Economy & Environment

Iranian security forces deployed around fuel stations and on streets across the country as a gasoline price increase took effect, with people warning of further pressure on household budgets and rising prices for other goods and services.

Employees of Iran’s oil industry held protests Monday at offshore platforms operated by Pars Oil and Gas Company and in the southern energy hub of Assaluyeh, demanding changes to pay, taxes and benefits as US economic pressure weighs on Iran’s oil exports and wider economy.

US attacks on Iranian oil tankers could make it far harder and more expensive for Tehran to keep selling its crude, but the strategy carries a potentially much larger cost: turning the Persian Gulf’s energy infrastructure into an expanding battlefield.

Iran will double the price of gasoline bought outside subsidized quotas from Tuesday, pushing ahead with a politically sensitive increase as households struggle with rising prices and the country faces fuel shortages.

When eggs can hold their value better than cash, an economy has entered dangerous territory. But that is exactly where Iran is.

Iran has about 30 million barrels of crude oil remaining that China has not already purchased, and US sanctions and a naval blockade will soon prevent Tehran from supplying more, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Fox News.

Two luxury London penthouses linked to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, bought for a combined £36 million, have been put up for sale, The Sunday Times reported.

Satellite imagery reviewed by Iran International shows a sharp fall in visible shipping activity at Shahid Rajaee and Imam Khomeini ports since the US naval blockade was reimposed in mid-July, underscoring the growing squeeze on Iran’s imports and exports.

When a refrigerator breaks in Iran now, the family often cannot replace it, and increasingly cannot afford to repair it either. Behind that is an industry losing its raw materials, its customers and, since March, two of the industrial hubs that supplied it.

Iranians are being warned against handing their gold to jewelers in return for regular payments, with the head of a provincial Gold and Jewelry Union saying the practice carries a high risk of losses.

A bank owned by the Iranian state is still open in London, operating on a temporary permission from the British Treasury that expires on October 22. Renewing it, or letting it lapse, is Britain's answer to Washington's campaign to shut Iran's banks for good.

Iranians have found a way to complain about prices that no prosecutor can touch: they film themselves dancing beside the groceries, insist they are delighted, and explain that if they were not, they would be executed.

An economic forecast produced by Iran’s own government planners more than five years ago projected where continued sanctions would leave inflation and the national currency by 2026—and the numbers have proved strikingly accurate.

Iran faces shortages of about 800 medicines, including dozens considered vital, as currency constraints and import disruptions threaten to drive some drug costs as much as threefold, Iranian local media reported on Thursday.

Iran has enough foreign currency to keep paying for essential imports and is ready to put as much as $2 billion into the market to stabilize the rial, Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati said on Tuesday.

Iranian security forces on Monday used gunfire and beatings to disperse two protests by young jobseekers in southwestern Iran, as anger over unemployment and alleged discrimination in hiring spills into the streets.

Iran’s latest strikes on American forces have brought threats of further US retaliation, but Washington increasingly sees Tehran’s military escalation as a sign of economic vulnerability rather than strategic strength.

Iran’s foreign trade has contracted sharply since the conflict with the United States began, with non-oil exports and imports falling by around a quarter or more, according to customs data released after months of delay.