TEHRAN, Jan. 14--The Protestant Lutheran Church in the northwestern German city of Hanover has organized an exhibition to let the Germans know more about Islam and improve the integration of the Muslim community into the society.
The exhibition, titled 'The Faces of Islam', which began last Sunday and will end on February 5, is organized by the female students of the Protestant Studies Institute in the western German city of Aachen.
The fair is also planned in ten other German cities and will focus on the daily life of German Muslim women. It arranges interviews with Muslim women who answer questions from Germans about issues like hijab and how they adapt in western countries, islamonline.com reported.
The organizers allow local Muslims to talk more about their religion. They also visit mosques and churches to improve the integration between Muslims and Christians in the German society.
The move is part of a wide-ranging plan until 2007 and is led by the church's Islam and Immigration Department. It welcomes non-Muslim Germans to attend debates on Muslim women, human rights, fundamentalism and integration.
The organizers also published brochures like 'Islam in Germany' and 'Burial in Islam'.
The church said on its Web site that the project aims at improving the relationship between Muslims and Christians. "The Protestant Lutheran Church is trying to bridge the gap between the different communities in Germany," it said.
The church also said that the exhibition is an excellent opportunity to discuss religion and express different viewpoints. It stressed that mutual respect is extremely important for peaceful co-existence between Muslims and Christians in Germany.
Although anti-Muslims sentiments increased in Germany in the past year, some officials, rights activists and Christian clerics rejected the anti-Muslim campaigns.
In December, around 40 Muslim youths, aged 18-30, established a kiosk in central Hamburg to circulate illustrative materials on Islam among curious and attentive Germans.
Islam is ranked third in Germany after Protestant and Catholic Christianity. There are about 3.4 million Muslims in Germany, including 220,000 in Berlin alone.
A majority of German Muslims are of Turkish origin.

TEHRAN, Jan. 14--A directive on exempting those engaged in occupations authorized by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance from paying taxes will be submitted to the Economic Affairs and Finance Ministry once the amendment to the bill is complete.
The directive, which was drawn up on the basis of Paragraph L of Article 139 of the Direct Tax Act, has been a bone of contention between the two ministries in the past year, reported the Persian daily Jam-e Jam.
The ministries mostly disagreed about exempting booksellers, whose jobs have been considered economic rather than cultural by tax auditors, thus, not subject to this article.
However, Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry insists on the inclusion of all authorized jobs by this article. In addition to booksellers, printing house owners will also be subject to this law and exempt from taxes.
Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry's director general of Printing and Publishing Department, Amir Karimani, said that all cultural activities are conducted with the aim of earning profit, thus, they can be considered economic activities but the government has exempted all the units having authorizations from the ministry from paying taxes.
He pointed to the acceptable level of growth in the printing industry in the fields of press and book, he noted that although the two domains boast of numerous facilities, increasing advancement in information dissemination and the need for greater speed require the establishment of more units.

TEHRAN, Jan. 14--A large industrial area has been discovered in the precincts of the ancient site of Jiroft along Halilroud River revealing remnants of pottery, metalwork and stonework factories dating back to 5,000 years ago.
The historical site along Halilroud is known as 'Jiroft Civilization' and in the course of illegal digging operations in the area, a large number of stones, pottery and architecture from the third millennium BC were discovered.
The head of the exploration team involved in the Halilroud civilization site, Davood Abyan said that during excavations near the town of Anbarabad, southern Jiroft, an industrial site was unearthed. The extensive dimension of the industrial site indicated that the area was used for mass production of the handicrafts and industrial outputs five thousand years ago.
He said that the industrial site stretches over 30,000 square meters and different workshops were unearthed in the exploration--pottery, chimneys, metalwork, and marble dishes.
Six large graveyards have also been discovered, said Abyan adding that area under Halilroud civilization comprised of over 120 historical sites along a 400-km stretch of the river bank located in Kerman province covering the towns of Jiroft, Kahnooj, Baft and Anbarabad.
He said that another team made up of 20 Iranian and foreign experts led by Yousef Majidzadeh is involved in exploration in the area. They discovered the first stone seal from the Halilroud river civilization.
Experts working in the area believe that Halilroud civilization is comparable to the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia.
Majidzadeh said that findings in the area indicated that industrial goods were exported by the Halilroud civilization to Mesopotamia.

Takht-e Jamshid, Fars province

TEHRAN, Jan. 14--An Iranian living in the United States has produced an animation about the historical site of Takht-e Jamshid in Fars province.
According to IRNA, the animator said that he cooperated with a US company in making the film.
Rezaeian has said that he planned to make the film to introduce Iranian cultural heritage to foreign tourists and contribute to the tourism industry of his own country.
He said that the animation film depicts the palaces of Achamenid kings and the main buildings of Takht-e Jamshid.
The two-hour animation will be screened in the Untied States, Rezaeian said.
The animation begins by displaying the ruins of the site and gradually highlights the sections of the magnificent palace of Iranian empire which are left in tact.

TEHRAN, Jan. 14--The upcoming conference on arts and globalization can serve as a turning point in the theoretical development of artistic concepts.
Expressing this view, Deputy Minister of Culture and the Islamic Guidance for Arts Affairs Mohammad Hossein Imani Khoshkhoo said at a press conference that some 43 scholars from 16 countries including Iran, Germany, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Russia, Sudan, China, Egypt, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Turkey, Tunisia, Kenya and Canada have been invited to the event, reporting the Persian daily Hamshahri.
Elaborating on the preparations for holding the conference, he said that the preliminaries were undertaken in the beginning of the current Iranian year (March 2004) and according to the guideline from the Supreme Leader to study the impacts of globalization on national culture, the Ministry of Culture and the Islamic Guidance organized the conference on arts and globalization.
The conference will reveal the theoretical potential of Iranian scholars and will serve as a venue for exchange of views between the Iranian and foreign intellectuals on the mentioned subject.
He said that the debate on the subject will not be limited to the two-day conference and the theoretical concepts will be discussed in the respective institutes even after the conference.
Mohammad Reza Lahouti, the director of the Center for Arts Research Studies said that the conference will have four perspectives: the aesthetic, the culture, the economy and technology.
He said that the secretariat has received 57 essays from foreign scholars and that some 100 Iranian scholars have also forwarded papers to the secretariat.
Lahouti said that all the essays will be published after the conference.

TEHRAN, Jan. 14--Iranian painting boasts of a relatively good international status and has made a considerable progress in the past 15 years, observed a painter and university instructor Homayoun Salimi.
According to ILNA, Salimi said that the reason for the growth in painting is because Iranian artists are in contact with their foreign counterparts. "Of course, the Contemporary Arts Museum has played a crucial role in this respect," he said.
Stating that the government has fulfilled its obligations very well in this respect, he further noted that private galleries have also taken worthy steps in presenting Iranian art by launching websites and introducing Iranian artists.
Commenting on the role of Copyright Convention in highlighting the country's art, Salimi also said that Iran's admission to Copyright Convention can effectively contribute to the publicizing Iranian paintings in the world.
Salimi urged increasing the number of foreign tours by and support for artists.