Venezuela’s Machado says world must raise cost for Iran’s rulers

Witnesses told Iran International that a 30-year-old woman and mother of a 7-year-old girl was killed after being shot by security forces during protests in Nurabad Mamasani, a city in southwest Iran, earlier this month.

According to the accounts, Parisa Lashkari was shot on Jan. 10 during demonstrations in the city. Witnesses said she was wounded and called her husband and brother for help, telling them to come and take her away, before being hit by additional gunfire minutes later.

The accounts said Revolutionary Guards forces later transported both the wounded and the dead together, and that Lashkari was among those taken away.

Her family was contacted several days later to collect her body, which was handed over under security restrictions, the witnesses said.

Data from the commodity intelligence firm Kpler, seen by Iran International, show that in 2025 Iran delivered an average of 1.38 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and gas condensate to China—a decline of just 7 percent compared with 2024.

After Iranian oil exports to Syria halted in December 2024, China effectively remained Tehran’s sole buyer of crude oil over the past year.

Unlike crude oil, Iran’s petroleum product exports—fuel oil (mazut), naphtha and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)—are relatively diversified, with shipments mainly destined for China, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and Singapore.

According to Kpler, Iran exported an average of 190,000 bpd of naphtha and 256,000 bpd of fuel oil last year, a combined decline of about 13 percent compared with 2024.

The drop, however, was driven not by tighter US sanctions but by Iran’s worsening domestic gas shortages, which forced power plants and industrial facilities to burn more fuel oil, reducing volumes available for export.

Data from tanker-tracking firms Kpler and Vortexa show that the modest decline in crude oil exports was offset by increased shipments of natural gas and LPG.

Iran has also continued exporting natural gas to Turkey and Iraq.

Tehran and Baghdad don’t publish official figures, but data from Turkey’s energy ministry indicate that natural gas imports from Iran increased about 9 percent during the first 11 months of last year compared with the same period in 2024.

One reason US sanctions have struggled to significantly curb Iran’s energy exports has been the continued operation of the so-called shadow fleet—a network of oil tankers that transport sanctioned crude through flag changes, disabled tracking systems, ship-to-ship transfers, and opaque ownership structures.

According to estimates by TankerTrackers, roughly 1,500 oil tankers worldwide were involved in shadow fleet activity last year, with nearly 40 percent linked to Iranian oil shipments.

Although the United States stepped up sanctions on such tankers in 2025, existing data suggests that hundreds of non-sanctioned vessels remain active in transporting Iranian oil through opaque trading routes and intermediary networks, undermining the enforcement capacity of US measures.

Further data from Kpler indicate that widespread domestic protests in Iran in recent weeks have had no noticeable impact on the country’s oil and petroleum product export volumes.

While China has remained the sole buyer of Iranian crude oil and condensate, the United Arab Emirates—one of Washington’s closest regional allies—has emerged as the largest importer of Iranian fuel oil, accounting for nearly 70 percent of those exports.

Estimates by Iran International put the total value of Iran’s exports of crude oil, petroleum products, and natural gas last year—excluding discounts and the costs of sanctions evasion—at roughly $60 billion.

The figure highlights the gap between early US projections that Iran’s oil exports would collapse by as much as 90 percent and the far more limited impact visible in the data so far.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister accused the United States of undermining global security and international law.

“The US move toward an international order based on force and intimidation has undermined security and international law,” Saeed Khatibzadeh said, offering no evidence for the claim.

“The US has shown that it is not loyal to the path of diplomacy and, in practice, sacrifices dialogue and engagement for pressure, threats and destabilization,” he added.

The United States has repeatedly said its policies toward Iran are aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear program and regional activities.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi criticized Ukraine’s president after he urged stronger international action over Iran’s crackdown on protests.

In a post on X, Araghchi accused Volodymyr Zelenskyy of encouraging US military action against Iran.

“At the same time, he openly and unashamedly calls for unlawful US aggression against Iran in violation of the same UN Charter,” Araghchi wrote.

He also leveled accusations against Ukraine’s leadership, claiming Zelenskyy had misused Western support, and rejected calls for foreign involvement in Iran.

“Unlike your foreign-backed and mercenary-infested military, we Iranians know how to defend ourselves and have no need to beg foreigners for help,” Araghchi wrote.

Internet monitoring group NetBlocks said on Friday that Iran remained under a nationwide internet blackout entering its third week, with only limited signs of restored connectivity.

In a post on X, NetBlocks said there were “indications of an attempt to generate false traffic and manufacture narratives of a wider restoration.”

The group said overall connectivity had seen only a slight rise and that much of the activity appeared to involve tunneled users rather than a genuine return of internet access.