Iran issued an orange air-pollution alert on Monday for several major urban centers, with official monitoring showing unhealthy air even as the country observed a public holiday and many schools and universities were closed or moved online.
Forecasters said pollution could intensify through the end of the week in densely populated and industrial areas, warning that stagnant weather and temperature inversions could push air-quality readings in some places into the “very unhealthy” range.
The alert follows days of red readings in cities such as Tehran and Isfahan, highlighting a winter pattern in which vehicle exhaust, industrial output and heavy-fuel use combine with stagnant weather to drive smog spikes.
Tehran has recorded only six clean-air days so far this Iranian year (started on March 21), according to the capital’s Air Quality Control Company, and more than half of days have been unhealthy for sensitive groups – children, older adults, pregnant women and people with heart or lung disease.
With seniors making up about 8.4% of Tehran province’s population – roughly 1.2 million people – health experts warn that prolonged exposure during repeated pollution waves is elevating risks of respiratory and cardiovascular complications, adding to a crisis authorities have struggled to contain beyond temporary closures and driving restrictions.
Power plants burned more than 21 million liters of mazut on November 14, the outlet said – a volume that would require oil tankers stretching roughly 14 kilometers end to end.
Stations in Hamedan in the west, Neka in the north and Arak in Markazi province were among the biggest consumers, it added.
“We do not want to burn mazut because it damages plants and is an expensive commodity,” Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi said last week. “But when gas is scarce, we are forced to use it.”
Government assurances under pressure
Officials in President Masoud Pezeshkian’s administration have repeatedly vowed to phase out mazut in favor of cleaner fuels.
Scheduled outages could temporarily replace “producing poison” for the public, Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani wrote on X in November last year. Her remarks came shortly after summer blackouts and the onset of household gas cuts.
State media later said Pezeshkian ordered mazut use halted at power stations in Arak, Karaj and Isfahan. Yet in several cities, especially Arak, hazardous smog persisted through mid-March, prompting repeated street protests.
Three months after the announced halt, in February, parliamentary agriculture committee spokesperson Somayeh Rafiei said all thermal plants had shifted to mazut.
In a separate August report, business outlet Tejarat News assessed mazut as an “official and relied-upon” tool in managing the energy crisis, adding that it had remained in use the previous year despite official assurances.
Tehran imposes emergency school closures
Tehran’s emergency air-quality task force met on Sunday at the health ministry’s request and approved online schooling for primary classes across the province on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The decision followed forecasts indicating that pollution would intensify through the week, task force secretary Hassan Abbasnejad said.
“After reviewing reports from the environment department, the medical university and the meteorological organization, it was decided that primary classes will be held virtually,” Abbasnejad said.
Daycare centers and preschools in districts classified as unhealthy for all groups would shut, and female employees with young children could work remotely, he added.
Calls to phase out ageing vehicles, invest in cleaner energy and bolster a central environmental authority have so far gone unanswered. Critics say that without systemic change, major cities, including Tehran, will keep paying the price in hazardous air and lost lives.
As winter inversion deepens, the combination of stagnant air and growing mazut consumption is heightening concerns that Iran’s most polluted weeks may still lie ahead.
The shipment totaled 300,000 liters and will be delivered to a distributor on November 29, with supplies expected to reach filling stations within 7 to 10 days, according to the exchange’s chief executive.
IRNA said the 658,000-rial base is not the final retail price, because transport and station fees will be added, meaning premium fuel for higher-end cars could cost at least 33–35 million rials ($29–$31) to fill a 50-liter tank, and potentially closer to 37.5 million rials ($33) if sold around 750,000 rials a liter ($0.66).
The exchange’s upcoming trading board showed no new premium gasoline offer for Tuesday, suggesting the next batch may be delayed to next week.
The sale comes amid renewed debate over Iran’s fuel subsidies six years after nationwide protests erupted over a gasoline price hike in November 2019.
Officials have framed imported premium gasoline as a market-priced, third-tier option rather than a direct change to subsidized quotas, but President Masoud Pezeshkian has said there is “no doubt” prices must rise, and government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani has put the state’s cost of gasoline at about 700,000 rials a liter ($0.62).
“Children aged 13 and 14 can be registered directly or by parents as marriage candidates,” Shargh wrote on Saturday.
The website Adam and Hava (Adam and Eve), which brands itself as a formal marriage intermediary, allows users to open profiles either for themselves or for a child or relative.
Shargh reporters were able to create a full profile for a girl born in 2012 without any age restriction or identity barrier, indicating that minors can be listed seamlessly as marriage candidates.
Profiles reviewed in the investigation show under-18 users concentrated in deprived regions where early marriage is common. Girls appear most frequently between 13 and 16, while boys cluster between 16 and 18.
The site’s 80-question registration form emphasizes religious observance, gender-role expectations, political attitudes and views on hijab, make-up and social interaction, but includes no questions about consent, emotional readiness or psychological maturity for minors.
Operator cites legal obligations
Executive manager Mohammad-Hossein Asghari defended the platform, saying the law obliges it to accept users who fall within statutory marriage ages. “Article 1041 of the Civil Code sets the marriage age at 13 for women and 15 for men,” Asghari said.
“From a legal standpoint we are obliged to accept membership and cannot block someone who falls within the age range set by law.”
About 300,000 people, he said, have attempted to register, with 70,000 profiles currently active following identity checks and psychological screening. Minors under 15, he added, must have a parent complete the form, and staff speak directly with the child before approval.
Experts warn of deepening risks
Child-rights advocates told Shargh that formalizing under-18 marriage through a widely promoted digital platform deepens an already harmful pattern.
Children who marry between 10 and 16 lack the emotional and social development required for partnership and parenting, facing elevated risks of violence and long-term trauma, Psychologist Mansoureh Shahnazari told the outlet.
Iran’s Statistical Center recorded around 25,900 marriages of girls under 15 in 2022, down from roughly 32,000 in 2021 – figures that researchers say illustrate inconsistencies in government reporting.
Legal specialist Sahar Khajehvand described the platform’s model as “marketing child marriage” and said it contradicts constitutional commitments to stable family formation based on maturity rather than poverty or coercion.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has repeatedly promoted policies encouraging higher birth rates and earlier marriages, with a target population of 150 million by 2050.
In line with these priorities, parliament passed the Rejuvenation of the Population and Protection of the Family law in 2021, imposing penalties for actions deemed to oppose childbearing or delay marriage, effectively placing demographic goals above safeguards for children.
With tens of thousands of child marriages recorded annually and a platform openly enrolling minors under an official banner, campaigners say only a clear ban on under-18 marriage will prevent online tools from further normalizing the practice.
Under the order, the Central Bank of Iran must prepare the shift within two years before managing a three-year phase in which old and new banknotes circulate together.
Once that cycle ends, all transactions will be settled in the new unit and existing notes will be withdrawn, according to Iranian state media.
Parliament earlier approved a law defining the “new rial” as equal to 10,000 current rials, with “gheran” designated as the subunit.
Economists remain divided over the effect of the redenomination. The policy is expected to require printing new notes, destroying old ones and modifying banking and accounting systems.
Critics argue that without wider reforms the move is mainly cosmetic, citing Argentina, Zimbabwe, Romania and the former Yugoslavia, where redenominations did little to restrain prices.
“This policy is largely cosmetic,” economist Ahmad Alavi told Iran International in August. “Without tackling the roots of inflation – from liquidity growth to systemic inefficiencies – removing zeros will not restore the rial’s value.”
Debate over deleting zeros began in the late 1990s and circulated through multiple administrations. Parliament first passed the plan in 2020, but the Guardian Council sent it back for revisions. The current version – retaining the name “rial” and introducing “gheran” – won final approval in October and has now entered execution with Pezeshkian’s signature.
Long path to implementation
Officials say the overhaul aims to simplify calculations, improve the legibility of Iran’s currency and prepare the ground for broader fiscal measures.
The abundance of zeros in the national currency had caused accounting and operational difficulties, Shamseddin Hosseini, head of parliament’s Economic Committee, said last month, adding that similar redenominations had been undertaken by countries such as Turkey in 2003 and 2005.
The reform comes amid persistent inflation of about 40%, a more than 90% loss in the rial’s value since US sanctions were reimposed in 2018, and widespread economic hardship.
With the formal order issued, the central bank begins one of the Islamic Republic’s most extensive monetary reforms, whose outcome still hinges on the government’s broader effort to control inflation.
