** IRAN DAILY
- Iran envoy: Nuclear US not entitled to talk about non-proliferation concerns
Iran’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna said the United States, which owns thousands of nuclear warheads and is the sole country to have used nuclear weapons, is in no position to talk about non-proliferation concerns.
Kazem Gharibabadi made the remarks in a Thursday address to the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in response to allegations by the US delegation to the agency that Iran should be exposed to a robust and the same high standards for verification as others.
- Iran opens new road, airport projects worth $121m
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated 13 major road and airport projects, with a government investment of nearly $121 million.
Rouhani on Thursday used a videoconference call to roll out the projects, which included major roads bypassing heavily-populated Iranian cities.
- Iran’s six-month petrochemical production, exports up: APIC
Iran’s petrochemical production and exports increased in the first six months of the current Iranian year (March 20-September 21) despite the limitations caused by the pandemic and the US sanctions, said the secretary general of Iran’s Association of Petrochemical Industry Corporation (APIC).
Ahmad Mahdavi-Abhari said that the country’s petrochemical production in the first half of this year has increased by at least five million tons compared to the same period last year.
** KAYHAN INTERNATIONAL
- IRGC Launches Ocean-Going Shahid Roudaki
Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said it launched a heavy warship Thursday capable of carrying helicopters, drones and missile launchers amid ongoing tensions with the U.S.
Photographs of the ship, named after slain Persian Guard naval commander Abdollah Roudaki, showed it carrying truck-launched surface-to-surface missiles and anti-aircraft missiles. It also carried small fast boats, the kind the IRGC routinely uses in the Persian Gulf. Sailors manned deck-mounted machine guns.
- Leader’s Aide: No Negotiations for Sake of Negotiations
An adviser to the Leader the of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei is warning that any American attack on the Islamic Republic could set off a "full-fledged war” in the Mideast in the waning days of the Trump administration.
"We don’t welcome a crisis. We don’t welcome war. We are not after starting a war,” the Associated Press quoted Hussein Dehqan as saying. "But we are not after negotiations for the sake of negotiations either.”
Dehqan, 63, described himself as a "nationalist” with "no conventional political tendency” during an interview in his wood-paneled office in downtown Tehran.
- Iran Futsal Still Best Asian Team, Sixth in World
Iran futsal team has remained unchanged in the latest Futsal World Ranking.
Iran is in sixth place in the world with 1609 points and is the best Asian team in the standing.
Spain and Brazil are first and second with 1808 and 1803 points, respectively.
Argentina remains third with 1694 points.
** TEHRAN TIMES
- Iran ceramic art biennial hosts Cypriot envoy Petros Nacouzis
Cypriot Ambassador Petros T. Nacouzis on Thursday paid a visit to the 11th National Biennial of Contemporary Iranian Ceramic Art currently underway at Tehran’s Niavaran Cultural Center.
He also held a meeting with Hirbod Hemmat-Azad, the director of the biennial, and Ebadreza Eslami, the director of the center, discussing ways to expand relations with the major Iranian art center and art exhibition.
- Transport projects worth over $748m inaugurated across Iran
President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated several transport projects including 10 airport projects as well as some freeway and highways with a total investment of 31.43 trillion rials (about $748.3 million) in eight provinces across the country on Thursday.
Held online, the inauguration ceremony was attended by the Transport and Urban Development Minister Mohammad Eslami and officials from Isfahan, Semnan, Golestan, East Azarbaijan, Kerman, Bushehr, Hormozgan, and Khorasan Razavi Provinces.
- Expansion of trade ties with Pakistan a priority
Pakistan has a relatively large consumer market with a population of over 200 million.
According to the World Trade Organization, imports constitute over 66 percent of Pakistan’s trade.
Expansion of trade with Pakistan, and boosting exports to this neighbor is one of Iran's priorities.
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