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Carpet Weavers Will
Present ’Global Peace’ to UN
Director of Saadabad Cultural-Historical Center said that artists at the center will weave a carpet for the United Nations with a theme of ’Global Peace’.
Eshrat Shayeq told Fars News Agency that prominent weavers from the well-known Shafaqi Carpet Company in Tabriz will contribute to the project to be launched this month in Negarestan Museum-Palace.
The unique carpet will be woven within next six months.
“Persian rugs have a prestigious status in Iran’s culture and civilization. It also is well-known as a valuable handicraft in the world,“ Shayeq added.
She said weaving ’Global Peace’ and presenting it to the world body
will help blunt the hostile propaganda against Iran by arrogant powers.
Details of the carpet will be disclosed in its unveiling ceremony and in the presence of the head of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, Esfandiyar Rahim Mashaei.
Persian carpets and rugs have always been and still are an intrinsic part of Iranian culture and its people’s daily lives. Indeed, carpets and rugs are in many cases the most valued possessions, and they are an integral part of an Iranian home.
To look at a Persian carpet is to gaze into a world of artistic magnificence nurtured for more then 2,500 years. Iranians were among the first carpet weavers of ancient civilizations and, through centuries of creativity and ingenuity building upon talents of the past, achieved a unique degree of excellence.
The art of carpet weaving existed in Iran in ancient times, according to evidence and in the opinion of social scientists. An example of such evidences is the 2500-year-old Pazyryk carpet dating back to 500 B.C., during the Achaemenid period.
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Tehran, Caracas to Bolster Cultural Ties
Venezuelan Culture Minister Hector Soto on Saturday called for bolstering cooperation between Caracas and Tehran in cultural fields and exchange of news and information.
In a meeting in Caracas with Iran’s deputy culture minister for press affairs, Ali Reza Malekian, he added that some countries seek to impose their values on others and independent states should resist such moves, Fars News Agency reported.
Stressing that cultural bonds help ensure survival of nations, he said, “We should utilize cultural tools such as cinema, art and media to expand mutual ties.“
Soto voiced his country’s preparedness to establish a cultural committee for following up agreements between the two countries.
Malekian, for his part, described two-way relations in the fields of energy and economy as “excellent“.
However, cultural interaction should also expand in tandem,“ he pointed out.
He underscored that developing countries should adopt a common stance in confronting the monopolistic policies of the western mass media.
Malekian welcomed Soto’s initiative for establishment of a cultural committee and said, “We can cooperate effectively with Venezuela in all cultural domains, such as cinema, music, publications and arts.“
He invited Soto to visit Iran and attend the 15th International Exhibition of Press Corps and News Agencies.
Malekian is in Venezuela to participate in the 7th conference of culture ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) member-states.
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Extinction Risks Vastly Underestimated
Some endangered species may face an extinction risk that is up to a hundred times greater than previously thought, according to a study.
By overlooking random differences between individuals in a given population, researchers may have badly underestimated the perils confronting threatened wildlife, it said.
“Many larger populations previously considered relatively safe would actually be at risk,“ Brett Melbourne, a professor at the University of Colorado and the study’s lead author, told AFP.
There are more than 16,000 species worldwide threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
One in four mammals, one in eight birds and one in three amphibians are on the IUCN’s endangered species “Red List“.
In a study by the journal Nature, Melbourne said the current models used draw up such lists typically looking only at two risk factors.
One is the individual deaths within a small population, such as Indian tigers or rare whales.
When a species dwindles beyond a certain point, even the loss of a handful of individuals can have devastating long-term consequences, Melbourne explained.
There are less than 400 specimens of several species of whale, for example, and probably no more than 4,000 tigers roaming in the wild.
The second commonly-used factor is environmental conditions that can influence birth and death rates, such as habitat destruction, or fluctuations in temperature or rainfall, both of which can be linked to climate change.
Melbourne and co-author Alan Hastings from the University of California at Davis argue that these factors must be widened in order to give a fuller picture of extinction risk. They say that two other determinants must be taken into account: male-to-female ratios in a species, and a wider definition of randomness in individual births and deaths.
These complex variables can determine whether a fragile population can overcome a sudden decline in numbers, such as through habitat loss, or whether it will be wiped out.
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Lilypad Cities
Award-winning Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut has designed Lilypad Cities as a way to deal with the world’s rising sea levels. A giant, self-sustaining ship, Callebaut’s Lilypad City will float across the seas, sheltering ’climate-change refugees’.
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Couples Fight Less As Time Passes
Constantly fighting with your partner over the same thing? It might be worth hanging onto the relationship, with a recent survey finding couples argue less, and get better at resolving differences, with time.
The online survey, by New Zealand counseling firm Relationship Services, polled more than 1,500 couples in long-term relationships and found that 78 percent were having ongoing disagreements, Reuters reported.
But the survey showed that people get better at handling disagreements, with those in relationships for three to seven years reporting a higher level of recurring disagreements than those in relationships lasting 21 years and more.
“People in longer relationships may have sorted out many of their differences, but it was also clear that they handle disagreements in ways that better support the relationship,“ said Hilary Smith of Relationship Services on the company’s website.
The survey listed the money and financial security as the issue couples argue about most -four out of ten people, regardless of income levels.
Lack of Faith in Australia
Australia is one of the least religious nations in the western world, research showed, as the country prepares to host Pope Benedict XVI and Catholic World Youth Day celebrations this month.
Most Australians--52 percent--never or very seldom visit a church, mosque, synagogue or temple for religious reasons, according to an international survey carried out by Germany’s Bertelsmann Foundation.
While one in four of Australia’s 21 million people classify themselves as deeply religious, 28 percent are not at all religious and another 44 percent say religion does not play a central role in their lives, AFP reported.
The Religion Monitor survey is the most extensive and detailed study on the significance of religion in the main cultures of the world, says the Bertelsmann Foundation, a private, non-profit group.
The survey found that of 21 countries surveyed, only four showed less interest in religion than Australia--Russia, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
But the pope will not be in a “religious desert“ for the celebrations in Sydney from July 15-20, the report says -- at 25 percent of the population, Catholics make up the country’s biggest faith group.
Dresden Stays on World Heritage List
UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee meeting in Quebec, Canada, decided not to de-list the eastern German city of Dresden from its prestigious list of protected world sites.
But it also vowed to remove the property from its world heritage list next year if construction of a bridge across the city’s Elbe Valley--said to be a blight on the 18th- and 19th- century landscape--is not reversed, AFP reported. In a statement, the committee said a reprieve was granted in the hope that the building of a four-lane bridge would cease, and that damage already caused by construction is reversed.
It said it wanted to “give Dresden more time in view of legal proceedings underway in Germany“ to stop construction.
However, “if the work on the bridge continues and if the construction works already undertaken are not removed, then the committee at its 33rd session in 2009 will delete this property from the world heritage list,“ committee chair Christina Cameron told a press conference.
The construction of the four-lane Forest Castle Bridge began in November last year, after a court dismissed arguments by conservationists that it would pose a threat to rare horseshoe bats that live on the banks of the Elbe.
Secret Cave Under Mexican Pyramid
Archeologists are opening a cave sealed for more than 30 years deep beneath a Mexican pyramid to look for clues about the mysterious collapse of one of ancient civilization’s largest cities.
The soaring Teotihuacan stone pyramids, now a major tourist site about an hour outside Mexico City, were discovered by the ancient Aztecs around 1500 AD, not long before the arrival of Spanish explorers to Mexico, Reuters reported.
But little is known about the civilization that built the immense city, with its ceremonial architecture and geometric temples, and then torched and abandoned it around 700 AD.
Archeologists are now revisiting a cave system that is buried 20 feet beneath the towering Pyramid of the Sun and extends into a tunnel stretching for some 295 feet (90 meters) with a height of 8 feet.
They say new excavations begun this month could be the key to unlocking information about the sacred rituals of the people who inhabited the city, later dubbed “The Place Where Men Become Gods“ by the Aztecs who believed it was a divine site.
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