WWW.TEHRANTIMES.COM I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y 16 Pages Price 10,000 Rials 38th year No.12901 Tuesday AUGUST 15, 2017 Mordad 24, 1396 Dhi Al Qaeda 22, 1438 Ukraine could facilitate Women’s parliament Zurkhaneh Seifollah Samadian to Iran’s petchem export makes debut in Iran eyes Olympic inclusion, make sequels to his film to Europe: NPC head 4 12 top official says 15 on Abbas Kiarostami 16 Rail freight transport in Iran up 55% Expediency Council ECONOMY TEHRAN — Transit ed via railway in the country during deskof goods via railway the past year, and the figure is planned network rose 55 percent in Iran since the to reach 43 billion ton-kilometers this beginning of the current Iranian calen- year. dar year (March 21) until August 8, com- “We have signed four memoran- pared to the same period last year. dums of understandings with the gets new chairman Some 1.2 million tons of cargo Commonwealth of Independent States was transited via the national railway (CIS) for the promotion of railway network in the past [Iranian calendar] transportation since the beginning of See page 2 year, while the figure is anticipated to current Iranian calendar year,” the of- reach 1.8 million tons this year, Tasnim ficial noted. quoted Ebrahim Mohammadi, the RAI director Saeid Mohammadza- deputy head of the Islamic Republic of deh said in January that railway should Iran Railways (known as RAI), as saying account for 30 percent of freight trans- on Monday. portation in Iran by the end of the He also said that some 27.5 billion Sixth Five-Year National Development ton-kilometers of cargo was transport- Plan (2021). Kimball lauds Iran’s role in adopting treaty to ban nuclear arms By Javad Heirannia Weapons was adopted so late? TEHRAN — Daryl Kimball, executive A: Unfortunately progress toward the director of the Arms Control Associ- deligitimization, prohibition, and elim- ation in Washington, praises Iran for ination of the world’s most dangerous playing a major role in approving the weapons is a decades-long process, but Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nu- Weapons in the United Nations. clear Weapons is an important step in “The Islamic Republic of Iran was the right direction. Until now, the inter- an active participant in the negotia- national community has only concluded tions and was among the 122 states international treaties that seek to pre- that voted to adopt the agreement on vent the spread of nuclear weapons and July 7,” Kimball tells the Tehran Times in require nuclear-armed states to pursue an exclusive interview. negotiations to end the arms race and Following is the full text of the interview: achieve disarmament” (the 1968 Nucle- Mohammad Kazempour There is a strong emphasis on ar Nonproliferation Treaty) and that pro- nuclear disarmament, but why the hibit nuclear test explosions (the 1996 Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi (L) and the late Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty). 3 PERSPECTIVE New drug death penalty bill to save 5,300 inmates on death row ARTICLE By M.A.Saki POLITICS TEHRAN — The Iranian ternational, the number of executions in Iran to up to 30 years in jail and a cash fine. By Hossein Askari Deputy editor-in-chief deskparliament has passed a bill dropped 42 percent in 2016. Hassan Norouzi, the spokesman of par- George Washington University to its drug trafficking law that could commute In a recent statement, the watchdog liament’s judicial and legal committee, de- professor the sentences of up to 5,300 inmates current- urged Iranian lawmakers not to miss a histor- fended the bill in a parliamentary debate last ly on death row for drug trafficking. ic opportunity to reject the use of the death week, saying the costs for Iran’s war on drugs Erratic Trump Passed on Sunday, the amendment will penalty for drug-related offences. have almost doubled since 2010. America’s foreign apply retroactively and will restrict the death The new law raises the amounts that can Norouzi said there are 7 million people in- may push Korean penalty to criminals who lead drug-trafficking trigger the death penalty from 30 grams to volved in drugs in the country, including 5.2 policy moral deficit gangs, exploit minors in doing so, carry or two kilos for the production and distribution million drug addicts and 1.8 million drug users. peninsula toward draw firearms while committing drug-related of chemical substances such as heroin, co- Iran’s neighbor Afghanistan produces and losing the crimes, or have a related previous convic- caine and amphetamines. some 90 percent of the world’s opium, most nuclear holocaust tion of the death penalty or a jail sentence of For natural substances such as opium and marijua- of which pour into Iran. The total annual opi- Middle East more than 15 years or life in prison. na, the levels have been raised from five to 50 kilos. um intercepts by Iranian security forces are t had been imagined that the The long-awaited bill gained parliamentary ap- Under the new amendment, the punish- larger than in any other country. oliticians the world over claim world has taken a departure from proval after months of debate. However, it must be ment for those already sentenced to death or Opium production has soared in Afghan- to support human rights in the Ithe barbarity of the First and Sec- approved by the Guardian Council to become law. life imprisonment, except for those meeting the istan since the U.S. invaded the country to Pconduct of foreign policy. They ond World Wars and that people as- According to rights group Amnesty In- new execution requirements, will be commuted overthrow the Taliban in 2001. do so to project “humanitarianism and sume senior posts who are pretty wise rightfulness,” but in practice they pay and think about the consequences of little or no attention to anything but their words and actions; however the FAO advocates on role of soils for offsetting aviation emissions narrow national and personal inter- ascendance of Donald Trump to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the Unit- of 523 megatonnes CO2 emissions remains to mosphere (840 000 megatonnes of carbon) ests. While this may be the accepted White House proved that we were ed Nations (FAO) recently released a publica- meet their set emission reduction targets. and vegetation (450 000-650 000 mega- modus operandi, it is an approach that wrong and still vulnerable to man- tion that highlights the importance of soil car- The informative note by FAO presents soil tonnes of carbon). invariably has dire consequences that made tragedies. bon sequestration as an option for offsetting carbon sequestration as an option for offset- In the first three meters of the soil, an even may carry over for generations. The Donald Trump’s rhetoric to un- international aviation CO2 emissions. ting this emissions through a market-based larger carbon mass of up to 2,344,000 meg- human mind cannot foresee the wide- leash “fire and fury” against North According to a press release published by mechanism within the Carbon Offsetting and atonnes of carbon are estimated. spread fallout of an initiative, even if Korea that “the world has never seen” the FAO Representation in the Islamic Repub- Reduction Scheme for International Aviation. Soils interact strongly with atmospher- that initiative appears to be limited at may push the Korean peninsula to- lic of Iran, the Organization estimates that The yearly amount of carbon released ic composition, climate, and land cover the time, but initiatives that are sup- ward another disaster: this time a nu- domestic and international aviation together to the atmosphere from aviation represents change. Human capacity to predict and portive of basic human rights always clear holocaust. are responsible for approximately 2 per cent 0.03% of the total carbon stored in soils. ameliorate the consequences of global propagate less resentment and lead Fueling the tension by making re- of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Soils represent the largest pool of carbon change depends in part on a better under- to less vengeance and future conflict. peated incendiary remarks invokes the Even considering the technological and on land, with an estimated stock of 1,417,000 standing of the distributions and controls If for this reason alone, human rights idea that the world may degenerate operational improvements planned by the In- megatonnes in the first meter – more than of soil organic carbon. and morality should be inseparable into another disaster that has not been ternational Civil Aviation Organization, a gap the sum of the carbon contained in the at- (See full text at tehrantimes.com) from foreign policy formulation and seen since the Second World War. practice. A good case in point is the In case of a war on the Korean U.S. support for Saddam Hussein in peninsula great powers like China Protests, vigils the 1980s—a support laced with hu- may intrinsically feel threatened and man rights violations and disastrous see the action as provocative and in around U.S. repercussions that are likely to con- that case the situation may get out tinue for many more generations. of control. decry white Unfortunately, not only has the U.S. Political leaders like Barack Oba- learned little from this episode but is ma and analysts were of the opinion supremacist rally today making a similar mistake in sup- that Trump would soften his approach port of the Al-Sauds of Saudi Arabia when he faces the realities as presi- Protesters decrying hatred and rac- that could have even more dire con- dent, but Trump is proving more dan- ism converged around the United sequences.