Leader: Establishment of Iran mineral exports hit Islamic society needs struggle 2 $3b in three months 4 Number 5717 ● Tuesday August 29, 2017 ● Shahrivar 7, 1396 ● Zihijjah 7, 1438 ● Price 5,000 Rials ● 12 Pages ● www.irandailyonline.ir Exports from South Pars up 12% xports from Iran’s South Pars, the world’s largest gas field, rose 12 percent in the past year, said the head of its Customs EDepartment. Ahmad Pourheidar further said the field exported condensates val- Israel plans to change 3 ued at about $6.9 billion indicating a 28-percent increase against the Beit-ul-Moqaddas figure for the year earlier, reported IRNA. demographic make-up Barcelona completes 11 £135.5m deal for Dembele Other products exported from South Pars were methanol, pro- pane and polyethylene, he added. The bulk of its products went to Exclusive China, Japan, South Korea, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. France’s Total signed a deal with Iran last month to develop Phase 11 of South Pars, marking the first major Western energy investment in the Islamic Republic since the lifting of sanctions. AFP Continued on Page 4 Texas flood disaster: Former FM Yazdi Tabriz, Yazd clinch spotlight 12 in national crafts expo Harvey has unloaded dies at 85 9 trillion gallons of water Rouhani, Zarif send condolences Pope to visit Myanmar, Words cannot describe the catastrophic of people. It’s hard, if not impossible, to each other — occupying every square Political Desk situation unfolding in Houston and compare this to any other storm. It may inch of the contiguous United States. Bangladesh as Rohingya Southeast Texas. As daylight dawned stand alone when all is said and done in Imagine one downpour large enough to Ebrahim Yazdi, Iran’s first foreign minister after the 1979 Islamic Rev- this morning, the scope of the devasta- terms of rainfall.” cover the entire country! olution and a close ally of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, passed away crisis intensifies tion began to come into clearer focus, Putting this much rainfall into per- This amount of water could fill 2.3 following a long illness. He was 85. and it will probably take months, if not spective is challenging; after all, percent of the volume of the mountain He died late Sunday in the western Turkish city of Izmir due to com- Pope Francis will visit Myanmar and Bangladesh years, to fully recover from damage of the sheer volume of water is incred- range containing Mount Everest in Ne- plications from cancer. He underwent surgery there after being denied later this year, the Vatican announced Monday, this magnitude. ibly tough to visualize. Fortunately, we pal and is enough to occupy 33,906 Em- a US medical visa. hours after the Catholic leader decried the plight of The total rainfall from the storm is crunched the numbers — here’s how pire State Buildings, from basement to His body will be brought back to Iran for burial in his home city of Rohingya Muslims as they flee fresh violence. likely to tally up to a widespread 15 to they stack up. penthouse. Qazvin. The landmark visit in late November and ear- 30 inches, with a few localized spots So far, just the rain that has already But here’s the kicker: Just how un- ly December takes in Myanmar – a largely Bud- picking up 50 inches or more. Many fallen across the greater Houston area precedented is this? Well, remember the dhist country and Muslim-majority Bangladesh textbooks have the 60-inch mark as a and Southeast Texas tallies to 9 trillion flooding that New Orleans experienced which hosts hundreds of thousands of refugees once-in-a-million-year recurrence inter- gallons. That’s only what has already with Hurricane Katrina? Most places from an bloody crackdown by the military, AFP val, meaning that if any spots had that come down, and keep in mind that 5 saw about 10 to 20 feet of water thanks reported. amount of rainfall, they would essen- trillion to 10 trillion additional gallons to levee failure, inundating about 80 Francis has frequently lamented the treatment tially be dealing with a once-in-a-mil- could fall before things wrap up mid- percent of the city. Now, if we took the of the Rohingya, a largely Muslim minority who lion-year event, The Washington Post week. amount of rainfall that Texas has seen have long lived under apartheid-like restrictions in reported. The 9 trillion gallons of water dis- and spread it over the city limits of New the western Myanmar state of Rakhine. Regardless of whether we reach that pensed so far is enough to fill the entire Orleans, it would tower to 128 feet in Tens of thousands have fled to Bangladesh in 60-inch benchmark, “it’s fair to say it Great Salt Lake in Salt Lake City — height — roughly reaching as high as a recent months to escape Myanmar’s army crack- will produce more rain than we have twice! It would take nine days straight 12-story office building. down. Announced simultaneously on Monday in ever seen before in the U.S. from a tropi- for the Mississippi River to drain into Sometimes, there simply aren’t Rome, Yangon and Dhaka, the visit will see Pope cal system and over the fourth-largest Houston and equal the amount of wa- words. This is entirely uncharted terri- Francis travel first to Myanmar on November 27 city in the country,” said Eric Fisher, ter already there. If we averaged this tory. For years, many had watched mov- In separate statements, President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Min- to 30, taking in Yangon and the capital Naypyidaw. chief meteorologist at WBZ-TV in Bos- amount of water spread equally over ies like “The Day After Tomorrow” and ister Mohammad Javad Zarif, expressed grief over the death of Yazdi. On November 30 he will travel to the Bangladeshi ton. “Looking at those two factors, it the lower 48 states, that’s the equivalent thought, “Someday …” Rouhani hailed him as a “frontrunner in the fight” against “foreign capital Dhaka, leaving on December 2. will likely be an unprecedented flood- of about 0.17 inches of rain — roughly Unfortunately, that day is today. Wel- colonizers” and the “despotism” of the regime of Shah Mohammad It is the first time a pope has travelled to My- ing disaster affecting a massive number the height of three pennies stacked atop come to the future of weather. Stay safe. Reza Pahlavi. anmar and only the second time a papal visit has Yazdi spent several years in exile in the United States, where he been made to Bangladesh after Pope John Paul II’s fought against the shah. trip there in 1986. Yazdi was an old companion of Imam Khomeini, the late founder Myanmar and the Vatican only established full Iran beats Russia to claim of the Islamic Republic, and became foreign minister in 1979, in the diplomatic relations in May, shortly after de facto provisional government of former prime minister Mehdi Bazargan. He leader Aung San Suu Kyi met Pope Francis during also served as a Parliament member until 1983. a European tour. That visit was overshadowed by world U19 volleyball title Bazargan, Yazdi, and the entire cabinet resigned in November 1979, her country’s treatment of the Rohingya. after a group of students took over the US Embassy in Tehran in protest Only weeks before Francis had described the to Washington’s interference in Iran’s internal affairs. Muslim minority as “brothers and sisters” who The crisis led to the severing of diplomatic ties between Tehran and were being tortured and killed for their faith. Washington. He added they were “good and peaceful people Yazdi was a founding member and eventual leader of the Freedom who have suffered for years,” and urged Catholics Movement of Iran, which was banned by the government. to pray for them. He was arrested several times after the reelection of former president On Sunday, as fresh violence raged in Rakhine Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009. state, he hit out once more at the “sad news about In 2011, he was sentenced to eight years in prison after he was tried the persecution of the religious minority of our Ro- on security charges, including acting against the national security and hingya brothers”. spreading lies. He was later released on bail for health reasons. “I would like to express my closeness to them Yazdi and his party were close to the reformists, and he supported and all of us ask the Lord to save them and to President Rouhani’s bid for the presidency in 2013 and 2017. prompt men and women of good faith to help them and ensure their full rights,” he added. Impoverished Rakhine, which neighbors Bang- ladesh, has become a crucible of religious hatred focused on Rohingya, who are reviled and per- ceived as illegal immigrants in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. Despite years of persecution and government fivb.com restrictions, the Rohingya largely eschewed vio- Iran kept its unbeaten run to claim the top Pourya Yali was on fire to help Iran re- who scored 19 to guarantee the gold medal lence. spot in the 2017 FIVB Volleyball Boys’ cord a 3-1 (25-20, 25-23, 21-25, 25-20) win win for Iran. Maksim Sapozhkov, who came Buddhist nationalist hardliners in Myanmar U19 World Championship following the over Russians in the final showdown, fivb. off the bench in the second set, top scored for have previously vowed to protest any papal visit four-set win over Russia at the Isa City com reported.