Iranian Nobel laureates hail Venezuelan 2025 winner as model for opposition

“Out of over $270 billion in total non-oil exports from 2018 to 2025, nearly $95.6 billion—about 35 percent—has yet to return to Iran’s official financial system,” Tasnim said.

The report said the unreturned funds relate to exports excluding government-controlled sectors such as oil, gas, and electricity.

Iran's top non-oil exports are dominated by petrochemical products such as liquefied propane, methanol, and bitumen, as well as agricultural products like pistachios and saffron. Key export destinations include China, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates, though China has recently been a particularly important market for petrochemicals.

In the period since 2022, Iran recorded $146 billion in non-oil exports, of which $56 billion, or nearly 38 percent, has not been brought back into the country.

Hossein Samsami, a member of the parliament’s economic committee, criticized the government’s handling of the issue following recent remarks by the president about a shortage of foreign exchange.

“The president said that we do not have even one billion dollars and must bargain to find it,” Samsami wrote on his personal page. “Meanwhile, nearly 100 billion dollars of export revenues have not returned to the country over the past seven years. If the law were properly enforced, we would even have surplus currency.”

Under Iranian law, exporters are required to repatriate foreign currency earned abroad, and failure to do so constitutes a violation under anti-smuggling legislation. However, Tasnim quoted experts as saying that lax enforcement and loopholes have allowed large sums to remain overseas or be used for informal imports.

In a televised address a day after his government approved a deal to free hostages and end the fighting, Netanyahu said the campaign’s objectives went beyond Gaza. “I firmly rejected all the pressure because I had one consideration in mind — the security of Israel,” he said.

“That meant achieving the goals of the war: freeing the hostages, eliminating the nuclear and ballistic threat from Iran that endangered our existence, and breaking the Iranian axis, of which Hamas is a central part,” he said.

“Hamas, Hezbollah, the Assad regime, and Iran are all under one umbrella,” he said. “But despite the pressure, we stood firm and acted solely for the security of Israel.”

A day earlier, Iran said it supported the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire and any initiative that would end what it called Israel’s ‘genocidal war’ and secure Palestinian rights. The foreign ministry said Tehran backed efforts leading to “the withdrawal of occupying forces, the entry of humanitarian aid, the release of Palestinian prisoners, and the realization of the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people.”

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  Iran-aligned armed groups stronger despite Gaza ceasefire, Iranian MP says

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  Iran backs end of 'genocidal' Gaza war in cautious blessing of Trump deal

Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said Tehran would support any lasting peace that benefits Palestinians, while a conservative lawmaker voiced a tougher line, saying Iran-aligned armed groups would keep up their operations against Israel and the United States despite the ceasefire.

Behnam Saeedi, secretary of Iran’s parliament national security commission, told local media that “groups in the resistance front are today stronger and more active than two years ago against America and Israel.” He dismissed US President Donald Trump’s peace plan as unreliable, saying any deal that undermines Palestinian sovereignty “is doomed to fail.”

The ceasefire agreement, reached under a 20-point US proposal backed by Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, includes the release of hostages and prisoners, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from parts of Gaza, and the entry of humanitarian aid.

The two-year Gaza conflict triggered a wider regional war that pitted Israel and the United States against Iran and its allies. Tehran and its partners suffered heavy losses during that period, including the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the fall of Syria’s Assad government, and Israeli and US strikes that crippled Iran’s nuclear infrastructure in June.

The report documented an 86 percent increase in executions compared with the previous year’s 823 cases. Of those executed, eight were hanged in public, 49 were women, and three were under 18 at the time of the alleged crimes.

“This increase peaked between 2024 and 2025, with at least 1,537 executions recorded, the highest number documented in the past decade,” HRANA said.

The data were collected from a combination of judicial sources, local reports, and the agency’s network of independent observers, according to HRANA.

94.14 percent of executions, it said, were carried out secretly and never announced by official sources, a pattern it said reflected the authorities’ efforts to “omit, conceal, or restrict the collection of such data.”

Nearly half of all executions, 48.34 percent, were related to drug offenses, while 43.46 percent were for murder. Other charges included rape, moharebeh (ear against God), espionage, and corruption on earth.

The report showed the highest number of executions in Alborz province, where Ghezel Hesar Prison accounted for 183 hangings. Isfahan and Fars provinces followed, with 124 and 118 executions respectively at Dastgerd and Adelabad prisons. The data also indicated that the months of September, August, and May 2025 saw the most executions, with 191, 165, and 162 cases respectively.

A decade of reversal

Its ten-year analysis, HRANA said, revealed that after a relative decline between 2015 and 2019, executions in Iran have increased steadily since 2021. The report found that the majority of those executed came from socially and economically vulnerable groups, including defendants convicted under Iran’s strict anti-narcotics laws.

Inside prisons, resistance has grown. On October 7, prisoners across 52 facilities continued hunger strikes under the “Tuesdays No to Execution” campaign, which has been running for 89 consecutive weeks.

The death penalty was being used by the authorities as a political tool to suppress dissent amid economic crisis and public discontent, HRANA added.

Call for international response

The agency urged the United Nations and foreign governments to intervene. It called for “urgent and coordinated action by the international community to halt the ten-year wave of executions, reform domestic laws, hold perpetrators of extrajudicial executions accountable, and take unified international measures to confront the growing wave of executions in Iran.”

The Amir Kabir Dam, inaugurated in 1960 as Iran’s first multipurpose dam, is now at its lowest level in more than six decades of operation. Once vital to supplying Tehran province, it currently holds only about 14 percent of its 205 million cubic meter capacity, according to the Iran Water Resources Management Company.

“At present, nearly 86 percent of the reservoir is empty,” the agency said in its latest assessment, citing low inflows from upstream rivers and continued extractions for urban, agricultural, and environmental needs.

A year ago, the dam contained around 111 million cubic meters of water, with the long-term seasonal average closer to 120 million cubic meters. The year-on-year comparison reflects a 76 percent decline in stored volume.

Hydropower operations were suspended earlier this autumn when levels fell below 28 million cubic meters, disabling the facility’s turbines. Officials said the dam has not yet reached its “dead storage” level of 10 million cubic meters, below which the water becomes unusable.

Tehran’s main reservoirs are nearing depletion. Government figures show that 19 major dams nationwide are operating at below 20 percent capacity.

Growing alarm over nationwide shortages

In central Iran, Isfahan officials warned that the city’s water crisis has grown beyond provincial boundaries and could soon affect several regions.

Mohammad-Taghi Naghdali, head of Isfahan’s parliamentary delegation, said the situation required “a national commitment and cross-provincial coordination.” A task force known as the “water command” has been established to pursue solutions, he added.

“We have exhausted all legal and parliamentary means to stop unauthorized withdrawals,” Naghdali said. “If action is delayed, the entire country will face a grave catastrophe.”

Experts have cautioned that decades of overconsumption, mismanagement, and uneven rainfall have left Iran’s reservoirs critically depleted, threatening both electricity production and drinking water supplies nationwide.

“I’m not able to confirm that the Secretary-General would ever have said that,” UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters in New York. He said Aref appeared to be referring to an August meeting in Turkmenistan and pointed to the UN readout from August 5 as the accurate record.

Aref told Iranian state media that Guterres had said “the file of overthrowing the establishment was closed after the 12-day war.” He did not say when or where the conversation took place.

Guterres has made no such remark publicly. During the June conflict, he said on X that he was “gravely alarmed” by the use of force by the United States against Iran, calling it a dangerous escalation and a threat to international peace.

The 12-day war began with Israeli strikes that killed Iranian nuclear scientists and ended with US bombings of three key nuclear sites.

Aref spoke days after US President Donald Trump warned Washington would strike Iran again if it restarted its nuclear program. Speaking at a Navy anniversary event in Virginia, Trump called the June 22 airstrikes “perfectly executed” and said Tehran had been weeks from building a nuclear weapon.

Iran says it does not seek confrontation but will respond if attacked. Aref said the conflict showed US forces “could not achieve their objectives.”

The remarks came as Britain, France and Germany moved to reimpose UN sanctions lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal.