Minister of Health, Treatment and Medical Education said educational and cultural campaigns provide the best means to avert a large number of road mishaps.
Masoud Pezeshkian noted that 300 people for every 10,000 vehicles are hospitalized as a result of road accidents annually. "About 10 percent of them become physically impaired," he added, IRNA quoted.
Pezeshkian expressed satisfaction with the improvement in the quality of medical services rendered by the emergency, ICU and CCU wards of medical sciences universities over the past three years, but noted the number of beds in these hospitals are still insufficient.
The minister noted that 60 percent of people seeking medical help at the hospitals have been injured in accidents. "An increase in the number of vehicles is associated with a rise in the number of driving mishaps," he mentioned.
Pezeshkian put the number of annual road fatalities at 27,000.
"The media, Education Ministry, and traffic police should join hands to educate the public on how to avoid such incidents," he proposed.
The minister also referred to inappropriate roads and technically-impaired automobiles and said, "Given the poor quality of roads and the technical flaws of locally assembled cars, we need to put into effect a disciplinary system."
The minister said increasing the number of ambulances is not a guarantee for public safety and health. "Prevention is better than cure and this belief must be inculcated among the public," he emphasized.

Head of the National Youth Organization Rahim Ebadi in a speech at one of Tehran schools on the occasion of the new academic year cited estimates in the fourth development plan (2005-2010) based on which illiteracy will be uprooted among the young population, ISNA reported.
Pointing to Iran's second rank worldwide in terms of its young population configuration, he said, "Surveys indicate that close to 97 percent of Iranian youth are educated and 95 percent have a tendency to continue their studies."
The presidential advisor said only 18 percent of the students find their way into higher education centers and added, "Presently, 10 percent of the youth (more than 2.2 million) are studying at the tertiary education level, while 37 percent (about eight million) are high schoolers. Given the high demand for education, these figures are way distant from an ideal situation."
The official voiced his hope that with the expansion of virtual education opportunities, some 30 percent of young people would be able to study at university level.
He said the university entrance examination has turned into a serious concern for young people, girls in particular, and analyzed, "An increase in marriage age has fueled demand for higher education among girls. Proper plans must be adopted to address such needs."
According to Ebadi, global developments are today knowledge-based. "Education is one of the most challenged sectors. Our society is subject to constant changes. This means we should make the utmost use of our potentials to adapt to the changes."
He believes that "unless we manage to boost capacities for education, we will have to play against a surge in unemployment, social distress, depression and brain drain."

A survey conducted jointly by the Iranian Health Ministry and the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention in 2001 said that 3.7 million people in the country are addicted to narcotics, a report by the Fars News Agency said.
Head of the ministry's Bureau for Prevention and Treatment of Drug Abuse, Mohsen Vazirian, made the remark and added, "So far, the official number of drug addicts was put at 1.2 million, with 800,000 others believed to abuse drugs for pleasure. However, the research indicated that 5 percent of the whole society are regular abusers, which is higher than the average global figure of 3 percent."
He continued that of this number about 137,000 are intravenous drug users, who are subjected to threats such as contamination with HIV and hepatitis C viruses more than others. "Sharing contaminated needles is the most common way of acquiring AIDS and hepatitis in Iran, accounting for 58 percent of the cases," he said.
Vazirian believes that addiction to drugs is a disease which gradually disrupts all the individual, family and social activities and interactions of the person, drives him/her out of productivity and creates the conditions for crime and felony.
"The leading rapid treatment for addiction used in most countries is methadone which has a success rate of up to 70 percent," he said.
"Another option is to provide junkies with free needles--a scheme that has been in Iran in effect since four years ago."
The official gave news of setting up hangouts for drug addicts in large cities under the auspices of the Health Ministry, State Welfare Organization and the Anti-Drug Headquarters.
"The first such hangout has been established in Tehran's Darvazeh Ghar district. Of an estimated 2,000 street junkies in the area, 1,200 have been covered by the scheme. Also 10 percent of the 10,000 street addicts in Kermanshah have been provided with the service," he explained. "The program is to be carried out in five other cities namely Mashhad, Shiraz, Isfahan, Kerman and Ahvaz this year."
Close to 5.85 billion rials has been earmarked for the scheme during March 2004-March 2005.

Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) Program for the Disabled Persons has so far been implemented in the villages of 95 cities bringing close to 60,000 disabled individuals under its umbrella, deputy head of the State Welfare Organization for rehabilitation affairs said.
Ali Asghar Makarem told Fars News Agency that the program is initially designed in three phases. "This plan is aimed at enabling the disabled people to stand on their own and do their personal works individually," he added.
Makarem pointed out that the CBR program would meet close to 70 percent of the requirements of the disabled, including their educational and rehabilitative needs. "The remaining 30 percent of their requirements including jobs and housing depend upon cooperation by several other organizations and cannot be met within the framework of the CBR plan," he said.
The program has been launched in rural areas since a year ago, covering a 1.6-million rural population. "This year, the CBR program will for the first time be carried out in the three cities of Bam, Yazd and Ardebil," he stated.
"An initial 4.6 billion rials in credits has been assigned for the project in the current year (started March 20). The budget will have to be tripled as a minimum for the next year."
Presently, one social worker is active per 2,000 disabled individuals under the program. "We hope that at least 500,000 physically impaired people would be brought under the scheme," he mentioned.

Prime squares and intersections in Tehran will for the first time be equipped with pedestrian overpasses with escalators by the yearend (March 2005).
Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad told reporters that several contracts have been signed with private companies to furnish the capital city with escalator overpasses.
The mayor noted that various domestic industrial groups are constructing these flyovers, "but some of the equipment need to be imported."
He announced that Tehran Municipality Beautification Organization has already floated a tender for installing these bridges in different districts.

Bus Company has problems providing services to the public due to heavy traffic snarl-ups.

Director of Bus Company for Tehran and Suburbs said the metropolis is in need of 330 km of special bus lanes, according to IRNA.
Mostafa Nourian told reporters that the Bus Company has problems providing services to the public due to heavy traffic snarl-ups.
"The capital has 2,400 km of bus routes, 60 km of which are bus-only lanes. These are a special form of lane restricted to buses," he noted.
The official said the large number of automobiles on the streets has slowed down the bus service. "Concurrent with the start of the new school year, we have prepared 700 buses for service. Elementary students and their parents as well as university students can board the buses free of charge by March 20 and October 6 respectively," he explained. "All buses in Tehran will transfer the passengers complimentary on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Imam Mahdi (AS)."
"Presently, 70 buses provide nightly services on 10 routes, which will be increased to 100 buses in the future," Nourian said, adding a special taskforce has been assigned to monitor the performance of buses and drivers.
Pointing to new regulations obliging bus-drivers to wear uniforms, he noted that those drivers who refrain from wearing their special garments, will initially be warned verbally. "In case of persistence, these will be followed by written warnings and transfer to other zones," he mentioned.
He pointed to presenting gifts with traffic messages to elementary students as another program of the Bus Company.

South Africa announced a three-month firearms amnesty last week in a bid to rid the country of illegal guns, but said it was winning the war against crime levels that have tarnished its image abroad, Reuters reported.
Residents have between Oct. 1 and Dec. 29 to surrender unlicensed firearms to police stations, or risk being caught under a new crackdown on illegal guns after that deadline expires, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula said.
Surrendered guns would be examined and anyone handing in a firearm that had been used in a crime would be prosecuted for the crime, if appropriate, he added.
Speaking at the launch of the South African Police Service's annual report for 2003/04, Nqakula said the force was succeeding in reducing crime and played down unfavorable comparisons with other countries.
South Africa's high rates of violent crime have been cited as one of the major obstacles to growth in a thriving tourist industry, as well as a deterrent to foreign investment.
"Crime is going down, nobody can gainsay that," Nqakula said.
Data showed 19,824 murders were reported in South Africa in the year to March 2004--down from 21,553 the previous year, and the lowest figure since the end of apartheid in 1994.
The murder rate dropped 9.9 percent to 42.7 per 100,000 people, the measure used internationally to compare crime rates.
Figures for robbery with aggravating circumstances rose for a seventh straight year, up 3.2 percent at 288.1 per 100,000 people.
Although the number of recorded rapes rose slightly to 52,733 over the year, once population growth was taken into account, the rate was 1.4 percent lower.
"The decreases in rape and assault are considered to be too marginal. We need to do more in relation to those crime categories," National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi said.
Selebi was concerned about the high proportion of rape cases that were withdrawn a few days after being reported, saying victims sometimes withdrew cases as a result of intimidation, family intervention or financial inducement. But Selebi took heart from an increase in drug-related cases, up 14.2 percent, and driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, up 10.1 percent, saying these reflected more effective policing.
He said the incidence of attacks and murders in farming communities--a serious political issue, especially among white farmers who have complained of inadequate protection against a wave of criminal attacks in recent years--fell to their lowest rates since 1997/98.

Government of Spain government proposed a large-scale modernization of the country's divorce laws, aiming to speed up the process and for the first time allow shared custody of children, AFP reported.
The aim of the reform is to bring the divorce process up to date with "the evolution of social values" over the past 23 years since the dissolution of marriage became legal in Spain, Justice Minister Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar said.
The proposals, adopted by the council of ministers and due to go before the parliament, were immediately criticized by the Church and by feminists.
The draft law calls for divorce proceedings where both parties are in agreement to be cut down to a maximum of two months, while contested cases, which can currently take up to two years, would be limited to a maximum of six months.
To shorten the process, the socialist government suggested scrapping the current requirement that the person requesting a divorce first present his or her grievances to a judge as grounds for a preliminary matrimonial separation.
The notion of fault in divorce--infidelity, abuse, abandonment, alcoholism--would also disappear under the reforms.
The annual number of separation and divorce cases in Spain has soared from 16,334 in 1981, when the process was legalized in the heavily Catholic country, to 126,742 today.
"By simplifying direct access to divorce, we'll simplify people's lives, without unnecessary strictness, which is disturbing and painful at a human level," Lopez Aguilar said.
The Spanish Family Forum, which encompasses 5,000 separate organizations, criticized what it called the "total contempt towards the family" shown in the proposals.
The Spanish Episcopalian Congress meanwhile accused the government of trying to reduce "marriage to a mere contract between individuals".
The fact that the suggested law would also allow for shared custody of the divorced couple's children, has also drawn criticism from some women's organizations, who claim that it would damage children's sense of security.

Firefighting is one of the most physically demanding jobs. Dangers inherent in the profession call for sharp skills to maintain safety. Firefighters rival flames in a struggle to save lives and property. September 28 marks the National Firefighting and Safety Day. It's a day to remember these daring individuals and commend them for all they do to keep us out of harm's way.