** IRAN DAILY
-- Iran can serve as transit corridor for Japanese goods: Minister
Iranian Minister of Agriculture Gholamreza Nouri-Qezeljeh has said that his country’s cooperation with Japan on water and food would benefit the entire region, adding that Iran can act as a transit corridor for the exchange of Japanese products.
Nouri-Qezeljeh made the remarks in a meeting with Japanese Ambassador to Iran Tamaki Tsukada on Saturday.
-- WSA: Iran’s crude steel output hits 25m tons in 10 months
Iranian steelmakers churned out 25 million tons of crude steel in the first 10 months of 2024, according to statistics released by the World Steel Association (WSA), indicating that the country stands at tenth place among steel producing countries.
Steel mills of the country kept the rising trend for the 10-month period with a 0.6-percent rise compared to the same period in the previous year amid a major drop in production during the summer due to shortages in power supply.
-- Chinese refiners pay more for Iranian oil: Report
China’s small, private refiners are paying up for Iranian oil due to reduced flows and few offers, Bloomberg wrote.
The so-called teapots bought Iranian Light crude for December arrival at a discount of $2 to $3 a barrel against the ICE Brent benchmark, the smallest gap this year, according to market participants. Traders said they’ve seen fewer cargo offers over the past weeks, while there have also been talks of cargo delays that have crimped Iran-to-China volumes in recent months.
** KAYHAN INTERNATIONAL
-- Oldest direct evidence of hot water found on Mars
New Curtin University-led research has uncovered what may be the oldest direct evidence of ancient hot water activity on Mars, revealing the planet may have been habitable at some point in its past.
The study analyzed a 4.45 billion-year-old zircon grain from the famous Martian meteorite NWA7034, also known as Black Beauty, and found geochemical “fingerprints” of water-rich fluids.
-- University develops evaluation system for Persian
A group of artificial intelligence (AI) experts at Iran’s Amirkabir University of Technology has developed an evaluation system for Persian language models, which is regarded as the most comprehensive model of its type. The system is aimed at equipping Iran’s AI arena with an accurate and integrated metric for assessing large language models.
Saeedeh Momtazi, a member of the academic board at the university’s Faculty of Computer Engineering, said that experts from the Part Artificial Intelligence Research Center and the Natural Language Processing Laboratory at Amirkabir University have developed the most comprehensive and powerful evaluation system for Persian language models, known as Open Persian LLM Leaderboard.
-- Iranian calligraphy, handicrafts exhibit held in Rawalpindi
An exhibition of calligraphy and handicrafts of Iranian artists has opened at Rawalpindi Arts Council (RAC).
Iranian Ambassador Reza Amiri Moghadam inaugurated the exhibition in which art pieces of Iranian calligrapher Saeed Reza Kamrani and craftsman Hussain Qurbanian have been displayed.
Director general of Khana Farhang Iran Mehdi Tahiri, former director of Punjab Arts Council Rawalpindi Waqar Ahmad, director of Arts Council Rawalpindi Sajjad Hussain, director of Information Rawalpindi Ifthar Ali Shah, famous calligrapher Rashid Butt and Muhammad Azeem were also present.
** TEHRAN TIMES
-- Iran attending 47th Kuwait International Book Fair
-Iran is participating in the 47th Kuwait International Book Fair, which kicked off on November 20 in Kuwait's Hawalli Governorate under the theme “The World in a Book”.
A number of publishers from Iran are presenting the latest works of prominent Iranian authors in Arabic and Persian at their pavilions, ISNA reported. On the first day of the fair, Mohammad Totonchi, Iran’s ambassador to Kuwait, met with the participating Iranian publishers, who explained their problems and needs.
-- Over 800 companies partaking in Iran’s intl. metallurgy expo
Tehran Permanent International Fairgrounds is hosting the 21st edition of Iran’s international exhibition of metallurgy, dubbed IRAN METAFO, during November 23-26, IRIB reported.
As reported, over 540 domestic companies along with 275 foreign exhibitors active in the fields of metallurgy, steel, mining industries, non-ferrous metals, casting, industrial furnaces, heat treatment, and related industries, are presenting their latest products and achievements in this exhibition.
-- 29 Iranian universities in THE Interdisciplinary Science Rankings 2025
Times Higher Education (THE) Interdisciplinary Science Rankings (ISR) has placed 29 Iranian universities among top institutions worldwide for interdisciplinary science research. ISR is a project launched in association with Schmidt Science Fellows; it has ranked a total of 749 universities from 92 countries.
University of Tehran with a global ranking of 77 is placed first in the country. Shiraz University (ranked 132 globally) Razi University (174), Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (187), University of Tabriz (201-250) ranked second to fifth, respectively.
6125**4194