The only way to control speed and ensure safety on roads is to make use of modern traffic monitoring equipment.

Commander of Highway Police, Brigadier Mohammad Royanian, said 1,700 new recruits were taken for ensuring traffic safety in accident-prone spots during New Year holidays (March 21-April 2).
Royanian added 53 empty containers and 14 vehicles along with other necessary equipment had already been provided to Highway Police throughout the country.
He stressed the need for improving road management to reduce the death toll, describing human error as the most important factor in causing driving mishaps.
Referring to the 14-percent reduction in road accidents this year (ending March 20) compared with last yearÕs figures, Royanian mentioned improved Òcooperation and managementÓ in critical spots as the main cause.
He further pointed to Highway PoliceÕs initiative to bring down road accidents in the following months, insisting they should be supported by all responsible organizations.
ÒWe can exert appropriate control on accident-prone areas by installing road signs and warning. The roads will be segmented and monitoring each segment will be assigned to a responsible officer,Ó he explained.
According to ISNA, the brigadier added that 20 transportation companies had so far been shut down due to disobeying traffic rules.
He stressed the necessity of having access to new technologies and equipment and said the only way to control speed and ensure safety on roads was to make use of modern traffic monitoring equipment.
Meanwhile, secretary of the High Traffic Council, Raoofi, said, ÒThanks to tighter traffic control measures in place, the growth in the number of driving mishaps recorded in the first eight months of the current year declined to 11.5 percent from 26.8 percent during the corresponding period of last year--down by 15 percent.Ó
Figures released by the State Forensic Organization indicate a 12-percent decrease in the accident toll. ÒThis means, 2000 deaths have been averted,Ó he stated.

There are 24 units of blood per 1,000 of population.

Director general of Blood Transfusion Organization (BTO), Ali-Akbar Pourfathollah, said Iranians donated 1.45 million units of blood in 97 centers around the country in the current year (ending March 20).
According to IRNA, he added, ÒThere are 24 units of blood per 1,000 of population, eliminating the problem of blood shortage.Ó
Some 10,000 units of blood are presently in reserve which could be promptly transferred to any part of the country should a crisis hit, he said, adding based on the BTOÕs crisis management program, thrice the amount of daily blood consumption is being reserved for critical situations.
Referring to BTO efforts to ensure safety of donated blood, he pointed that 15 percent of donors were rejected due to risks to both donors and recipients this year.
ÒTwo routine tests are conducted on donated blood for HIV, hepatitis types B and C,Ó he said.
Pourfathollah reminded that no blood units or its products were imported into the country, adding only plasma-derived medications were bought from other countries.
ÒAbout 23,000 liters of surplus plasma were given to a creditable European company for making medications,Ó he continued.
Elsewhere in his remarks, director general of Blood Transfusion Organization said all provinces will put the documentation plan into operation as of next year and obtain ISO certificate.
He stated that 43 percent of donors donate blood at least twice a year, which is the BTO index for regular donors.
ÒLess than 23 percent are first time donors,Ó he added.

There are a total 1,100 ambulances nationwide, more than half of which are out of shape.

Head of Iran Medical Emergency Center warned that more than 50 percent of ambulances currently in use are totally dilapidated.
Shahram Alamdari told ISNA that shortage of ambulances is a serious hindrance to the medical emergency sector.
ÒThere are a total 1,100 ambulances nationwide, more than half of which are out of shape. The majority do not meet emergency standards and have to be used only for transfer of non-emergency patients,Ó he added.
Alamdari warned that the medical emergency sector will face shortage of skilled manpower due to retirement of personnel as of next year.
ÒWe have plans to employ the retired personnel to train the fresh recruits,Ó he asserted.
Commenting on the motorcycle emergency service, Alamdari noted that the service is being provided in large cities.
ÒTehran is using 43 motorbikes for emergency services. We are going to increase their number to 200. In Mashhad, Isfahan and Shiraz, the service has just been launched,Ó he added.

Managing director of Tehran Fire Department said the firefighters were all set to ensure the safety of citizens at 50 spots designated for celebrating the last Wednesday of the year, Chaharshanbeh Souri, across the capital, IRNA reported.
Mehdi Ziaei noted as per the plan recommended by Tehran Municipality to the City Council, about 50 locations including the main squares and large parks have been determined for holding the ceremony, adding firefighters would be on call to act promptly in case of any incidents.
He called on the citizens to get together only in the mentioned locations for celebrating the event.
Ziaei gave assurances that the department had access to a sufficient number of cars, motorcycles, personnel and equipment to carry out the probable missions.
He recalled the tragic fire incident in Tehran Arg Mosque last month and said, ÒA number of people injured during the incident are still hospitalized in Shahid Mottahari Hospital. Most of the beds in the hospital, which is TehranÕs sole specialist medical center for treating burns, are occupied. Hence, the citizens are urgently required to mind the safety guidelines issued by officials to avert any further injuries.Ó
Iranians have celebrated the last Wednesday of the Iranian year for centuries. They gather for the ceremony at a relative's home to mark what is known in Persian culture as Chaharshanbeh Souri (The Feast of the Wednesday). On this night, they make bonfires and jump over it.
These traditional ceremonies mark the departure of winter and the approach of spring. Ancient Iranians believed that good spirits observe from heaven what is happening on the earth on that particular day.

Phone consultation service provided by the State Welfare Organization has covered 67 percent of the population, director general of SWOÕs Consultancy Office, Mohammad Amin Jalilvand, said, ISNA reported.
Addressing a group of SWO consultants in Orumiyeh, he added the center had provided 250,000 counseling services to applicants via telephone during the first half of the current year (to end March 20).
He cited the results of assessments based on which only one-third of the incoming calls were responded to and the rest remained unanswered due to shortage of funds.
Jalilvand said housewives comprised two-thirds of clients seeking expert advice, and that family problems ranked first among all factors prompting the calls, followed by personal and interpersonal concerns, child raising and job consultation.
Stating that most clients preferred telephone counseling to one which required personal visit, he expressed the necessity of expanding the services. "At present, we can only meet 25 percent of the total demand", he added.
Jalilvand stated that a plan to provide the phone consultancy services round the clock was under study and was being implemented on a trial basis in several provinces.
There are 114 state consultancy centers and 180 private ones across the country, which benefit from the services of 1,000 consultants and psychologists.
Elsewhere in his remarks, he said the SWO was conducting negotiations with responsible organizations for bringing consultancy services under the coverage of insurance companies as well as paying subsidies to private centers to make health and mental services more widespread.

Vietnam will crack down on illegal agents brokering Vietnamese brides to foreigners amid an increase in these types of arranged marriages in recent years, state media said.
Prime Minister Phan Van Khai signed a circular ordering several ministries and state bodies to severely punish brokers organizing contacts between Vietnamese women and foreigners seeking brides in the country, the Sai Gon Giai Phong daily said.
Although trafficking is often linked with women sold into prostitution, officials now admit that this is only part of a much larger problem that includes trafficking for forced marriage.
Agencies matching foreign nationals with Vietnamese partners are banned in Vietnam, but are common in the country, especially in the south.
State media regularly report cases in Ho Chi Minh City of poor women from the Mekong delta being presented to foreigners, especially Taiwanese, seeking "cheap" brides to bring back to their own countries.
Tens of thousands Vietnamese women have married Taiwanese during the last 15 years, according to state media.
By the second quarter of 2005, a campaign to "dismantle all places where Vietnamese women are introduced to foreigners will be launched," the paper said.
Officials contacted by AFP refused to comment on the issue.
Last October, a Taiwanese court sentenced a man to four-and-a-half years in prison for enslaving and torturing his Vietnamese ex-wife for nearly seven months.

A man selling baked beet in Tajrish, Tehran. (Photo by Oshin D. Zakarian)

Polygamy in France is officially banned, but the authorities tolerate the existence of an estimated 30,000 families in which there is more than one wife, AFP reported.
Although bigamy carries a prison sentence, French law tolerates it among foreigners, mainly members of France's sizeable African community.
In 1980, laws were relaxed to allow thousands of women from Mali, Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia to move into the residences in France of the man and his first wife.
This influx was stemmed in the early 1990s under new legislation introduced by the then hardline interior minister Charles Pasqua, but following a series of protests the government relaxed its legislation.
Now, 'second wives' who have French-born children or who have lived in France for more than 15 years, cannot be expelled from the country and are granted residency.
However, for polygamous families who came to France before 1993, residency is only granted if the two wives do not live at the same address.
This often proves impractical, says Adole Ankhra, the president of a group set up to help women from polygamous marriages, who is also the deputy mayor of Ris-Orangis on the outskirts of Paris.
"This issue of the two wives living apart is inextricable," she said. "They want to split up families, but where are the conditions to do so? Where is the accommodation and the jobs so that women can be autonomous? For too long now, we have just turned a blind eye and said 'it's their culture', but what culture are we talking about when the context they are in is different."
Taking figures from several groups designed to help women immigrants in France, there are around 30,000 polygamous families in the country. Sociologist Isabelle Gillette-Faye reckons the average size of these families is 15 people, meaning that around half a million people are living in polygamous families in FranceÑfar more than in any other western European country.
She agrees that the legal requirement to split up the two wives "causes terrible problems".
According to figures quoted last year in the French parliament by right-wing MP Jacques Kossowski of President Jacques Chirac's ruling UMP party, polygamy costs France between 150 million and 300 million euros a year, mostly in the form of welfare payments.
Gillette-Faye says she only wishes the money was going to those that need it most. "We must ensure that these welfare payments, which can easily total more than 2,000 euros a month for a family of ten children and three adults, go towards the wellbeing of the wives and children and not towards building a house back home in their country of origin," she said.

Smoking in the last 50 years has killed 6.3 million people in England and Wales --equal to nearly the entire current population of London--a leading cancer charity said, Reuters reported.
Forty-two percent of the deaths of men aged 35-69 and 16 percent of women were caused by smoking between 1950 and 2000, according to figures released by the charity Cancer Research UK.
But Professor Richard Peto, an epidemiologist at the University of Oxford who compiled the figures, said more recently many people have stopped smoking, which had led to a drop in rates of tobacco deaths.
"On average, those who continue to smoke lose 10 years of life, but stopping smoking at ages 60, 50, 40 or 30 gains three, six, nine or the full 10 years of life expectancy. Of those who continue to smoke, half will be killed by their habit," he said in a statement.
The figures show male deaths caused by smoking peaked in the 1960s while deaths in women, who took up the habit later than men, hit a high in the 1980s.
"These shocking statistics illustrate the devastating impact of smoking on the lives of people across the country," said Maura Gillespie, of the British Heart Foundation.

The population of Russia declined by 9.5 million people in the past decade despite a recent rise in birthrates, an official said, according to RIA Novosti news agency.
Vladimir Kulakov, a member of a presidential advisory panel on women, family and demographic issues, told a news conference that birthrates had risen in the past five years to an average of 1.5 million births annually in Russia.
That was still up to 800,000 births short of the average rate the country needed to maintain its current population, he said.
The United Nations estimated this year that Russia's overall population was around 143.2 million people.
Kulakov attributed the fall in birthrates to a variety of factors including changing social values that encourage women to wait longer before having children to insufficient government incentives for families and health problems affecting women's reproductive health.
Between 43,000 and 50,000 babies were born each year with health defects and of those around 15,000 were born with Down's syndrome, the agency quoted Kulakov as saying.
Health problems were also blamed for between 170,000 and 200,000 miscarriages annually, he said.