Iran defeated Singapore 3-0 on Saturday and advanced to the final match of the 2023 IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s Asia and Oceania Championship.

Team Melli had previously defeated India 17-1, Kuwait 20-0, Kyrgyzstan 26-0 and the UAE 14-0 in their previous matches.

Earlier in the day, Thailand defeated India 13-0 to book their place in the final.

Iran will play Thailand on Sunday in the final match, while India face Singapore in the bronze medal match.

The event started on April 30 in Bangkok, Thailand and will finish on May 7. /T.T/

Narges Abyar, director of the acclaimed Iranian drama “When the Moon Was Full”, has joined the international jury of the 7th edition of the Women Media Arts and Film Festival (WMAFF) currently underway in Sydney, Australia.

She is also best known for directing “Track 143”, which is adapted from her novel titled “The Third Eye” narrating the story of a woman and her son during the time of war.

Her films sensitively picture the sufferings of women and children caused by society, war, or radicalism.

The WMAFF is a new screen culture and audience development initiative by Cinewest in partnership with Sydney Olympic Park Authority.

The jury also comprises Australian actress and writer Kate Fitzpatrick and the New Zealand-born Australian-based filmmaker Margot Nash.

Three Iranian films are also competing in the festival, which will run until May 7.

“Kal Fatemeh” by Mehdi Zamanpur Kiasari, “Lady of the City” by Maryam Bahrololumi and “The Sun of that Moon” by Setareh Eskandari have been selected to be screened in different sections of the festival.

The documentary film “Kal Fatemeh” is about a woman who lives on her own farm away from the village with her two sons. She runs a farm and rears cattle for a living, meeting many challenges. She grieves over her daughter’s situation, as she has had an unhappy past.

“Lady of the City”, a drama also known as “Shahrbanoo”, follows Shahrbanoo, a woman who has been sentenced to life in prison for being a drug mule. After eleven years in jail, she is released from prison for a few days to attend her son’s wedding. The temporary freedom helps her see a new aspect of her life and that of her family before returning to prison.

The story of “The Sun of that Moon” is set in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan, where a Baloch widow named Beeban decides to keep silent and not to speak anymore. She lives in her father-in-law’s house with her son, Miran. When her childhood playmate, Hamraz, returns home, once again they begin feeling in the mood for love. But everyone tries to force her to forget all about this forbidden love. /T.T/

Mohsen Tanabandeh has been picked as best actor for his role in the Iranian dark comedy “World War III” at the Fantaspoa International Fantastic Film Festival of Porto Alegre in Brazil.

He won the award for his portrayal of Shakib, a homeless day laborer who never got over the loss of his wife and son in an earthquake years ago.

Over the last couple of years, he has developed a relationship with a deaf and mute woman, Ladan. The construction site on which he works today turns out to be the set for a film about the atrocities committed by Hitler during WWII. Against all odds, he is given a movie role, a house and a chance at being somebody. When Ladan learns about this, she comes to his workplace begging for help. Shakib’s scheme to hide her goes tragically wrong and threatens to ruin his newfound status and what seemed to be the opportunity of a lifetime.

Tanabandeh was honored with the Orizzonti Award for best actor at the 79th Venice International Film Festival for “World War III”, which also won the Orizzonti Award for best film.

Directed by Hooman Seyyedi, the film was Iran’s submission to the international feature award at the 2023 Oscars.

Fantaspoa, a pioneer festival dedicated to bringing fantastic films to the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, announced the winners on Sunday.

The award for best actress went to Tatum Matthews for her role in “The Artifice Girl” by the American director Franklin Ritch.

The American science fiction comedy “Molli and Max in the Future” by Michael Lukk Litwak was selected as best film in the international competition.

The film is about a man and woman whose orbits repeatedly collide over the course of 12 years, 4 planets, 3 dimensions, and one space cult.

Beth de Araújo won the award for best director for the American film “Soft & Quiet”.

The award for best screenplay was given to “The Uncle” written and directed by David Kapac and Andrija Mardesic

The co-production between Croatia and Serbia appears to be set in Yugoslavia in the late 1980s, as a family welcomes their beloved uncle, who has returned home from Germany for the holidays. /T.T/

Roya Mehboodi claimed a gold medal in the 21st edition of the Asian Arm Wrestling Championship. She won a gold medal in the 90kg senior women left hand.

“I dedicate my gold medal to all Iranian women. This is the result of incredible patience and hard work,” Mehboodi said.

Over 500 athletes representing 16 countries are in the fray at the Asian Arm Wrestling Championship, which kicked off in Ajman, the UAE.

The event is being organized by the Emirates Body Building and Fitness Federation under the auspices of the Asian Arm Wrestling Federation (AAF) and will conclude on May 3. /T.T/

The value of Iran’s tea export rose 34.8 percent in the past Iranian calendar year 1401 (ended on March 20), according to the data released by the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA).

Based on the IRICA data, Iran exported tea worth $44.2 billion to 26 countries in the past year.Iran also imported tea valued at $665 million from 10 countries in the previous year, showing 45.9 percent growth year on year.

About 100,000 tons of tea are consumed in Iran every year. Last year, about 26,000 tons of tea were produced in the country, of which about 10,000 tons (38 percent) were exported due to the received production subsidy and reasonable price.

Among the problems of the country’s tea industry, it can be referred to the development of modern irrigation network, increasing the mechanization factor, and facilities for modernizing factories and processing and branding machines, which can be solved through investment making./T.T/

More than 40,000 Afghan students are currently studying in Iranian universities, Vahid Haddadi-Asl, the Iranian deputy science minister for international affairs, has said.

There are no limitations for admitting Afghan students in Iran, ISNA quoted Haddadi-Asl as saying.

Every foreign student who enters the country must have a passport or an official identity card, he said, adding that the Ministry of Science has announced that if these documents approved by the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are not available for foreign students, it is not possible for them to study.

Many Afghan students are interested to continue online studying in Iran, he noted.

In December 2022, MP Mehdi Esmaeili said in the wake of the Taliban’s move to suspend education for girls, Iran is ready to host Afghan girl university students.

In line with philanthropic values, if the Afghan government does not reconsider its decision, the Islamic Republic of Iran will accept Afghan female students, ISNA quoted Esmaeili as saying.
Iran has spent more than $352 million in the current school year that started on September 23 on the education of Afghan students.

Over 670,000 students of Afghan nationality are studying in Iran, and the cost of educating these students is more than $352 million, IRNA reported.

In the current school year, $17 million of international aid and $335.631 million dollars from internal sources have been spent on the education of Afghan nationals.

However, international organizations have paid less than 3.9 percent of the cost of education for Afghan students in Iran in the last two years.

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

Relying on moral and Islamic principles, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has created equal conditions in benefiting from educational opportunities for Afghan students.

In the previous school year, some 556,000 Afghan students studied in Iranian schools.

Afghan students are currently studying in 6,000 schools across Iran, of which 88 schools are being built with the participation of international organizations.

The Ministry of Interior has announced to the Ministry of Education a list of 200,000 Afghan children who have the conditions to study in Iranian schools, Ali Hamedi, an official with the Education Ministry, said in November 2022.

The Ministry of Education has the capacity and potential to provide them with educational conditions and facilities equal to other Iranian students, he added.

The literacy rate among refugees has increased significantly in recent decades. So that the literacy rate of Afghan immigrants in Iran is higher than the number of literate people in Afghanistan, according to a report published in June 2022 by the research center of the Iranian Parliament (Majlis).

Iran is home to over 800,000 registered refugees and some 2.6 million undocumented Afghans. Today, more than 500,000 Afghan children- including undocumented Afghans and those who have newly arrived in Iran following the Taliban-takeover-are benefitting from Iran’s inclusive education policies, one of the most progressive in the world.

Many of the refugees living in Iran are second and third-generation, according to the UNHCR.

Iran is among the 15 successful countries in attracting international university students, according to Mohammad Javad Salmanpour, the deputy head of the Organization for Student Affairs.

Iran has the ability and capacity to have more than 250,000 foreign students by 2026, he stated.

These students are studying in different fields of science, research and technology, health and medical education, and also in the fields of humanities, Islamic sciences, Persian language, and literature, law, fundamentals of Islamic law, management fields, economics, psychology, social sciences, as well as engineering, agricultural sciences, animal sciences, and basic sciences. /T.T/

The Iranian documentary “Water, Wind, Dust, Bread” directed by Mehdi Zamanpour Kiasri will take part in Ethnocineca- International Documentary Film Festival Vienna.

The 25-minute documentary ‘Water, Wind, Dust, Bread’, which took more than a year to produce, is a delicate narrative of the life of two children named ‘Abolfazl’ and ‘Setayesh’ who experience a different life.

The documentary has been previously screened at the 18th edition of ZagrebDox, the International Documentary Film Festival and the 24th edition of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival in Greece, a special screening section of the 15th Miradasdoc International Film Festival in Spain and the 19th edition of the Millennium Film Festival in Poland.

The 17th edition of Austria’s Ethnocineca will be held on 4-11 May 2023 in Vienna. As Austria’s biggest film festival for documentary cinema and ethnographic film, Ethnocineca is dedicated to diverse realities of human life. /MNA/

According to data released by Scopus, Iran published 78,225 scientific articles in this database in 2022. Accordingly, Iran is ranked 15th in the world in terms of publication of scientific works for the fourth consecutive year.

Scopus data in 2022 shows that Iran ranks first among countries in the region in terms of the number of scientific publications.

A review of Scopus data from 2014 to 2022 shows that Iran has always been the first among the countries in the region in terms of the number of publications and has been able to maintain this position.

In total, 3,950,305 works have been indexed in the Scopus. China, with 1,016,311 works, is the source of about 25 percent of the world’s scientific publications and has the first place in this regard.

The United States, India, England, and Germany are also in the second to fifth place.

According to the data of the Scopus index, the Tehran University of Medical Sciences has the largest share in Iran’s scientific publications by publishing more than 6,800 works.

In total, nearly half of Iran’s scientific publications in 2022 have been published by 10 universities in the country.

Meanwhile, the latest data from the Web of Science in 2022 shows that Iran ranks second among countries in the region after Turkey.

Since 2017, Iran ranked first in the region in terms of the number of publications in the WOS index, but in 2022, after 5 years, it has lost the first place in the region.

Reviewing the changes in Iran’s ranking in the last six years in the Web of Science index shows that in 2017, Iran ranked 17th in this index and maintained this rank until 2019.

In 2020, Iran’s rank increased by two places to 15, but in the last two years this rank was lost and in 2022 it returned to 17.

This is the first time that Iran’s scientific ranking in terms of the number of publications in the Web of Science has decreased for two consecutive years.

International citation indexes include Web of Science, Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports, Web of Knowledge, and Scopus.

According to the latest statistics of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, 1,452 scientific journals are being published in the country.

Out of all the mentioned journals, 289 are indexed in the Scopus database and 67 journals are indexed in the Web of Science database, IRNA reported.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, has said that the West exerted pressures on Iran in order to isolate it but their efforts in this regard backfired.

He described making progress under economic siege and the most severe pressures possible as indicative of the Iranian nation’s bright performance.

“The U.S. said the economic pressures they’ve put on Iran are unprecedented in history. Despite all their lies, they were true to this,” the Leader added.

Ayatollah Khamenei made the remarks during a speech on March 21 at the holy shrine of Imam Reza on the occasion of the New Iranian year.

He named the Persian New Year the year of “Inflation Control, and Growth in Production.”

The Leader highlighted the progress made in science and technology and Iran’s ranking among the top countries of the world in fields such as Nano and Biotechnology, health, aerospace, nuclear, defense, infrastructure, medical centers, and oil refineries “With regard to foreign relations, the West’s efforts to isolate Iran have failed,” he said.

Since the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi took office in August 2021, more than 45 scientific and research journals have been indexed by Scopus, the deputy health minister Younes Panahi has said.

The growth in Scopus-indexed publications has been unprecedented, he said, adding that before the administration took office, 135 publications had been indexed by Scopus, while the figure is currently 180.

In 2021, a number of 27,800 articles have been registered by medical science researchers of the country in the Scopus database, he added.

Over the past year, 18 articles published by Iranian researchers have been cited by Scopus International Citation Database, compared with a total of 101 during the past 40 years, the deputy science minister Peyman Salehi said in September 2022.

The share of Iranian articles with international participation has had significant growth of 209 percent during an eight-year period (2013-2020), becoming the Islamic world’s leading country in science diplomacy, according to the Scopus International Citation Database. /T.T/

The 700-year-old Hassan Padeshah complex, which is located in the historical city of Tabriz, East Azarbaijan province, has undergone some rehabilitation works, the deputy provincial tourism chief has said.

Several parts of the complex have been undergoing restorations for some time, and resuming the work will return the complex to its former glory, Vahid Navadad explained on Saturday.

To implement this landmark project, the provincial department of cultural heritage is utilizing all its technical, administrative, and credit resources, the official added.

Considering the historical significance of this complex, the project is being closely supervised by cultural heritage experts and experienced restorers, he noted.

As a result of the need for specialized and technical research due to its high cultural significance, the restoration project has taken so long, he mentioned.

During the Turkmen and Safavid eras when Tabriz was the capital of Iran, this complex played a significant role in the governmental spheres, therefore, permits are required for the restoration of its remains after extensive research and studies, as well as technical and expert measures, he stated.

Located in Tabriz, the capital of East Azarbaijan province, the 160 thousand square meter complex of Hassan Padeshah, meaning ‘Hasan the King’, is among the outstanding works left over from the glorious time of the Aq Qoyunlu Dynasty.

The complex comprises a mosque, a madrasa, a bathhouse, and a massive forum covering some twofold that of UNESCO-registered Imam Square in Isfahan.

As a result of certain factors and events such as floods and earthquakes and historical indifference, the complex carries only a small portion of its past historical greatness.

Like many cities in Iran, Tabriz has a long and rich history but saw many of its historic buildings destroyed by invaders or earthquakes. Tabriz became the capital of the Mongol Il-Khan Mahmud Gazan (1295–1304) and his successor. Timur (Tamerlane), a Turkic conqueror, took it in 1392. Some decades later, the Kara Koyunlu Turkmen made it their capital. It was when the famous Blue Mosque was built in the ancient city.

The city retained its administrative status under the Safavid dynasty until 1548 when Shah Tahmasp I relocated his capital westward to Qazvin. During the next two centuries, Tabriz changed hands several times between Persia and the Ottoman Empire. During World War I, the city was temporarily occupied by Turkish and then Soviet troops.

Downtown Tabriz is very walkable, and the people are also extremely friendly, something not particularly common in big cities. /T.T/