Book lovers, we’ve found your dream destination – the world’s largest bookstore just opened in Tehran, Iran. The Book Garden is a gigantic green-roofed building measuring 14.300 square meters that has 19.300 meters of shelves packed with millions of books. The project is part of a larger 65.000 square meters complex that features several movie theaters, science halls, classrooms, a prayer room and a restaurant. The Book Garden aims to encourage Iranian children to be “active and creative through modern methods and equipment,” said Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani. “The opening of the Book Garden is a big cultural event in the country, so that our children can make better use of this cultural and academic opportunity,” added Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf. Mehr News reports that the Book Garden was first pitched in 2004 to cater to fans of the city’s annual International Book Fair. After construction was completed last spring, organizers spent the past few months stocking the facility with books. According to Real Iran, there are more than 400,000 titles available for kids alone. One of the centers even has shorter shelves to ensure younger kids can reach the educational resources. The Book Garden is now the biggest bookstore in the world, according to the Guinness World Records. Until now, Barnes & Noble along Fifth Avenue in New York City held the record.

Construction of the massive Bakhtiari Dam is now officially under way thanks to an inauguration of the project by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Khatam al-Anbiya (KAA), which is controlled by Iran's military, will build the double-arch concrete dam on the Bakhtiari River in the Zagros Mountains of Iran's southwestern Lorestan Province. The dam can hold 4.8 billion cubic meters of water, the largest reservoir in the country, and will produce 1,500 megawatts of electricity. The Chinese firm Sinohydro Corp. was contracted in 2011 to build the dam for US$ 2 billion, but the Iranian central bank cancelled the contract in May and turned over the project to the IRGC and KAA. No reason and notice of cancellation was given to Sinohydro. When completed, the Bakhtiari dam will be the second-tallest in the world after Tajikistan's 335 meters tall Rogun Dam now under construction. The new dam will have a height of 315 meters and a length of 434 meters when completed. Currently, the tallest dam is the Jinping-I Dam, an arch dam in China standing 305 meters high. The second-tallest is the 300 meter Nurek Dam also in Tajikistan.

On July 25 Iran, Iraq and Syria agreed to build a major gas pipeline to transfer the country's natural gas from Iran's South Pars gas field to Eastern Mediterranean countries and Europe, reported ITAR-TASS. It should be noted, that this project would set a serious rival to EU gas pipeline Nabucco - from Central Asia and Caspian region to the EU. The construction of a new 5000km pipeline, which is also called the "Islamic Gas Pipeline", will cost about US$ 10 billion. It is expected that the new pipeline would ultimately have the capacity to pump 110 million cubic meters of natural gas per day. A 1500 km section from southern Iran to Damascus will be commissioned in the period between 2014 and 2016. New gas pipeline will ship gas from South Pars to Iraq then to Lebanon, eastern Mediterranean countries and Europe. International consortium is created for the pipeline construction. At the signing-ceremony of a gas pipeline agreement, Iran's caretaker Oil Minister Mohammad Aliabadi said that Europe is in dire need of Iran's gas, according to the official IRNA news agency. Aliabadi said this agreement would strengthen trilateral relations among the three Islamic countries and it will also lead to ensuring economic security in the region, said the report. According to research by BP, Iran has roughly 28 trillion cubic meters of natural gas - the second largest reserves in the world after Russia with reserves about 45 trillion cubic meters.

The history of construction of two hydro-power plants on the Arax (Araz) River lasted nearly 10 years, with estimated in 2001 construction cost about US$60-80million. After signing on March 19, 2007 the interstate agreement between Armenia and Iran, the Armenian Energy Minister Armen Movsisyan announced the construction of 2 power plants with capacity of 140 megawatts each, with estimated construction cost about US$140million and construction start in 2008. And finally, according to the latest announcement of Minister, the construction of two 130 megawatts power stations will start in early 2011 with estimated cost US$323million... A distinctive feature of the License Agreement between two countries is that the Armenian side does not finance and build these power stations, and everything is done by the Iranian side. The Armenian part of the station, which is called Meghri HPP must be given to Armenia without indemnity after 20 years, which include 5-year construction period and 15-year exploitation and payback period through the sale of electricity to Iran. Construction will be implemented by the Iranian company Farad-Sepasad, which will solve on its own all the financial and organization problems concerning the construction and the exploitation of Meghri HPP. Meghri HPP energy output is planned to be about 800 million kWh/year, and it must be founded jointly that at the transmission time the electromechanical and hydro mechanical devices have resources for the 10-year effective operation, and the tunnel (18.2km) and engineering structures have resources for 30 years. Along with the construction of hydroelectric power stations, parties are going to start building of a new additional third high-voltage (400kV) transmission line which will increase the power transmission between the two countries to 1000MVt. The construction of this third high-voltage line and "Noravan" substation will cost about € 108 million and will be implemented during 18 months. The length of the transmission line in Armenia is approximately 275 kilometres (from the border of Iran to "Noravan" substation- 80 kilometres, from "Noravan" substation to Hrazdan fifth energy block - 195 kilometres) and 163 kilometres in Iran.