Lebanon’s refusal to send its foreign minister to Tehran drew a pointed public response from Iran’s top diplomat, who on Thursday said he was “bemused” by Beirut’s decision.

Barry Rosen, a hostage during the 1979 US embassy takeover in Tehran, told Iran International that the recent deportations of Iranian nationals back to Iran echoes the oppression he faced as a captive.

As diplomatic horizons narrow and domestic hardships mount, Iran appears to endure less through strategic vision than an ad hoc survival economy backed up by China, Russia and its armed allies abroad.

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.

Winter rain fell on Tehran on Wednesday after the driest autumn in over 50 years, providing temporary relief from a severe water shortage that the country's ruling clerics have led prayers to end but looks set to persist.

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.

A Baluch armed group said it carried out an attack on Iran's Revolutionary Guards personnel near Zahedan, a day after Iranian state media reported that several members had been killed during a border security mission in the restive southeast.

Iran’s presidential chief of staff said the government has begun revoking all forms of unfiltered internet access granted to select users – including senior officials – as scrutiny intensifies over privileged connections unavailable to the general public.

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.

Iranian authorities are stepping up the use of courts and security agencies to target members of the Baha’i community through prison sentences, arbitrary detention and property seizures, the Baha’i International Community and Human Rights Watch said.

Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence is intensifying efforts to recruit dissidents in Germany as informants by blackmailing their relatives back home, according to an investigation by the Die Welt newspaper.