The World Steel Association (WSA) in its latest report said that Iran’s steel production registered a 34 percent hike in the seven month of the current year in 2022 (July).

The statistics showed that US steel production decreased in this period by as much as 6.4 percent.

Another statistic showed that 149.3 million tons of steel were produced in the world in this period, showing a 6.5 percent decline as compared to the same period of last year.

Despite the 6.5 percent decline of steel production in the world in July 2022, Iran’s steel production grew by 34 percent at large.

Iran produced two million tons of steel in this period.

In this time span, Iran produced 1.49 million tons of steel in July 2021.

The report put the total steel volume produced in the country in the first seven months of the current year (from Jan. to July) at 17.4 million tons, showing a 3.7 percent growth as compared to the same period of last year.

Iran produced over 16.8 million tons of steel from Jan. to Jul. 2021.

With the production of more than 17 million tons of steel in the first seven months of the current year, Iran was introduced as the 10th largest steel producer in the world. /MNA/

Iran ranked first in the world in the 15th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA 2022) held at Kutaisi in Georgia from August 14 to 22.

The Iranian team won first place in the tournament for the second time by winning 9 gold medals and 1 silver medal. 250 students from 45 countries participated in this competition.

In IOAA 2021, the Iranian delegation won 2 gold medals, 5 silver medals, 2 bronze medals, and an honorary diploma.Mehdi Ostad Mohammadi, Sepehr Salamat, Mohammad Mehdi Abedian, Farhad Azizi Satari, Seyed Yousef Miryousefi, Sahand Esmailzadeh, Sahand Akramipour, Aria Ghanbari, and Arsam Majd won the gold medals and Alireza Alaei Hareh Dasht won the silver medal.

In IOAA 2021, the Iranian delegation won 2 gold medals, 5 silver medals, 2 bronze medals, and an honorary diploma at the competition, held in Colombia on November 14-21.

International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics is an annual event for highly performed high school students from all around the world.

Established in Thailand in 2006, it was initiated by five countries including Thailand, Indonesia, Iran, China, and Poland with the aim to proliferate astronomy among high school students.

The main goal of the IOAA is to promote the growing interest in Astronomy and related STEM subjects, especially through the general education of young people, and to enhance the development of international contacts among different countries in promoting Astronomy and Astrophysics in schools.

Over the past Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 20, Iranian students won seven gold medals, 11 silver medals, and nine bronze medals at different international Olympiads. /T.T/

The newly-launched “Khayyam” satellite is monitoring forest areas and can immediately track wildfires, Reza Bayani an official with Forests, Range, and Watershed Management Organization, has said.

The Iranian Space Agency launched “Khayyam” with a wide range of environmental functions in early August. It was put into orbit by a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur space station in Kazakhstan.

The Iranian Space Agency launched “Khayyam” with a wide range of environmental functions in early August. Improving productivity in the agriculture sector, surveying water resources, managing natural disasters, confronting deforestation, monitoring border areas and mining explorations are among the main objectives of the satellite.

If a fire occurs in an area during the satellite’s rotation, we can record its images at the same moment, and the positive and significant point of this satellite is that its images are periodic, he stated.

In many parts of the world, when some satellites record an image, a certain period of time passes until the next image is recorded, and in most parts of the world, images are sent with a time interval of 15 to 20 days, and during this interval, they use other satellites, but we can use Khayyam in different periods to monitor different areas of the country and have periodic information, he explained.

Extracting periodic information from the earth is the most widely used function of this satellite for systems such as natural resources, agriculture, and geology to use the earth’s platform to be up-to-date at any moment, according to Bayani.

Having a satellite with this resolving power can monitor the borders of the country, changes in vegetation, changes in forests, changes in the boundaries of cities and mines, and how to harvest them, he said.

It can level the type of agricultural products and their quantity and quality in agricultural lands, in addition to monitoring the type of forest species using its data. During a fire, it shows the critical areas and how the vegetation will return to the burnt lands, he concluded./T.T/

In the coming school year (starting September 23), about 300,000 new foreign students will be enrolled in Iranian schools.

For the time being, 560,000 foreign students are studying in schools across the country, Education Minister Yousef Nouri said on Monday.

He considered the high density of students in classrooms as a serious problem and challenge in education, which has been exacerbated by the increase in migration to some urban areas and the outskirts of cities, IRNA reported.

Iran spends about 20 trillion rials (nearly $77 million) every year on the education of foreign national students. New classes should be created, but due to credit and property limitations, it is not possible to increase classes in these neighborhoods and areas in a quick and appropriate time, he further noted.

The new academic year will begin with 16 million students attending schools nationwide, Nouri said.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has placed special emphasis on “covering the education of foreign nationals” and this enabled these students to enjoy educational facilities and services just like Iranian students, he said.

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 the second and third generation, according to the UNHCR.

Iran spends about 20 trillion rials (nearly $77 million) every year on the education of foreign national students residing in the country, head of the international affairs department of the Ministry of Education Gholamreza Karimi said in March 2020.

Foreign students attend Iranian universities

Some 57,675 foreign nationals from 133 countries are studying in Iranian universities, 30,600 of whom are studying in universities affiliated with the Ministry of Science, while 25,000 others are receiving education at Azad University and about 2,000 in medical universities.

Currently, foreign nationals constitute 1.64 percent of the country’s student population, which is about 0.14 percent higher than the goal set by the Sixth Five-Year National Development Plan (2016-2021), Mohammad Javad Salmanpour, the deputy head of the Organization for Student Affairs, said in April.

Twenty-five percent of the foreign students studying in Iranian universities are Afghan nationals, he added.

Afghan students attend Iranian universities in three ways; some enter the university by participating in the national entrance exam of Iran, and some others receive admission from universities that have non-Iranian student licenses. The third group also attended the country’s universities through scholarships, he explained.

Many of the Afghan students are studying master’s and Ph.D. courses in Iranian universities, he added. /T.T/

Iranian-made pharmaceuticals are currently exported to Canada, Japan, and Europe, Faramarz Ekhteraei, chairman of the Iranian Pharmaceutical Industries Syndicate, has said.

Emphasizing that 72 percent of the country’s pharmaceutical raw materials are domestically produced, he added that Iran has many capabilities in the pharmaceutical industry and investors should pay attention to it.

Pharmaceuticals should be taken into consideration due to their strategic importance in the treatment and health sector because there are capacities in the world for the production of effective medicinal substances that we can produce with the help of knowledge-based companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers with quality and low prices, he highlighted.

Iran is the third leading country in Asia capable of producing biopharmaceuticals. According to him, the technical speed of the pharmaceutical industry is high and it should be considered for investment. We have achieved acceptable growth in the fields of packaging, active ingredients, and the pharmaceutical chain, and the government should also provide more support in this field.

Iran’s API and Pharmaceutical Packaging Syndicate and Iran Food and Drug Administration (IFDA) will organize the 4th Pharmex International Exhibition (Middle East) from August 23 to 26, at Iran Mall International Expo Center.

On the sidelines of the event, a “special meeting for the development of commercial cooperation in the pharmaceutical industry” will also be held for the first time in the country.

Rise in pharmaceuticals, medical production

The import of pharmaceuticals has declined in Iran by 91 percent, which shows the capability of the country’s pharmaceutical industry, Mohammad Reza Shanehsaz, former head of the Food and Drug Administration, said last October.

Today, all medicine used in the treatment of coronavirus are produced by domestic manufacturers, and if we wanted to import all the items, there would be a high exchange rate, he further stated, emphasizing that COVID-19 vaccine development indicates the pharmaceutical industry’s capability.

In 2018, 67 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) used to produce drugs in Iran were made locally.

A total of 227 knowledge-based firms are supplying medical equipment for health centers across the country, according to the Vice Presidency for Science and Technology.

Knowledge-based companies can produce any medicine effective in countering coronavirus or approved by the scientific committee within a week to 10 days, Sourena Sattari, vice president for science and technology, said.

Also, Iran is capable of producing 28 types of biopharmaceuticals, placing the country third in Asia.

Based on innovative indicators of health technology development in 2021, Iran was ranked 60th among 132 countries, which shows an improvement of 60 steps compared to 2014, the deputy health minister for research and technology, has announced.

Despite the sanctions that have existed since the beginning of the Islamic Revolution, Iran has the strongest health system in the region./T.T/

According to the data released by China’s customs administration, the value of Iran’s non-oil exports to China reached $4.47 billion in the first seven months of 2022, registering a 23-percent rise year on year.

The Islamic Republic exported $3.63 billion worth of goods to China in January-July 2021.

Based on the mentioned data, Iran and China traded $9.67 billion worth of commodities in the mentioned six months to register a 22-percent increase compared to the same period in 2021.

China’s exports to Iran in the first seven months of 2022 also grew by 22 percent compared to the previous year to reach $5.2 billion. The Asian country had exported $4.26 billion worth of goods to Iran in the same period of the previous year.

Iran-China non-oil trade stood at $14.8 billion in 2021, according to China’s customs administration.

The value of trade between the two countries during the previous year declined by less than one percent in comparison to 2020 in which the figure was reported to be $14.9 billion.

China’s imports from Iran in 2021 grew by more than one percent compared to the previous year and reached $6.5 billion. China imported $6.4 billion worth of goods from Iran in 2020.

However, China’s exports to Iran in January-December 2021 fell by about two percent to $8.3 billion from $8.5 billion in the previous year.

Iran mainly exports foodstuff and agricultural products to China while importing machinery and industrial raw materials, medical equipment, fabrics, and auto parts.

China is one of Iran’s main trade partners that has maintained strong trade ties with the Islamic Republic despite the strict U.S sanctions.

Iran and China officially signed the document for 25-year comprehensive cooperation in March 2021.

The document was signed between Iran’s former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Iranian Foreign Ministry. /T.T/

 

Directed by Faysal Soysal and produced by Ali Nouri Oskouei, “Silenced Tree” was selected as the best film in Hamilton New York International Film Festival.

Receiving its fifth award from festivals in the US., the movie has received a total of 18 awards from foreign festivals to date.

Filmed in Turkey, it is about a literature teacher who tries helplessly to hold on to his past: his shattering marriage, his sick old mother, a decaying walnut tree, and the memory of his father.

The film is co-produced by Iran’s Farabi Cinema Foundation, the film department of TRT Turkey, and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey.

The Hamilton New York International Film Festival is an award-winning festival located in the Chenango Valley region of New York State.

The festival is a seven-day film event that hosts filmmakers from across the globe. /MNA/

 

Written and directed by Hadi Babaeifar, the Iranian short film ‘Deer’ is scheduled to vie at the 2022 Lessinia Film Festival in Italy. ‘Deer’ was also awarded at Berlin International Film Festival before.

Ehsan Bakhshizadeh and Khodadad Bakhshizadeh are among the cast members of Babaeifar’s short film.

The Lessinia Film Festival is the only Italian cinematographic competition dedicated exclusively to short films, documentaries, and full-length features about the life, history, and traditions of the mountains. The festival, initiated in 1995 by the Curatorium Cimbricum Veronense Association as a video exhibition dedicated to the Veronese mountains, gradually expanded to encompass the mountains of the entire world.

The 2022 edition of the event is slated to be held on August 19-28, 2022.

Statistics of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) showed that country’s foreign trade in the first year of the 13th government under President Raeisi registered as unprecedented 48% growth.

Statistics of the Central Bank of Iran on country’s foreign trade, including imports and exports of goods and services, show the unprecedented success in the first year of the Popular Government of President Raeisi.

Iran’s foreign trade recored negative in the last three years of the previous administration.

Accordingly, Iran’s foreign trade increased by 48 percent in the first year of President Raeisi’s administration which is the highest annual increase in the last two or three decades, so that such a growth was not realized even after Iran’s nuclear deal, aka known as JCPOA. /MNA/

The U20 Iranian wrestling team became the champion of the World Championships in Bulgaria.

The U20 Greco-Roman World Championship ended on Sunday in Bulgaria.

At the end of the first five weights at the championships, the Iranian team Iman Mohammadi won a gold medal at 63 kg, Abolazal Chobani at 87 kg and Fardin Hedayati at 130 kg won silver medals for Iran on the final day.

According to the results obtained in the first 5 weights of these competitions, the Iranian team won the title powerfully while the teams of Ukraine and Azerbaijan will compete with each other to win second place.

The points that the Iranian team will gain will land somewhere between 149-174 at the end of this tournament, while Ukraine will win something between 96 and 116 points, and Azerbaijan will obtain between 104 and 114 points.

The U20 Iranian freestyle wrestling team became the vice-champions in the Bulgaria world championships yesterday. /MNA/