The Leopard Changes Its Spots by Iran’s renowned theater director Ali Nargesnejad is to be staged at the Liege Festival in Belgium.

The Iranian drama tells the story of a couple struggling with their newborn baby’s blood disease. The baby has a hope of surviving the disease if it receives three blood transfusions from the mother, which in turn would endanger her life.
Scheduled to run from February 8 to 10, the play depicts the psychological relationship of the mother with the child, and the wife with her husband.

The Leopard Changes Its Spots is to compete with plays from various countries including US, Brazil, Sweden, Russia, Italy and France.
Belgium’s innovative Liege Festival is to run from January 19 to February 17, 2009, and will be held jointly in the capital city of Brussels and the eastern city of Liege

adapted from: Press TV

The giant Asian auto manufacturer Iran Khodro finally unveiled four new types of its national brand while attending the Mashhad international auto exhibition.

Samand which is being exported to 40 countries worldwide in 3 types of Sarir, Soren and Samand LX is reckoned as the national Iranian car and gained considerable popularity in France, Russia, Italy, China, Poland, Bulgaria, Turkey, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt and Persian Gulf neighboring countries.

Also Samand assembling lines are producing and dispatching the national Persian car in 7 countries including Venezuela, Senegal, Syria and Azerbaijan.

The new types of Samand introduced to consumers in Mashhad international auto exhibition are Samand Javanan (Youth Samand), Samand Sahel (Rally Samand), Samand Coupe and Samand Pardis.

According to UNIDO’s International Yearbook of Industrial Statistics 2008, Iran has currently the world’s 10th largest automaking industry following Japan, US, Germany, France, South Korea, Britain, Canada and Spain.

Iran is placed upper than Sweden, India, Brazil, Italy and Indonesia in this ranking which has been issued few weeks ago and it is estimated that the country will become the largest car manufacturer of Asia continent within 10 years.

Memphis, August 28, 2008 — The Memphis Grizzlies signed free-agent center Hamed Haddadi pronounced (ha-MED ha-DAHD-dee), who led all 2008 Olympians in rebounding and blocks, Grizzlies General Manager and Vice President of Basketball Operations Chris Wallace announced today. Per team policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Ahvaz, Iran native recently participated in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, where he was the only player to average a double-double (16.6 points, 11.2 rebounds, 2.6 blocks) in Olympic competition while playing five games for the Iranian National Team.

The 7-2, 254-pound center had his best performance came against eventual bronze medal winner Argentina when he had a team-high 21 points and game-high 16 rebounds on Aug. 16.

“We are pleased to sign Hamed,” said Wallace. “He is a young center who was very productive as a rebounder, shotblocker and scorer at the Rocky Mountain Revue Summer League in Salt Lake City, Utah, the 2008 Olympics and the FIBA Diamond Ball Tournament in Nanjing, China prior to the Olympics. Our coaching staff is eager to begin working with Hamed.”

Haddadi, who is slated to become the first Iranian to play in the NBA, poured in 31 points and grabbed 10 rebounds against Lebanon in the 2007 FIBA Asian Championship in Japan, helping Iran clinch its first Olympic basketball berth since 1948.

The 23-year-old, who was not selected in the 2004 NBA Draft, recently averaged 14.0 points, 11.5 rebounds and 2.5 blocks in 25.5 minutes in two games for the Iranian team against NBA competition at the 2008 Rocky Mountain Revue.

Haddadi, who spent the 2007-08 season playing for Saba Battery BC in the Iranian Super League, will join former Grizzlies Jake Tsakalidis and Cezary Trybanski as the tallest players in franchise history. He is also the second Grizzlies player to appear in the 2008 Olympics, joining center Marc Gasol, who captured a silver medal with the Spanish National Team.

Adapted from: NBA

OhMyNews - Kourosh Ziabari: There are currently nine world heritage sites registered to UNESCO from Iran: Persepolis is the first of them all.

Persepolis is the main symbol of Persian culture and civilization for Iranians around the globe and is reckoned a source of honor for young people in modern day Iran.

The architectural traits of this ceremonial palace make it a unique site in the country — and the world — and an attraction for thousands of tourists who travel to the country just to visit Persepolis.

The palace is known to modern Iranians as “Takht-e-Jamshid” or the throne of Jamshid. Jamshid is a mythological king of Persian Empire who has been described in great detail by Ferdowsi in “Shahnameh,” the most esteemed epic poem in Persian literature.

Many historians attribute this ceremonial capital to the Achaemenidan dynasty, which goes back to about 2,500 years ago.

According to Andre Godard, the French archaeologist who excavated Persepolis during the early 1930s, this site was constructed under Darius the Great, but Cyrus the Great chose it as the capital of his kingdom.

The Persepolis complex consists of various parts and halls, the most predominant of which are the gate of all nations, Apadana palace and the throne hall.

The Persepolis was attacked by the army forces of Alexander the Macedonian in the year 330 BC which caused irrecoverable damage to the buildings and destroyed the major sections and halls of it.

A fire at Xerex palace after the Alexander troops left Iran was yet another disaster for that former glorious site, which led to the destruction of more than 40 percent of Persepolis.

In any case, the invasion of Persia by Alexander and his awesome military was an unforgettable nightmare for the Sasanid dynasty.

Describing Persepolis in words is difficult. The remaining ruins mainly consist of a number of colossal buildings on the terrace made of dark-grey marble; there are 20 standing pillars and 40 escalated minarets.

These painful ruins — which remind us of 2,500 years of turbulent periods, monarchies and kings — are transfiguring by a sense of splendor and grief, something which you cannot really feel except by experiencing the site in person.

Persepolis, which was named a heritage site by UNESCO in 1979 — right after the Islamic revolution of Iran — hosts more than 500,000 visitors annually, most of them from Western Europe and the US.

TEHRAN – The Italian WTD Company and Pars Petrochemical Company signed an MOU to establish a desalination system unit in Pars Special Economic Energy Zone of Persian Gulf borderlines.

The Italian company has made 220 million-euro worth of investments in Iran during the past decade, IRNA reported.

The managing director of the WTD Company announced that the company’s major contracts were in the forms of build-operate-transfer (BOT) and Build-Own-Operate (BOO).

In the signing ceremony of the joint venture, the Italian official said that WTD believes in Iran’s economic and political importance.

The MOU will be implemented starting next month and it is speculated to go on-stream within the next three years.

Adapted from: Tehran Times