*** IRAN DAILY
-- President’s provincial tours suspended over coronavirus concerns
Iranian President Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi has temporarily called off his regular provincial tours as the contagious strain of the coronavirus known as Omicron is spreading fast in the country.
Speaking at a Saturday meeting of the country’s National Headquarters for Managing and Fighting the Coronavirus, Raeisi said his visits to the provinces will be canceled temporarily in accordance with the health protocols aimed at tackling the mutated strain of the coronavirus.
-- Iran’s 10-month car production tops 760,000
Three major Iranian carmakers, namely Iran Khodro Company (IKCO), SAIPA Group, and Pars Khodro, manufactured 760,527 vehicles during the first 10 months of the current Iranian year (March 21, 2021-January 20, 2022).
According to data released by the Iranian Ministry of Industry, the production by the said companies increased 4.1 percent compared to the previous year’s same 10-month period, in which the output stood at 730,477, IRNA reported.
During this period, IKCO manufactured 381,321 vehicles, which was 1.74 percent less than the output in the same period of the previous Iranian year.
-- Iran’s Beheshti-Rad wins world ice climbing gold; Safdarian takes lead silver
Iran’s Mohsen Beheshti-Rad snatched a historic gold medal at the UIAA Ice Climbing World Championships in the Swiss Alpine resort of Saas-Fee, bringing an end to Russia’s dominance over the men’s speed event.
Beheshti-Rad’s compatriot Mohammadreza Safdarian, meanwhile, settled for a silver in the lead competitions on Saturday, finishing second to Ivan Loshchenko of the Russian Mountaineering Federation.
*** KAYHAN INTERNATIONAL
-- Iran’s Oil Exports Alarm U.S. Senators
Ten Republican senators have written to President Joe Biden telling him he is endangering U.S. national security by not enforcing Iranian oil export sanctions.
The senators, including Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz in their letter dated January 28, told Biden that a growing fleet of non-Iranian oil tankers and buyers such as China are not afraid of U.S. retaliation any longer and are trading in hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil a day.
-- IME Weekly Trade Exceeds $480 Million
The Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME) on Saturday reported that around 1,571,000 tonnes of commodities with a total trading value of $ 480 million USD were traded in its domestic trading and exports halls in the past working week.
According to a report by the IME’s International Affairs and PR, the exchange traded on its metals and minerals trading floor 1,311,000 tonnes of commodities valued at more than 282 million USD.
-- Iranian Ice Climber Wins Gold Medal at UIAA Championships
Iranian athlete Mohsen Beheshti Rad has grabbed a gold medal at UIAA Ice Climbing World Youth Championships 2022 in Switzerland.
Iranian athlete Mohsen Beheshti Rad snatched the gold medal in the men’s speed final at the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation’s Ice Climbing World Championships in Saas-Fee. Beheshti Rad was only the seventh-best qualifier earlier in the day, and after the first effort of 8.65sec in the final, he built on that with a 7.17 in the second and then a winning 6.90 on the third attempt at the Ice Dome in the Swiss resort.
*** TEHRAN TIMES
-- Westerners must provide Iran with guarantees in Vienna: MP
Ali Akbar Karimi, representative of the people of Arak in the parliament, said on Friday that the most important thing to consider in the nuclear negotiations is that Iran must learn from past experiences.
“One of the most important issues that existed in the past and we should learn from it, is that the Westerners did not fulfill their commitments.” He said in an open reference to the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement in May 2018 and a failure by the European sides to honor their obligations under the pact.
-- Top German Iranologist Heidemarie Koch dies at 79
Prominent German Iranologist Heidemarie Koch, who wrote over 20 great books and numerous articles about ancient Iran, has passed away at the age of 79. Arkeolojik Haber, a Turkish website for archaeological news, made the announcement on Friday in a report that did not mention any details about the cause of her death.
Koch studied mathematics as her major between 1963 and 1966. Subsequently, she worked as a teacher until 1972 in Hannover.
-- Time to restart? Tehran tourism fair kicks off amid virus concerns
Early on Saturday, doors of the 15th Tehran International Tourism Exhibition opened to people as a mounting wave of coronavirus puts high hopes of travel insiders in the hand of fate. The challenge resembles the two ends of a seesaw. On the one hand, hopes that the tourism industry would rebound have been scratched by the wildfire spread of the Omicron variant. And on the other hand, an uplift in demand is driven by increased traveler confidence amid rapid progress on vaccinations and the easing of entry restrictions.
Last September, Iran initiated preliminary steps for a bounce-back, restarting the issuance of tourist visas following a 20-month hiatus, and easing COVID-19 protocols for fully-vaccinated passengers.
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