Iranian animal lovers decry proposal to ban pets

An Iranian woman plays with her dog in a yard near her house in northern Tehran, on December 5, 2021. (AFP)
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Updated 12 December 2021
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Iranian animal lovers decry proposal to ban pets

TEHRAN: “No, my cat is not dangerous,” says Iranian animal lover Mostafa, outraged by a proposal from ultraconservative lawmakers to ban pets.

The 25-year-old, who runs a pet supplies shop on busy Eskandari Street in downtown Tehran, is stunned.
“Crocodiles can be called dangerous, but how can rabbits, dogs and cats be dangerous?” he asked incredulously about the bill introduced a month ago.




An Iranian woman poses for a picture with her dog at a park in the capital Tehran, on December 7, 2021. (AFP)


The proposed law pits growing numbers of people with pets against those who consider the practice decadent.
According to media reports, 75 MPs, or one quarter of parliamentarians, recently signed a text entitled “Support for the rights of the population in relation to harmful and dangerous animals”.
In their introduction, the authors condemn the practice of humans living under one roof with domesticated animals as a “destructive social problem”.
The phenomenon, they explain, could “gradually change the Iranian and Islamic way of life” by “replacing human and family relationships with feelings and emotional relationships towards animals”.
The proposed law would prohibit “importing, raising, assisting in the breeding of, breeding, buying or selling, transporting, driving or walking, and keeping in the home wild, exotic, harmful and dangerous animals”.
It lists the animals to be banned as “crocodiles, turtles, snakes, lizards, cats, mice, rabbits, dogs and other unclean animals as well as monkeys.”
Offenders would risk a fine equivalent to 10 to 30 times the “minimum monthly working wage” of about $98 and the “confiscation” of the animal.
In addition, vehicles used to transport the animal would be confiscated for three months.
While Iran is engaged in difficult negotiations on its nuclear program and enduring a painful economic downturn because of US sanctions, the bill has sparked criticism in the press, mockery on social networks and anger among residents of the capital.
“These projects will certainly cause chaos, corruption and collective disobedience to this law because... living with animals is now a cultural phenomenon,” warned the reformist daily Shargh.




An Iranian woman walks her dog in a park in the capital Tehran. (AFP)


Some internet users reacted with irony and sarcasm.
“How many times have cats sought to devour you so that you consider them wild, harmful and dangerous?” journalist Yeganeh Khodami asked on Twitter.
Another posted a photo of his kitten with the message: “I have renamed my cat ‘Criminal’ since I heard this proposed law.”
An actress who asked to remain anonymous said she had planned a demonstration against the pet ban plan in front of parliament but then dropped the idea because of pressure on her.
In the face of the public outcry, few parliamentarians are willing to strongly defend the bill.
“I agree with the project in general, but I certainly disagree with some of its clauses,” said the head of parliament’s judicial commission, Moussa Ghazanfarabadi, who signed the text.
“It is just a bill, but whether it succeeds is another matter,” he told AFP.
Another lawmaker from Tehran, the environmentalist Somayeh Rifiei, said she believes that a law is needed on which animals can be kept, and which cannot.
“No one can deny the services that animals provide to humans, but this area must be regulated,” she said. “That is the basis of social life.”
She said that, aside from the pet ban bill, “the government has drafted a bill that gives special attention to biodiversity and wildlife. It deals with both animal rights and human rights.
“Basically, I would prefer to see this bill on the agenda rather than a proposal that focuses only on criminalisation.”
On Eskandari Street, vendors fear the consequences of any such law.
“It might destroy thousands of jobs,” said Mohsen, 34.
His wife Mina, said she was more worried about her dog.
“Why should I imprison him at home?” she said of her canine companion. “The MPs probably assume that young couples today don’t have children because they have a pet dog, but that’s stupid.
“It’s not the dogs but the economic conditions that don’t allow us to have children,” she added.
“At one time they banned satellite television, yet people continued to use it, but with fear and anxiety. People will keep their animals at home to protect them.”


In Dubai’s Gold Souk, bullion’s record run brings little joy for jewellers

Updated 22 April 2025
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In Dubai’s Gold Souk, bullion’s record run brings little joy for jewellers

  • Bullion prices have hit record highs above $3,400 an ounce
  • US tariffs and other factors have added fire to already hot demand for gold

DUBAI: In the bustling Gold Souk in Dubai, dubbed the “City of Gold,” 22-karat gold jewelry is a traditional favorite for weddings, religious celebrations, and as a family investment.
Yet with bullion prices hitting record highs above $3,400 an ounce, there are signs of change, as buyers look to diamonds and lighter gold jewelry, instead.
While US tariffs and other factors have added fire to already hot demand for gold as an investment, the impact is different for gold jewelry, according to Andrew Naylor, head of Middle East and Public Policy at the World Gold Council (WGC).
“In markets like Dubai, this creates a two-fold effect: on one hand, you see stronger interest in gold as a safe-haven asset, on the other, high prices dampen jewelry demand.”
At Dubai’s Gold Souk, retailers said they are seeing this trend, as current prices prompt shoppers to look for alternatives.
“There are no potential customers nowadays because of the gold prices,” said Fahad Khan, a sales representative at retailer Damas Jewellery.
“It’s a little bit tough to afford gold, so I think it’s better to go with diamonds,” said Lalita Dave, 52, as she browsed around the Gold Souk.
Lab-grown diamonds
Dubai has been a magnet for gold buyers for at least 80 years, starting with Iranian and Indian traders, both cultures sharing a tradition of 22-karat jewelry for adornment and investment.
Yet as gold prices rose 27 percent last year, demand for gold jewelry in the UAE fell by around 13 percent, outpacing an 11 percent drop globally, according to the WGC.
Jewellery demand could face further pressure across key regions in 2025 if gold prices remain elevated or volatile, the WGC said in its gold demand trends report published in February.
Price swings, more than price levels, are increasingly shaping consumer behavior, particularly in India, it noted.
Shifts in Indian purchasing patterns often ripple through Gulf markets such as the UAE, where buyers are a key driver of sales.
Goldman Sachs recently raised its end-2025 gold forecast to $3,700 per ounce and said prices could climb as high as $4,500.
“Higher gold prices are likely to dampen demand for jewelry, in a classic example of how the best cure for high prices is high prices,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.
One sign of economizing has been the rise of lab-grown diamonds.
India exported $171 million worth of lab-grown diamonds to the UAE in 2024, up almost 57 percent from $109 million two years earlier, data from the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council showed.
India’s exports of cut and polished diamonds to the UAE in the April–November 2024 were up 3.7 percent.
UAE ranked third in global diamond imports in 2023, trade data shows, its primary trade partners including India, South Africa, and Belgium.
While the UAE accounted for just 1.5 percent of the global diamond jewelry market by revenue in 2023, it is projected to grow by 5.9 percent annually to reach nearly $2 billion by 2030, according to Grand View Research.
That outpaces the global growth forecast of 4.5 percent and makes the UAE the fastest growing market in the Middle East and Africa.
Trade tensions
One impact from recent trade tensions with the US has been accelerated talk about finding alternative markets and production hubs, two executives at major Indian diamond exporters said.
If tensions persist, potentially spanning years, one of the sources speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity said his company’s contingency plans included shifting some Indian production overseas, including to the UAE.
Shamlal Ahamed, managing director of international operations at retailer Malabar Gold & Diamonds, said the rise in lab-grown diamond jewelry sales in the UAE appeared to be driven more by design preferences than pricing and he remained bullish on gold jewelry demand.
“While price-conscious buyers may wait for a dip, our experience shows that such declines are often short-lived, with buyers quickly adapting to new price levels.”


NASA’s oldest active astronaut returns to Earth on 70th birthday

Updated 20 April 2025
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NASA’s oldest active astronaut returns to Earth on 70th birthday

WASHINGTON: Cake, gifts and a low-key family celebration may be how many senior citizens picture their 70th birthday.
But NASA’s oldest serving astronaut Don Pettit became a septuagenarian while hurtling toward the Earth in a spacecraft to wrap up a seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
A Soyuz capsule carrying the American and two Russian cosmonauts landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday, the day of Pettit’s milestone birthday.
“Today at 0420 Moscow time (0120 GMT), the Soyuz MS-26 landing craft with Alexei Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and Donald (Don) Pettit aboard landed near the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan,” Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said.
Spending 220 days in space, Pettit and his crewmates Ovchinin and Vagner orbited the Earth 3,520 times and completed a journey of 93.3 million miles over the course of their mission.
It was the fourth spaceflight for Pettit, who has logged more than 18 months in orbit throughout his 29-year career.
The trio touched down in a remote area southeast of Kazakhstan after undocking from the space station just over three hours earlier.
NASA images of the landing showed the small capsule parachuting down to Earth with the sunrise as a backdrop.
The astronauts gave thumbs-up gestures as rescuers carried them from the spacecraft to an inflatable medical tent.
Despite looking a little worse for wear as he was pulled from the vessel, Pettit was “doing well and in the range of what is expected for him following return to Earth,” NASA said in a statement.
He was then set to fly to the Kazakh city of Karaganda before boarding a NASA plane to the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Texas.
The astronauts spent their time on the ISS researching areas such as water sanitization technology, plant growth in various conditions and fire behavior in microgravity, NASA said.
The trio’s seven-month trip was just short of the nine months that NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams unexpectedly spent stuck on the orbital lab after the spacecraft they were testing suffered technical issues and was deemed unfit to fly them back to Earth.
Space is one of the final areas of US-Russia cooperation amid an almost complete breakdown in relations between Moscow and Washington over the Ukraine conflict.
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Philippines devotees nailed to crosses to re-enact Christ’s crucifixion

Updated 18 April 2025
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Philippines devotees nailed to crosses to re-enact Christ’s crucifixion

  • Around 80 percent of the Philippines’ 110 million people are Roman Catholics
  • Rituals form part of Holy Week, which spans from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday

CUTUD, Philippines: Christian devotees from the Philippines were nailed to a cross on Friday in a reenactment of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion in the predominantly Catholic nation.
Hundreds of Filipinos and foreign tourists flocked to the northern village of San Pedro Cutud in Pampanga province to witness Ruben Enaje nailed to the cross and portray Christ for the 36th time in an annual devotional display. Two other devotees joined him in re-enacting the crucifixion.
Actors dressed as Roman soldiers hammered Enaje’s palms with two-inch nails. Ropes and fabric supported their bodies as they were raised on wooden crosses.
“The first five seconds were very painful. As time goes and the blood goes down, the pain numbs and I can stay on the cross longer,” Enaje, 64, said in an interview.
Around 80 percent of the Philippines’ 110 million people identify as Roman Catholics. The rituals form part of Holy Week, which spans from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday and is one of the most sacred and solemn periods in the Philippines’ religious calendar.
During Holy Week, some devotees flog their backs repeatedly with bamboo whips in an act of self-flagellation to seek penance and atonement. The Catholic Church has discouraged the practice, saying prayers and sincere repentance are enough to commemorate Lent.


‘Star Wars’ fans wave lightsabers as an upcoming film gets announced in Japan

Updated 18 April 2025
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‘Star Wars’ fans wave lightsabers as an upcoming film gets announced in Japan

  • Gosling and director Shawn Levy appeared on stage Friday before a lightsaber-waving crowd at Makuhari Messe center outside Tokyo
  • The event, called Star Wars Celebration, continues through Sunday

CHIBA: The Force was with many Japanese, as well as visitors from abroad, at a “Star Wars” event on Friday where Lucasfilm announced that the next installation in the franchise will hit theaters in May 2027 starring Ryan Gosling.
Appearing on stage before a lightsaber-waving crowd at Makuhari Messe center outside Tokyo, Gosling showed a photo of his childhood bedsheets, plastered with illustrations from the space epic created by George Lucas.
“I guess I was dreaming about ‘ Star Wars ‘ even before I saw the film,” Gosling said.
Shawn Levy, who will direct the movie, told the crowd that “Star Wars: Starfighter” will not be a prequel or a sequel, but a new standalone adventure with new characters set several years after “Episode Nine.” Filming starts later this year, he said.
Levy, who also directed the 2006 film “The Pink Panther” and the recent Netflix series “Stranger Things,” said little else, noting: “I can’t say much about it because I understand the rules.”
Only the title was shown on a giant screen, although that was enough for the crowd to burst into cheers.
The event, called Star Wars Celebration, which runs through Sunday, is full of “Star Wars“-themed merchandise including T-shirts, toys, books, manga comics, AC chargers, cellphone covers, autographs, posters and more.
The Lego booth featured a man wearing the ominous black mask and cloak of Darth Vader, made out of Legos. The deep-breathing villain also appeared as traditional Japanese lacquerware decorating earphones in a limited edition of 10, each selling for 990,000 yen ($7,000). Darth Vader T-shirts were more affordable at 8,000 yen ($56).
“It makes me so happy to think everyone here loves ‘Star Wars,’” said Yoshiki Takahashi, 26, who was holding a remote-controlled R2-D2 miniature robot.
“I love the directing, the sound of the gun and the lightsaber, but above all the story, with great fight scenes and, of course, human drama,” he added.
Another Japanese man, who said he goes only by Hiro, was dressed as the “Star Wars” character Mandalorian, in a detailed costume he made himself, complete with a plastic sword and armor.
Also present were “Star Wars” fans from around the world, including a robed Raul Herrera, a computer science teacher from Chile, who was there with friends.
“All of them,” said Herrera, when asked which ‘Star Wars’ films he’d seen. “The sense of commitment of the characters, I really like it.”
With offshoot stories spanning generations and literally the cosmos, “Star Wars” is one of the highest-grossing franchises of all time since its 1977 debut, starring Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker.
It may be natural that “Star Wars” appeals to Japanese: Its story about a samurai-like hero who befriends various characters along his journey echoes the nation’s fables, as well as legendary Akira Kurosawa films.


Scientists find possible chemical signs of life on a faraway planet

Updated 18 April 2025
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Scientists find possible chemical signs of life on a faraway planet

  • Researchers found evidence of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide in the atmosphere of the planet known as K2-18b
  • On Earth, those two compounds are produced primarily by microbial life, such as marine phytoplankton

LONDON: Astronomers have found possible chemical signs of life on a distant planet outside our solar system, though they caution more work is needed to confirm their findings.
The research, led by scientists at the University of Cambridge, detected evidence of compounds in the exoplanet’s atmosphere that on Earth are only produced by living organisms and contended it’s the strongest potential signal yet of life.
Independent scientists described the findings as interesting, but not nearly enough to show the existence of life on another planet.
“It is the strongest sign to date of any possibility of biological activity outside the solar system,” Cambridge astrophysicist Nikku Madhusudhan said during a livestream on Thursday.
By analyzing data from the James Webb Space Telescope, the researchers found evidence of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide in the atmosphere of the planet known as K2-18b. The planet is 124 light-years away; one light-year is equivalent to nearly 6 trillion miles.
On Earth, those two compounds are produced primarily by microbial life, such as marine phytoplankton.
The planet is more than double Earth’s size and more than 8 times more massive. It’s in the so-called habitable zone of its star. The study appeared in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Madhusudhan stressed that further research is needed to rule out any errors or the possibility of other processes, besides living organisms, that could produce the compounds.
David Clements, an astrophysicist at Imperial College London, said atmospheres on other planets are complex and difficult to understand, especially with the limited information available from a planet so far away.
“This is really interesting stuff and, while it does not yet represent a clear detection of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide, it is a step in the right direction,” he said in comments released by the Science Media Center in London.
More than 5,500 planets orbiting other stars have been confirmed so far. Thousands more are in the running out of the billions out there in our Milky Way galaxy alone.
Launched in 2021, Webb is the biggest and most powerful observatory ever sent into space.