Faced with economic crisis, social defiance and regional strain, Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei continues to invoke earlier moments of “glory,” treating defeat and mismanagement as moral triumphs rather than political failures.
Free speech. Open dialogue. People having access to one another, the ordinary ability to speak freely and exchange ideas. These might be the downfall of the system patiently built up by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, not foreign weapons.
Iran’s president is facing growing heat as moderate allies turn against him, arguing that his promised government of national consensus has instead lost its authority and internal cohesion.
Tehran state-affiliated media are hinting that Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei could soon be appointed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to head the Guardian Council, the powerful body that vets election candidates and approves parliament’s legislation.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in a speech that Iran faces a campaign by its enemies aimed at public opinion and cultural identity to bring about regime change which a US-Israeli war in June failed to achieve.
Iranian tourism and media officials said reshaping the country’s international image, particularly after the 12-day war, has become a central challenge for the tourism sector, expressing the need for a coordinated and credible narrative to support recovery and growth.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Wednesday suggested a US pressure campaign on Venezuela aimed to seize its territory and oil wealth in lengthy diatribe against hegemony of Western countries.
Three Iranian satellites will be launched aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome on December 28, Iran’s Nour news agency reported, marking another step in Tehran’s expanding space program.
The head of Iran's state broadcaster conceded the network hurt its credibility with a false report on the downing of an Israeli F-35 fighter jet which cited an official source during a June war.
Employees of Iran’s welfare organization and contract workers from the oil, gas and power sectors gathered outside parliament in Tehran on Wednesday to protest low wages and insecure employment, local labor groups said.
Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi said more than 170,000 people have gone to emergency wards since the start of December because of heart and respiratory problems caused by air pollution, describing the situation as a “serious and widespread public health crisis.”
A prominent academic’s assertion that many of Iran’s problems stem from “the dominance of the economically weak class” in governance has stoked outrage in a country whose theocracy bills itself as a champion of the downtrodden.
Power politics in Tehran has reached a stage where even the most routine public affairs—a film festival, an environmental report or the World Cup draw—spiral into controversy, as if the system cannot tolerate anything resembling normalcy.
Half a century of rule built on clerical authority has secularized Iran, available data suggests, with most still believing in God but not in the theocracy.
The political storm over a marathon on Iran’s Kish Island may have started as a dispute over unveiled participants, but it now reflects a deeper struggle between a society pushing for change and institutions intent on reasserting control.
President Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledged on Sunday that his government has been unable to lift longstanding internet restrictions, saying he has ordered the deactivation of so-called “white SIM cards” that granted unfiltered access to a circle of state-linked users.
Tehran’s move to sharply limit a man’s liability for paying his wife mehriyeh—a gift of value promised at marriage—has triggered a fierce social debate, with critics warning that it tilts the legal balance further away from women.
The once-hushed conversation about who will succeed Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has not only spilled into the open, but has curdled into public intimidation of contender and former president Hassan Rouhani.
Moderate insiders in Tehran are warning that the public’s alienation may have deprived the system of the very vehicle it once relied on to manage public anger.
In Iran today, the riskiest act is neither protest nor journalism. It's conversation.
Iran’s fractious parliament is the crosshairs of increasingly strident criticism as factional infighting has precluded any concerted response to a deepening economic and ecological crisis.
Iran’s online media regulator has suspended the platform streaming a hit reality show after a segment showing contestants pelting targets resembling ancient Persian emblems sparked a public backlash, the latest move in a push to rally support via once-taboo nationalism.