Seminar for introducing Indonesian market slated for late Dec.TEHRAN – Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) plans to hold a seminar on December 31, to introduce potentials and capacities of the Indonesian market for Iranian traders and businessmen, the TPO portal announced.
Attended by officials, including Indonesian embassy’s commercial attaché and Iran’s former commercial attaché in Indonesia, the seminar aims to provide an opportunity for the Iranian businessmen and traders to get familiar with Indonesia’s potential areas for cooperation, and collect information about the capacities and opportunities in the mentioned market.
Indonesia is one of the important counties with which Iran is taking measures to boost trade ties because both nations are Muslim countries and both countries are full members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), The Non-Aligned Movement, Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and Developing 8 Countries.
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ISIPO to revive 1400 idle production units by March 2020TEHRAN – Iran Small Industries and Industrial Parks Organization (ISIPO) plans to revive 1400 idle production units by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 19, 2020), IRNA reported on Monday, quoting a deputy with ISIPO.
“Following a program for boosting domestic production, ISIPO managed to revive 529 idle production units in the first six months of the current calendar year and the number is planned to reach 1400 by yearend,” ISIPO Deputy Head Ali Asqar Mosaheb told IRNA on the sidelines of an SME and startups event in Alborz Province.
Noting that one of the approaches through which ISIPO is planning to help inactive units get back in the production cycle is to see their knowledge and technology needs.
“The country’s technology units and scientific and research centers have come to believe that they can help the industry and that the industry can use their potentials and capacities,” he said.
According to the o..

Iran ranks third in the world in producing Oxygen 18 used in radio medicineTEHRAN – Iran ranks third in the world in terms of producing Oxygen 18 isotope, which is utilized in radio medicine production.
Generally, in the radiopharmaceutical industry, enriched water (H2 18 O) is bombarded with hydrogen ions in either a cyclotron or linear accelerator, creating fluorine-18. This is then synthesized into FDG and injected into a patient.
Iran is the third country that has managed to produce Oxygen 18,” says MP Mohammad Ebrahim Rezayee, chief of the nuclear sub-committee of the parliament.
The nuclear sub-committee is a subsidiary of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee.
Rezaye visited the Arak heavy water reactor along with some other senior MPs and advisors to the sub-committee on Wednesday. They were informed about the latest technical, engineering and productive developments in the facility. .They also visited research facilities that are relevant to production ..

Iran begins registering candidates for parliamentary pollsTEHRAN – Iran has started registering candidates running for the upcoming parliamentary elections, set to be held on February 21, 2020.
Candidates have until December 7 to register, Interior Ministry said on Sunday.
Registration began on Sunday morning following an order by Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, Mehr reported.
The elections will be held in over 200 constituencies across the country’s 31 provinces.
The midterm elections of the Assembly of Experts will also be held on the same date in Tehran, Khorsan Razavi, North Khorasan, Fars and Qom provinces.
The Guardian Council will vet parliamentary hopefuls for their qualifications and will release the names of candidates deemed eligible to run by December 18.
Disqualified candidates will have four days to object to the Guardian Council, after which the council will study complaints and announce the final list on February 11.
The candidates will have 8 days to ..

Navy unveils four homegrown military equipmentTEHRAN – The Iranian Navy has unveiled four homegrown military equipment, with the aim of boosting the force’s defense power.
In a ceremony on Saturday attended by Navy Chief Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, the Navy officially unveiled the unmanned aerial vehicle “Pelikan 2” and the naval mine “Sadaf 2”, Mehr reported.
The navigation system “Soren” and the precision guided bomb “Balaban” were also unveiled during the ceremony.
Pelikan 2 is a sophisticated long-range drone, suitable for naval patrol and reconnaissance missions.
Sadaf 2 has been designed and developed for defensive missions against the surface and subsurface vessels, with a maximum depth of 100 meters.
Soren will be used to detect any single change in the geographic position of the marine vessels without any need to the GPS.
Balaban is a smart bomb with controllable fins that extend its range, and is equipped with the Inertial Navigation System (INS) and Global Positionin..

UK expresses concern over attack on Iran’s consulate in Najaf TEHRAN – British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has expressed concern over attack on Iran’s consulate in the Iraqi city of Najaf, Iranian Ambassador to London Hamid Baeidinejad said in tweet on Friday.
A group of rioters stormed into the Islamic Republic’s diplomatic mission in Najaf on Wednesday and set it ablaze. They also replaced the Iranian flag with an Iraqi one. Reportedly, the consulate had already been evacuated of its staff.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali al-Hakim has apologized to the Islamic Republic.
During a phone call on Thursday, Hakim told Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that his country was committed to protecting Iran’s diplomatic missions and their staff in Iraq, according to Press TV.
This is the second attack on an Iranian diplomatic mission in Iraq after its office in the Shia holy city of Karbala was attacked last month.
Iranian Ambassador to Baghdad Iraj Masjedi said on Thursday that ..

Military aide says Leader has foiled U.S.-Israeli evil policiesTEHRAN – The leadership of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the fight against Takfiri terrorists has foiled the evil polices adopted by Israel, the U.S. and their regional servants, says a top military aide.
“The victories of nations in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen are the fruits of the Resistance Front,” Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi said on Saturday, Fars reported.
He pointed to the decline of the hegemons’ power in the world, saying the world is moving in a path that would lead to the dominance of oppressed nations over the oppressors and the arrogant.
Rahim Safavi said with the victory of the Islamic Revolution and the Holy Defense (Iraq’s war against Iran in the 1980s), the global arrogance was defeated and the way to overcome arrogant powers have been paved.
The Islamic Revolution in Iran created a new Islamic civilization and the new Islamic civilization will form the source of the Islamic world’s power in the curr..

Senior officials study details of next year’s budget TEHRAN – In a session of the Supreme Council of Economic Coordination on Saturday, President Hassan Rouhani, Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani and Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raeisi discussed details of the budget for the next Iranian calendar year.
The next Iranian calendar year starts on March 21, 2020.
The top officials also exchanged views on sources of income and also the effects of reforming the budget.
In a session of the council in November, the heads of three branches of government discussed revising the structure of the tax system.
In a session of the council on September 21, Rouhani said that revenues of a planned increase in fuel prices should be given to low-income people and those with fixed income.
“Revenues of increase in fuel price should be given to low-income people to make up for the reduction in their purchasing power because of fluctuations in inflation,” he said.
In another session on September 14, it was agreed to ..

Tehran, Beijing hold enormous potential for tourism co-op: ministerTEHRAN – Iran’s tourism minister Ali-Asghar Mounesan on Thursday called for tapping into Iran-China tourism capacity, which he referred to it as “enormous”, Fars reported on Friday.
Mounesan made the remarks in a gathering of international tourism officials, marketers, hoteliers, private investors, and tour operators, which was held in Beijing, China, on the sidelines of the third ministerial meeting of the Ancient Civilizations Forum.
Given the [high] rate of economic and political ties between the two countries, tourist exchanges are also expected to further improve, the minister noted.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Mounesan described tourism as a means for [securing] peace, dialogue, and interaction among nations.
“Iranian people are very interested to visit China and get familiar with its culture and that’s why the number of Iranians visiting China exceeds Chinese traveling to Iran,” he said.
Mounesan further not..

Iranian police seize ancient relics from smugglerTEHRAN – A number of ancient relics, estimated to date from prehistoric times to the [early] Islamic era, have recently been confiscated from a smuggler in Nahavand, Hamedan province, west-central Iran.
“The accused was traced and lastly arrested in Nahavand after police received reports from cultural heritage aficionados about him [illegally] keeping relics, some of which date back to the first millennium BC,” a senior police official in charge of protecting cultural heritage said on Saturday, Mehr reported.
Recovered objects include 13 silver and copper coins, bronze figurines, seven rings made from silver or copper, agate beads, a copper bowl, three daggers, and a semi-circular metal object, which experts of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, [Tourism and Handicrafts] declared date from the 1st Millennium BC to Parthian and Islamic periods, Amir Rahmatollahi added.
The culprit was surrendered to the judicial system for further inv..