Economy & Environment

The Iran war has yet to trigger an exodus of entrepreneurs from the Persian Gulf, but falling investment, rising costs and slower funding are beginning to test the region’s heavily financed startup strategy, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

Barely 37 percent of working-age Iranians have a job. Yet the government's official unemployment rate is only 7.5 percent. The gap between those two figures reveals less about Iran's labour market than about the way it is measured.

Plastic waste has become a major environmental challenge in Iran, with poor enforcement of waste management regulations allowing single-use plastics to pollute natural areas and water resources, the country's environment chief said on Sunday.

War has erased Iran’s already weak growth prospects. The economy shrinks as prices rise at one of the region’s fastest rates, forcing households to bear war, sanctions and years of economic mismanagement through fewer jobs, weaker incomes and collapsing purchasing power.

Years of high inflation have pushed millions of Iranian households into a struggle over basic expenses, with new estimates showing wages barely cover food costs before rent, healthcare and other necessities are even considered.

As Iran navigates renewed confrontation with the United States and uncertainty over a fragile diplomatic process, a deeper crisis is returning to the center of public debate: how much longer ordinary Iranians can absorb the economic cost.

A reported US strike on a railway bridge in northern Iran has drawn attention to a lesser-known front in the widening conflict: the battle over the transport corridors linking Iran to Central Asia, Russia and China.

The Islamic Republic's state funeral for Ali Khamenei has drawn criticism over its attendance, the extensive public resources devoted to the event and what many Iranians described as an unsuccessful attempt to project political strength, following the burial ceremony.

The latest Statistical Review of World Energy published by the Energy Institute paints a troubling picture of Iran’s energy sector: a country with some of the world’s largest oil and gas reserves is increasingly struggling to meet its own energy needs.

Cattle have been filmed feeding on hospital waste at a landfill in northern Iran, exposing failures in waste management that risk contaminating livestock, soil and the human food chain, according to a report by Rokna website on Saturday.

When flames appeared over the Zagros, local residents again climbed toward the fire with shovels, branches and bottles of water, exposing a recurring failure: Iran’s largest oak landscape is burning faster than the state can protect it.

A dust storm has affected large parts of central and eastern Iran this week, with air quality reaching hazardous levels in some areas, visibility falling and authorities closing roads in parts of the country on Thursday.

Rising drug prices and lagging insurance coverage are pushing diabetes medication further out of reach in Iran, documents obtained by Iran International show, with one patient’s NovoMix FlexPen insulin payment rising more than 24-fold in less than two months.

Iran’s state broadcaster cut short a pre-recorded interview with Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on Tuesday, triggering protests from parliament and speculation that politically sensitive sections had been censored.

A banking disruption lasting more than two weeks has left many Iranians unable to access their accounts, make purchases or transfer money, adding to financial pressures after the recent war and ceasefire.

Land subsidence has expanded into a nationwide crisis affecting nearly half of Iran’s population, with parliamentary researchers warning the damage could become irreversible if current trends continue, Shargh newspaper reported on Monday.

A wildfire continued to burn through protected Zagros forests near Behbahan for a fourth day on Monday, exposing persistent shortages of aerial firefighting equipment after similar blazes in southern Iran earlier this month.

Global oil prices have fallen back to around where they stood before the Iran war. But the decline reflects not a recovery in supply but a combination of emergency measures including strategic reserve releases, alternative export routes and, above all, weakening global demand.