Iran has launched this year’s cloud-seeding operations over the Lake Urmia basin as the country faces one of its worst droughts in decades, with authorities simultaneously urging nationwide rain-seeking prayers as reservoirs run dry and water shortages deepen across major cities.
Iran's president said on Sunday the Defense Ministry and the armed forces could play a wider role in helping the government address structural economic shortfalls, arguing that their technical and human-resource capacities should be aligned with national development goals.
Air pollution reached hazardous levels in large parts of Iran on Saturday, with fourteen cities in southern Khuzestan province hitting red-alert conditions and several others nearing dangerous thresholds, according to the country’s national air-quality monitoring system.
Iran Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi said using Persian Gulf water for Tehran could be done in an emergency as a last resort, since the long haul and treatment costs make the plan uneconomic in normal times.
Tehran and other major cities are edging toward water poverty, Dr. Kaveh Madani told Eye for Iran, with millions at risk of relying for their water on tankers trucks as taps begin to run dry.
Iran’s economy is now defined by a widening gulf between rich and poor and the rapid disappearance of the middle class, with a constant stream of corruption scandals adding to the daily hardship millions already face.
Iranian families across several regions described a rapid contraction of their diets in recent weeks, portraying kitchens reduced to bread-only meals as prices rose sharply across the country as reflected in multiple messages shared with Iran International.
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian is coming under growing pressure for what critics call his failure to match tough talk on economic reform with concrete action.
An Iranian Grand Ayatollah has urged the faithful to perform traditional Islamic prayers for rainfall as a worsening drought across the country has caused water shortages and threatens to eventually make the capital Tehran uninhabitable.
As Iran’s capital Tehran endures its worst water crisis in living memory, few recent global cases offer clearer lessons than Cape Town in South Africa in 2018.
A water shortage in Iran is becoming more widespread with people reporting pressure drops and low-quality water even as Tehran officials deny reports of rationing.
Thousands of contract workers at the South Pars gas complex in southern Iran held a large protest on Tuesday demanding better working conditions, fair pay, and the removal of private labor contractors, Iranian labor outlets reported.
The US is trying to set up military bases near Iran’s southern port on the Gulf of Oman to tighten control over regional energy and trade routes, a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday.
Iran’s vice president told parliament on Monday that the government must adapt implementation of the Seventh Development Plan to the country’s current conditions, citing financial shortfalls, sanctions pressure and post-crisis constraints that have reshaped policy priorities.
Prices of medicines, medical equipment and healthcare services in Iran have surged by around 70% following the government’s removal of the subsidized exchange rate for drug imports, domestic media reported on Monday.
Iran’s worsening water crisis, described by a top United Nations environmental expert as a state of “water bankruptcy,” risks crippling the country’s infrastructure, undermining its stability, and weakening its influence internationally.
Water reserves in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, the country’s second-largest city and a major religious center with around four million residents, have dropped below 3% of capacity, an Iranian water official said on Sunday.
Air pollution caused about 58,975 deaths in Iran in the Iranian calendar year starting in March 2024, equivalent to 161 deaths per day and around seven every hour, the country’s deputy health minister said on Sunday.
Iran’s National Water and Wastewater Company on Sunday rejected reports of imposing formal rationing in Tehran but admitted nightly pressure cuts citywide that may fall to zero amid worsening shortages, state media reported.
A senior Iranian water expert warned on Sunday that the country’s central plateau could be emptied of inhabitants if authorities fail to address the worsening water crisis, as officials in Tehran admit that rationing in the capital began too late to avert shortages.
Iran’s Central Bank’s latest quarterly report shows capital flight hit a historic peak in the spring of 2025, underscoring the depth of the country’s financial strain.
The new push for an electricity grid linking Iran, Russia and Azerbaijan grid promises closer energy integration but could leave Tehran more exposed to Moscow’s leverage as rival corridors threaten to dilute its regional role.