W W W . T E H R A N T I M E S . C O M I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

By Ali Kushki

By Hossein Amiri

pre

siden

t.ir

Iran army warns against ‘any strategic mistake’ by enemiesChief Commander of Iran’s Army Ma-jor General Ataollah Salehi has warned that “any strategic mistake by the en-emy” against the Islamic Republic will be met with a “decisive, severe and de-structive” response, Press TV reported on Sunday.

“Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran Army … has full readiness … to deci-sively counter any adventurism against the Islamic Republic by the ill-wishers,” Salehi said in a message on Sunday ahead of the National Army Day.

The army, he said, “continues its glori-ous path of boosting its defensive power and deterrence” based on the experi-ences of the Iraqi war against Iran in the 1980s and the teachings of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who is the command-er-in-chief of the Iranian armed forces.

Iran has recently made major break-throughs in its defense sector and attained self-sufficiency in producing important mil-itary equipment and hardware.

The Islamic Republic says its mil-itary power poses no threat to other countries and is merely based on the doctrine of deterrence.

Security in Iran Navy Commander Rear Admiral

Habibollah Sayyari on Sunday hailed “enduring security” in Iran despite vi-olence which wracks its neighbors, saying it is owed to the efforts of the country’s “powerful armed forces.”

Sayyari lauded the Iranian navy’s role in guaranteeing security in the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.

Iran’s armed forces are also present along the Makran coastal strip on the Sea of Oman in a way that leaves “no foreign vessels hidden from the eyes of our naval bases,” he said.

Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari (Photo by Mehr news agency)

“Despite insecurity in our neigh-borhood, we are witnessing enduing security in our country which is bene-fiting from powerful and ready armed forces,” Sayyari added.

Iraqi forces making new push toward Old City in MosulIraqi forces launched a new attack on the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh) terrorist group in Mosul’s Old City on Sunday, military officials said, trying to break the stalemate in attempts to seize the militants’ last stronghold.

Mosul, Iraq’s second biggest city, was captured by the terrorists in 2014, but government forces have retaken much of it during a six-month oper-ation.

The advance has hardly moved for more than a month, though, as the militants are holding out in the densely populated Old City in western Mosul, where tanks and heavy vehicles are not able to operate because of its nar-row streets.

Iraq’s federal police moved forces 200 meters deeper into the Old City, getting closer to al-Nuri mosque, a statement said.

The mosque is highly symbolic because it was there that ISIL Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared him-self head of a self-proclaimed cali-phate.

Troops have had the centuries-old mosque with its leaning minaret in their sights since last month.

A captain in the federal police said Sunday’s advance had started in the early morning with troops fighting the militants house to house.

“Daesh suicide motorcycles now are their favorite weapon inside the Old City,” he said, using a derogato-ry name for ISIL. “We have to watch every single house to avoid attackers on motorcycles packed with explo-sives.”

Iraqi government forces, backed by volunteers have cleared the east and half of western Mosul and are now fo-cused on the Old City.

Some 400,000 people are trapped in the Old City while more than 300,000 have fled fighting since the operation started in October, officials have said.

(Source: Reuters)

Iran forges deal with China to redesign

Arak reactor TEHRAN — Iran has hashed out price differences with China to receive coun-selling on redesigning its only heavy water nuclear reactor, signing a deal on the project, Iranian Foreign Min-istry has said in a written briefing to parliament.

“The contract to receive counsel-ling on the redesign was negotiated and signed in Beijing on April 13,” read part of the report, the fifth parliamen-tary briefing on the 2015 international nuclear accord between Iran and six world powers.

The deal went into effect on Janu-ary 16, 2016, resulting in the lifting of economic sanctions against Tehran in reward for it rolling back its nuclear program.

The bargain with China, the report said, has taken into account all “con-cerns of the Atomic Energy Organi-zation of Iran”, saying nothing of the nature of the concerns.

Iranian experts have already come up with a conceptual redesign of the reactor and now fuel details are being discussed with the Chinese, it further explained.

The redesign mechanism was agreed upon in a separate document on Nov. 13, 17 and 18 by the foreign ministers of Iran and the great powers. 2

Syria resumes

evacuation after

terrorists kill 112

The Syrian army has resumed the evacuation of residents from mili-tant-besieged areas outside Aleppo after buses carrying them were hit by terrorists on Saturday, killing at least 112 people.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Sun-day that 98 of the dead were evacuees from the militant-besieged Shia-ma-jority towns of Kefraya and al-Foua in Idlib Province and the remainder were aid workers and militants tasked with guarding the buses.

The death toll may rise further as “hundreds” more were injured in the blast, it added.

On Saturday, a bomber targeted the buses as they waited in the mili-tant-held al-Rashideen district on the outskirts of Aleppo to cross into gov-ernment-controlled territory.

The evacuation was made possible under a deal struck between Damascus and militant groups in late March that envisaged the transfer of 16,000 peo-ple from Foua and Kefraya in exchange for the evacuation of militants and their families from the government-besieged towns of al-Zabadani and Madaya in Rif Dimashq Province. 13

16 Pages Price 10,000 Rials 38th year No.12806 Monday APRIL 17, 2017APRIL 17, 2017 Farvardin 28, 1396 Rajab 19, 1438

Clean air bill: Responsible bodies assigned to combat pollution

Three Iranians face four-year anti-doping violation ban

Bombardments won’t boost U.S. security, Iran says

Reciters from 83 countries to take part in Tehran Quran competition 1612 152

Iran’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned a terrorist attack on a convoy of buses carrying displaced civilians from Syria’s towns of Foua and Kefraya that killed dozens of people near Aleppo, mostly children.

Expressing condolences to the Syrian gov-ernment and nation over the “bitter and brazen massacre”, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said the cowardly attack on the buses packed with residents of Foua and Kefraya that killed tens of children and women

marked another dark point in the dirty record of terrorists and their supporters.

He also lashed out at the sponsors of terror-ist groups for their selective approach towards crime and for dividing terrorists into good and bad, saying the overt and covert supports for the terrorist groups would encourage them to mastermind more heinous crimes, such as the Saturday attack near Aleppo.

Thousands of residents of the predominantly Shiite towns of Foua and Kefraya were evacuat-

ed on Friday under an exchange deal. They have been stranded at Ramouseh area on the outskirts of Aleppo, waiting for the buses carrying militants and civilians from Zabadani and Madaya to be transferred to the town of Jarabulus.

On Saturday evening, a bomber blew up an explosive-laden car near the convoy, killing 126 people, mostly children. Horror footage shows the buses engulfed in flames as people scream amid gunshots in the background.

(Source: Tasnim)

TEHRAN — Richard Murphy, the former U.S. ambassador to Damascus, rejects the view that Donald Trump reacted hastily and im-pulsively to alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria’s Idlib province on April 4.

“Photographs of civilians dead or dying from poison gases used in that attack were widely available within hours. So the Pres-ident’s reaction was not that ‘fast’,” Murphy tells the Tehran Times.

Iran along with Russia have proposed an independent fact-finding committee to inves-tigate chemical weapons attack.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said there is evidence that militants were prepar-ing future chemical attacks in order to draw U.S. into Syria’s six-year war.

“While I am not a party to the current efficiency of American intelligence, it is my understanding that U.S. surveillance assets closely tracked the Syrian Air Force aircraft involved in the attack,

which came from the Shyrat air base near Homs against targets in Idlib province,” Murphy argues.

Russia’s Defense Ministry released a series of tweets in both Russian and English on its official social media account, saying Syrian militants were transporting “toxic substances” to insurgent-held areas of the war-torn Syr-ia in order to convince the U.S. to step up its efforts to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power.

In a joint press conference with his Iranian and Syrian counterparts in Moscow Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the U.S. and its allies are attempting to stymie an in-ternational probe into the gas attack. He ex-pressed strong skepticism about a preliminary investigation conducted by the UN chemical weapons watchdog, saying that its experts have failed to visit the site and it has remained unclear where the samples have been taken and how they have been analyzed.

“If our U.S. colleagues and some Europe-

an nations believe that their version is right, they have no reason to fear the creation of such an independent group,” Lavrov added.

Trump changing from ‘America first’ to ‘world first’

Back to Aug. 29, 2013 Trump tweeted that the U.S. would get “more debt and possible long-term conflict” if it attacks Syria and said Barack Oba-ma needs congressional approval to attack the country. However when the Tehran Times asked Murphy why Trump himself did not seek the per-mission of Congress, he said, “What has changed is that Trump is now the American president. He reacted with deep emotion to the reports he was receiving of the deaths of Syrian civilians from the poison gas attacks.”

He added, “Voices from the U.S. Con-gress demanding that the administration seek congressional approval of deeper U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war are being heard. How the president will answer those demands is as yet unclear.” 13

Foreign Ministry condemns terrorist attack on civilian convoy in Syria

Murphy refutes idea Trump acted recklessly to alleged gas attack in Syria

ppppppppppto combat pollution violation ban Q12 15

Tas

nim

/ Moh

amm

ad H

osse

in M

ovah

edin

ejad

Mega energy projects

worth $20b inaugurated

See page 4

Karaj festival boasts vibrant

tapestry of tulips

Visitors admire the beauty of vibrant, multi-colored flowers during a tulips festival at Chamran Park in Karaj on April 15, 2017.

Over 320,000 pieces of tulip bulbs in 38 different colors have been put on show at the festival which is being held for the fifth consecutive year. The event runs through April 21.

APRIL 17, 2017APRIL 17, 2017

I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

P O L I T I C S

Bombardments won’t boost U.S. security, Iran says

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

List of qualified presidential candidates to be announced in days

TEHRAN — “List of presidential candidates will be announced in five

days,” the Guardian Council spokesman said on Sunday, ISNA news agency reported.

According to Abbasali Kadkhodaei, the five-day period is the time span that is given to the Guardian Council to assess the competence of candidates.

He added, nevertheless, that according to the law, the council can ask for five more days if the initially allotted five days prove too short.

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

‘Popular Front should agree on final candidate by May 10’

TEHRAN — The Popular Front of Revolution Forces should agree on their

final candidate by May 10, the group’s spokeswoman said in a press conference on Sunday where she explained their agenda during the election days.

The group will monitor and analyze the campaigns, the candidates, and their debates to decide which one has a higher chance, Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi said, Nasim reported.

According to Dastjerdi, the front will not hold any more general meetings and will focus on candidates instead.

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

‘Rafsanjani suggested Jahangiri presidential candidacy’

TEHRAN — First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri registered for presidential

candidacy upon a suggestion by the late Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a member of the board of directors of reformists’ supreme election council has said.

Speaking to ISNA on Sunday, Hossein Marashi also said that Jahangiri is also favored by President Hassan Rouhani to run alongside him as a reserve candidate.

Marashi said Jahangiri was chosen from a list which included Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh.

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

Intelligence Ministry says not linked to any political faction

TEHRAN — Iran’s minister of intelli-gence has said his ministry is not affil-

iated with any political group and only performs its role in ensuring peace and stability and guarding national interests.

Speaking in a gathering of local officials in Ardabil province on Sunday, Mahmoud Alavi said free of local and political tendencies, his forces are intent upon creat-ing a more secure society, IRNA reported.

On the elections, he said the ministry follows a policy based on maximum participation.

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

Jannati calls for electing the right candidate

TEHRAN — The secretary of the Guardian Council said on Sunday that

Iranians should take care to vote for the right candidate.Speaking about the upcoming presidential election,

Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said the right person is one who “knows the enemy” and is “revolutionary”, Fars news agency reported.

He also voiced concern over the high number of registered candidates, saying a proper law should be put in place to limit the number of eligible candidates.

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

Raisi condoles with flood victims

TEHRAN — Ebrahim Raisi, custodian of the Holy Shrine in Mashhad and a

presidential candidate, on Sunday wrote a letter of con-dolence addressed to the people of three northwestern Iranian provinces where a severe flood took tens of lives on Friday.

In his message, Raisi hoped that officials would act quickly to meet the needs of the affected people, Tasnim reported.

The flood took about 40 lives. Near 50 more were also reported missing.

TEHRAN — Secre-tary of the Supreme

National Security Council Ali Sham-khani told the visiting Azeri Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov on Sunday that the U.S. can never boost its national security by bombarding other coun-tries.

The remarks by Shamkhani came after the U.S. on Thursday dropped its most powerful non-nuclear bomb, known as the “mother of all bombs”, on Daesh positions in Afghanistan. The U.S. also fired 59 Tomahawk mis-siles at a Syrian airbase on April 7 un-der the pretext that the airfield was used to drop chemical weapons on a city in Syria’s Idlib province.

Shamkhani also called the bom-bardment of Afghanistan by the U.S. “illegitimate”.

Unilateral actions of the U.S. and some of its allies that undermine re-gional security will prevent success of political solutions to crises in the re-gion, noted Shamkhani, a former de-

fense chief.Former Afghan president Hamid

Karzai on Saturday accused his suc-

cessor of committing “treason” by allowing the U.S. military to drop the largest conventional bomb ever used

in Afghanistan. Terrorism stymying progress

Shamkhani also said, “Danger of terrorism and its roots, especially the Takfiri ideology which are being pro-moted by some regional countries, have made the whole region face crisis and will prevent the Islamic countries to progress.”

Iran warns regional countries of spreading instability

In a separate meeting with the Aze-ri defense chief on Sunday, Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan said instability and insecurity in the region will be spread if no “responsible poli-cy” is taken to counter them.

Dehqan said Daesh, al-Nusra Front, and other Takfiri-Wahhabi affiliated groups as well as aggressive policies by the U.S., the Zionist regime of Israel and Saudi Arabia have all influenced the world negatively.

For his part, Hasanov called for ex-pansion of defense and military coop-eration with Iran.

TEHRAN — U.S. Sen-ator John McCain has

lauded the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organ-ization (MKO or MEK), describing it as “an example to everyone in the world that is struggling for freedom.”

During a meeting with the head of the MKO, Maryam Rajavi, which was held in Tirana, Albania, Senator Mc-Cain said he believed that “the Iranian regime, Bashar Al-Assad and Daesh (ISIS)” were all interrelated.

According to Rajavi’s website, the two sides met on Friday, April 14, to discuss the latest developments in Iran, “the Iranian regime’s nefarious meddling in the region”, and the future prospects.

The MKO, which is currently acting as a proxy against Tehran, has carried out numerous terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and government offi-cials over the past several decades.

“There is no doubt that people in this room have suffered not only them-selves, but in the loss of their loved ones,” McCain told MKO members in a gathering.

The MKO fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq and was given a camp by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. It fought on the side of Saddam in the Iraqi im-posed war on Iran during which the former Iraqi dictator used chemical weapons against Iranian civilians on a massive scale. The notorious group is

also responsible for killing more than 17,000 Iranians in different acts of ter-rorism, including bombings in public places and targeted killings.

It was listed as a terrorist organiza-tion by the U.S. and European Union in 1997 and 2002 respectively, but as more efforts got directed to vilify Iran, the MKO got delisted by the EU on January 26, 2009 and by the U.S. on September 28, 2012.

For her part, Rajavi praised McCain for his “unsparing efforts” in support of the MKO members in Ashraf and their relocation out of Iraq after they were expelled from Iraq.

“Today, there is a consensus in the Middle East about the clerical regime’s destructive role and that the religious fascism ruling Iran is the primary source of war, terrorism and crisis in the region,” she said.

“Regime change is not only indis-pensable to ending the egregious vio-lations of human rights in Iran but also to establishing peace and tranquility in the region. As long as the clerical regime is in power, it will not abandon

the export of terrorism and fundamen-talism.”

After Washington formally removed the MKO from its list of terror organ-izations, the group became able to have its assets under the U.S. jurisdic-tion unfrozen and do business with the American entities. A number of U.S. officials received hundreds of thou-sands of dollars in fees for speaking on MKO’s behalf ever since.

There is a long list of U.S. politicians from both major parties who have re-ceived money for expressing their sup-port for the MKO, including Newt Gin-grich, the former speaker of the House;

Bill Richardson, a former New Mexico governor and UN ambassador under Bill Clinton; former Vermont governor Howard Dean; two former CIA direc-tors, James Woolsey and Porter Goss; former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge; former New York City May-or Rudolph Giuliani; former Attorney General Michael Mukasey; former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former UN Am-bassador John Bolton; and former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.

However, American officials are not the only ones receiving money from the MKO in exchange for political sup-port. On July 9, 2016, former Saudi intelligence chief and former Saudi ambassador to Britain and the United States Prince Turki al-Faisal Al Saud spoke for 30 minutes before a crowd in Paris, France, for the annual confer-ence of the MKO.

In April 2012, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh reported that the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command trained operatives from the MKO at a secret site in Nevada from 2005 to 2009.

According to Hersh, MKO members were trained in intercepting communi-cations, cryptography, weaponry and small unit tactics at the Nevada site.

“We, the Americans, have contin-ued to provide intelligence and other kinds of material support for the MEK,” he said.

TEHRAN — President Hassan Rouhani said

on Sunday that the Iranians are seeking more “peace”, “progress”, “security” and “dignity”.

During a speech opening five phases of the South Pars gas field, Rouhani said the main goal of the Iranians is to build an “advanced” and “pioneering” country.

“Dignity, progress, peace, success and move towards peaks of advancement can be reached if all join hands and avoid seeking trivial matters,” the presi-dent remarked.

Rouhani, who ordered the inaugu-ration of the gas projects at the South Pars on Sunday, said this marks a “memorable day of realizing the resist-

ance economy”.“The fact that the powerful Iran can

implement (projects worth) over 20 bil-lion dollars at the South Pars gas field is a great honor for the Iranians and a memorable day for the country’s oil in-dustry,” the president stated.

The Iranian president also said that the country’s dignity has been main-

tained through implementing resistance economy.

Elsewhere, Rouhani expressed hope that the people would participate in large numbers at the upcoming elec-tions.

Iran will simultaneously hold the 12th presidential election and the 5th city and village council elections on May 19.

Top U.S. senator hails anti-Iran terrorist group

Rouhani: Iran seeking further progress

ELECTION COUNTDOWN

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

P O L I T I C Sd e s k

1 Earlier in January, Iran protested that the Chinese side was demanding too much for redesigning the nuclear reactor, what it said was much beyond “international standards.”

The very political nature of the issue had whetted the appetite of the Chinese for a more lucrative deal, the Iranian side speculated.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for Iran’s atomic organization, said: “The agreed-upon price is quite different from the initial one proposed by the Chinese side.”

The fate of the 40-megawatt Arak reactor was a key sticking point in nearly two years of negotiations that led to the nuclear agreement.

Under the document, the reactor will be redesigned and rebuilt in the form of an international partnership for “peaceful nuclear research” and “radioisotope production for medical and industrial purposes.”

The redesigned reactor also will not produce weapon grade plutonium.

Iran will act as project manager, according to the document, while China “will participate in the redesign and the construction of the modernized reactor” and the United States “will provide technical support and review of the modernized reactor design”.

France, the United Kingdom and Germany will participate in design review and Russia will provide consultative services.

Heavy-water reactors like Arak, fuelled by natural uranium, are seen as especially suitable for yielding plutonium, one of two materials, along with highly enriched uranium, that can produce a nuclear explosion.

Iran says it needs to refine uranium to fuel a planned network of nuclear power plants.

Under the nuclear accord, Tehran agreed to change the Arak reactor core to one sized for low-enriched uranium fuel.

Iran removed the core of the reactor and filled it with cement as required under the deal days before it took force.

Iran forges deal with China to redesign Arak reactor

Azeri Zakir Hasanov (L) calls for more talks with Iran on fighting terrorism.

The MKO, which is currently acting as a proxy against Tehran, has carried out

numerous terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials over the

past several decades.

U.S. Senator John McCain

The fate of the 40-megawatt Arak reactor was a key sticking

point in nearly two years of negotiations that led to the

nuclear agreement.

TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Minister Mo-

hammad Javad Zarif headed to neigh-boring Turkmenistan on Sunday at the head of a politico-economic delegation.

The second and third legs of the tour

will take Zarif to Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia and Georgia in the Caucasus region, at the official invitation of the countries’ foreign ministers.

A high-ranking economic delegation, including representatives of public and

private sectors, will accompany the Irani-an top diplomat in his trip.

In addition to political talks between officials from Iran and the three countries, joint economic sessions will be held on the 25th anniversary of the establishment

of diplomatic ties between them. The visits are made a few months after

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani took a tour of the Caucasus and the Central Asia that took him to Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Zarif on three-leg Central Asia, Caucasus tour

A North Korean missile “blew up almost immediately” on its test launch on Sun-day, the United States Pacific Command said, hours before U.S. Vice President Mike Pence landed in South Korea for talks on the North’s increasingly defiant arms program.

The failed launch from North Korea’s east coast, ignoring repeated admoni-tions from major ally China, came a day after North Korea held a grand military parade in its capital, marking the birth anniversary of the state founder, dis-playing what appeared to be new long-range ballistic missiles.

China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tiller-son exchanged views on the “situation on the Korean peninsula” by phone on Sunday, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said. Yang said the two sides should maintain dialogue.

South Korea said the North’s com-bined show of force “threatened the whole world” but a U.S. foreign poli-cy adviser traveling with Pence on Air Force Two appeared to defuse some of the tension, saying the test of what was believed to be a medium-range missile had come as no surprise.

“We had good intelligence before the launch and good intelligence after the launch,” the adviser told reporters on condition of anonymity.

“It’s a failed test. It follows another failed test. So really no need to rein-force their failure. We don’t need to expend any resources against that.” The adviser said the missile’s flight lasted four or five seconds.

“It wasn’t a matter of if, it was a mat-ter of when. The good news is that after five seconds it fizzled out.” Pence is in Seoul at the beginning of a 10-day trip to Asia in what his aides said was a sign of U.S. commitment to its ally in the face of rising tension.

The U.S. nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group is also heading to the region.

A U.S. Navy attack on a Syrian air-field this month raised questions about U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans for reclusive North Korea, which has con-ducted several missile and nuclear tests in defiance of United Nations sanctions, regularly threatening to destroy the South and the United States.

The White House has said Trump has put the North “on notice”.

South Korea, which hosts 28,500 U.S. troops, warned of punitive action if the Sunday launch led to further provoca-tion.

“North Korea showing a variety of

offensive missiles at yesterday’s military parade and daring to fire a ballistic mis-sile today is a show of force that threat-ens the whole world,” South Korea’s For-eign Ministry said in a statement.

Pence, addressing an Easter service with American troops in South Korea, said the U.S. commitment to South Ko-rea was unwavering.

“Let me assure you under President Trump’s leadership, our resolve has never been stronger. Our commitment to this historic alliance with the coura-geous people of South Korea has never been stronger.”

The North has warned of a nuclear strike against the United States if pro-voked. It has said it has developed and would launch a missile that can strike the mainland United States but officials and experts believe it is some time away from mastering the necessary technol-ogy, including miniaturizing a nuclear warhead.

The North launched a ballistic mis-sile from the same region this month, ahead of a summit between the United States and China in Florida to discuss the North’s arms program.

But that missile, which U.S. officials said appeared to be a liquid-fuelled, extended-range Scud, only flew about 60 km (40 miles), a fraction of its range before spinning out of control.

Tension had escalated sharply amid concern the North may conduct a sixth nuclear test or a ballistic missile test around Saturday’s 105th birth anni-

versary of founding father Kim Il Sung, what it calls the “Day of the Sun”.

U.S. sees ‘initial steps’ by ChinaChina, which Trump has urged to do

more to rein in North Korea, has spoken out against its weapons tests and has supported UN sanctions. It has repeat-edly called for talks while appearing in-creasingly frustrated with the North.

China banned imports of North Korean coal on Feb. 26, cutting off its most important export. China’s customs department issued an order on April 7 telling traders to return North Korean coal cargoes, said trading sources with knowledge of the order.

Saturday’s parade combined with Sunday’s failed missile launch made a sixth nuclear test increasingly likely, and if one was carried out, China would be compelled to support new sanctions against North Korea, the Global Times, an influential tabloid published by Chi-na’s Communist Party paper said in an editorial.

“Beijing should make clear to Pyongyang through diplomatic chan-nels: if the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) in spite of the op-position of the international communi-ty (carry out a sixth nuclear test), China should cut off the vast majority of their oil supply and China should support the Security Council to pass new sanc-tions including this measure,” the pa-per said, referring to North Korea by its official title, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Worry about North Korea has also strained ties between China and South Korea because China objects to the de-ployment of a U.S. Terminal High Alti-tude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in the South. The installation has begun but some opposition politicians have raised questions about it.

“It’s moving. There are still some things to work out ... as in any govern-ment decision it may slip a couple of weeks or months,” the U.S. adviser said of THAAD, whose powerful radar China fears could penetrate its territory.

“It’s moving but candidly until they get a president ... It should be a deci-sion for the next president.”

The South’s presidential election is on May 9.

The adviser said Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump had discussed “a number of steps” in their meeting.

“We’ve seen the Chinese already take some initial steps,” the official said, citing the turning back of the coal ships. “Many steps still to take, but I think it’s a good first step.”

Impoverished North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technically still at war because their 1950-53 con-flict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

In Pyongyang, there was a festive atmosphere at a flower show, with fam-ilies out, taking pictures with North Ko-rean-made smart phones. There was no mention of the test failure by the KCNA state news agency.

(Source: Reuters)

A melee erupted in a Berkeley, California park where supporters and opponents of President Donald Trump were holding competing rallies, resulting in at least 20 arrests as police struggled to keep the two camps apart.

As fist fights broke out between the two sides and people threw bottles and cans over a barricade sep-arating them, police resorted to using to an explosive device at one point in a bid to restore order.

Several people were observed by a Reuters report-er with bloodied faces and minor injuries, but there was no official word on casualties from authorities. Media, citing police, reported that at least 11 people were injured.

Police said more arrests could follow after video shot during the melee was reviewed.

The trouble unfolded when hundreds of Trump opponents staged a counter-rally alongside an event billed as a “Patriots Day” free-speech rally and picnic,

organized by mostly Trump supporters.Between 500 and 1,000 people were in the park

as the rallies peaked, according to an estimate by a Reuters reporter.

Among the Trump opponents were some coun-ter-protesters dressed in black and wearing masks. The other side included self-described “patriots” and “nationalists”, Trump supporters, free speech advo-cates, and other groups.

A weekly farmers market was canceled ahead of the rally due to concerns about violence. Even so, a stall selling fresh vegetables was open for business amid the fist fighting, explosions from firecrackers and smoke wafting through the air.

At least 100 people from both camps eventually moved out of the park and into one of the city’s main intersections, where they continued to fist fight, hurl insults and chant at each other.

The police presence was light there, and only two or three officers were seen near the crossroads.

Berkeley has a long history of liberal activism and the University of California, Berkeley, was a center of protests in the 1960s. (Source: Reuters)

A 17-year-old was reportedly shot dead by security forces in Indian-ad-ministered Kashmir while at least 50 college students were wounded by po-lice officers who fired pellets and tear gas.

Residents said security forces shot Sajad Hussain Sheikh, 17, in the head after their armored vehicles were pelt-ed with stones in the Batamaloo area of Srinagar, capital of the disputed Himalayan region.

“There were a couple of BSF [bor-der security forces] vehicles passing through … when some youths threw stones at them. That is when there was a bullet shot and Sajad was hit straight in the head,” Tahir Ahmad, a local resident, told Anadolu news agency.

In a statement, Indian police said they were “collecting the details and are looking into the circumstances un-

der which a person, identified as Sajad Hussain Sheikh, got killed”.

The statement added, however, there had been no police deployment in the area.

Earlier in the day, Indian security forces and students clashed at a col-lege in southern Kashmir ’s Pulwama

town.The Hindustan Times reported that

students became angry after a secu-rity checkpoint was erected near the school and began hurling stones.

Security forces responded by firing pellets and tear gas. According the student union, at least 50 people were

wounded.“We have so far treated at least 54

persons who were hit by pellets and tear gas shells. Three critically injured persons have been referred to Srina-gar. The injured are still coming,” the chief medical officer of Pulwama, Talat Jabeen, was quoted as saying.

Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region, is controlled by nuclear-armed neigh-bors India and Pakistan. The two coun-tries have fought three wars since in-dependence from Britain in 1947, two over Kashmir.

Rebel groups have for decades battled Indian rule for Kashmir ’s inde-pendence or its unification with Paki-stan. India maintains more than half a million troops in the disputed territory.

More than 70,000 people have re-portedly been killed in the conflict since 1989.

(Source: Al Jazeera)

APRIL 17, 2017APRIL 17, 2017 INTERNATIONALI N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

North Korean test missile “fizzles” hours before Pence arrives in South

In Turkish referendum, 63 pct vote ‘YES’: NTVIn Turkish referendum, 63 pct vote ‘YES’ with 24 pct of bal-lots counted, NTV reported.

Turks casted their votes in a referendum on Sunday that would give sweeping new powers to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and herald the most radical change to the coun-try’s political system in its modern history.

Opinion polls have shown a narrow lead for a “Yes” vote, which would replace Turkey’s parliamentary democracy with an all-powerful presidency and may see Erdogan in office until at least 2029.

Polling stations opened in Turkey’s east at 7:00 a.m. local time (0400GMT) on Sunday and closed at 5:00 p.m. local time (1400 GMT).

Under the new constitution, the office and position of prime minister, currently held by Binali Yildirim, would be scrapped. The president would also be granted executive powers to directly appoint top public officials, including ministers, and assign one or several vice presidents.

The new system states that Turkey’s next presidential and parliamentary elections will be held simultaneously on No-vember 3, 2019 and the head of state would have a five-year tenure, for a maximum of two terms.

The fresh constitutional changes would mean that Erdo-gan could stay in power for another two terms until 2029.

He could further resume the leadership of the Justice and Development Party (AKP/Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi) as the president is no more required to be impartial and without party favor.

Additionally, the president would have the authority to draft the budget and declare a state of emergency.

(Source: Hurriyet)

Trump supporters, opponents clash in California park

Kashmir: Teen shot dead; 54 students wounded in clashes

Hamid Karzai: MOAB, ‘brutal act against innocent people’An attack that saw the United States drop the larg-est non-nuclear bomb on Afghanistan was a “brutal act” against Afghan people, the environment and the country’s sovereignty, Hamid Karzai, former president, has told Al Ja-zeera.

The 9,797kg GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) was unleashed in combat for the first time on Thursday, targeting a com-plex of caves and tunnels used by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh) terrorists in Nangar-har province, according the U.S. army.

Dubbed the “Mother Of All Bombs”, the device can devastate the area around its landing of a radius of more than one mile (1.6km).

“This was an inhuman act, a brutal act against an in-nocent country, against innocent people, against our land, against our sovereignty, against our soil and against our future,” Karzai said in Kabul.

“A bomb of that magnitude has consequences for the environment, for our lives, for our plants, for our water, for our soil - this is poison.”

At least 90 ISIL terrorists were killed in the attack, accord-ing to the U.S. and Afghan armies.

For the most part, Afghan officials welcomed the bomb-ing, saying it was a step towards security. They have also said that there were no civilian casualties.

But Karzai, who was president from 2004 until 2014, said the U.S. should stop using Afghanistan as a “testing ground” and re-engage with Afghans towards a peaceful solution.

If these conditions are met, he said, “they [U.S.] can stay on - if the Afghan people agree to it. If they continue this militant approach, this heavy-handed military approach in Afghanistan, then of course I want them out of the country.”

The massive bomb was dropped after fighting inten-sified over the past week and U.S.-backed ground forces struggled to advance on the area.

A U.S. soldier was killed on April 8 in Nangarhar while conducting operations against ISIL.

Karzai said he was speaking up because many Afghan officials - some of whom were part of his own cabinet - had endorsed the bombing.

“I considered it a treason and I stood up against them, and I will continue,” he said.

“This poison will be there for years and years to come. How can we allow our country to be used this way and why? How many [ISIL terrorists] have they killed, 100, 200, 300?

“Why should Afghanistan suffer in such a massive way with a bomb so big, so dangerous that they themselves call it the ‘mother of all bombs’.”

Karzai’s time in office was at times plagued by accusa-tions from the U.S. of corruption and incompetence.

(Source: Al Jazeera)

4I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

E C O N O M Y APRIL 17, 2017APRIL 17, 2017

TEHRAN — President Hassan Rou-hani officially inaugurated 10 major oil,

gas, and petrochemical projects worth $20 billion in the southern energy-rich Assalouyeh region on Sunday.

Five phases of the South Pars gas field, four petro-chemical projects, as well as the South Pars’ oil layer came on stream, Shana reported.

South Pars is part of a huge offshore field, shared with Qatar in the Persian Gulf. The field is estimated to hold about 8 percent of the world’s natural gas reserves.

South Pars is divided into 24 standard phases, each is projected to produce 25 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas per day.

The five newly inaugurated phases, namely 17-21, will add 150 mcm to the country’s current daily gas out-put of about 570 mcm/d to push Iran’s gas extraction from the joint field up to equate that of Qatar.

These phases will also add to Iran’s production and export of gas condensate, LPG, and ethane.

The South Pars’ oil layer was discovered in 1992. It is estimated to hold between 1.5-4 billion barrels of oil. It is planned to reach an output capacity of 35,000 bpd in the first phase.

The International Energy Agency has predicted that Iran will expand its oil production capacity by 400,000 bpd to reach 4.15 million bpd in 2022.

Moreover, the four petrochemical projects will raise the country’s annual output and revenues by 2 million tons and $2 billion respectively.

Petrochemical output is expected to exceed 59 mil-

lion tons in the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 21). The country plans to export 23 million tons of petrochemical products, worth $11 billion, in the cur-rent year.

Mega energy projects worth $20b inaugurated

E C O N O M Yd e s k

The President of the World Bank has damp-ened the prospect of handing billions of euros to Greece to boost jobs and growth as he signaled that securing board approval would be difficult.

Greece approached the World Bank about contributing to a €3bn (£2.6bn) loan last month to finance policies to get more people into work.

Jim Yong Kim insisted that “no decision has been made” on whether to put the pro-posal to its board of directors in what he said would trigger a “very lively discussion” among members.

Greece has paid the World Bank for ad-vice since 2012 on issues such as tackling youth unemployment, managing public accounts and improving the country’s com-petitiveness.

Speaking in London, Dr Kim suggested that the World Bank’s involvement in a big-ger financial package was premature.

Any formal discussions about a loan to Greece are unlikely to take place until Ath-ens is able to secure funds from its European creditors to avoid a summer default.

He said a World Bank loan would rep-resent a “completely different step for us”, and require the backing of board members including the UK and US, as well as poorer developing countries such as Zimbabwe.

Dr Kim stressed that the Bank would continue to work with Athens on a variety of ongoing projects. It is understood that the Bank’s share of any possible loan to Greece would be below €1bn.

“In terms of providing loans, no decision has made on that yet,” said Dr Kim. “And if we were to do that, this would be a decision that would be made from our entire board.

“That would be a completely different step for us, and that would have to be - I suspect - a very lively discussion on our board.”

Greece’s request for assistance from the

World Bank highlights the plight of a coun-try ravaged by years of recession and high unemployment.

While the country is on course to secure the latest tranche of its third bail-out deal, it also faces fresh pension cuts and further tax reforms that will continue until the end of the decade.

More than a million Greeks are out of work, and unemployment in Greece stood at 23.5pc in January.

While this is below the peak of 27.9pc hit at the height of the Eurozone crisis, the rate remains well above the bloc’s average

- which fell to an eight year low of 9.5pc in February.

Youth unemployment, at 48pc, is the highest in the Eurozone.

Dr Kim said Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s prime minister, had found the World Bank’s advice, known as reimbursable advisory services, “very helpful”.

Christine Lagarde, the managing di-rector of the International Monetary Fund, said last week that the Fund was “only half-way through” talks about the Fund’s par-ticipation in Greece’s third, €86bn rescue package.

“We are still elaborating under what terms we could possibly give some lending to the country. We are not there yet,” Lagarde said, adding any IMF loan to Greece would have to abide by strict conditions.

The World Bank has already pumped cash into Greece through its International Finance Corporation (IFC).

The division joined a consortium of lend-ers to provide Greece with a €154m loan that will be paid back over the 18 years to upgrade 14 Greek airports.

Italy is also working with the World Bank on a regional growth report that aims to boosting productivity in a country that faces two decades of lost growth.

(Source: The Telegraph)

World Bank chief plays down prospect of €3bn Greek loan

Here’s why robust U.S. job market isn’t producing better payGrowth in Americans’ wages has been levelling off lately, con-trary to expectations that a steadily falling jobless rate will quickly lead to a sustained acceleration.

Blame it on dismal productivity and lingering, albeit dimin-ishing, slack even with unemployment at an almost 10-year low of 4.5 per cent.

The government’s most recent jobs report showed the underemployment rate — the broadest gauge of joblessness because it also includes marginally attached workers and those working part time who’d prefer a full-time position — also has been falling though it’s still higher than just before the 2007-2009 recession.

Data this week were also less encouraging. The quits rate, a gauge of workers’ willingness to voluntarily leave their jobs because they’re confident of finding a better position, eased in February to 2.1 per cent, matching its average since the end of 2015. Faster turnover would imply workers are able to bargain for more as labour demand exceeds supply.

Weak productivity is also behind employers’ reluctance to fatten paychecks. Because firms are hiring lots of workers and output is expanding slowly, they’re trying to protect their prof-its at a time when raising prices has become difficult. Over the last five years, productivity growth has averaged 0.7 per cent a quarter, the slowest since a similar period ending 1982. That “is certainly dampening” wage gains, Joseph LaVorgna, chief US economist for Deutsche Bank Securities, wrote in a note to clients.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen this week called low productivity a “significant problem” and said the reasons be-hind it were unclear, making it hard to predict when there’d be a pickup.

Another hurdle is that companies usually raise wages by at least the rate of inflation, which is only just starting to stir after being stubbornly low the past few years, said Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. At some busi-nesses, organised labour groups could use a pickup in prices to negotiate bigger pay increases. Of course, faster inflation would also circle back to squeeze real take-home earnings for everyone.

Projections vary on the extent and timing of any wage-growth acceleration. Economists at Capital Economics point out that the share of small companies planning to increase worker compensation is consistent with annual growth in average hourly earnings advancing toward 3.5 per cent by year-end. At Bank of America Merrill Lynch, analysts project 3 per cent by early 2018. From current levels, that indicates modest further gains the rest of 2017.

Even the improvement in pay growth has yet to spread to all industries. In March, for example, average hourly earnings in professional and business services posted the second-big-gest monthly advance in records to 2006. Without that 0.9 per cent jump last month, overall wage growth would have been flat, according to Morgan Stanley economist Robert Rosener. (Source: Bloomberg)

Geopolitical tensions, uncertainty about the future of the EU and an increasingly unpre-dictable US president form the fraught back-drop to this year’s spring meetings of the In-ternational Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank this week.

The prospect of rising protectionism also looms large for the IMF, a multilateral organ-ization set up during the Second World War to foster cooperation between economies. Its co-host, the World Bank, faces similar-ly daunting challenges to its mission to cut poverty and inequality.

As the two bodies prepare to bring to-gether thousands of delegates in Wash-ington, including finance ministers, central bankers and business leaders, we look at five key themes they will discuss.

Protectionism and tradeDonald Trump’s arrival in the White House

has sparked worries about a new wave of protectionism among international bodies such as the IMF.

Fearing Trump and other populist poli-ticians around the world could further dent already moribund international trade, the fund will undoubtedly use this week’s meet-ing to issue fresh warnings around what it sees as the perils of protectionism. The IMF’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, has said putting up barriers to trade would be a “self-inflicted wound” to an improving global economy. The fund and other bodies are expected to reinforce that message this week, by arguing that rolling back the clock on globalization would cost jobs and hit liv-ing standards.

But talking heads in Washington will have to concede that part of Trump’s electoral success was born out of discontent among many voters who felt harmed by globaliza-tion. There was some admission of that, in the run-up to the meeting, in a joint defense of trade from the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. The three multi-lateral bodies said the opening up of mar-kets had been good for growth but admitted that action was needed to help “left-behind”

individuals and communities. Ensuring gains from globalization are better shared out will probably be a key feature of talks, though it remains to be seen how good intentions will translate into action.

Raising productivityIt is not just in the UK that productivity

growth has been poor since the financial crisis. This key gauge of economic efficiency, often measured by output per hour worked, has been stubbornly low in most advanced countries over the past decade. That has re-percussions for growth and living standards.

On the IMF’s reckoning, GDP in advanced economies would be about 5% higher to-day if the pre-crisis trend had continued for growth in “total-factor productivity” – a broad measure of what goes into production that includes things such as research spending. As Lagarde put it in a recent speech: “That would be the equivalent of adding another Japan – and more – to the global economy.”

The IMF head wants governments to take urgent action to turn things around by investing in education, cutting red tape and incentivizing research and development. At the same time, delegates at the IMF’s meet-ings will need to be mindful that solutions such as automation risk widening inequality if those who lose their jobs to robots are not given other opportunities.

Political uncertaintyBy contrast to last year’s spring meetings

for the World Bank and IMF, two electoral uncertainties are out the way: the UK’s ref-erendum on EU membership and the race for the White House in the US. But the po-litical outlook is no more certain than a year ago. The vote for Brexit means the UK and EU face a tortuous two years of negotiations, and Trump has proved to be anything but predictable.

Added to that is the French presidential election, which is looking increasingly hard to call after an apparent surge in support for the leftwing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Voting in the first round takes place on the closing day of the IMF meeting, with wild

card Mélenchon up against independent centrist Emmanuel Macron, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and Centre-right candidate François Fillon.

German elections follow in September when Angela Merkel is seeking a fourth term as chancellor. She faces tough competition from Martin Schulz of the Social Democratic party. Merkel’s Christian Democrats have also seen their support eroded by the far-right Al-ternative for Germany.

After last year’s electoral upsets, the cen-tral bankers and finance ministers gathering in Washington will be sharing their fears that populism could get another boost in 2017 with consequences for the global economy.

MigrationThe Washington meetings are being held

against the backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions, just one factor driving an increase in international migration. Growing numbers of people are moving country in search of better lives, compelled by economic, political and security concerns.

The IMF and World Bank have previous-ly sought to highlight the potential upsides to those countries receiving large numbers of immigrants and refugees. Young workers arriving in countries with low unemployment rates such as Germany can fill skills gaps and help ease long-term pressures on the state from an ageing population, for example.

But as anti-immigrant sentiment fuels support for populist movements in a num-ber of countries, delegates in Washington will also be keenly aware of the risks if im-migrants are not properly integrated into labor markets and if migration continues to rise rapidly.

The World Bank’s president believes more needs to be done in developing countries so their populations do not feel under such pressure to migrate.

Before the spring meetings, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim called for an urgent development push as he highlighted how the internet and smartphones had raised awareness in poor countries of how richer

people lived. Failure to meet the resulting as-pirations of people in developing countries risked creating the conditions for war, terror-ism and increased migration, he warned.

The Bank is particularly worried about recent low growth in Africa, and Kim wants government aid money to be used to turn the billions provided by western countries into trillions in investment from the private sector.

Rising US interest ratesCentral bank policy, in particular in the US,

and the relative strength of the dollar will be hot topics at the meetings.

The US Federal Reserve has started rais-ing borrowing costs after a long stretch of re-cord low interest rates following the financial crisis. The rate rises can be seen as a vote of confidence in the world’s biggest economy. But the tightening is not without repercus-sions for the rest of the world.

Poor countries and emerging markets have taken out big loans in recent years from western countries where interest rates have been low. Now they are being squeezed as borrowing costs rise and as their dollar-de-nominated debts are inflated by a strength-ening in the US currency.

Still, there may be some respite from the currency effect if Trump ups his recent rhet-oric on the US dollar getting too strong. The US president, who worries a strong dollar makes his country less competitive, has also renewed his claim that other countries are devaluing their currencies, but withdrawn previous accusations that China was a cur-rency manipulator. The US Treasury has indi-cated it is looking to the IMF to keep a close eye on global exchange rate policies. It could push for reassurances from the Fund on this surveillance role during the meetings.

Even after the US rate rises, monetary policy in advanced economies remains his-torically loose. As such, the talking heads in Washington will doubtless make the usual call for politicians not to rely on central banks alone to get economic growth going again.

(Source: The Guardian)

Trump, trade, interest and aid make for a challenging IMF summit

Tax revenue grew faster than GDP in Korea last yearThe South Korean government’s tax revenue grew faster than the gross domestic product’s annual increase in the country last year, data showed Sunday.

The annual tax revenue amounted to 318.1 trillion won ($278.5 billion) last year, of which 242.6 trillion won was col-lected by the central government and the remaining 75.5 trillion won by the local governments, according to data from the Finance Ministry, the Interior Ministry and the Bank of Korea.

Tax income at the central government surged 11.3 percent in 2016 from a year earlier. Those at the local governments, rose 6.3 percent over the same period. The two growth rates are much higher than the 5 percent annual growth of nom-inal GDP in 2016.

The fast rise in tax revenue was attributed to large increas-es in income tax, corporate tax and value-added tax last year, which each increased by more than 7 trillion won. The 2015 cigarette tax hike also helped the government collect more taxes a year later. Tax income from cigarette consumption surged 23.4 percent on-year, or by 700 billion won.

The tax burden ratio, or the proportion of the total tax income out of the GDP, rose to 19.4 percent in 2016, 0.9 per-centage point up from 18.5 percent in 2015, data showed.

The figure is the highest since 2007 when the ratio was 19.6 percent under the former Roh Moo-hyun administra-tion.

However, Korea’s tax burden ratio is still considered low compared to members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

According to the OECD’s data, Korea’s tax burden ratio stood at 18 percent in 2014, the third lowest among the 35 OECD member countries. The average tax burden ratio among the 35 OECD members was 25.1 percent in 2014. Denmark had the highest tax burden with 49.5 percent, fol-lowed by Sweden with 32.9 percent and Finland with 31.2 percent. Mexico and Slovakia were the only two countries with lower tax burdens than Korea, with 12 percent and 17.9 percent, respectively, in 2014. (Source: Korea Herald)

APRIL 17, APRIL 17, 20172017 5I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

E N E R G Y

The oil market is tipping slowly from glut to equilibrium, as out-put cuts from OPEC and 11 non-

OPEC countries start to reduce crude flows. It’s not quite there yet. Indeed, the grand “re-balancing” of supply and demand has yet to take place, al-though the International Energy Agen-cy does at least believe “that the mar-ket is already very close to balance,” according to its latest monthly report.

Cutting oil supplyOutput cuts are becoming more

effective as non-OPEC participation improves. What’s more worrying, and where the IEA’s number-crunchers differ sharply with their OPEC counterparts, is what happens next? Re-balancing is one thing, but the OPEC output cut was also meant to usher in a period when demand would start running ahead of supply, and when inventories would be reduced. It’s here where there’s a hell of a discordance between the two groups, and even within the IEA’s own figures. True, the volume of oil held in tankers -- the most expensive storage option -- has dropped. So, too, has the amount stored in commercial facilities in places such as the Caribbean and South Africa’s Saldhana Bay. U.S. crude inventories fell in the week to April 7 by nearly 2.2 million barrels. But be-fore we get too excited, that was the first big drop this year. While refined product inventories in the U.S. are falling sharply, it’s really only the mid-dle distillates (which include jet fuel, heating kerosene and gas and diesel oils) that are bucking typical seasonal trends. The IEA shows global inven-tories falling at a rate of 200,000 bar-rels a day during the first quarter of this year. But its analysis of observed stockpiles -- and there are plenty of places where volumes in storage are

not easily counted -- suggests “global stocks might have marginally increased” over the period. Confused? You’re not alone. OPEC, which published its own monthly report a day before the IEA, paints a much less optimistic picture. It shows global oil inventories increasing by 430,000 barrels a day in the quar-ter just ended. No confusion there. The world is still over-supplied with oil, ac-cording to its biggest producer nations. And the surplus is big. The IEA reckons about 986 million barrels of oil were added to global inventories in the last three years. OPEC puts the figure at 1.2

billion barrels. Some of that is needed to fill new pipelines and to provide op-erating inventory for new refineries, but most is merely the result of over-supply.

Swelling stockpileThe outlook for the current quar-

ter is no clearer. The IEA sees further progress, with demand for OPEC oil running about 1 million barrels a day ahead of production, implying a simi-lar-sized stock draw. But OPEC sees a world with supply still running ahead of demand, which will add about 280,000 barrels a day more to inventories.

There’s one thing they both agree

on, though. Things will change in the second half of the year (as the chart above shows). If the six-month out-put cut is extended, as seems likely, inventories could be drawn down at a rate of about 1.2 million barrels a day in the third quarter. But extending the cuts will be painful for producers. Many, within OPEC and outside, have brought forward planned maintenance (which involves shutting production) to help reach their targets. They won’t be able to repeat that trick later in the year.

(Source: Bloomberg)

OPEC sees a world that still has too much oil

By Julian Lee

Most oil producers want extension of output cuts: Iran ministerMost oil producers support an extension of output cuts by OPEC and non-OPEC countries, and Iran would also back such a move, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh was quoted as saying.

“(Zanganeh) stressed that most countries want OPEC’s deci-sion to be extended,” the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) reported.

“Iran also supports such a decision and if others comply, so would Iran,” Zanganeh told reporters late on Saturday, according to ISNA.

The market has been oversupplied since mid-2014, prompt-ing members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and some non-OPEC producers to agree to cut output in the first six months of 2017.

OPEC meets on May 25 to consider extending the cuts be-yond June. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and most other OPEC members are leaning towards this if agreement is reached with other pro-ducers, OPEC sources told Reuters last month.

(Source: Reuters)

Qatar vows to continue cooperation with Russia on stabilizing oil prices Qatar wants to develop cooperation with Russia on coordinat-ing countries’ positions on stabilizing oil prices, Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani said.

In November 2016, the Organization of the Petroleum Ex-porting Countries (OPEC) member states reached an agree-ment to cut oil production by 1.2 million barrels per day in the first half of 2017 to boost global oil prices.

“Today we held a constructive meeting with my colleague Minister Lavrov. A significant progress has been achieved, we managed to achieve much in bilateral relations since 2016 when a high-level meeting took place in Moscow. We see that a pow-erful impetus especially in the sphere of investment was given. We continue our efforts on cooperation in the gas sphere as well as agreements on cooperation under the aegis of OPEC for maintaining oil prices at the level we need,” Al-Thani said after a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The OPEC agreement was supported by 11 non-OPEC states, which joined the deal by promising to jointly reduce oil output by 558,000 barrels per day. Russia pledged to cut pro-duction by 300,000 barrels daily. The OPEC has already imple-mented its commitment while non-cartel countries have imple-mented over half of the agreed upon cuts.

(Source: Sputnik)

Steve Bannon was doomed

If you’re any student of politics, you saw Steve Bannon on the cover of Time magazine in early February — “The Great Manipulator,” it called him — and knew to start the count-down then.

Dead strategist walking.He’d crossed the line that a poli-tician’s advisers mustn’t, to a place and prominence where only the most foolish of them tread. Or at best he’d failed to prevent the media from tugging him there. He was fine so long as he was a whisperer. On the campaign trail and on the Potomac, you can whisper all you want.

He was damned the moment he was cast as a puppeteer. That means there’s a puppet in the equation, and no politician is going to accept that designation, least of all one who stamps his name in gold on anything that stands still long enough to be stamped. Or whose debate performance included the repartee: “No puppet, no puppet. You’re the puppet.”

“I’m my own strategist,” the president told The New York Post early last week, and the message to Bannon couldn’t have been louder and clearer if it included a four-letter word. Bannon is “a guy who works for me,” he said to The Wall Street Journal a day later, lumping the lumpy tactician together with the concierges at Trump Tower, the grounds-keepers at Mar-a-Loco and the makers of the meatloaf in the White House kitchen.

Rewrite of historyTrump went so far as to suggest that he was barely acquaint-

ed with Bannon before August 2016, when Bannon joined his presidential campaign. Wrong. Trump had been a guest on the radio show that Bannon used to host nine times. But his rewrite of history was telling. Bannon needed to be erased because he was taking up too much space on the page.

Politics is a tricky business, Washington is a treacherous place and Trumplandia is downright brutal. In all three realms, you have to strike the right balance of self-promotion and self-effacement. The media’s no help: We love few archetypes better than that of the brilliant mastermind who’s the real power behind the throne. But the savviest operators find ways to resist that as-signment, deflecting as much credit as they claim.

“It’s important to remember that you’re always a support-ing actor, never the star,” David Axelrod, one of Barack Oba-ma’s closest campaign and White House advisers, told me. “And depending on who the star is, it’s even more important. Donald Trump’s self-image doesn’t really allow for co-stars.”

George W. Bush’s self-image had slightly more allowance, but even so, nothing made Karl Rove’s stomach knot like the nickname — “Bush’s brain” — that a few journalists hung on him. It was both compliment and curse, and to interview him or any of Bush’s other top aides back in the day was to be pummeled with sentences that all started with the same subject, adjusted for whichever title Bush held at that point.

“The governor believes.” “The president-elect has decid-ed.” “The president feels strongly.” Ask them for their opinion, and they’d tell you what he thought. That was the pecking or-der, which was reinforced by Bush’s own nickname for Rove: “Turd Blossom.”

Rove endured as one of Bush’s two or three pre-eminent advisers for about a decade, and his eventual diminution was largely a function of Bush’s waning popularity in the second term of his presidency, when Rove was moved from a corner suite in the West Wing to a windowless office across the hall.

Donald Regan, Ronald Reagan’s second chief of staff, was forced to resign after just two tumultuous years, partly be-cause he’d lost sight of his place, infuriating the first lady. In her memoir, “My Turn,” Nancy Reagan complained that he “often acted as if he were the president.”

That behavior reflected the ease with which senior advis-ers “get caught up in feeling smarter and more powerful than the principal,” said one veteran Republican strategist, who added that the advisers who survive are able to reject or mask that grandiose sense of self.

An amateur maskerBannon is an amateur masker. While he didn’t give Time any

quotes for its “manipulator” story and the photograph of him on the cover had been shot for a different reason three months earlier, he has spent plenty of time talking off the record with po-litical reporters, too little of it actively tamping down his legend.

He wasn’t vigilant enough about patrolling the way his al-lies inside and outside the administration deified him in their own murmurings to the media, which included the nugget that colleagues awed by his knowledge called him “the ency-clopedia.” He didn’t grasp that you can’t be “the encyclope-dia” if your president is barely a pamphlet, and didn’t see the traps that would have been obvious to a Washington insider.

He didn’t grapple with who Trump really is. Trump’s alle-giances are fickle. His attention flits. His compass is popularity, not any fixed philosophy, certainly not the divisive brand of populism and nationalism that Bannon was trying to enforce. Bannon insisted on an ideology when Trump cares more about applause, and what generates it at a campaign rally isn’t what sustains it when you’re actually governing.

Bannon stupidly picked a fight with Jared Kushner that he was all but certain to lose, and not only because Kushner is kin. Consider Trump’s obsession with appearances, then tell me who has the advantage: the guy who looks like a flea market made flesh or the one who seems poised to pose for G.Q.?

Bannon is still on the job, and Trump may keep him there, because while he has been disruptive inside the White House, he could be pure nitroglycerin outside. He commands aco-lytes on the alt-right. He has the mouthpiece of Breitbart News. He has means for revenge. He also has a history of it.

But it’s hard to imagine how he ever again ascends to a status as lofty as the one he held; others have rushed into that airspace. SuperJared flies high. Gary Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, is flapping his own wings.

And “Trump’s got a new favorite Steve,” according to a headline in Politico on Thursday. The story below it charted the rising fortunes of Bannon’s deputy, Stephen Miller, who has been cozying up to Kushner and, according to Politico, complaining that “Bannon tried to take too much credit for Trump’s successes.”

Today’s Steve appreciates where yesterday’s went wrong. He understands that if you want to be the Svengali, you have to play the sycophant. That was a performance beyond Ban-non’s ken. He never had a chance.

(Source: The NYT)

By Richard Javad Heydarian

APRIL 17, 2017APRIL 17, 20176I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

INTERNATIONAL

By Frank Bruni

From South Korea to Colombia, many performers and other artists play a unique role in creating a receptivity toward peace and in healing the trauma of conflict. Their works can open a dialogue for trust, even amid war.

After seven decades of separation and frequent con-flicts, the people of North and South Korea have grown so far apart that many observers say they can never reu-nite. Kang Chun-hyok, a well-known hip hop artist, thinks otherwise. A defector from North Korea who now lives in Seoul, he writes songs that show the common bonds of Koreans. His latest rap single, “For the Freedom,” is the kind of artistic expression he hopes will prepare Kore-ans for reunification – despite the current saber-rattling around the divided peninsula.

Artists by nature try to imagine alternative realities and different futures. Some simply mock or belittle. Yet many can also be peace builders for countries in conflict or societies ruptured by harmful differences. Their works, from plays to paintings, offer aesthetic experiences that may increase understanding, create a shared identity, or heal trauma. While artists may seem marginal in today’s geopolitics, they offer the potential to create a receptivity in people to feel the experiences of those they dislike or to see a common light in others.

Often such art simply helps the performers themselves. In many of the Middle East camps for Syrian refugees, aid workers put on plays to heal the wounds of war. In Co-lombia, the central bank sponsors cultural events that bring people together as the country starts the process of ending a long civil war between the government and rebels. “To build a country in peace, we also need words to name that reality and images to imagine,” state the sponsors of the initiative, which is called “Let peace speak up.”

It is public art that can sometimes be the most visible and effective peace builder. The Vietnam War Memorial in Washington has changed forever how many Ameri-cans feel about that conflict. The bronze statue of the

“Fearless Girl,” which faces the giant bronze bull on New York’s Wall Street, has led to a positive dialogue about women, power, and capitalism. In Italy last year, 18-year-olds began to be paid to go to museums in hopes the cultural experience would enrich the social fabric of a country with many new immigrants.

The best in art-as-peacemaking includes the an-tagonists themselves. Recently actors from Serbia and Albania, two countries still at odds after a conflict in the 1990s, put on a production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” In Lebanon, a country divided by multiple re-ligions, a group called March premiered a play last week called “This is Beirut.” It shows 18 young people trying to overcome their sectarian prejudices.

What gives art a special place in reconciliation? Kath-erine Wood, arts adviser at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, put it this way in a 2015 report: “In peacebuilding initiatives, the arts and cultural practices aim to embody a kind of power that rests not on injury or domination, but rather on reciprocity, connectivity, and generativity.” Art can break down stereotypes and barriers of mistrust, she adds. It helps oppressed com-munities restore their dignity.

If any place seems far from that type of peacemaking, it is the Korean peninsula. Artists like Kang are not very visible amid the news of possible war. Yet it is their soft power that sometimes wins in the end.

(Source: The CSM)

When artists are on the frontlines of peace

Since his ascent to presidency, Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly threatened to upend Philippine foreign policy. In stark contrast to his predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, he has as frequently lavished China with praise as he has lambasted America with verve and venom.

Highly popular at home, and notorious the world over, Duterte has often been portrayed as an oriental despot with an unshakable grip on the Philippine state. Yet, his ability to unilaterally reshape the country’s external relations has been grossly exaggerated by both domestic and international observers.

As I have been arguing for months, there is a limit to how far the Filipino leader can downgrade his country’s alliance with America and, accordingly, upgrade strategic relations with China. This is mainly because of the profound influence of the Philippine security establishment — namely, the cabal of conventional-minded generals, diplomats, politicians and opinion makers — which is as deeply entwined with Washington as it is suspicious of Beijing.

While the charismatic Duterte has managed to convince a growing proportion of the Philippine society that America is not a reliable partner, he has fallen short of convincing his generals, the political class and the broader population that China is a trustworthy neighbor.

A tougher stanceAmid growing Chinese maritime

assertiveness within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones, both in the South China Sea and the Pacific, the Filipino president, just as I predicted, has come under unprecedented pressure to adopt a tougher stance against Beijing. The Philippines’ honeymoon with China is far from over, but a full restoration of bilateral ties looks increasingly unlikely.

“We tried to be friends with everybody but we have to maintain our jurisdiction now, at least the areas under our control [in South China Sea],” declared Rodrigo Duterte during a recent visit to a military camp in the western province Palawan, which is close to the dispute Spratly chain of islands.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and top defense officials are deeply worried about China’s sprawling network of airstrips and military bases nearby. By all indications, it is just a matter of time before China deploys fighter jets and advanced weaponries to its artificially created islands.

“What’s ours now, at least let’s get them and make a strong point there that it is ours,” Duterte continued to the obvious delight of his pumped up soldiers, who have been awaiting the green light to step up the Philippines’

eroding strategic footprint in the Spratly chain of islands for years.

He then instructed the AFP to fully occupy Philippine-claimed land features, step up patrols in the country’s traditional fisheries grounds and refurbish facilities on Thitu Island, which has been fully occupied by the Southeast Asian country over the past four decades.

Manila claims nine land features in the Spratly Islands, mostly reefs and low-tide elevations with the exception of Thitu, an island-sized rock that has hosted an airstrip since 1977. Filipino strongman Ferdinand Marcos (1965–86) was the first regional leader to establish a modern, 1,300-meter-long runway on disputed land features in the area.

Duterte’s infamous blusterOf course, Duterte didn’t shy away

from bravado. He even promised to personally plant the Philippine flag on Thitu Island, which hosts a significant civilian population with its own mayor, during the country’s Independence Day in June. This was reminiscent of Duterte’s infamous bluster during his presidential campaign, when he suggested riding a jet ski to disputed land features in the South China Sea and planting the Philippine flag on them.

Caught off guard by Duterte’s remarks, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China immediately

shot back, calling upon Manila to “continue to properly manage maritime disputes with China and safeguard together the sound and stable situation of China-Philippines relations.” Duterte’s highly patriotic remarks, implicitly directed at China, stood in stark contrast to his nonstop praise for the Asian juggernaut for supposedly “loving [the Philippines] and helping [the country] survive the rigors of this life.”

Throughout the first quarter of this year, China has been on a proactive charm offensive towards the Philippines, dispatching Commerce Minister Zhong Shan and Vice Premier Wang Yang, who have offered multibillion-dollar investment deals to Duterte, including investments in his home island of Mindanao. Worried about China’s intentions, the Philippine defense establishment quickly mobilized.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana openly accused China of engaging in suspicious activities in the Behnam Rise, part of Philippine continental shelf in the Philippine Sea, in late 2016. In particular, Lorenzana suggested that China may have conducted oceanographic research to canvass seabed resources and assess the prospects of stationing submarines in the area. Days later, top defense and foreign ministry officials flatly rejected Duterte’s (false) claim that the Chinese had his permission to conduct marine

scientific research in the area.Shortly after, the Filipino leader

was once again in the hot seat when he nonchalantly suggested that the Philippines can’t do anything if China chooses to build facilities on the Scarborough Shoal. The remarks provoked nationwide criticism, with leading legislators and magistrates openly calling upon the president to refrain from such defeatist statements. Defense officials made it clear that any Chinese reclamation activity on the contested shoal, which is just above one hundred nautical miles away from Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Base, as “unacceptable” and “very, very disturbing.”

Meanwhile, experts warned the president that he could face impeachment if he didn’t assert Philippine maritime claims in the Behnam Rise and Scarborough Shoal, while an opposition legislator went so far as formally filing an impeachment complaint against Duterte. The message was clear: Duterte can’t unilaterally shape Philippine foreign policy, particularly towards China. The Filipino president’s latest remarks vis-à-vis the Spratlys was likely a calculated attempt to refurbish his patriotic credentials, mollify the security establishment, signal his resolve to Beijing and keep critics at bay.

(Source: The National Interest)

Duterte is under pressure to end the Philippines-China honeymoon

There is a limit to how far the Filipino leader can downgrade his country’s alliance with America and, accordingly, upgrade strategic

relations with China.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (left) with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to China in 2016

ANALYSISAPRIL 17, APRIL 17, 20172017 7I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

His attack on Syria’s Shayrat airbase looked like prelude for escalated aggression.

According to Bloomberg News, adminis-tration officials are undecided on what comes next. National Security Advisor McMaster favors deploying tens of thousands of US ground forces to northern Syria’s Euphrates River Valley.

Trump told Fox News “(w)e’re not going into Syr-ia.” He often says one thing, then goes a different way, so it’s unclear what he’ll do so far.

McMaster favors a greatly increased US military presence in Syria. According to Bloomberg, Defense Secretary Mattis, Joint Chiefs chairman Dunford, and CENTCOM commander Votel oppose the idea.

Chief White House strategist Bannon accused Mc-Master of wanting to start another Iraq war. Penta-gon officials favor escalating conflict in Syria short of full-scale war.

Following his meeting with Rex Tillerson, Sergey Lavrov said they agreed that further US missile or similar attacks on Syria are unacceptable.

Lavrov called the Shayrat strike a US “provocation. (Tillerson) and I thoroughly discussed the situation and agreed that this should not happen again,” he said.

Lavrov knows his counterpart has no say over America’s imperial agenda – what hawkish adminis-tration officials and Pentagon commanders decide.

Separately on Friday, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman General Igor Konashenkov heavily criti-cized Trump’s aggression, saying:

“According to an established tradition, every vio-lation of international law, especially military aggres-sion on the part of the US against sovereign states,

is covered up by the Pentagon by the presence of some ‘indisputable’ evidence of atrocities.”

“And the more contrived these pseudo-proofs, the more ‘secret’ they are.”

A CNN fake news report claimed US intelligence services intercepted communications between Syrian chemical and military personnel regarding prepara-tions for attacking Khan Shaykhun with CWs.

No such communications took place. Syria had nothing to do with the April 4 incident. Not accord-ing to neocon CIA director Mike Pompeo. He lied, claiming with “high confidence” Assad ordered the attack.

He provided no evidence proving his accusation because none exists. Assad called blaming him and his government a “100 percent fabrication.”

Russia wants an unbiased independent investiga-tion of the Khan Shaykhun incident, concerned about OPCW involvement.

According to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, “(t)he trust for (its) activity continues to dwindle as (it) ignores obvious facts.”

Its investigators draw conclusions in advance, he said – “later impos(ing) (them) on the entire interna-tional community as the ultimate truth.”

“(P)ermanent (Security Council) member-states…and other countries such as Iran, Brazil and India should take part in” the investigation. “We will insist on this,” Ryabkov stressed, adding:

“We are very much interested in establishing the truth, and are not interested at all in the gambling the United States, Britain, France and other countries continue for the sake of attaining their geopolitical aims.”

“We would like inquiries at Khan Shaykhun and the Shayrat base to be made as soon as possible.”

If chemical weapons were present on Syria’s Shay-rat airbase, traces will be found. If not, Syria will be absolved of responsibility for what happened.

Washington opposes an independent investiga-tion, knowing it’ll prove Syria had nothing to do with the Khan Shaykhun CW attack.

(Source: Global Research)

Double Standards? Whereas Pres-ident Donald Trump threatens to wage a preemptive attack

against North Korea if Pyongyang goes ahead with its nuclear weapons tests, the National Nuclear Security Administra-tion (NNSA) and the US Air Force have announced the carrying out of tests of America’s controversial state of the art B61-12 gravity nuclear bomb.

In a bitter irony, the announcement of the B61-12 nuclear bomb tests (which took place a month ago at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada), was made public on exactly the same day (April 13, 2017) as the official (“first time in history”) de-ployment of America’s “Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) as part of a counter-ter-rorism operation against the ISIS in the remote highlands of Afghanistan (and two days prior to the North Korean tests which, according to Western sources, had been scheduled for April 15-16).

In practice, the deployment of the MOAB in Afghanistan was a de fac-to “weapons test”, a “dress rehearsal” in disguise for the subsequent deployment of the largest conventional “non-nuclear weapon ever designed” against under-ground targets in Iran and North Korea. While the deployment of the MOAB re-ceived extensive media coverage (focus-sing on the “war on terrorism”), the test-ing of the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb was not considered newsworthy.

Disinformation through omission: While the media has its eyes riveted on the “North Korean Nuclear Threat”, these tests of America’s nuclear arsenal are not considered “front-page news”. Why? Be-cause the U.S. public is led to believe that America is NOT a threat to Global Secu-rity.

Meanwhile, the West’s (non-exist-ent) anti-war movement remains mum; nobody is challenging (or threatening) Washington for testing the functionali-ty of America’s latest addition to its nu-clear arsenal of more than 7000 nuclear warheads: The new B61-12 (guided) gravity nuclear bomb is heralded as an

instrument of peace and global security. Pre-emptive nuclear war does not con-stitute a threat to humanity.

Needless to say, the development of the B61-12 is part of a multibillion dollar nuclear weapons modernization program funded by US tax payers.

The B61-11 and 12 are bunker buster (gravity) bombs with a nucle-ar warhead, slated to be used on a first strike basis under the doctrine of “pre-emptive” nuclear war against both nuclear and non-nuclear states.

The MOAB is also a high yield bun-ker buster bomb, with a conventional warhead and a “non-nuclear ” mush-room cloud similar to that of a nuclear bomb. Both the MOAB and the B61-11 (which is actively deployed) are (“of-ficially”) intended to destroy under-ground military targets (e.g in North Korea and Iran).

According to the NNSA:The non-nuclear [B61-12] test as-

sembly was dropped from an F-16 based at Nellis Air Force Base. The test evaluated both the weapon’s non-nu-clear functions as well as the aircraft’s capability to deliver the weapon.

This event is the first of a series that will be conducted over the next three years to qualify the B61-12 for service. Three successful development flight

tests were conducted in 2015. Peace-making Bombs

In 2002, the mini-nukes were recate-gorized by the US Senate (2001 Nuclear Posture Review), cleared for use in the conventional war theater, thereby fore-closing once and for all the Cold War doctrine of “Mutually Assured Destruc-tion” (MAD) which previously described the use of nukes as part of a doomsday scenario.

The B61 tactical nuclear weapons (mini-nukes) have an explosive capacity varying between one third and 12 times a Hiroshima bomb. Their use, howev-er, following the US Senate’s 2002 “re-categorization” would not require the “green light” from the Commander in Chief (aka Donald Trump).

The B61-12 has an explosive yield varying from 0.3 kilotons to 50 kilotons. While the test in Nevada was limited to evaluating the functionality of the B61-12, without the need for a nuclear explosion, this decision is nonetheless both “timely” and “significant”. It’s also an instrument of propaganda directed against the DPRK.

What it implies is that the new B61-12 which is designated to target under-ground bunker facilities is in the process of being cleared for active deployment.

North Korea versus the United

StatesUS public opinion is routinely led

to believe that US nukes are harmless (safe for civilians). The devastating consequences (amply documented) of the use of nuclear weapons is care-fully obfuscated. In contrast to the nukes developed by North Korea, the US Department of Defense considers both the B61-11 and the new B61-12 as “harmless to the surrounding civil-ian population because the explosion is underground,” according to “scientific opinion” on contract to the Pentagon.

While the DPRK’s nukes are consid-ered as bona fide Weapons of Mass De-struction (WMD) and a Threat to Global Security, America’s tactical mini-nukes are categorized as “peace-making bombs”. They’re harmless to civilians according to the military manuals; let’s go head and use them as part of a pre- emptive “humanitarian” war under an R2P mandate (“Responsibility to Pro-tect”).

Lest we forget, the DPRK has been threatened by the US with nuclear war for more than half a century. Barely a few years after the end of the Korean War (1950-53), the US initiated its de-ployment of nuclear warheads in South Korea. This deployment in Uijongbu and Anyang-Ni had been envisaged as early as 1956.

Trump-style political insanityAll the safeguards of the Cold War

era, which categorized the nuclear bomb as “a weapon of last resort”, have been scrapped. “Offensive” military ac-tions using nuclear warheads are now described as acts of “self-defense”.

In the post-Cold war era, US nuclear doctrine was redefined. There is no san-ity under the Trump administration as to what is euphemistically called US for-eign policy. Trump hasn’t the foggiest idea as to the consequences of nuclear war. Nor does he have an understand-ing of the workings of US foreign policy.

At no point since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, has humanity been closer to the unthinkable…

America’s peace making nukes vs. North Korea’s WMD

McMaster favors a greatly increased US military

presence in Syria. According to Bloomberg, Defense

Secretary Mattis, Joint Chiefs chairman Dunford, and

CENTCOM commander Votel oppose the idea.

By Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Top ten reasons to doubt official story on Assad poison-gas attack

The sarin-gas attack story prompted the US missile strike on a Syrian runway. Here are the top ten rea-sons for doubting that story, and instead calling it a

convenient pretext:ONE: Photos show rescue workers treating/decon-

taminating people injured or killed in the gas attack. The workers aren’t wearing gloves or protective gear. Only the clueless or crazy would expose themselves to sarin resi-due, which can be fatal.

TWO: MIT professor Thomas Postol told RT,“I believe it can be shown, without doubt, that the [US

intelligence] document does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the US government has concrete knowl-edge that the government of Syria was the source of the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun…Any competent analyst would have had questions about whether the debris in the crater was staged or real. No competent analyst would miss the fact that the alleged sarin canister was forcefully crushed from above, rather than exploded by a munition within it.” How would a canister purportedly dropped from an Assad-ordered plane incur “crushing from above?”

THREE: Why would President Assad, supported by Russia, scoring victory after victory against ISIS, moving closer to peace negotiations, suddenly risk all his gains by dropping sarin gas on his own people?

FOUR: In an interview with Scott Horton, ex-CIA of-ficer Philip Giraldi states that his intelligence and military sources indicate Assad didn’t attack his own people with poison gas.

FIVE: Ex-CIA officer Ray McGovern states that his mil-itary sources report an Assad air strike did hit a chemical plant, and the fallout killed people, but the attack was not planned for that purpose. There was no knowledge the chemicals were lethal.

SIX: At consortiumnews.com, journalist Robert Parry writes,

“There is a dark mystery behind the White House-re-leased photo showing President Trump and more than a dozen advisers meeting at his estate in Mar-a-Lago after his decision to strike Syria with Tomahawk missiles: Where are CIA Director Mike Pompeo and other top intelligence officials?”

“Before the photo was released on Friday, a source told me that Pompeo had personally briefed Trump on April 6 about the CIA’s belief that Syrian President Bashar al-As-sad was likely not responsible for the lethal poison-gas incident in northern Syria two days earlier — and thus Pompeo was excluded from the larger meeting as Trump reached a contrary decision.”

“After the attack, Secretary of State Tillerson, who is not an institutional intelligence official and has little expe-rience with the subtleties of intelligence, was the one to claim that the U.S. intelligence community assessed with a ‘high degree of confidence’ that the Syrian government had dropped a poison gas bomb on civilians in Idlib prov-ince.”

“While Tillerson’s comment meshed with Official Wash-ington’s hastily formed groupthink of Assad’s guilt, it is hard to believe that CIA analysts would have settled on such a firm conclusion so quickly, especially given the re-mote location of the incident and the fact that the initial information was coming from pro-rebel (or Al Qaeda) sources.”

“Thus, a serious question arises whether President Trump did receive that ‘high degree of confidence’ as-sessment from the intelligence community or whether he shunted Pompeo aside to eliminate an obstacle to his de-sire to launch the April 6 rocket attack.”

SEVEN: As soon as the Assad gas attack was reported, the stage was set for a US missile strike. No comprehen-sive investigation of the purported gas attack was under-taken.

EIGHT: There are, of course, precedents for US wars based on false evidence—the missing WMDs in Iraq, the claims of babies being pushed out of incubators in Kuwait, to name just two.

NINE: Who benefits from the sarin gas story? Assad? Or US neocons; the US military-industrial complex; Pen-tagon generals who want a huge increase in their military budget; Trump and his team, who are suddenly praised in the press, after a year of being pilloried at every turn; and ISIS?

TEN: For those who doubt that ISIS has ever used poi-son gas, see the NY Times (11/21/2016). While claiming that Assad has deployed chemical attacks, the article also states that ISIS has deployed chemical weapons 52 times since 2014.

I’m not claiming these ten reasons definitely and abso-lutely rule out the possibility of an Assad-ordered chemical attack. But they do add up to a far more believable conclu-sion than the quickly assembled “Assad-did-it” story.

These ten reasons starkly point to the lack of a rational and complete investigation of the “gas attack.”

And this lack throws a monkey wrench into Trump’s claim that he was ordering the missile strike based on “a high degree of confidence.”

(Source: Activist Post)

By Jon Rappoport

Trump undecided whether to go light or heavy in Syria? By Stephen Lendman

Simultaneous nuclear weapons tests by U.S. And North Korea

APRIL 17, 2017APRIL 17, 20178I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

INTERNATIONAL

The United States has dropped its largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat against ISIS targets in Afghan-istan. But why drop such a gargantuan bomb in the first place? No one can have any sympathy for

ISIS and its murderous offshoots, but you don’t need to be a military expert to suspect something strange might be going on here.

Since the U.S.’s stated objective was to destroy under-ground tunnels, wouldn’t so-called bunker buster bombs, which can also be huge and dig deep into the earth, serve the aims of this mission just as well, if not better?

Look to the history of colonial warfare for the answer. The lands of the colonized have always served as the West-ern world’s laboratory for the newest and worst weapons of war.

Bombs may have been with us since the invention of gunpowder, but the phenomenon of aerial warfare is only as old as 1 November 1911, when Libya became the first country to suffer a bombardment from the sky.

Late to the colonial scramble for Africa, Italy coveted Libya, then a province of the failing Ottoman Empire. In 1911, the Italians invaded the north African territory and that November, Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti flew over Ain Zara, just east of Tripoli. Unbeknownst to his superiors, Gavotti tossed four 1.5kg grenades out of his window, pulling the pins with his teeth, and watching them explode on the oasis town below. He later wrote that he was “really pleased with the result”.

Just like today, the press went crazy with the news. The innovation of aerial warfare was mind blowing. Gavotti was

lauded as a true Italian hero, although Europe’s professional warriors initially thought otherwise. They considered the act beneath the rules of civilized combat. Their contempt didn’t last long, and a new era of aerial warfare, especially against “uncivilized” peoples, began.

Popular revoltIn 1920, Britain took charge of Iraq, and a popular revolt

quickly erupted. The Royal Air Force responded with a new strategy they called “control without occupation”. The think-ing was that there would be no need for large and costly contingents of soldiers on the ground if one could simply

bomb the local population into submission from the sky. And bomb they did. For days, weeks, and months on end.

Churchill, who in 1919 had penned a memo stating that he was “strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against un-civilized tribes”, even pushed Air Marshal Trenchard in 1920 to “proceed with the experimental work on gas bombs, es-pecially mustard gas, which would inflict punishment upon recalcitrant natives without inflicting grave injury upon them”. Historians now believe there wasn’t enough mustard gas to go around, so large-scale conventional bombing was left to achieve Britain’s desired result in Iraq.

The United States is not immune to such military op-portunism either. The U.S. fired its first depleted uranium munitions during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. A total of 320 tons (290,300 kgs) landed in Iraq in that war, and depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, as old as our Solar System now is. The results have been spectacularly terrible throughout Iraq, with birth defects and cancer rates disturbingly elevated throughout the country.

The Russian military has exploited its campaign assist-ing the Assad regime in Syria to test out 162 new weap-ons systems, including new cruise missiles and long-range bombers. It would seem the Russians are very proud of their new weapons. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu used the oc-casion of Vladimir Putin’s 63rd birthday to announce that Russia had fired cruise missiles at targets in Syria from the Caspian Sea, some 900 miles away.

Lab of death and destructionLook at the countries mentioned thus far – Libya,

Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Southeast Asia of course also suffered terribly when it was the west’s main labo-ratory of death and destruction, but this list of coun-tries should give us a sense of history regarding our current conflicts along with some much-needed humil-ity about the success of bombing people into submis-sion.

This brings us to the GBU-43/B, a 22,600-pound bomb that is known as a Moab, officially a Massive Ordinance Air Blast and unofficially a Mother of All Bombs. Developed for the 2003 Iraq war, each GBU-43/B reportedly costs $16m. The bomb, which explodes before impact and with a re-ported blast radius as large as a mile in diameter, is the sec-ond largest non-nuclear weapon in the American arsenal. It has never been used before. Until now.

Once again, the territory inhabited by the “uncivilized” has been shelled so the west can try out its new lethal toys. Forgotten in all of this is that bombs, especially ones this size, don’t affect only people. Munitions may be aimed at enemies, but an enormous bomb such as this kills plant life massively as well. When such a bomb detonates, a percus-sive blast destroys everything in it fatal path, shattering the insides of humans and animals alike.

The air is literally sucked out of the atmosphere to feed the jealous fire created by its explosion. The aim of such a bomb is to kill enemies but at what consequence to our earth? There is something narcissistic to think that bombs of this enormity are an attack on humanity. In fact, they are an assault on all forms of life.

(Source: The Guardian)

In 1920, Britain took charge of Iraq, and a popular revolt quickly erupted. The Royal Air Force responded with a new strategy they

called “control without occupation”.

The West used colonies as laboratories for weapons. It’s not different today

By Moustafa Bayoumi

Advertising Dept:

times1979@gmail.com

+9821 430 51 450

w w w . t e h r a n t i m e s . c o m

Properties For RentFrom simple to luxury

From 50 sq.m To 500 sq.m

From 1000$ to 10000$

Just call Dorna

09122241430nedasamane@hotmail.com

Holder of ISO 9001:2008ISO 10004:2012ISO 10002:2014

From Oxford Cert Universal

Amazing Apt in Kamranieh170 sq.m, 3 Bdrs., club room with

100 pp capacity, lobby cozy & beautiful $3000

Ms.Sara 09128103207

Apt in the best area in Farmanieh4th floor, 220 sq.m, 3 Bdrs., lobby,

Full furn & unfurn, nice and cozy, Excellent view $3500

Ms.Diba: 09128103206

Bright Apt in Zafaraniyeh130 sq.m, 2 Bdrs. With brand, new & modern furn, Best location with

good access to Valiasr and Palladium Mall Only $2400

Ms.Sara 09128103207

Apt in Jordan85 sq.m, 1 Bdr., fully furn,

clean & Quit $1000Ms.Diba: 09128103206

Apt in Mahmoodieh5th floor, 320 sq.m, 3 Bdrs., 2 Bal

cony, nice View, lobby, Spj & Gym saloon, Diplomatic Tower, excellent view, good Access to high Way, luxury Furn, $6000 negotiable

Ms.Diba: 09128103206

Villa in Shahrak QarbDuplex villa, 630 Sq.m, 5 Bdrs.,

One extra Suit with 300 sq.m apt with 3 Bdrs., Garden, outdoor

Pool, renovated, too many Parking spaces, Security, furn & unfurn

$15000 Suitable for Residency & Embassy

Ms.Diba: 09128103206

Villa in Dibaji800 sq.m land, 700 sq.m built up, duplex, luxury furn, Completely renovated, yard, Small garden,

parking, SpjSuitable for Residency $14000

Ms.Diba: 09128103206

Amazing Villa in KamraniehDuplex ,750 sq.m, 8 Bdrs. , Renovated , full furn, ceramic Floor, driver room, balcony, 4Parking

places $15000Suitable for foreign Embassies

Ms.Sara 09128103207

Villa in MahmoodiehDuplex, 600 sq.m Built up, 5 Bdrs.,

small Garden, ParkingSuitable for small Companies

& small Embassy Ms.Diba: 09128103206

Whole Building in Kamranieh20 unit Apt, 60 Bdrs., each Apt around 210 sq.m, with 3 Bdrs.,

Lobby, 37 Parking places & more, Spj, Too many Storage Rooms,

Completely renovated, good access to highway

ready for Renting to foreign Companies & ResidencyMs.Diba: 09128103206

Building in FereshtehReady to rent separately

or whole building3 Apt, 3 & 5 Bdrs. furn & unfurn,, SPJ & Pkg, good access, Only $2900

Ms.Sara 09128103207

Very nice Office in Jordan88 sq.m, furn/unfurn, storage, $1600 each floor available for Rent or Sale

Ms.Sara 09128103207

Whole Building in Zafaranieh850 sq.m built up, 2th floor, com

pletely renovated, 2 sides , Parking, entrances

Suitable for Embassy Ms.Diba: 09128103206

Whole Building in ZafaraniehLobby, 30 Bdrs., reception, Furn,

parking, gathering Room, Suitable for Residency & big companies

Ms.Diba: 09128103206

World’s finest serviced and virtual office in Iran and 154 locations

worldwideFully furn, dedicated Receptionist,

IT supportLocated in Jordan Business Area

Packages start from $120 Ms.Sara 09128103207

Apt in Zafaraiyeh85 sq.m, 2 Bdrs., near Paladium mall, good access, nice & cozy,

only $1700Ms.Sara 09128103207

Office in Jordan110 sq.m to 240 sq.m, full of

foreign companies , could be flat, Parking lot with extra visitors

parking, Lobby, Security, renovated, almost newPrice per each sq $40

Ms.Diba: 09128103206

Amazing spring offer in Jordan, available from 21th

April, 100 sq.m, 2 Bdrs., full furn, peaceful Residency $1000

Ms.Sara 09128103207

Apt in Gheytarieh120 sq.m, 2 Bdrs., view of Park,

parking, full furn, diplomatic Building $1200

Ms.Diba: 09128103206

Before 10:00 a.m., night owls consumed less food than did early birds. And more of their calories came from sugar. After

8:00 p.m., the night owls ate more sugar and more fat as well. Meanwhile, early birds ate more protein during both the

morning and the evening hours.

H E A L T HAPRIL 17, 2017APRIL 17, 2017 9I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

The right exercises performed properly can be a long-lasting way to subdue ankle, knee, hip, or shoulder pain.

If you’re a morning person, you’re in luck. Early birds — people who feel most energized in the morning — tend to make healthier food choices throughout the day than night owls. That’s the take-home message from a new study. Peo-ple who really come to life in the evening hours also tend to eat later and munch more junk food.

On weekends, when most night owls don’t have to get up for work or school, their eating habits get even worse. On Saturday and Sunday, “evening types had more irregu-lar meal times and twice as many eating occasions,” notes study author Mirkka Maukonen. She studies human nutri-tion and obesity at the National Institute for Health and Wel-fare in Helsinki, Finland.

Her study looked at data from two surveys in 2007 con-ducted with adults living in Finland. The first had focused on people’s risk of heart disease. It also had included questions that help separate early birds from night owls. For example, it asked: “During the first half-hour after having woken in the morning, how tired do you feel?” Night owls would most likely select “very tired” or “fairly tired” from the multiple-choice options. Early birds would probably pick “fairly re-freshed” or “very refreshed.”

The second survey assessed eating habits. Participants described when and what they had eaten during the past two days. This is referred to as dietary recall.

Maukonen’s team then looked at 1,854 people who had completed both the dietary recall and questions pointing to their night-owl or early-bird lifestyle.

After analyzing the data, the researchers found that both morning and evening people consumed approxi-mately the same number of calories over the course of a whole day. However, night owls tended to eat their meals later than early birds did. The researchers also looked at what the participants had been eating. All foods that pro-vide calories contain some combination of protein, fat and carbohydrates. Sugar and starch are both types of carbo-hydrates.

Protein is found in meat, eggs, fish and nuts. It tends to help a person feel full and stay healthy. Sugar tastes deli-cious and provides a quick burst of energy. Fat also tastes great but delivers its energy over a longer period. But foods high in sugar and fat, such as donuts, pizza and other junk foods, are unhealthy. Consuming lots of these foods in-creases a person’s risk of developing obesity, heart disease and other illnesses.

Before 10:00 a.m., night owls consumed less food than did early birds. And more of their calories came from sugar. After 8:00 p.m., the night owls ate more sugar and more fat as well. Meanwhile, early birds ate more protein during both the morning and the evening hours.

The researchers reported their findings in the March is-

sue of Obesity.“It’s really important that we start understanding differ-

ences between people who eat late at night and early in the morning,” says Courtney Peterson. She was not involved in the study. She studies diet and meal timing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Night owls tend to be less healthy overall than are early risers, Peterson notes. They are more likely to fall ill with heart disease, diabetes or cancer. Many studies have looked into this issue. The fact that night owls tend to eat more junk food probably plays a role, Peterson says. And waiting until later in the day to eat may also be problematic. Maukonen’s next study will look at whether the timing of a person’s meals can lead to weight gain or obesity.

Other factors also can mess with a night owl’s health. “Night owls in general sleep worse,” says Peterson. A lack of sleep also might explain their greater risk of disease. Plus,

poor sleep has been linked to unhealthy food choices.The current study is one of correlation, not causation,

point out both Peterson and Maukonen. In other words, night owls tend to have poor eating habits. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that being a night owl makes a person a poor eater. It could be the reverse — eating poorly could affect people’s sleep habits.

The new findings should serve as a wake-up call to night owls. For them, the new results should “encourage pay-ing attention to healthier lifestyle choices,” says Maukonen. Night owls can still live it up during the evening hours. But they should try to get enough sleep. And no matter when people wake up, they should eat healthy foods through-out the day. Many studies have shown that eating a good breakfast helps reduce the risk of disease.

And what’s the takeaway for early birds? Keep on getting the worm! (Source: sciencenewsforstudents.org)

Exercise: An effective prescription for joint pain

Joint pain can rob you of life›s simple pleasures — you may no longer look forward to walking your dog, gardening, or chasing a tennis ball across the court. Even the basics of getting through your day, like getting into the car or carrying laundry to the basement,

can become sharp reminders of your limitations.

But the right exercises per-formed properly can be a long-lasting way to subdue ankle, knee, hip, or shoulder pain. Although it might seem that exercise would aggravate aching joints, this is simply not the case. Exercise can actually help to relieve joint pain in multiple ways:

It increases the strength and flexibility of the muscles and connective tissue surrounding the

joints. When thigh muscles are stronger, for example, they can help support the knee, thus relieving some of the pressure on that joint.

Exercise relieves stiffness, which itself can be painful. The body is made to move. When not exercised, the tendons, muscles, and ligaments quickly shorten and tense up. But exer-cise — and stretching afterward — can help reduce stiffness and preserve or extend your range of motion.

It boosts production of synovial fluid, the lubricant in-side the joints. Synovial fluid helps to bring oxygen and nu-trients into joints. Thus, exercise helps keep your joints “well-oiled.”

It increases production of natural compounds in the body that help tamp down pain. In other words, without exercise, you are more sensitive to every twinge. With it, you have a measure of natural pain protection.

It helps you keep your weight under control, which can help relieve pressure in weight-bearing joints, such as your hips, knees, and ankles.

If all this isn’t enough, consider the following: exercise also enhances the production of natural chemicals in the brain that help boost your mood. You’ll feel happier — in addition to feel-ing better.

(Source: health.harvard.edu)

Early birds eat betterNight owls eat later in the day and more poorly, study finds

Regular movement can help relieve ankle, knee, hip, or shoulder pain

By Lucy Rock

10I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

T E C H N O L O G Y APRIL 17, 2017APRIL 17, 2017

The buzz of a text message heralds the latest offer on Amazon’s Treasure Truck – a funky lorry bedecked with funfair lights and retro signs that appears at random in the streets of Seattle with a one-off discounted product for sale.

Alaskan cod, four fillets for $17, was the most recent item; a few days earlier it was two 16oz prime steaks for $40. Click on your Amazon app to buy your “treasure” and you’ll be told where the truck is so you can pick it up.

“It’s fun,” says Nicole Jamieson, 42. “My kids love it because it looks cool with all its lights flashing. You need to move fast, though – they sell out quickly.”

The truck, which launched a year ago, is stocked several times a month with deals that range from turkeys to Nintendo game consoles. There are rumours it will appear in London soon.

The Treasure Truck is a quirky manifestation of Amazon’s recent foray into the physical world it once shunned. In late 2015 it opened a book shop in a Seattle mall, and it is currently piloting two types of supermarket in the city, Amazon Go, a hi-tech convenience store, which eliminates the need to queue at a checkout, and AmazonFresh Pickup, where orders placed

online can be picked up within 15 minutes at a drive-through. These are currently in beta mode, open only to employees.

Amazon’s home town of Seattle is, in effect, its laboratory for its bricks-and-mortar retail experiments. Once glitches have been dealt with, these new stores may be rolled out – there are now five bookshops in the US, with plans for seven more.

AmazonFresh vans, delivering groceries

ordered online, can be spotted all over the city – another concept trialled in Seattle that was fine-tuned for years before being introduced elsewhere. These latest appearances of the company logo, with its swooshing arrow from the A to the Z, make the company’s presence ever more felt.

Not everyone welcomes it. For some, it is mainly Amazon, which now employs 25,000 people in Seattle, that is to blame for the changing character of the city.

Jeff Reifman, a consultant and writer, says: “I’m spending [less time in Seattle] now, and Amazon has a lot to do with that. Since 2010 Amazon has been increasing exponentially. There’s a huge impact on traffic, the cost of housing, the affordability.”

Others, however, feel differently. At the Amazon bookshop one weekday lunchtime, Tiffany, a digital advertising executive in her 40s, was browsing for holiday reads. “I find it exciting for Seattle to have a new influx of people and ideas. It’s good for the city. It’s super-interesting seeing what they test here. I’m an avid Amazon user – as a mom it makes my life so much easier. I’ll certainly try Pickup and Go when they open.”

Analysts say that Amazon is experimenting with bricks-and-mortar projects so it can capture a bigger chunk of certain retail markets.

Spokeswoman Nell Rona says: “We have all kinds of customers, who shop in various ways, who look for a wide range of items, and do so on any number of different occasions. As a result, we’ve created a variety of innovative services that satisfy customers’ different needs as it relates to grocery shopping.”

Time will tell whether any of Amazon’s trial projects will be smart ideas.

(Source: Guardian)

Everything about Amazon’s Treasure Truck as next big idea

10 hot titles of IT world

Here are high rated IT titles in the world that re-viewed by savvy tech users:

US Navy bans e-cigarettes on every ship in the fleet.

Lithium-ion batteries kept exploding on ships and injur-ing sailors.

Microsoft says it already patched ‘Shadow Bro-kers’ NSA leaks.

The mysterious “Shadow Brokers” posted some hacking tools for Windows that were allegedly stolen from the NSA.

Amazon will be launching the Fire TV Stick in India soon, according to a report by TechPP. The

streaming device was supposed to launch late last year when Amazon launched the Prime service in India but got delayed for some reason.According to the report, the Fire TV Stick is expected to be priced at INR 1999 ($31) for Prime customers. The price for non-Prime customers is said to be INR 3,999.

A new variant of the Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro has been spotted on TENAA. Carrying the mod-

el number SM-C9008, the version has the same specifi-cations except for the storage - a new, 128GB internal memory option is there.

A new update has started hitting the Nokia 6 smartphone. Weighing in at around 370MB,

the update brings Android OS version 7.1.1, latest secu-rity patch (for the month of April), as well as some other changes.

Android 7.1.2 breaks fingerprint on some Pixel and Nexus devices.

Google is not having the best of luck with supporting its newest smartphones: the Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL.

Google has launched a new service called Areo, which will let you order food as well as arrange

for home services. The service is available only in India for now (that too only in Mumbai and Bengaluru) and the app is only available on Android.

Google is apparently testing some changes to be implemented on the Android powered You-

Tube app. Instead of offering picture-in-a-picture, the new UI includes a “floating” bar on bottom that comes with options to play or pause.

Apple will replace your busted iPad 4 with the iPad Air 2.

If you bring this aging tablet in for repairs, you’ll probably walk away with a much newer model.

Airbnb fights off account hijackers with new se-curity tools.

you’ll have to authenticate every new phone, tablet or computer you log into by typing in the unique code Air-bnb sends you via text or email.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Robert Taylor, a pioneer of modern computing and the internet, dies at 85Nearly 50 years ago, computer visionary Robert Taylor helped lay the foundations for what we know today as the internet.

Taylor, who had Parkinson’s disease, died at his home in Woodside, Calif., his son Kurt Taylor tells NPR.

Like many of his peers who helped build the internet, Bob Taylor, as he was known, wasn’t a computer scien-tist. The University of Texas at Austin graduate had a background in psychology and mathematics. Taylor was inspired by the idea of ex-panding human interaction using computer technology, Guy Raz noted in an inter-view profiling Taylor in 2009.

In the 1960s, Taylor was a researcher at the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, where his frustration with what he

saw as inefficient communication led him to envision an interconnected computer network.

At ARPA, Taylor had three separate computer terminals in his office to communicate with his colleagues across Berkeley, MIT, UCLA and Stanford. Each terminal connected to a different computer in a different part of the country, he told Raz.

That shared network, ARPANET, evolved into what would become the internet.

“Any way you look at it, from kick-starting the internet to launching the personal computer revolution, Bob Taylor was a key architect of our modern world,” Leslie Berlin, a historian at the Stanford University Silicon Valley Archives project, told The New York Times.

Taylor went on to create personal workstations with displays that incorporated icons instead of typed commands, NPR’s Wade Goodwyn tells our newscast, the graphic template for the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows.

(Source: npr)

By Alireza Khorasani

Italian court halts Uber injunction as Taiwan lifts ban

www creator slams internet evolutionSir Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with inventing the world wide web, has given a series of interviews in which he has criticised how the internet has developed, condemned how advertising has evolved and warned of the risks that global connectivity poses to users’ privacy.

In an interview with The Guardian, Sir Tim said that the Trump administration’s decision to allow internet service providers to sign away their customers’ privacy and sell users’ browsing habits is “disgusting” and “appalling”.

The problem with the internet, he said, is that it can be “ridiculously revealing”.

He also launched criticism at the way in which the internet is used for so-called “clickbait” journalism.

“Clickbait, which is written in such a seductive way that it’s almost impossible not to click on it, along with pop-up advertising, are both pushing people very, very hard so that they’re liable to lash back and just deliberately pay for anything that

won’t have ads, basically,” he said.Speaking to MIT Technology Review,

Sir Tim said that the internet’s “social networks should be thinking about how they can tweak their systems to make truth more likely to propagate, and fake news likely to fade out”.

Sir Tim, a Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Oxford, was this week awarded the Association for Computing Machinery’s Turing Award, which is often referred to as the Nobel Prize of Computing and carries prize money of $1m.

(Source: tribuneindia)

Uber doesn’t have to pack its bags and leave Italy just yet. Another court in Rome has decided to suspend a lower court’s rule banning the ride-hailing service from operating in the country completely. The judge has allowed it to continue its operations in Italy, at least until it’s done appealing its total ban. An Uber spokesperson told Engadget that “drivers and riders... can now continue using the Uber app until the court’s appeal ruling.” Uber promises to “continue fighting this judgement in the hope that Italians will be able to enjoy the benefits of modern technology that provides reliable transportation at the push of a button.”

That’s not the only bit of good news the company has received among the many, many bad ones that have been pummeling it recently. It’s also returning to Taiwan after agreeing to continue its operations in the country through partnerships with car rental companies. The Taiwanese government suspended Uber for operating as an internet-based tech

platform rather than a transportation company a few months ago. It slapped the service with hefty fines amounting to roughly $825,873 per infraction, forcing Uber to go on a two-month hiatus.

Since car rental companies in the country also offer drivers, the partnerships will allow Uber to operate as a licensed transportation provider -- in fact, the service has already begun offering rides in Taipei. Those living outside the nation’s capital, however, will have to wait until it finds more partners.

(Source: engadget)

AI can predict heart attacks more accurately than doctors

GM aims to put 300 more self-driving Chevy Bolts on the roadGeneral Motors and its San Francisco-based autonomous vehicles division Cruise have made it clear they plan to put an autonomous taxi fleet on the road as fast as possible. Earlier this year, rumors from both the Wall Street Journal and Reuters claimed GM’s project with Lyft could start in a test market sometime this year before a wider expansion in 2018. While Cruise has been quickly adding staff in San Francisco, GM will still need to more test cars on the road in order to get enough data and information to refine its autonomous systems for passenger use. According to a new report from IEEE Spectrum, GM and Cruise plan to add 300 more self-driving Chevy Bolts to their fleet and could be rolling them out as soon as next month.

GM already has the second-biggest test fleet, with 50 or so autonomous Bolts currently on the roads in San Francisco, Detroit and Scottsdale. Alphabet’s Waymo, for comparison, has about 80 of its own in various cities. A larger fleet means the company can gather larger quantities of data in more

diverse driving situations even faster, thereby accelerating the software’s training and making it easier to validate the system in the real world.

Additionally, IEEE Spectrum reports that the next generation of autonomous Bolts will get a hardware upgrade in the form of two new radar systems. According to some FCC paperwork, GM is seeking approval to test short-range radar systems from Japanese company Alps Electric and automotive supplier Bosch is also seeking to test a new mid-range radar system in a fleet of “highly automated driving” vehicles that matches GM’s footprint.

(Source: IEEE)

An estimated 20 million people die each year due to cardiovascular disease. Luckily, a team of researchers from the University of Nottingham in the UK have developed a machine-learning algorithm that can predict your likelihood of having a heart attack or stroke as well as any doctor.

The American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) has developed a series of guidelines for estimating a patient’s cardiovascular risk which is based on eight factors including age, cholesterol level and blood pressure. On average, this system correctly guesses a person’s risk at a rate of 72.8 percent.

That’s pretty accurate but Stephen Weng and his team set about to make it better. They built four computer learning algorithms, then fed them data from 378,256 patients in the United Kingdom. The systems first used around 295,000 records to generate their internal predictive models. Then they used the remaining records to test and refine them. The algorithms results significantly outperformed the AAA/AHA guidelines, ranging from 74.5 to 76.4 percent

accuracy. The neural network algorithm tested highest, beating the existing guidelines by 7.6 percent while raising 1.6 percent fewer false alarms.

Out of the 83,000 patient set of test records, this system could have saved 355 extra lives. Interestingly, the AI systems identified a number of risk factors and predictors not covered in the existing guidelines, like severe mental illness and the consumption of oral corticosteroids. “There’s a lot of interaction in biological systems,” Weng told Science. “That’s the reality of the human body. What computer science allows us to do is to explore those associations.”

(Source: Sciencemag)

Documents and computer files released by hackers provide a blueprint for how the U.S. National Security Agency likely used weaknesses in commercially available software to gain access to the global system for transferring money between banks, a review of the data showed.

On Friday, a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers released documents and files indicating NSA had accessed the SWIFT money-transfer system through service providers in the Middle East and Latin America. That release was the latest in a series of disclosures by the group in recent months.

Matt Suiche, founder of cybersecurity firm Comae Technologies, wrote in a blog post that screen shots indicated

some SWIFT affiliates were using Windows servers that were vulnerable at the time, in 2013, to the Microsoft exploits published by the Shadow Brokers. He said he concluded that the NSA took advantage and got in that way.

“As soon as they bypass the firewalls, they target the machines using Microsoft exploits,” Suiche told Reuters. Exploits are small programs for taking advantage of security flaws. Hackers use them to insert back doors for continued access, eavesdropping or to insert other tools.

“We now have all of the tools the NSA used to compromise SWIFT (via) Cisco firewalls, Windows,” Suiche said.

A PowerPoint presentation that was part of the most

recent Shadow Brokers release indicates the NSA used a tool codenamed BARGLEE to breach the SWIFT service providers’ security firewalls.

The NSA’s official seal appeared on one of the slides in the presentation, although Reuters could not independently determine the authenticity of the slides.

The slide referred to ASA firewalls. Cisco is the only company that makes ASA firewalls, according to a Cisco employee who spoke on condition of anonymity. ASA stands for Adaptive Security Appliance and is a combined firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention and virtual private network, or VPN.

(Source: Reuters)

Hacker documents show NSA tools for breaching global money transfer system

The firing of every neuron in an animal’s body has been recorded, live. The breakthrough in imaging the nervous system of a hydra – a tiny, transparent creature related to jellyfish – as it twitches and moves has provided insights into how such simple animals control their behavior.

Similar techniques might one day help us get a deep-er understanding of how our own brains work. “This could be important not just for the human brain but for neuroscience in general,” says Rafael Yuste at Columbia University in New York City.

Instead of a brain, hydra have the most basic nervous system in nature, a nerve net in which neurons spread throughout its body. Even so, researchers still know al-most nothing about how the hydra’s few thousand neu-rons interact to create behavior.

Presence of calciumTo find out, Yuste and colleague Christophe Dupre

genetically modified hydra so that their neurons glowed in the presence of calcium. Since calcium ions rise in concentration when neurons are active and fire a signal, Yuste and Dupre were able to relate behavior to activity in glowing circuits of neurons.

For example, a circuit that seems to be involved in digestion in the hydra’s stomach-like cavity became ac-

tive whenever the animal opened its mouth to feed. This circuit may be an ancestor of our gut nervous system, the pair suggest.

A second circuit fires when the hydra contracts its body into a ball to hide from predators. A third seems to sense light and may help let the animal know when to eat – despite being blind, hydra need light to hunt and they do more of this in the morning.

The team found that no neuron was a member of

more than one circuit. This suggests the animal has evolved distinct networks for each reflex – a primitive arrangement, much less complex than our own inter-connected nervous systems.

Nevertheless, the hydra is the first step towards breaking the neural code – the way that neural activ-ity determines behavior, says Yuste. “Hydra have the simplest ‘brain’ in the history of the earth, so we might have a shot at understanding those first and then ap-plying those lessons to more complicated brains,” he says.

Yuste hopes that seeing how the circuits work in real time might lead to new insights into the human brain and tell us more about mental illnesses such as schizo-phrenia, for example. “We cannot cure patients until we know how the system works,” he says.

Yuste was one of several neuroscientists, including George Church at Harvard University, who launched the Brain Activity Map Project in 2012. It was a rallying cry to neuroscientists, calling on them to record the activity of every neuron in the human brain. The pro-ject forms the central plank of the billion-dollar BRAIN Initiative.

(Source: newscientist.com)

Researchers estimate only about 500 of the rare whales still exist. Each winter they migrate to warm Atlantic waters off Geor-gia and Florida to give birth.

Endangered North American right whales gave birth last winter to the fewest calves seen off the U.S. coast in 17 years, scientists who say the low births support other evidence that the imperiled spe-cies’ population may be declining.

Researchers estimate only about 500 of the rare whales still exist. Each winter they migrate to warm Atlantic waters off Georgia and Florida to give birth.

Trained spotters who look for moth-er-and-calf pairs from planes during dai-ly aerial surveys reported extremely few sightings this year — just three newborn whales swimming alongside their moms.

That’s the lowest number of births re-ported since 2000, when only one calf was sighted. The yearly average is 17.

A single bad year doesn’t necessari-ly mean right-whale reproduction is in real trouble. Birth numbers can fluctuate greatly year to year. But researchers have seen below-average births every calv-ing season since 2012, said Clay George,

a wildlife biologist who oversees right whale surveys for the Georgia Depart-ment of Natural Resources.

Population flat or decliningThe “preliminary data are starting to

show the population may be flat or de-clining,” George said. “But considering how the population turned around in the 2000s, I think it’s too early to be too doom-and-gloom about it.”

After births bottomed out in 2000, the whales rebounded with a baby boom of 31 newborns the following year.

One reason the numbers can seesaw so significantly is that female right whales typically give birth only once every three years or so.

It’s also possible this year’s calf total could increase. Researchers were trying Wednesday to confirm a report that a fourth mother-newborn pair had been sighted in Cape Cod, said Philip Hamil-ton, a right whale researcher at the New England Aquarium in Boston.

For the first time since 2001, research-ers saw no first-time mothers among the whales that had calves this past winter. They know this because mother whales

are photographed and identified by unique markings on their heads. Final-ly, only one other adult right whale — a male — was seen off Georgia and Florida during the calving season. In past years, as many as 200 total right whales have been spotted during winter.

Still, the overall population is so fragile that even one bad birth year can affect right whales’ capacity to reproduce a

decade from now, when this year’s new-borns would reach sexual maturity, Ham-ilton said.

And there’s other evidence that right whales may be struggling. In the past five years, fewer right whales have been seen in waters where they’re known to gorge them-selves on plankton in the northern Atlantic between New England and Nova Scotia.

(Source: wabe.org)

Hunting ants in Africa march off to raid termite nests with military precision. Now, new research finds that these ants are tru-ly a band of brothers. They even rescue their wounded comrades.

These ant rescues aren’t really selfless, researchers reported on April 12 in the journal Science Advances. Without the fallen ants, colony sizes would probably be nearly a third smaller, because injured ants frequently die if they’re not helped home.

“People always think that for ants or social insects, everything they do is for the good of the colony,” said Erik Frank, a doctoral student at the University of Würzburg, in Germany, who led the re-search.

Biologists typically downplay the im-portance of the individual insect, Frank told Live Science.

“Here we show, for the first time, an example where the good of the individu-al, of saving an individual ant, is good for the colony as well,” Frank said.

Megaponera analis ants live in sub-Saharan Africa and eat termites — only termites. Multiple times a day, an ant scout will come across a foraging

band of termites and rush back to its nest, recruiting as many as 500 ants to march to the termites and attack. The ants then carry the termite corpses back to the nest to feast.

Living antsBut Frank noticed that some of the

ants carried not dead termites, but

living ants, back to the nest. Upon closer inspection, he realized that these ants were wounded. Some had lost a leg or an antenna, while others had an angry termite or two clinging to their bodies.

To find out, Frank first chose 20 ran-dom injured ants and forced them to re-

turn alone from the hunting site to their nest, without the benefit of help from their brethren. He found that 32 percent of the injured ants died on the journey. More than half (57 percent) of the injured ants that were killed were ambushed by jumping spiders because they couldn’t move very quickly.

Healthy antsIn comparison, only 10 percent of the

healthy ants fell to predators on their marches back to the nest, and Frank nev-er saw a carried ant get attacked in 420 raids.

For an injured ant, it was clearly bene-ficial to get rescued.

“But this is not the reason this be-havior has evolved,” Frank said. “It ob-viously needs to benefit the colony as a whole.”

And it does benefit the whole colony, Frank found. By marking injured ants with acrylic paint, Frank was able to track them in subsequent raids. He found that 95 percent of the time, the once-wounded ants returned to battle. In fact, 21 percent of ants in raiding parties showed signs of previous injury.

(Source: Live Science)

Is this proof dinosaurs lived with humans?Dinosaurs and humans lived on Earth at the same time ac-cording to a creationist claiming to have conclusive proof.

Ken Ham, founder of Creation Museum in Kentucky, United States, has put the supposed evidence on display at his center.

Standard scientific evidence shows dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago following an asteroid colliding with Earth, which eventually led to the giant reptiles’ demise.

Humans, on the other hand, evolved from the remaining small mammals, and the anatomically modern man did not emerge until around 200,000 years ago.

But Mr. Ham believes this is a cover-up and humans and dinosaurs shared Earth at one point, and the latter was even-tually wiped out by the great flood.

Mr. Ham believed the great flood happened about 4,300 years ago, but the majority of species was saved by Noah and his Ark, which is in accordance with the book of Genesis.

Mr. Ham says the dinosaur fossils were found in Colorado about a decade ago and seem to represent a tyrannosaurus rex.

In a debate with famed scientist Bill Nye, Mr. Ham said that the new exhibit will “help us defend the book of Genesis and expose the scientific problems with evolution”.

He added: “Evolutionists use dinosaurs to reach children more than anything to promote their worldview.

“Our museum uses dinosaurs to help tell their true history according to the Bible.”

However, Mr. Nye snapped back at the claim, saying that it makes no logical sense.

Mr. Nye said: “(If ) there was a big flood on the earth, you would expect drowning animals to swim up to a higher level.

“Not any one of them did, not a single one.”(Source: express.co.uk)

‘Organ chip’ project to test how chemicals affect the bodyTiny replicas of organs, shrunk down to fit onto computer chips the size of AA batteries, could help doctors and sci-entists learn about how certain foods, chemicals and dietary supplements affect the human body, the Food and Drug Ad-ministration (FDA) says.

These “organ chips” have been in the works since 2012, the FDA said on April 11 in a post on its blog. Other institu-tions, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), are also involved in the project.

Now, researchers at the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition are studying the chips, which are made by a company called Emulate Inc., according to the post.

Initially, researchers thought that the chips would be par-ticularly helpful in research into how well drugs work in cer-tain organs, Suzanne Fitzpatrick, senior adviser for toxicology in the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, wrote in the blog post. But the FDA also hopes to use the or-gan chips to study the safety of foods, cosmetics and dietary supplements, the agency said.

The information from these chips — which could show “how the body processes an ingredient in a dietary sup-plement or a chemical in a cosmetic, and how a toxin or a combination of toxins affects cells” — could help researchers assess whether the compounds pose a risk to human health, Fitzpatrick wrote.

Each chip will represent one organ, according to the FDA, and the agency will begin its research using the “liver chip.” In the future, the FDA and Emulate hope to develop kidney chips, lung chips and intestine chips.

(Source: Live Science)

Your ability to make random choices may peak at age 25In the animal kingdom, acting randomly can be the key to avoiding a grisly fate. After all, if you’re a field mouse and a hawk can’t predict your next move, your chances for survival are much higher.

For human beings, the ability to behave randomly isn’t a matter of life or death, but it is an important cognitive skill that reflects our ca-pacity for creativity and problem solving.

The bad news is that, according to a new study published in PLOS Computational Biology, our aptitude for making random choices peaks at 25, slowly diminishes until we turn 60, and plummets from that point on.

That conclusion, which isn’t too surprising given what we know about the aging process, was hard to definitively pro-duce before. In the past, researchers used blunt statistical tools to determine people’s ability to generate random se-quences, like a string of numbers.

But the scientists behind this latest study ran trillions of programs on a supercomputer to analyze the algorithms behind the “ran-dom” choices people made while completing five online tasks.

“We are using a much more powerful approach,” says Hector Zenil, a co-author of the study and an assistant pro-fessor of at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden.

The exercises challenged the 3,429 participants to either make something look random or predict what would happen next in a random event.

Then the researchers evaluated all the participants’ deci-sions according to their “algorithmic complexity,” or basical-ly, whether or not the patterns each person generated were easier or harder to summarize mathematically.

(Source: The Mashable)

S C I E N C EAPRIL 17, 2017APRIL 17, 2017 11I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

Entire nervous system of an animal recorded for the first time

Endangered right whales deliver fewest births in 17 years

On the occasion of birth anniversary of Hazrat Ali (AS), first Imam of Shia Muslims, AYANDEH BANK an-nounced the winners of its 5th Plan dubbed “Smile under One Roof”, the Public Relations Dept. of the bank reported.

It should be noted that drawing ceremony of the 5th Plan of Customers’ Club of AYANDEH BANK entitled “Smile under One Roof” was held on Monday April 10 at the venue of Central Building of the bank.

In this grand ceremony, names of lucky winners of 366 predicted prizes include as follows: cash gift for purchasing one apartment unit, worth 1 billion rials, five cash gifts for renovation and reconstruction of house, worth 250 million rials, five cash gifts for purchasing home appliances, worth 150 million rials, 25 cash gifts for buying carpet, worth 50 million rials, 80 cash gifts for purchasing audiovisual appliances, worth 10 million rials, and 100 cash gifts for buying

kitchenware and utensils, worth 5 million rials as well as 150 cash gifts to buy decorative appliances, worth two million rials.

“Smile under One Roof” Plan is held annually by the Bank in order to disseminate the culture of utilizing modern banking system and also creating added value for dear fellow countrymen.

It is worth mentioning that names of winners of the Plan can be visited at the official website of the Bank.

Pursuant to the directive released by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), Bank Pasar-gad has expressed its readiness to open visible Letters of Credit (L/Cs) for all groups owning order registration with type of supplying applicant’s exchange and also type of banking operations.

Following the lifting of sanctions and

implementation of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a number of other foreign banks initiated their co-operation and collaboration with Bank Pasargad.

Given the above issue, Bank Pasargad took giant steps in the past years especially after the implemen-

tation of JCPOA. Chief Advisor to the Managing Direc-

tor of Bank Pasargad and Public Rela-tions Dept. Manager of the Bank Khosro Rafiei announced the above statements and said: “The down payment rate is determined according to the applicant’s credit situation, so that rate of each U.S.

dollar, equivalent to 36,000 rials, will be received as on-account at the time of opening Letter of Credit (L/C).”

In the end, Chief Advisor to the Man-aging Director of Bank Pasargad and Public Relations Dept. Manager of the Bank Khosro Rafiei put the least prepay-ment amount of total L/C at 10 percent.

AYANDEH Bank Announces Winners of “Smile Under One Roof” Plan

Bank Pasargad Enhances Cooperation with Foreign Banks in Post-Sanctions Era

Ants save their injured comrades

I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

E N V I R O N M E N T APRIL 17, 2017APRIL 17, 201712

Many questions arise concerning keeping animals in the zoos around the world. Richard Primack B. Primack in the book of “A primer of conservation biology” page 200 of chapter 6 wrote: “Zoos, along with affiliated universities, government wildlife departments, and conservation organizations, presently maintain 500,000 terrestrial vertebrate individuals, representing almost 8000 species and subspecies of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians.” But there are some protests here in Iran against the presence of species such as Persian squirrel, brown bear and also birds such as flamingos in the zoos. What is the reason for this?

Persian squirrel in captivityPersian squirrel is a bushy-tailed and large eyed

mammal. There are four species of squirrels in Iran and all of them are diurnal. Persian squirrel is arboreal and build a nest in a hollow tree. Tree hollows are prime nesting sites for Persian squirrels, providing shelter from the elements and a secure place to raise young. Most female Persian squirrels produce litter in spring and occasionally summer. The young squirrels spend their early lives in a secure nest, emerging at about six weeks old to begin exploring the treetops.

However, illegal trade in wildlife is responsible for the decline of many Persian squirrels. This species is one of the most pervasive examples of illegal trade and has been reduced to low numbers. Burning trees in order to make the parents escape is a method of catching them and also a threat to the whole habitat.

Some people buy litters but most of them die because of incorrect handling and maintenance. Persian squirrel such as any wildlife species is not a pet. Once young individuals are deprived of their mother’s care, they usually die but those who survive are vulnerable too. Those negligible percentage of litters are not quite friendly with buyers when they get young and people often have no choice except to release the animal which poses a serious problem as they could be invasive species in the new environment at a foreseeable future.

It has been estimated that a large amount of litter

Persian squirrels are sold in Iran especially in breeding season and many are killed by unconscious people. Animals such as Persian squirrels in captivity may lack the instincts they need to survive in the wild, therefore they have absolutely no chance of survival in the wild and that’s why they are sent to the zoos.

Zoological collections and similar institutions (collectively referred to as “zoos” henceforth) represent the most powerful agencies of ex situ conservation effort. Zoos have played a pivotal role in the protection and subsequent recovery of a number of endangered species, for example Mauritius Kestrel, Golden Lion Tamarin, and Pere David’s Deer (Mallinson, 1995, 2003; Jiang et al., 2000; Kleiman & Rylands, 2002). However, these programs are still challenging in Iran. Unfortunately some of hyper animal right activists do not agree with zoos because of captivity.

Zoos in Iran need supportConservation programs in zoos especially in Iran, are

limited because of limited space and resources which only allow for a small percentage to be provided with a safe captive breeding. But some of hyper animal right activists are against the whole process of zoos. Zoos latest methods of veterinary medicine especially in the case of healthy breeding colonies of endangered animals in Iran is still denied because of many unstandardized

zoos. But in fact, Iran needs zoos just like other countries that have individuals who cannot live in the wild.

Most species reproduce in abundance in good captive conditions- so much so that the use of contraceptives and other management programs are required to control populations. Some management methods come directly from human and veterinary medicine, while others are novel methods, developed for particular species. Some techniques include cross-fostering, artificial incubations, artificial insemination, embryo transfer, and also genome resource bank which involves freezing purified DNA, eggs, sperm, embryo, and other tissue of species come from zoological efforts so they can be used to contribute to breeding programs, maintain genetic diversity, and perhaps even to reestablish endemic or in some cases extinct species in the future. Some people abandon zoos just because they ignore reasons such as carrying capacity (the number of animals which a region can support without environmental degradation) that make some of individuals less able to tolerate the natural environment if they are returned to the wild. Diseases acquired in captivity may render them unsuitable for release and so on.

All of these reasons may answer of our question: “Why some animals are in captivity?” Our environment needs executive help not just popular pro words. Is it better to let some vulnerable individuals back to the wild although they may be unable to adapt to wild conditions? Contaminated individuals, those entered to new habitats really represent a victory for the rest of that species? We have to be honest, are individuals held in captivity for their own benefit or the benefit of their entire species? On the other hand, we have sufficient efforts being made in zoos to educate the public about conservation values. Those parents who come to the zoo and hear the painful story of animal trafficking such as Persian squirrels, may never buy other wildlife species and tell this to others, they teach their children and so on. In an attempt to regulate and restrict this illegal trade, we needs executive arms such as standard zoos. All zoos in Iran has to obey standard rules and this is our aim when we talk about scientific conservation methods.

Why some species are kept in zoos?

What is the volume of water in lakes on Earth? Using a mathematical analysis, researcher David Seekell, at Umeå University in Sweden, and his American collaborators now suggest that the mean depth of lakes is 30 per cent lower than previously estimated. Shallower lakes implies less fresh water and has consequences for our understanding of climate change and the carbon cycle. The results have been published in Geophysical Research Letters.

“Our estimations measure around 190,000 km3, which is a very small amount of water. In comparison, the ocean contains 1.3 billion km3 of water. If we poured the water of all lakes on Earth together into one big lake, the mean depth of the lake would be 42 metres. The mean depth of the ocean is 3,682 metres,” says David Seekell, associate professor at the Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences and the Climate Impacts Research Centre (CIRC) at Umeå University in Sweden.

A possible conclusion is if lakes are shallower, they release more methane into the atmosphere than previously estimated.

Measuring the volume of the lakes on Earth seems like a simple task. Nevertheless, the challenges to carry out a measurement on a global scale are huge. Satellites can measure the volume of very large lakes, such as for instance Lake Vättern in Sweden or Lake Superior in the United States and Canada, but measuring the tens of millions of small lakes spread across the surface of Earth requires time-consuming field work.

A commonly used method is GPS positioning and depth sounder by boat. The researcher is required to row around on the lake until he or she has collected a large number of depths. The depths and coordinates are later used to build bathymetric maps which the volume and mean depth can be derived from. The approach works well for small lakes, but is expensive due to the time-consuming process and only a small number of lakes can be mapped.

So far, there have been few estimates of the volume of fresh water in lakes on Earth, and those that exist vary greatly and are typically presented without any data or methods.

“We decided to use a theory driven approach. We assumed that the surface of Earth is self-affine. This basically means that if you zoomed in and out of a cross-section of Earth’s surface, the statistical characteristics of the vertical topography are predictable based upon a stretching factor,” says David Seekell.

The researchers evaluated their model with measured volumes from thousands of lakes from diverse landscapes. The

presumptions proved accurate and based upon this model, the researchers were able to deduce a theoretical volume-area relationship.

“We were able to use the model to estimate the mean volume of lakes at each given lake surface area, but also for variations in volume of lakes with the same surface area. Given the total lake surface area on Earth -- which can actually be accurately recorded by satellite, even for small lakes -- we were now able to estimate the total volume and assess the uncertainty in the estimate,” says David Seekell.

The research team assessed that there are 184,000-199,000 km3 of lake water. The reason behind the variation can be explained by how lakes are counted and how their surface area is measured, particularly the smaller ones.

The majority of lake water can be found in a few very large lakes such as the Caspian Sea, Lake Superior, and Lake Baikal. In fact, about 80 percent of lake water can be found in the 20 largest lakes alone.

The quality and quantity of lake water can rapidly change due to human

activities. For example, in some regions many ponds and reservoirs have been built for ornamental purposes, for irrigation, to generate electricity, or to store drinking water, which increasing the volume of fresh water.

On the other hand, some large lakes have dried up and disappeared. For example, Lake Poopo in Bolivia previously had a surface area of about 3,000 km2 and was one of the largest lakes in Bolivia. Due to climate change and water diversions for agricultural production, there is almost no water left, which greatly affects local communities. A very similar story can be told about the Aral Sea -- once the fourth largest lake on Earth -- where climate change and water diversions for agriculture have left only a tiny fraction of its former surface.

It is not only quantity that is of great concern at the moment. The water quality of the largest lakes on Earth are subject to degradation due to human activities. For example, Lake Erie in the United States and Canada with a surface area of about 25,667 km2 has been exposed to nutrient pollution and harmful algae blooms. This has rendered the lake an unreliable source for drinking water for communities along the shoreline. As a consequence, over 400,000 people even lost access to drinking water due to neurotoxins in the lake water associated with algae bloom in 2014.

“Our study emphasizes the relative scarcity of lake water, and how rapidly human activities can change the quality and quantity of water resources,” says David Seekell.

(Source: Science Daily)

New study emphasizes the relative scarcity of lake water

By Farnaz Heidari

Junk Food A: I’m hungry, let’s grab a bite to eat.B: Sure! How about we go home and prepare a couple of sandwiches?A: Nah! Let’s go get a burger and fries.B: All you ever do is have unhealthy fast food Pizza, fries, burgers and hot dogs! You have to start eating better!A: What are you talking about? I have salads sometimes.B: Yeah right! I’m serious! You should also cut down on your sugar intake as well. You drink carbonated drinks that are high in fructose syrup! It’s really not healthy!A: Fine! I’ll start drinking and having home cooked meals that are low in fat. Are you happy now?B: It’s a start, but I’ll be happy when I see you stick to your promise!

Key vocabularygrab a bite: get food that can be eaten quicklyhow about: what do you thinkall you ever do: something frequently donecut down: reduce the amount taken or usedcarbonated drink: carbonated drinks contain small bubblesstick to: continue doing (something)

Supplementary vocabularycalorie: a unit of energysaturated fat: a fat that consists of triglycerides containing only saturated fatty acid radicalsfiber: an indigestible portion of plant foods having two main componentsserving: a specific amount or portion of food or liquidsobese: condition of having excess body fat, to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life

(Source: irlanguage.com)

L E A R N E N G L I S H

ENVIRONMENTd e s k

Is donkey skin the new ivory? African donkeys are being slaughtered to extinctionWhile China’s taste \for elephant ivories have died down, it seems like their fondness has shifted to Donkey skin this time.

According to the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty Against Animals (NSPCA), South African donkeys are being slaughtered to extinction for the gelatin found in their skin and their meat.

While the donkey-hide gelatin has no commercial value in Africa, it is a popular ingredient used to create Chinese medicine to treat anemia and menopause-linked ailments. The gelatin, called Ejiao in Chinese, reportedly stops bleeding and strengthens the blood.

“[Ejiao] is quite a popular ingredient in China that people may self-prescribe,” Chinese medicine expert Mazin Al-Khafaji told The Independent. “It’s a hard gel, made from donkey hide, which is then dissolved in hot water or alcohol. It’s also used topically in a cream, for leg ulcers for instance.”

CNN noted that because donkey skin is highly sought-after in China, the donkey population went down from 11 million to six million in the past 20 years. Approximately 80,000 animals had been sold in the first nine months of 2016. While the demand had delivered a valuable stream of foreign currency, it has placed small-scale farmers in a difficult situation.

China File said that because the price of donkeys increased, rural communities who depend on the animals for livelihood are suffering.

Speaking with Science Times, a donkey owner in Mogosani village named Ikgopeleng Tsietsoane shared that currently, the price of a donkey is 2,000 rand. It used to be only 400 rands ($30 or 29 euros).

At present, a number of African countries, including Niger and Burkina Faso, have banned China from buying their donkeys to save the docile beast’s population and the livelihood of locals. However, smuggling still persists in areas where it is considered illegal to do so.

An investigation conducted by the NSPCA’s Farm Animal Protection Unit last year found a donkey killing site in the Northern Cape. Aside from the fact that most of the donkeys were stolen, they were treated poorly and killed inhumanely, most of the time using hammers to beat them and knives to slit their throats.

Inspector Mpho Mokoena of the NSPCA’s Farm Animal Protection Unit, as quoted by SA people said, “Tragically this is not an isolated issue and the NSPCA continues to pursue leads to uncover and handle further instances when donkeys are being stolen and abused in terms of transportation, general neglect and the unacceptable manner of slaughter for the trade in donkey hide for Chinese traditional medicine. We remain gravely concerned as the practice is widespread and growing.”

Meanwhile, countries such as Botswana and Kenya had made exporting donkey skins legal. Africa News said South Africa’s North West province, which has the largest donkey population in South Africa, is proposing an agreement to do the same.

The African Wild Ass (Equus africanus) are classified as critically endangered.

(Source: Nature World News)

TEHRAN — Following the approval of general

outlines of the clean air bill on October 23, 2016, Majlis (the parliament) has tasked responsible organizations and executive bodies with combating and eliminating air pollution.

Given the persistent and choking air pollution causing great discomfort to people living in metropolises, the Department of Environment proposed the clean air bill. MPs have been debating various articles of the newly adopted law for some weeks now.

Mandated by the Majlis, the Nation-al Standards Organization is required to impose restrictions on low quality fuel im-port into the country and production of poor quality fuel in Iran. Additionally, the Oil Ministry is bound to supply high qual-ity fuel meeting national standards within three years after the law goes into effect.

Both organizations are required to provide reports on their progress every six months.

Next, the Energy Ministry has to pledge to generate at least 30 percent of the in-creased annual electricity demand of the

country from renewable resources. The ministry is also required to provide the wa-ter right of the rivers, lakes, and wetlands in

regard to the precipitation levels. Meanwhile, the Meteorological

Organization has been tasked with developing and setting up early warning systems for dust storms within two years after the law goes into effect.

In order to fulfill plans to fight desertifi-cation, the Forests, Range and Watershed Management Organization is obligated to combat desertification by land-use plan-ning of 300,000 hectares of ecologically fragile ecosystems annually. The adminis-tration is in charge of funding the project.

And last but not least, the administra-tion itself is at the helm of seeking and fostering regional and international co-operation to abate dust storms and the loss they inflict upon the country.

On the same subject just recently Majlis has also authorized the Department of Environment to shut down pollutant industries worsening the effects of air pollution in metropolises and decreased the vehicle inspection five-year interval to four years.

Clean air bill: Responsible bodies assigned to combat pollution

Lake Superior Provincial Park one of the largest provincial parks in Ontario, Canada

The United States is deploying “a few dozen” troops to Somalia to assist the national army and conduct unspeci-fied security operations, a U.S. military spokeswoman said, the largest such de-ployment to the Horn of Africa country in about two decades.

Samantha Reho, spokeswoman for the U.S. Africa Command based in Ger-many, said the soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division, a light infantry unit specialized in air assaults, will mainly train and equip Somalia’s army “to better fight al-Shabab”, an armed group fighting to overthrow the country’s internationally recognized government.

They will also conduct “security force assistance”, she told the AFP news agen-cy, confirming a report by Voice of Amer-ica.

“For operational security issues, we will not discuss specifics of military efforts nor speculate on potential future activ-ities or operations,” Reho said, declining to say precisely how many troops were being sent.

The U.S. in recent years has sent a small number of special operations forces and counter-terror advisers to Somalia, and President Donald Trump recently ap-proved an expanded military role there.

Somalia’s fragile central government is still propped up by the international community and a 22,000-strong African Union (AU) peacekeeping force after

nearly three decades of civil war.While al-Shabab terrorists have lost large

swaths of territory and were forced out of the capital, Mogadishu, by African Union troops in 2011, they have been on the offensive in recent months retaking strings of towns in south and central Somalia.

The group also continues to launch attacks in Mogadishu and countryside, and have claimed responsibility for major attacks in East Africa, including at Garissa University in neighboring Kenya in April 2015 that killed 148 people.

In February 2016, al-Shabab also claimed responsibility for the bombing of an airliner that made an emergency land-ing with a gaping hole in the fuselage shortly after taking off from Mogadishu.

The armed terrorist group has threat-ened a “merciless” war against the new administration of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, who goes by the nickname “Farmajo”. He took office in February.

It announced this week that its recent escalation of deadly attacks in Moga-

dishu and elsewhere is in “doubled re-sponse” to Trump’s approval of expanded U.S. military efforts.

On April 9, Somalia’s new military chief survived a suicide car bombing fol-lowing his swearing-in, in at attack that killed at least 13 people. A day later, a su-icide bombing at a military academy in Mogadishu killed at least five soldiers.

The most notorious U.S. military op-eration in Somalia was in 1993, when an ill-fated attempt to snatch militia leaders led to two Black Hawk helicopters being shot down in Mogadishu. A chaotic res-cue was mounted, resulting in hundreds of deaths, including those of 18 U.S. sol-diers.

Pressure is growing on Somalia’s army to assume full security for the country as the AU force plans to leave by the end of 2020. Last month, the head of the mis-sion said Somalia’s army has been unable to take charge as expected.

The AU force will begin withdrawing in 2018, “and if this departure begins prior to Somalia having capable security forc-es, large portions of Somalia are at risk of returning to al-Shabab control or po-tentially allowing ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant/Daesh) terrorist group to gain a stronger foothold in the country”, the head of the U.S. Africa Command, Commander General Thomas Waldhaus-er, said last month.

(Source: Al Jazeera)

WORLD IN FOCUS 13I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

APRIL 17, 2017APRIL 17, 2017

Syria resumes evacuation after terrorists kill 112Pope condemns bombing of bus convoy in Aleppo

1 There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Saturday’s deadly attack, but such assaults bear the hallmarks of those carried out by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Le-vant (ISIL/Daesh) Takfiri terrorists.

Iran condemned the bombing as a “shameful criminal act by Takfiri terrorists” and offered condolences to the Syrian government and nation.

Pope condemns bombing of bus convoy in Syria’s Aleppo

Elsewhere, Pope Francis has condemned a recent bomb attack by militants on a crowded bus convoy of Shia Muslim evacuees outside the Syrian city of Aleppo.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in his Easter Sunday message to tens of thousands of people in St. Pe-ter ’s Square made the condemnation of the deadly bomb assault which targeted evacuees from the militant-besieged Shia-majority towns of Kefraya and al-Foua in Idlib Province on Saturday.

“Yesterday’s was the latest ignoble attack on fleeing refu-gees,” the pope said.

“May (God) in a particular way sustain the efforts of those who are actively working to bring healing and comfort to the civilian population of Syria, the beloved and martyred Syria, who are victims of a war that does not cease to sow horror and death.”

MIT professor finds errors in U.S. report on chemical attack in Syria

Meantime, a United States-based expert and MIT (Mas-sachusetts Institute of Technology) professor has effectively demonstrated that the site of the alleged chemical attack in the Syrian town of Khan Shaykhun was tampered with, insist-ing that the U.S. intelligence report blaming the Syrian gov-ernment for the attack “cannot be true.”

In a six-page addendum written in reaction to the U.S. government report on the incident, MIT Professor of Technol-ogy and National Security Policy Theodore Postol examined photographs of the alleged attack site and concluded that the report endorsed by the White House “could not be true,” RT reported on Saturday, noting that Postol had shared his findings with the Russia-based news outlet.

Postol stated that his data “unambiguously shows that the assumption in the WHR (White House report) that there was no tampering with the alleged site of the sarin release is not correct. This egregious error raises questions about every other claim in the WHR.”

Postol further insisted that such assumption was “total-ly unjustified,” and “no competent intelligence analyst would have agreed that this assumption was valid.”

By implication, he added that the report was not reviewed and released by competent intelligence experts – “unless they were motivated by factors other than concerns about the accuracy of the report.”

The professor’s key argument, according to the report, is based on a series of photographs of the crater where the container holding sarin was purportedly air-dropped, point-ing out specifically to a photograph of several men inspecting the site while wearing loose clothing and medical gloves.

“If there were any sarin present at this location when this photograph was taken, everybody in the photograph would have received a lethal or debilitating dose of sarin,” he wrote. “The fact that these people were dressed so inadequately either suggests a complete ignorance of the basic measures needed to protect an individual from sarin poisoning, or that they knew that the site was not seriously contaminated.”

Postol further noted in his report, “I believe it can be shown, without doubt, that the document does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the US government has con-crete knowledge that the government of Syria was the source of the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun.”

The U.S. CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) Director Mike Pompeo confirmed on Thursday that it was his agency that concluded the Syrian government was responsible for the al-leged chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun, leading Trump to order the launch of 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase last week. “We were good, and fast,” Pompeo said at an event in Washington DC, adding that “we got it right.”

Moreover, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis further told reporters on Tuesday that it was “very clear who planned this attack, who authorized this attack, and who conducted this attack itself.”

Earlier in the day, White House spokesman Sean Spicer also claimed that doubting the “evidence” would be “doubt-ing the entire international reporting crew documenting this.”

The White House report, however, cited “a wide body of open-source material” and “social media accounts” from the area occupied by foreign-backed militants in the coun-try, including footage provided by the White Helmets res-cue group, which has been documented to have ties with anti-Damascus militant groups as well as Western and Per-sian Gulf Arab governments backing the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Meanwhile, the Syrian government has fiercely denied us-ing or even possessing chemical weapons since the country’s compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention was cer-tified by international observers in 2013.

However, it noted that foreign-backed militants in the country possessed access to chemicals at two Syrian sites under their control at the time international chemical ex-perts removed all chemical arms from the country back in 2013.

This is while several countries, led by Russia and Iran, have strongly challenged Western-led efforts to probe the alleged chemical attack in Syria as inadequate, biased, and political-ly-motivated.

The Syrian army troops and allied fighters have been fight-ing against different foreign-backed terrorist groups wreak-ing havoc in the country since 2011.

Over the past few months, the Takfiri elements have in-creased their acts of violence in Syria in revenge for the blows they have been suffering on the ground.

(Source: agencies)

Pentagon: U.S. deploys ‘a few dozen’ troops to Somalia

Yemeni soldiers and allied Ansarullah (Houthi) movement fighters have killed four Saudi regime troops in sniper fire in the kingdom’s extreme southwest in retaliation for new attacks on the im-poverished nation.

The allied forces gunned down one Saudi trooper at the al-Mo’annaq military outpost in the kingdom’s Jizan region on Saturday, Yemen’s al-Masirah television net-work reported. Separately, Yemeni sharpshooters killed three more Saudi troops in a blitz against military bases in Najran.

A Saudi regime military vehicle was also destroyed while traveling in the Midi Desert in Jizan.

Al-Masirah published a video, released by Yem-en’s War Media, showing mercenaries fleeing the al-Qavieh base in Jizan on board two vehicles, leaving behind their equipment. A Yemeni army unit then goes there and takes away some of the accoutrement.

Yemeni forces have been responding to the House of Saud regime’s more than two years of invasion launched in support of a former government. Thousands of ci-

vilians have been killed in the war which has also de-stroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and put the country on the brink of a famine.

The Yemenis have stepped up their retaliatory strikes against Saudi regime mercenaries, who have been try-ing to push deeper into the impoverished country after occupying the Red Sea port of Aden.

On Saturday, loyalist forces backed by the House of Saud regime launched an assault to seize the Khaled Ibn al-Walid base from Ansarullah fighters and their allies near Yemen’s west coast.

At least 25 loyalists of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and Ansarullah fighters were killed in clash-es around the key military located 30 kilometers from the Red Sea town of Mokha which pro-Saudi forces cap-tured in February.

Military and medical sources told the French news agency AFP that Saudi regime warplanes had bombed Ansarullah positions as they tried to push back the ad-vancing mercenaries.

Nine ASnsarullah fighters were killed and two others wounded in twin Saudi regime airstrikes targeting three vehicles bringing reinforcements to the camp, the report said. A further 12 Ansarullah and four Hadi loyalists were killed in fighting overnight, it added.

The camp, one of the biggest in Yemen, sits on a key road linking Mokha to the Ansarullah-controlled port city of Hudaydah and Ta’izz.

(Source: Press TV)

A senior member of the Palestine Liber-ation Organization (PLO) has denounced the pro-Israeli policy adopted by the administration of the United States Pres-ident Donald Trump, saying the White House is now inhabited by Israeli settlers.

Hanan Ashrawi, a PLO executive com-mittee member, said on Saturday that Is-rael’s far-right stance dominates the U.S. government.

“We used to say there were settlers in the Israeli coalition borne of the far right that detests Palestinians, Arabs and Mus-lims. But today we say there are settlers inside the White House,” she said.

Trump’s administration “has adopted the extreme Israeli position to the right of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Ne-tanyahu and which supports the settle-ments,” she added.

The remarks came amid reports that a delegation of Palestinian Authority of-ficials will visit Washington later this month, in preparation for a meeting be-tween Trump and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

“The main goal here is to reach un-derstandings that would make the presi-dent’s visit a success and that it will come out with positive results that would serve the Palestinian cause,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said earlier this month.

Trump and Abbas spoke over the phone for the first time in March during which the

latter was invited to Washington.In another development last month,

Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, met with Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

During the meeting, the Palestinian president stressed that the Palestinian strategic choice was to achieve the so-called two-state solution. The comments came after Washington signaled that it would no longer insist on the two-state solution as the only option to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Tel Aviv has accelerated its land grab and settlement construction activities in the occupied Palestinian lands after Trump took office earlier this year.

Israeli forces have demolished over 48,000 Palestinian homes and buildings since the 1967 occupation of the Palestin-ian lands, according to the Israeli Com-mittee Against House Demolitions.

Gaza faces severe crisis amid power plant shutdown

Meantime, the Gaza Strip of about 2 mil-lion Palestinians is to face a severe energy crisis starting from Sunday as the besieged enclave’s sole power plant is about to shut down amid a lack of funds to buy fuel.

The plant’s closure could shut down the Gaza desalination plant, which pro-duces clean and potable water in the territory where some 96% of water is un-drinkable.

Gaza authorities depend on outside donations to operate the facility. A similar crisis threatened the power plant during the winter, but fuel and funds provided by Turkey and Qatar prevented it.

Demand for power in Gaza is about 450 to 500 megawatts per day, but it often gets less than half of that, where about 27 megawatts is imported from Egypt and 125 megawatts from Israel.

Even at the best of circumstances, Gaza residents are supplied with elec-tricity intermittently, receiving power on alternating cycles of eight hours a day.

Israel has been blockading the enclave since 2007 as a way of punishing its resi-dents who voted for a Hamas administra-tion. The enclave is also heavily taxed by the Palestinian Authority based in the occu-pied West Bank for the fuel it imports.

The Gaza Energy Authority said on its website, “Fuel taxes have not been can-celed by the government [the Palestinian Authority]; so the power plant will stop working on Sunday morning.”

Tel Aviv already enjoys close cooperation from Egypt to implement the all-out land, aerial, and naval embargo over the territory.

In late 2015, the United Nations said the land may become uninhabitable within the next five years. There is no way to “reverse the ongoing de-development and impoverishment,” unless Israel’s grueling blockade is lifted, it said.

(Source: Press TV)

1 Some analysts have said the U.S. strike on April 7 on Syria’s Shayrat airbase, from which the U.S. claims jet fighters were used to drop chemical weapon on Khan Sheikhoun, is an end to Trump’s honeymoon with Putin. On the other side, some say the strike could lessen pressure on Trump whose aides were in contact with the Russian government during the presidential campaign.

When asked about such comments, Murphy said, “I think his authorizing the attack may have reassured some Americans that he has not committed himself and

America to an unquestioning friendship with Putin. But I do not believe that explains why he reacted as he did in authorizing the U.S. missile attacks on Shyrat.”

The former U.S. ambassador also justifies the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2003 under the pretext that Saddam Hussein had hidden weapons of mass de-struction.

“To this day many of those involved in authorizing the invasion of Iraq in 2003 remain convinced that there was sufficient cause to do so. The “evidence” to which they referred was ambiguous. Also, Saddam Hussein had de-

liberately preserved ambiguities in his statements about Iraqi efforts to develop a nuclear bomb,” Murphy said.

However Murphy sympathized with the Syrians who have been suffering greatly since the war started in the country in late 2011.

“My understanding of Syrian thinking is derived from Syria’s refugees. As an admirer of the Syrian people from my days as US consul in Aleppo in the 1960s and as ambassador in the 1970s I am saddened by the humanitarian catastrophe which has over-whelmed their country.”

Yemenis kill 4 Saudi troops, attack military base

White House inhabited by Israeli settlers: PLO official

Murphy refutes idea Trump acted recklessly to alleged gas attack in Syria

I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

W O R L D S P O R T APRIL 17, 201714

Double Olympic sprint champion Elaine Thompson cruised to a wind-assisted 10.75 seconds to win the 100 meters at Jamaica’s UTECH Classic on Saturday.

Thompson, who became the first Caribbean woman to win the Olympic 100m and 200m double in Rio last summer, comfortably pulled away to cross the line ahead of Jura Levy (11.19) and Olympic finalist Christania Williams (11.30).

Thompson said she was surprised to run the time so early in the season.

“Actually when I heard the time announced I was shocked but as I say, each time I race I always surprise myself,” she told Reuters.

“Honestly there was no plan coming in, I just wanted to work on the first 30 meters of my race because that is kind

of my weak area. So I just wanted to execute.”In the men’s 100m, 2011 world champion Yohan Blake

stumbled from the starting block and Britain’s Zharnel Hughes took full advantage, coming home in a wind-aided personal best 10.08.

Olympic and world championship 400m bronze medalist Shericka Jackson clocked a personal best of 22.57 to win the200, the second fastest time in the world behind the 22.29 run by Dafne Schippers. Williams shaved 27 hundredths of a second offer her previous best.

Miguel Francis, who has switched allegiance to Britain from Antigua, won the men’s race in 20.44 ahead of Jamaica’s Commonwealth Games champion Rasheed Dwyer (20.45).

(Source: Reuters)

Thompson enjoys fast start to season

Bottas ends Hamilton’s pole run in BahrainFinland’s Valtteri Bottas took his first Formula One pole position at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday with a sizzling lap that ended Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton’s bid for a seventh in a row.

Triple world champion Hamilton qualified alongside, a mere 0.023 - or 17 centimeters - slower than Bottas’s time of one minute 28.769 seconds but with everything still to play for on Sunday.

That clinched the first front row lockout of the season for the reigning champions after two races with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel splitting the Silver Arrows.

Hamilton, joking and laughing in a later news conference, appeared delighted for Bottas and offered a warm handshake

to a man who left China last weekend with his mind in turmoil after a costly mistake behind the safety car.

“Firstly, a big congratulations to Valtteri. He has been working so hard, gelled so well with the team and today he was just quicker, he did the better job and hats off to him,” said Hamilton.

“That’s how close I think qualifying should always be. It forces us all to be more on the limit.”

“For sure, it feels good,” said Bottas, the first Finnish driver to secure a pole position since Hamilton’s then-team mate Heikki Kovalainen for McLaren at the 2008 British Grand Prix, 168 races ago.

“It’s my first pole in my career in my fifth season in F1 so it took a few years but hopefully it’s the first of many for me,” he added.

Vettel, joint leader of the world championship standings with Hamilton after two races with one win each, will start in third place with Red Bull’s Australian Daniel Ricciardo fourth.

Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, whose last pole was also in 2008, qualified fifth.

Mercedes won the race last year with now-retired champion Nico Rosberg, the man Bottas has replaced, and have now taken five successive poles at the desert Sakhir circuit.

Hamilton had been fastest in both the first and second phases of qualifying, and set the pace with his first lap in the final session before Bottas pulled off his masterstroke.

The unflappable Finn let out a rare whoop over the team radio, with engineer Tony Ross -- who had inadvertently called Bottas ‘Nico’ during the race in China -- replying that “for a moment there you actually showed some emotion, well done”.

Hamilton and Vettel, sitting alongside Bottas in front of reporters, jokingly asked the polesitter whether the Finnish language had a word for ‘excited’ or ‘exciting’.

Bottas thought hard but words failed him. “Kind of,” he hesitated, as his rivals laughed.

“See, it doesn’t exist,” said Vettel. “It’s not one that’s really used much in the vocabulary,” added Hamilton.

“I don’t know really,” concluded Bottas.Dutch teenager Max Verstappen qualified sixth for Red Bull

with Nico Hulkenberg seventh on a good day for Renault, who had Britain’s Jolyon Palmer in 10th place after his first appearance in the final phase.

Brazilian Felipe Massa starts eighth for Williams and France’s Romain Grosjean ninth for Haas.

German driver Pascal Wehrlein also made a strong return after a back injury kept him out of the first two races, qualifying 13th for Sauber while Swedish team mate Marcus Ericsson was only 19th.

(Source: Reuters)

Barcelona links to Coutinho don’t worry Liverpool’s KloppLiverpool’s Jurgen Klopp says he is not in the least fazed by Barcelona’s reported interest in Philippe Coutinho.

The Brazilian signed a new five-year deal with Liverpool in January, but reports out of Spain linking Coutinho to joining up with his countryman Neymar at the Camp Nou have increased in recent weeks.

However, the Liverpool Echo reported on Sunday that Liverpool have already informed Barcelona that there will be no talks over a transfer, while Klopp said he welcomes the interest and has no doubts over Coutinho’s state of mind.

“Actually, I think it’s positive when there is interest,” Klopp said. “It shows it’s good. I am not concerned because I think Phil fits really well and comfortably here.

“He had a difficult time with injury, coming back fighting for shape, I would say. That’s normal. In the last three games, you can see immediately, when he is in a little bit of shape, how big the difference is he can have in a game.

“That’s wonderful for us. I am not concerned, actually, because we give the boys enough perspective that they really want to be part of this for the next few years.”

Coutinho has nine goals in the Premier League this season, his highest total yet, and Liverpool will look to dangle the carrot of Champions League football next season by finishing in the top four.

They have a six-point advantage over Everton and Manchester United in the fourth spot ahead of Sunday’s game at West Brom, but Klopp said he doesn’t expect the race to end anytime soon.

“When I look at my history, I’m sure it will go on to the last day of the season,” Klopp said. “Most of the time, it has been like this actually, so we have to be prepared.

“If we can sort something early, then we should try, but I’m not sure that will be possible, because we all want to go there.

“There are interesting fixtures over the next few weeks. It’s a good moment to watch the Premier League. There are lots of exciting things to go for.”

(Source: Soccernet)

The Los Angeles Dodgers unveiled a stat-ue on Saturday honoring trailblazer Jack-ie Robinson, Major League Baseball’s first African American player.

On the 70th anniversary of Hall of Famer Robinson breaking baseball’s color barrier with the Dodgers, all of baseball celebrated the annual Jackie Robinson Day with every player, coach, manager and umpire donning Robinson’s No. 42 jersey, which was retired by MLB in 1997.

Ahead of their game against the Ar-izona Diamondbacks, the Dodgers held a ceremony to unveil a statue depicting Robinson sliding into home plate.

Robinson’s wife Rachel and children Sharon and David were in attendance along with a host of Dodgers legends.

Robinson debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15 in 1947. He played 10 seasons in the Majors, all with the Dodgers, winning a World Series in 1955 and earning six consecutive All-Star se-lections (‘49-54), as well as a National League Most Valuable Player Award (‘49).

Robinson was inducted into the Base-ball Hall of Fame in his first appearance on the ballot in 1962, 10 years before his death.

(Source: Reuters)

Dodgers unveil statue to trailblazer Robinson

Chapecoense have won their first title since their squad was involved in the tragic plane crash that killed 71 people by claiming the second stage of the Campeonato Catarinense.

A plane carrying the Chapecoense squad, technical commission and a number of journalists for the Copa Sudamericana final first leg against Atletico Nacional crashed en route to Medellin in November, with only three of their players surviving.

Chapecoense have since rebuilt their squad with a number of loan signings, with the newly formed team going on to

lift the Campeonato Catarinense second stage title with one game to spare.

A 2-0 victory over Joinville saw the Brazilian club come out on top in the second half of Santa Catarina’s state championship, which was named after their president Sandro Pallaoro, who was among the 71 victims of the plane crash. Chapecoense had finished second to Avai in the first half of the championship.

They can win the Campeonato Catarinense outright when they take on Avai in a two-legged final in May.

(Source: Soccernet)

Chapecoense win first title since tragic plane crash

Mesut Ozil insists Arsenal can learn from their Champions League humiliation at the hands of Bayern Munich this season and come back stronger.

Arsenal were thrashed 5-1 home and away to exit 10-2 on aggregate last month, crashing out at the round-of-16 stage for the seventh year running.

That result, along with a string of underwhelming domestic displays which have left the club seventh in the Premier League, has seen pressure mount on manager Arsene Wenger.

Wenger’s contract expires in the summer and it is still unclear whether he will sign a new deal at the Emirates Stadium, while Ozil and Alexis Sanchez have just over a year remaining on their existing deals and have been linked with moves away.

However, while admitting that Arsenal’s humbling at the hands of German champions Bayern was a career low point, Ozil also sees it as a chance for his side to improve.

“The devastating loss at Bayern Munich this season is undoubtedly one of the darkest hours of my footballing career,’’ Ozil wrote in his book “Gunning for Glory,” which is being serialised in the Mail on Sunday. “It’s in the top five of the most humiliating defeats I’ve suffered.

“We were positively prepared for the game. Arsene Wenger had revealed to us his game plan. He was very clear about his ideas -- and they were good ones.

“Our intention was to go all out for Bayern’s central

defender Mats Hummels; to prevent him from opening up the game which he does so brilliantly. We wanted to force him to play the ball to Javi Martinez, who’s also a fine central defender but who isn’t great at opening up the game. In this way we hoped we’d be able to stop Bayern from building up the play at an early stage and disrupt their rhythm.

“Of course I could go on about why our game plan didn’t work. I could look for excuses. But I’m not going to. What went on between us in the dressing room after the match is nobody’s business, nor is what Wenger considered our failures to be in his postmatch analysis. The fact is, we all failed. We were all bad! We played a game that held a mirror up to our faces.

“It was a performance we can’t just brush aside. No, we have to learn our lessons from it. We all have to ask searching questions of ourselves and accept responsibility for the defeat. All the players, all the trainers, even the management. Because this fiasco also represents a great opportunity!

“In my footballing life I’ve often fallen flat on my face and been knocked to the ground. But I’ve always got up again and won victories and titles following the defeat ... this defeat by Bayern will produce something good at the end, too.’’

(Source: Soccernet)

Ozil: Arsenal must learn from ‘devastating’ Champions League exit

PANAMA CITY (AP) — Police officials in Panama said international soccer player Amilcar Henriquez has been shot and killed in the country›s Colon province.

The Saturday killing was confirmed by Didacio Camargo, press chief for Panama›s National Police.

Authorities say the 33-year-old midfielder was leaving his home when a gunman shot him several times. Another two people were wounded. Henriquez was taken to a nearby public hospital, where he died.

President Juan Carlos Varela condemned the killing on

his Twitter account and called for authorities in Colon to hunt down those responsible.

Henriquez was a member of Panama›s national team which is participating in eliminatory rounds for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. He played in the last 20 minutes of a recent game in Panama with the United States that tied 1-1.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

International soccer player shot and killed in Panama

APRIL 17, 2017APRIL 17, 2017

prevent him ch he does so im to play thea fine central opening

hoped from early

bout rk. I

m notween use match ist Wenger considered atch analysis. The fact d! We played a game es.can’t just brush aside. ns from it. We all haveourselves and accept

All the players, all thent. Because this fiasco unity!often fallen flat on my ground. But I’ve always es and titles following

Bayern will produceo.’’

(Source: Soccernet)

S P O R TAPRIL 17, 2017APRIL 17, 2017 15I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

Canadian Ferguson retires from wheelchair basketballAfter 26 years of representing Team Canada with passion and poise on the basketball court, decorated veteran athlete Tracey Ferguson has announced that she is hanging up her number 12 jersey and retiring from the Canadian Women’s National Wheelchair Basketball Team.

Ferguson leaves the international game as a seven-time Paralympian, a three-time Paralympic gold medallist and a four-time world champion in wheelchair basketball. She also owns Paralympic and world championship bronze medals.

“Thank you Canada! I have no words to express how truly grateful I am for the privilege of representing Canada as an athlete for the past 26 years. It is with mixed emotions that I am announcing my retirement from the Canadian national team,” said Ferguson, as she bid farewell to the game and thanked her family, friends, teammates, coaches and sport partners in a message on social media.

“My career would never have been possible without the help of so many people that it is impossible to thank everyone personally in this letter. I hope that over the coming months, I am able to reach out to each of you, to let you know what an impact you made in helping me live my dreams.”

Ferguson joined the national team in 1991 and soon be-came a part of one of the most successful teams in Canadi-an amateur sport history, as the Team Canada women won three consecutive Paralympic gold medals in 1992, 1996 and 2000, as well as a bronze medal in 2004. She also captured three consecutive gold medals at the World Championships in 1994, 1998 and 2002, and was named to the world cham-pionship all-star team in 1998 and 2002. She also won a bronze medal in 2010. She reached the top of the podium for the final time in her own backyard as Team Canada won World Championship gold on home soil in Toronto in 2014.

“Tracey is one of the most successful athletes in the histo-ry of the women’s programme and we congratulate her on all of her outstanding contributions and accomplishments in the game throughout her long and storied career with Team Canada,” said Wheelchair Basketball Canada Executive Direc-tor Wendy Gittens. “Her leadership and competitive spirit will be greatly missed on the basketball court and we wish her the very best in the future with whatever comes next.”

“In 26 years of competing, I have had some of the most amazing teammates,” said Ferguson. “We have together giv-en our blood, sweat and in some cases tears in representing Canada with everything we had. I have taken a piece of each of you with me along the way. I am honoured to call so many of you friends.

“To my coaches, you work tirelessly to teach, shape and make us better as athletes and people. You give so much to us and ask nothing in return except that we give our best. All too often, you do this with so little recognition, especially the junior and house league coaches that get athletes started.”

Ferguson first discovered Para sport at Variety Village in Scarborough and continues to play wheelchair basketball professionally in Germany. She was inducted into the Canadi-an Disability Hall of Fame in 2012.

(Source: Paralympic.org)

Kassai to referee Real Madrid-Bayern and Rocchi Leicester-Atletico

Both Madrid teams now know who’ll be taking charge of their Champions League second legs on Tuesday evening, with Hungarian referee Viktor Kassai appointed to Real Ma-drid’s match with Bayern Munich and with Italian Gianluca Rocchi tasked with officiating Atletico Madrid’s trip to Leices-ter.

41-year-old Kassai - who will be assisted by Gyorgy Ring and Vencel Toth - has been a UEFA referee since 2003 and has whistled several of Real Madrid’s matches over the years, including their 3-0 comeback victory over Wolfsburg last season.

He also has experience of a Real Madrid v Bayern Munich match, as he was the man in the middle for the semi-final which finished 2-1 in 2011/12.

Rocchi, meanwhile, is 43 years old and has been an elite UEFA referee since the start of the 2010/11 season.

His most recent experience with Los Rojiblancos came in last season’s edition of the tournament when he oversaw their 2-1 home defeat against Benfica in the group stages.

At the King Power Stadium he will be flaked by Elenito Di Liberatore and Mauro Tonolini.

(Source: Marca)

Iran know rivals in ISF WSC Prague 2017

Iran learned their rivals in International School Sport Fed-eration (ISF) WSC Prague 2017.

The Iranian football team will play in Group A together with China, New Zealand, Germany, Armenia and Denmark.

Group B consists of Turkey, Chile, Bulgaria, Croatia, Lux-embourg and India.

Brazil, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Serbia, Hungary and Austria are in Group C and Group D includes France, Qatar, Slovenia, Finland, Belgium and Greece.

The competition will be held in Prague, capital of Czech Republic in May.

Hormozgan Province will represent Iran in the competi-tion.

Former Iranian U-17 coach Ali Doustimehr leads the team.

WEST BROMWICH, England (AP) — Roberto Firmino scored a winning goal for the second straight game as Liver-pool beat West Bromwich Albion 1-0 in the Premier League on Sunday to ce-ment its place in the Champions League qualification positions.

The Brazil forward headed home at a free kick in first-half stoppage time to lift Liverpool back above Manchester City into third place. Liverpool is nine points ahead of fifth-placed Everton with

five games remaining, with Manchester United and Arsenal further back but with games in hand.

Much of the pre-match buildup fo-cused on Liverpool’s issues in coping with set-pieces — a real strength of West Bromwich under Tony Pulis. There was a sense of irony that West Brom ended up getting undone in that de-partment.

James Milner sent in a free kick from the right wing, Lucas Leiva flicked the

ball on from the edge of the area, and Firmino got in front of his marker at the back post to nod home from close range. Firmino also earned Liverpool three points at Stoke last weekend with a dipping shot from long range.

Liverpool was the better team at The Hawthorns but nearly got picked off late on in West Brom’s only clear sight of goal.

Substitute Salomon Rondon played Matt Phillips through, only for goalkeep-er Simon Mignolet to spread himself and

block the winger’s attempted chip.In second-half stoppage time, West

Brom sent goalkeeper Ben Foster up for a corner but Liverpool claimed pos-session. Substitute Alberto Moreno ran upfield on the break and with Foster stranded and the goal open, he curled a 40-meter shot wide of the post.

Liverpool’s remaining games are against teams outside the top eight as the club seeks a return to the Champions League after a two-year absence.

Firmino grabs another winner, Liverpool beats West Brom 1-0

Former Esteghlal and the Iranian national football team’s striker made the decision to hang up his boots on Saturday.

Saba striker, who is the all-time top goalscorer in the Persian Gulf Professional League, announced his retirement at the end of Esteghlal and Saba match in Tehran’s Azadi Stadium.

The 40-year-old forward was greeted by Estegh-lal’s players and coaches after the final whistle.

Enayati, who started his playing career in his hometown club Aboomoslem, became the best goalscorer of the IPL three times.

He is the all-time top goalscorer in the Persian Gulf Professional League with 158 goals.

Enayati also played 30 matches for Team Melli and scored eight goals.He made his debut for Iran in a game versus Palestine in April 2002.

(Source: Tasnim)

Long-serving Reza Enayati hangs up boots

Iran National Anti-Doping Organization (NADO) has confirmed that three

sportsmen have been suspended from all sport for four years following the anti-doping rule violation.

Volleyball player Ehsan Hajili has been suspended after testing positive for a banned substance 19-norandrosterone. The athlete is banned from all sport from 14 December 2016 to 13 December 2020.

Farshid Shabani, futsal player, has been given a four-year ban by NADO for stanozolol.

He is banned from 14 September 2016 to 13 September 2020.

Weightlifter Peyman Farahmand has been banned for four years after failed dope test for tamoxifen.

Farahmand is banned from 24 October 2016 to 23 October 2020.

Three Iranians face four-year anti-doping violation ban

Iran’s junior freestyle wrestling team has produced awe-inspiring performances at “Azerbaijan Wrestling Federation Cup” – International Freestyle and Greco-Roman Wrestling Tournament among Cadets and Juniors, and managed to collect four medals, including two precious gold ones, to claim the second spot at the conclusion of the international sporting event.

Abbas Foroutan received a bye in his opening round match of the 85-kilogram weight category at Baku Sports Hall in the Azerbaijani capital, before overcoming Kyrgyz and Azerbaijani opponents and qualifying for the final showdown.

He won the contest against a representative from Uzbekistan 11-0 to take home the gold medal.

Alireza Abdollahi secured Iran’s second gold medal at the sports tournament with a victory over a Georgian contestant in the 100-kilogram final encounter.

In the 63-kilogram division, Ashkan Koushki collected a bronze medal for Iran after defeating compatriot Amir Hosserin Maqsoudi in a repechage bout.

Moreover, Mehdi Khodabakhsi downed an Azerbaijani rival in the repechage round of the 50-kilogram weight class, and earned a bronze medal for the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The “Azerbaijan Wrestling Federation Cup” – International Freestyle and Greco-Roman Wrestling Tournament started in Baku on April 13 and will wrapped up on April 16, 2017.

(Source: Press TV)

S P O R T Sd e s k

Iranian juniors runner-up in Azerbaijan Wrestling Federation Cup

S P O R T Sd e s k

S P O R T Sd e s k

Iran’s sitting volleyball manager

Hadi Rezaei says that the Russian team will hold a one-week training camp in Tehran.

According to Rezaei, the Russian sitting volleyball team will travel to Iran on May 8.

“Russia is the second team in Europe after Bosnia and Herzegovina. They could not participate at the 2016 Paralympic Games after doping ban,” Rezaei said.

“The Russian team will play several

friendly matches with our senior and junior teams in the camp,” he added.

“So many countries want to play with Iran sitting volleyball and we are reviewing the options. Germany is one of them and the team will likely travel to Iran in July,” Rezaei stated.

“We will announce the players for the national team by the end of the week. Iran is preparing to take part in the 2017 ParaVolley Asia Oceania Sitting Volleyball Championships which will take place from June 5th to 12th in Hangzhou, China,” he said.

Russia sitting volleyball to hold training camp in Iran: official

IPC President to attend Iran Track &

Field - National ChampionshipsSir Philip Craven, International

Paralympic Committee (IPC) President, will attend the Iran Track & Field - National Championships for People with Disability.

The competition has been scheduled for May 4 in Aftab Enghelab Stadium in Tehran.

Bahman Rezaei, head of Iran’s Para Athletic Association, said that 700 athletes have registered for the

competition so far.“The Track & Field - National

Championships is very important for us since we are going to choose the best athletes for the upcoming events. The World Para Athletics Championships will be held in London from July 14 to 23, the first ever Junior World Championships will take place in Nottwil, Switzerland, from August 3 to 6 and the 2017 Asian Youth Para Games will take place in Dubai from 10 to 14 December,” Rezaei said.

IPC President to attend Iran Track & Field - National Championships

Reciters from 83 countries to take part in Tehran Quran competition

“Groundhog Day” show will go on, star a question markNEW YORK (AP) — Producers of the Broadway musical “Groundhog Day” said it will open as planned, but injured star Andy Karl’s status was unclear.

Karl hurt himself during a preview performance Friday, forcing the cancellation of Saturday’s matinee. Understudy Andrew Call was to fill in for him at the Friday night performance.

In a statement Saturday, producers said the musical is scheduled to open Monday at the August Wilson Theatre, with further performance information to follow. They declined to address the question of whether Karl would appear.

On Instagram, Karl posted that he tweaked his knee after a “poorly landed leap frog” and intended to see a medical specialist before going back on stage. He finished Friday’s

performance despite the injury, with help from a cane and his fellow actors, and was checked by a doctor.

“Groundhog Day” is based on the much-loved 1993 movie about a jaded weatherman forced to live the same day over, with Karl starring in the Bill Murray role of Phil Connors, a part Karl originated in London to critical acclaim.

The musical’s script is by Danny Rubin, who co-wrote the film and keeps it faithful to the spirit of the original. Composer-lyricist Tim Minchin and director Matthew Warchus are the team behind “Matilda: The Musical,” the Roald Dahl-inspired show that won seven Olivier Awards and four Tonys.

Karl received Tony nominations for his work in two other Broadway musicals, in “On the Twentieth Century” in 2015 and “Rocky” in 2014.

TEHRAN — Reciters and

memorizers from 83 countries will be taking part in the 34th International Quran Competition, which will open at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Mosalla on April 19, State Endowment and Charity Affairs Organization director Hojjatoleslam Ali Mohammadi said during a press conference on Sunday.

He added that 276 Quran reciters and memorizers will be attending in different categories including competitions for females, clerics, students, adults and visually-impaired individuals.

“112 participants will be competing in the two categories of recitation and memorization in the adults section, while in the students’ competition category 60 students are taking part,” he remarked.

He also said that 51 clerics are due

to compete in the clerics’ category of the event, which will take place in the central city of Qom on April 23.

Also included are 24 female participants who will be competing in the Quran memorization section.

A seminar of Quranic research, which will be held in Qom on April 24, has also been arranged on the sidelines of the event.

A jury panel including 24 Iranian and 16 foreign jurors will be judging the competition, he concluded.

TEHRAN — A book discussing advantages

and disadvantages of screening foreign films to Iran’s national cinema will be introduced during a ceremony at the 35th Fajr International Film Festival on April 23.

The book titled “Foreign Film Screenings, Opportunities and Threats for National Cinema” has been compiled by Shahab Esfandiari

It contains speeches delivered at a seminar by the same title held at the Faculty of Cinema and Theater at the Tehran University of Art during the previous edition of the festival last year.

They include talks delivered by a number of Iranian and foreign scholars, cineastes and cultural officials including Hojjatollah Ayyubi, the former director

of the Cinema Organization of Iran, Sergei Kapterev, a film scholar from Russia, and film scholar from Turkey Ozgur Yaren.

Also included in the book is a series of studies conducted by Jafar Sanei-Moqaddam in collaboration with Bahman Aqai on documents and regulations about foreign film screenings in Iran in addition to a number of interviews with cineastes.

The book also contains the studies carried out by several students of cinema on foreign film screenings in eight countries.

The book has been published by the Iranian Artists Forum in collaboration with the Fajr International Film Festival.

The 35th Fajr International Film Festival will be held in Tehran from April 21 to 28.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A year after Prince died of an accidental drug overdose, his Paisley Park studio complex and home is now a museum and concert venue. Fans can now stream most of his classic albums, and a remastered “Purple Rain” album is due out in June along with two albums of unreleased music and two concert films from his vault.

Prince left no known will and had no known children when he died last April 21, and the judge overseeing Prince’s estate has yet to formally declare six of his siblings as its heirs. However, those running the estate have taken steps to preserve his musical legacy and keep the cash coming in. Here’s a look at where things stand:

The value of the music deals hasn’t been disclosed, and key financial information in voluminous court filings is sealed.

Universal Music Group was a big winner, reaching major deals that gave it the licensing rights to Prince’s vault of unreleased music and his independently recorded albums, publishing rights and

merchandising rights.Under related deals, Prince’s music

is now available from major streaming services including Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, Amazon Music and iHeartRadio.

But a lawsuit remains pending against Jay Z’s Roc Nation and the Tidal streaming service over alleged copyright violations. Tidal claims Prince gave it the exclusive right to stream his albums, including his Warner Bros. catalog. Estate lawyers say he gave Tidal limited rights to only one album, 2015’s “Hit N Run: Phase 1.”

Paisley Park, which is run by the company that runs Elvis Presley’s Graceland, opened for public tours in October. Visitors can see the studios and soundstage where Prince worked and pay their respects at the Paisley Park-shaped urn that holds his ashes. It also hosts dance parties and movie and video showings on Friday and Saturday nights.

Close to 100,000 people from around the world have taken the tour, even though winter was expected to be the slow season, said Joel Weinshanker, managing partner

of Park Management, who has a similar role with Graceland. He wouldn’t release revenue figures.

Weinshanker said he expects several hundred thousand visitors in the first full year of operations, which he said would make it the No. 2 museum dedicated to an entertainer behind Graceland.

He said most of the money is going toward preserving the building, which he said was in “grave disrepair” when Prince died, and toward protecting its contents. He said the heating and cooling system had to be replaced, some rooms where videos were stored had recent water damage, and valuable custom-designed outfits were improperly stored on wire hangers.

From April 20-23, Paisley Park will mark the anniversary of Prince’s death with Celebration 2017, which will include concerts and other programming. Acts scheduled to appear include The Revolution, Morris Day and the Time, New Power Generation, Liv Warfield and Shelby J., with members of 3RDEYEGIRL, the

band Prince was nurturing when he died. Weinshanker said it will draw guests from 28 countries.

Barring any surprises, six Prince siblings will get equal shares of his estate, which court filings have suggested is worth around $200 million. Federal and estate taxes are expected to consume nearly half of that.

Judge Kevin Eide wrote last month that he was “reasonably certain” he’ll ultimately declare the heirs to be Prince’s sister, Tyka Nelson, and his half-siblings Sharon Nelson, Norrine Nelson, John R. Nelson, Omarr Baker and Alfred Jackson.

After Prince died, more than 45 people filed claims purporting to be his wife, children, siblings or other relatives. They’ve all been rejected, but Eide has said he’ll wait for some appeals to run their course before making a final ruling, which could take several months or more. The six presumptive heirs have asked him to speed things up. A hearing on that request is set for May 10.

GLADSTONE (AP) — Clifton James, best known for his indelible portrayal of a southern sheriff in two James Bond films but who was most proud of his work on the stage, has died. He was 96.

His daughter, Lynn James, said he died Saturday at another daughter’s home in Gladstone, Oregon, due to complications from diabetes.

“He was the most outgoing person, beloved by everybody,” Lynn James said. “I don’t think the man had an enemy. We were incredibly blessed to have had him in our lives.”

James often played a convincing southerner but loved working on the stage in New York during the prime of his career.

One of his first significant roles playing a southerner was as a cigar-chomping, prison floor-walker in the 1967 classic “Cool Hand Luke”.

His long list of roles also includes swaggering, tobacco-spitting Louisiana Sheriff J.W. Pepper in the Bond films.

His portrayal of the redneck sheriff in “Live and Let Die” in 1973 more than held its own with sophisticated English actor Roger Moore’s portrayal of Bond.

James was such a hit that writers carved a role for him in the next Bond film, “The Man with the Golden Gun”, in 1974. James, this time playing the same sheriff on vacation in Thailand and the epitome of the ugly American abroad, gets pushed into the water by a baby elephant.

“He wasn’t supposed to actually go in,” said his daughter. “They gave him sugar in his pocket to feed the elephant. But he wasn’t giving it to the elephant fast

enough.”She said her father met with real southern sheriffs

to prepare for his role as Pepper. Of his hundreds of roles, it was the Louisiana sheriff that people most often recognized and approached him about.

His daughter noted that her father sometimes said actors get remembered for one particular role out of hundreds.

“His is the sheriff’s, but he said he would have never picked that one,” she said.

George Clifton James was born May 29, 1920, in Spokane, Washington, the oldest of five siblings and the only boy. The family lost all its money at the start of the Great Depression and moved to Gladstone, just outside Portland, Oregon, where James’ maternal grandparents

lived.In the 1930s, James got work with the Civilian

Conservation Corps and then entered World War II in 1942 as a soldier with the U.S. Army in the South Pacific, receiving two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star.

Lynn James said one of the Purple Hearts came when a bullet pierced his helmet and zipped around the inside to come out and split his nose. The second Purple Heart, she said, came from shrapnel that knocked out many of his teeth.

She said her father rarely spoke about the war and never described events leading to his receiving the Silver Star.

“He lost too many friends,” she said.After the war, James took classes at the University of

Oregon and acted in plays. Inspired, he moved to New York and launched his acting career.

Later in life, he spent the fall and spring of each year in New York. In the winter, he lived in a condo in Delray Beach, Florida. During the summer he lived in Oregon.

James’ wife, Laurie, died in 2015. He is survived by two sisters, five children, 14 grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

Lynn James said a celebration of her father’s life will be held in Gladstone in August, but there are no other plans so far. She said some of his ashes will likely be spread in the Clackamas River in Oregon, in which he swam as a boy, and in New York Harbor, where some of his wife’s ashes were spread.

This undated photo provided by Lynn James on Saturday, April 15, 2017 shows Clifton James. (AP/Lynn James)

No. 18, Bimeh Alley, Nejatollahi St., Tehran, IranP.o. Box: 14155-4843

Zip Code: 1599814713

Prayer Times Noon:13:04 Evening: 19:58 Dawn: 4:59 tomorrow) Sunrise: 6:28 (tomorrow)

Editorial Dept.: Fax: (+98(21) 88808214 editor@tehrantimes.com Switchboard Operator: Tel: (+98 21) 43051000 Advertisements Dept.: Telefax: (+98 21) 43051450 Public Relations Office: Tel: (+98 21) 88805807 Subscription & Distribution Dept.: Tel: (+98 21) 43051603 www.eshterak.ir Distributor: Padideh Novin Co. Tel: 88911433 Webmaster: webmaster@tehrantimes.com Printed at: Kayhan - ISSN: 1017-94

APRIL 17, 2017

Managing Director: Ali Asgari Editor-in-Chief: Hassan Lasjerdi

www.tehrant imes.comI N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y

A R T & C U L T U R E

Tehran meeting to review “Voices from Chernobyl”

“Ilya’s Pigeons” coos German anti-war stories for Persian readers

Polish rock duo Partyzant to perform in Tehran

TEHRAN — A Persian translation of Belarusian Nobel laureate Svetlana

Alexievich’s “Voices from Chernobyl” by Shahram Hemmatzadeh will be reviewed during a session at Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University on Monday.

Published by Neyestan, the book is a collection of Alexievich’s interviews with more than 500 eyewitnesses, including firefighters, politicians, physicists and ordinary people, about the Chernobyl accident over a period of 10 years.

The translator and Iranian scholars Abtin Golkar, Mojtaba Rashedi and Zeinab Sadeqi are scheduled to speak at the meeting.

TEHRAN — A Persian translation of German writer Hans Bender’s “Ilya’s

Pigeons”, a book containing 18 anti-war short stories, has recently been published in Iran.

Katayun Soltani is the translator of the collection released by Ofoq Publications.

The stories depict the effect of war on the lives and fates of the people and the countries involved in World War II.

TEHRAN — Polish rock duo Partyzant is scheduled to perform concerts in Tehran

on April 28 and 29.Performances will take place at Vahdat Hall, the band has

announced on its Facebook page. Partyzant is composed of guitarist father Krzysztof Toczko

and his drum and cajon player son, Mikolaj.Toczko started his career in the legendary Polish rock band

Dzem.

N E W S I N B R I E F

A R Td e s k

A R Td e s k

C U L T U R Ed e s k

C U L T U R Ed e s k

C U L T U R Ed e s k

Fajr festival to introduce book on foreign film screenings in Iran

Deals ensure cash keeps flowing to unsettled Prince estate

C U L T U R Ed e s k

Clifton James, sheriff in 2 “James Bond” films, dies at 96

Iranian animations to compete in Annecy festival

TEHRAN — Two Iranian animated films will be competing in the 56th Annecy

International Animation Film Festival, which will run in the French city from June 12 to 17.

“Maned and Macho” by Shiva Sadeq-Asadi will go on screen in the short films competition while “Ascribed Achievements” by Samaneh Shojaei will be shown in the Graduation Films Competition.

“Maned and Macho” is about a girl’s repressed emotions and instincts, which are embodied in some animals that come out of her dreams.

“Ascribed Achievements” is about a man who is dissatisfied with his hereditary appearance so he decides to end his life. But his failed suicide creates a new situation in his life.

Mastering engineer Tom Coyne diesMORRISTOWN, N.J. (AP) — Tom Coyne, a Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer who worked on numerous hit recordings by Adele, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Metallica and more, has died. He was 62.

The Doyle Funeral Home in Morristown, New Jersey, said Coyne died Wednesday. He had multiple myeloma, a cancer formed by malignant plasma cells.

The New Jersey native began his career in the 1970s and scored his first hit with Kool and the Gang. He worked for five years at the Hit Factory before moving to Sterling Sound, where he remained for the rest of his career and eventually became a managing partner.