Parsian Bank calls itself private. Its own shareholder’s audited accounts say Setad, the business empire under Iran’s supreme leader, manages its shares and picks its board, and the bank has lent heavily to Setad’s companies, an Iran International investigation shows.
Tehran has dismissed US plans to restrict Iran’s overland trade routes as ineffective propaganda, but Iranian businesses report sharp increases in transportation costs and insurance premiums.
The Revolutionary Guards' unveiling of a new underground missile facility has sparked public anger over military spending, with citizens questioning government priorities amid growing poverty, energy shortages and a lack of civilian shelters.
Workers struggling with mounting debts and rising living costs are offering their kidneys, liver tissue and bone marrow for sale to repay debts and keep their homes, the labor-focused ILNA news agency reported on November 11.
Students across Iran are attending classes without adequate heating despite freezing temperatures and heavy rainfall, as the government warns of possible gas shortages but insists on keeping schools open, according to accounts received by Iran International.
The US Treasury Department confirmed on Tuesday that Secretary Scott Bessent had relocated from his Washington home to a military base following threats against his life from Iran.
A prolonged confrontation with Washington risks eroding Iran’s economy and impoverishing its people even without a sudden collapse, an Iranian economist warned, as Washington appears intent on maintaining economic pressure without renewed major combat operations.
Nearly 47 years after Iran's 1979 revolution, a former football chief has asked what Iranians got for its promises, pointing to officials’ children living abroad, oil wealth that never reached wages and a state that answered protests with bullets.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told G7 foreign ministers in Paris on Tuesday that the United States would keep imposing devastating economic costs on Iran and had options beyond resuming the war or accepting Tehran’s demands, Reuters reported, citing four G7 diplomats.
More than 70% of respondents to an Iran International survey on household finances said they had either reduced food purchases or postponed medical treatment to cope with rising prices, illustrating the difficult choices facing families struggling with Iran's economic crisis.
Severe weather and flooding across Iran have killed four people, injured 11 and cut off access to 190 villages, with emergency teams responding to widespread damage, officials said on Sunday.
Iran's imports of Chinese solar panels fell by more than 80% in 2026, threatening efforts to expand renewable power generation as the country struggles with worsening electricity shortages.
While Tehran celebrates Donald Trump's midterm defeat and the economic pain the Iran war has inflicted on Americans, soaring prices and stagnant wages are pushing ordinary Iranians deeper into a cost-of-living crisis at home.
Iran, home to the world's second-largest natural gas reserves, is turning to Russia for supplies as war damage and years of underinvestment threaten to deepen an energy crisis ahead of winter.
Unpaid insurance reimbursements and rising medicine and equipment prices are draining private hospitals' finances, threatening their ability to maintain services and increasing costs for patients, hospital executives said in accounts published on Thursday.
For years, Iranians have turned to gold to protect their savings from the relentless depreciation of the rial. Now, as war and soaring living costs deepen the economic crisis, some are selling those holdings to pay for everyday necessities.
Iran may be able to repair much of its war-damaged energy infrastructure without new Western technology. Whether it can rebuild a modern, reliable energy industry is another question.
Internet users in Tehran and several other provinces reported outages and unstable connections Tuesday amid uncertainty over renewed US military action, after the New York Times reported that Washington could launch strikes on Iran as early as Wednesday.
Iranians responding to an Iran International appeal said they could not afford emergency supplies or had nowhere safe to go if wider war resumes with the United States and Israel, with others describing exhaustion after repeated rounds of fighting.
Qatar is securing long-term supplies of US liquefied natural gas to protect revenues against disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, while pursuing mediation between Tehran and Washington to end the war.
People across Iran say they are struggling to afford food, clothing and rent, while others face unpaid wages and falling business sales, according to messages sent to Iran International as year-on-year inflation hit 88.7% in October.
Young Iranians are turning from opium, their parents’ drug, to cannabis, methamphetamine and a widening range of synthetic substances, treatment specialists and officials say, as unemployment, hardship and uncertainty about the future reshape the country’s drug use.