Authorities in Tehran have issued an orange pollution alert, warning that stagnant air and rising emissions could push pollution levels into the “very unhealthy” range in the days ahead.
Authorities in the western Iranian city of Baneh have increased pressure on local journalists and social media administrators following days of severe water shortages, a Kurdish rights group reported.
An Iranian lawmaker has warned that the government’s new three-tier gasoline pricing system will drive up the cost of goods and services nationwide, saying the move was made without coordination with parliament or the public.
At eleven o’clock each night, Tehran time, my studio, half a world away, seems to inherit the city’s fatigue. The callers gather like silhouettes behind a scrim of static.
An Iranian lawmaker said price-based water policies risk serving as fiscal stopgaps rather than tackling the country’s chronic shortages, urging non-price reforms and stricter controls on water-intensive industry placement before any tariff overhaul.
Iranian authorities have imposed temporary bans on entering forest regions across the north and west of the country after wildfires damaged vast areas of woodland and pasture that officials now say are largely under control.
President Masoud Pezeshkian has drawn fire over his decision to hand leadership over a crucial new energy body tasked with confronting an acute power crisis to a bureaucrat with no background in the sector.
Iran is facing one of its most severe droughts in 60 years, with more than half its plains suffering drastic groundwater depletion and the term “water bankruptcy” becoming more palpable by the day.
Iran on Tuesday announced a limited fuel price increase in a move which appears aimed at reining in costly government subsidies while avoiding public anger which has previously exploded into protests.
Iranian crude held on tankers at sea has climbed to its highest level in about two and a half years, indicating softer buying from China even as Iran’s exports remain high, Bloomberg reported citing shipping data cited by market sources.
A blaze which had devastated a unique forest ecosystem in northern Iran has been brought under control after weeks of firefighting efforts, an environmental official said on Tuesday.
Indonesia announced it will auction the seized Iranian tanker MT Arman 114 and its 1.245 million barrels of crude oil starting December 2, with a reserve price of Rp 1.174 trillion ($70 million) through the government’s online auction platform.
Iran’s latest spell of heavy air pollution is disrupting daily life and raising health fears, with school closures in some provinces and residents reporting acute respiratory symptoms as smog blankets cities and even smaller towns.
Iran issued an orange air-pollution alert on Monday for several major urban centers, with official monitoring showing unhealthy air even as the country observed a public holiday and many schools and universities were closed or moved online.
A fire that has been burning for almost three weeks in northern Iran’s UNESCO-listed forests has triggered growing criticism of officials for what many describe as indifference, incompetence and a failure to prioritize an escalating environmental disaster.
Iran has started burning mazut, a heavy fuel oil, at several power plants despite worsening air pollution, Fars News reported on Sunday, signalling a renewed reliance on high-sulphur feedstock as winter demand rises and smog intensifies.
Iran sold its first cargo of imported premium “super” gasoline on the Tehran Energy Exchange on Sunday with the base price set at 658,000 rials a liter ($0.58), state media reported.
Iran began implementing a long-delayed plan to drop four zeros from its battered currency after President Masoud Pezeshkian instructed the Central Bank on Saturday to begin two years of preparations.
The US State Department on Saturday blamed Iran’s government for tens of thousands of pollution-related deaths last year, calling it another burden on Iranian citizens already facing water shortages, economic collapse and arbitrary arrests.
Iran’s worsening drought has pushed water supplies in several provinces to critical levels, with officials in Tehran, Mashhad and Kerman warning that some reservoirs are close to the point where routine distribution may no longer be possible.
Iranian officials said on Saturday that the massive wildfire burning for a week in the Hyrcanian forest in northern Mazandaran Province was most likely caused by human activity, as authorities investigate suspected attempts to clear forest land for real estate projects.
Two Turkish firefighting planes, one helicopter and eight personnel will arrive in Iran on Saturday to help quell fires in the Hyrcanian forest in the country's north, Iranian environment chief Shina Ansari said on Friday.