the European authorities to distance themselves from the sanctions, or at least showing their objection to the U.S. sanctions policy against Iran.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has said that the oil and gas sector experienced a growth of nine percent in the past Iranian calendar year 1401 (ended on March 20).

Oil Minister Javad Oji has also said that a new record high will be reached in the country’s oil export in the current Iranian calendar year.

The country’s oil export in 1401 was 83 million barrels more than that of 1400, and 190 million barrels more than the export in 1399, the minister announced.

Underlining that now oil export has reached the highest figure in the last two years, the official said, “Considering that the Oil Ministry is one of the main providers of the country’s foreign currency; in the 13th government, despite the tightening of cruel sanctions, fortunately, thanks to the grace of God and the efforts of our colleagues in the country’s oil and gas industries, there are good records in the field of exporting crude oil, gas condensate, and petroleum and petrochemical products.”

Despite the negative impacts of the U.S. sanctions, Iran has been ramping up its oil production and exports over the past few months.

In his remarks in November 2022, President Raisi highlighted the failure of the enemy’s policy of maximum pressure, saying the country’s oil export has reached the pre-sanction levels. / T.T/

Margoon is one of the most splendid waterfalls in southern Iran. It flows through the rocks from an altitude of 70 meters.

Wild trees grown on the steep slopes and mossy rocks multiply the beauty and magnificence of the waterfall. /T.T/

Directed by Iranian filmmaker Morteza Sabz-Qaba, the short film” For Him” won the prize of Quarter-Finalist at the Student World Impact Film Festival (SWIFF) in the United States.

Sabz-Qaba’s 16-minute-long film has previously taken part in other international film festivals as well.

“For Him” also won various prizes at different national film festivals in Iran.

The Student World Impact Film Festival (SWIFF) is the premier platform for showcasing the artistic talent of student filmmakers from around the world.

The 2023 edition of the event was held from the 18th to the 25th of June in New York, United States. /MNA/