Iranian laborer faces execution over firecracker outside local courthouse

Friday prayer leaders are state appointees in Iran's theocracy, and their political speeches reflect the official stance of the ruling clerical establishment.

Ahmad Khatami, the Friday prayer leader in Tehran, said Iran would never yield to what he called US coercion. “Trump says he wants to deal with Iran, but a deal made with force is surrender,” Khatami said during his sermon, according to state media.

He said Iran would “break the horn of this wild bull” through faith and endurance, using the phrase to describe what he called Washington’s policy of pressure.

Referring to the US withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear deal, he said Washington “tore up the agreement in front of the world” and “cannot be trusted for any negotiation.”

In Qom, Mohammad Saeedi praised Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s recent response to Trump’s remarks about Iran’s nuclear program, saying it “crushed the arrogance of the US president.” Saeedi said the reply showed that Iran would not let “foreigners decide its needs,” according to Mehr news agency.

Khamenei, speaking in Tehran on Monday, had dismissed Trump’s assertion that US air strikes destroyed Iran’s nuclear program.

“The US president proudly says they bombed and destroyed Iran’s nuclear industry. Very well, keep dreaming,” he said. Khamenei added that Washington had no authority over Iran’s nuclear work and accused the United States of backing Israel’s war in Gaza.

“Trump tries to look powerful, but his words only reveal weakness,” Saeedi said. “The world saw that our leader’s wisdom silenced his noise.”

In Ahvaz, Mohammadnabi Mousavi-Fard said the Persian Gulf would turn into “a hell for global arrogance” if the US or its allies threatened Iran. He said Iran’s strength came from its faith and self-reliance.

“Every dollar of non-oil exports builds our national power,” he said, urging officials to focus on production and technology to counter sanctions.

The clerics’ remarks followed comments by national security chief Ali Larijani, who on Thursday likened Trump to Adolf Hitler and mocked his behavior at a US-led Gaza ceasefire summit in Egypt.

Larijani said Trump “spoke only by himself,” showed “disrespect to other leaders,” and turned the event into a “Trump show.”

Water inflow to dams stood at about 780 million cubic meters as of Oct. 18, a 39% decline from the 1.29 billion cubic meters recorded a year earlier, according to data reported by ILNA news agency. Despite a 29% cut in water discharge to conserve supplies, total storage in the country’s reservoirs fell to 17.7 billion cubic meters from 23.3 billion, leaving national reserves around one-third full.

Twenty-two major dams are in critical condition, holding less than 15% of their designed capacity, wrote ILNA. In Tehran province, the five dams supplying the capital’s drinking and agricultural water are among the hardest hit. Amir Kabir Dam is at 11% capacity, an 80% drop from last year, while Lar Dam has fallen to just 2%, and Latyan, Mamlu and Taleghan dams each recorded declines of more than a third.

Reservoirs in other key provinces, Khuzestan in the southwest, Fars and Kerman in the south, and East and West Azarbaijan in the northwest, have registered deficits ranging from 20% to 70%, while some dams in Golestan province in the north, including Voshmgir and Bustan, have run completely dry, the report said.

Average rainfall since late September has been just 1.9 millimeters, far below the long-term average of 56 millimeters, and no measurable rain has been recorded in 21 provinces, including Tehran, Isfahan, Khuzestan, Kerman, and Kurdistan. Officials have warned of growing risks to both drinking water and crop irrigation in the coming months.

Drought altering rural life in Isfahan

In the central province of Isfahan, the water crisis has gone beyond agriculture to reshape entire communities. “Water scarcity has had deep effects on land subsidence, migration, and the changing character of rural areas,” said Gholamreza Goudarzi, head of Iran’s Statistical Center, in remarks published on Friday.

Census data collected during last year’s agricultural survey, he said, show that prolonged drought has altered crop diversity and forced some residents to abandon villages.

Experts warn that without immediate conservation measures, technological upgrades in irrigation, and coordinated drought management, Iran faces escalating water shortages that could endanger both rural livelihoods and urban supply in the months ahead.

The Financial Trend Analysis (FTA) released by the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) outlines how Iran used foreign companies and exchange houses to skirt sanctions and fund overseas operations, including oil sales and weapons procurement.

“Identifying Iran’s complex financial lifelines and shadow networks is an essential part of cutting off the funding for their military, weapons programs, and terrorist proxies,” FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki said. “By issuing this public analysis, we hope to draw attention to Iran’s shadow banking activity and encourage financial institutions to be vigilant,” she said.

The FTA forms part of US president Donald Trump’s maximum pressure campaign announced in February, aimed at denying Iran nuclear weapons and missile capabilities and curbing its regional influence.

FinCEN’s report is based on financial institution filings covering transactions made before the campaign’s launch, supplementing a June advisory on Iranian oil smuggling and procurement efforts. It highlights that shell companies outside the United States appear to play the largest role in the shadow banking network, accounting for roughly $5 billion of activity in 2024.

The report also found that Iran-linked oil companies, primarily based in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore, moved about $4 billion that year—likely tied to concealed oil sales. Meanwhile, entities suspected of technology procurement handled approximately $413 million in transactions linked to Iranian networks.

According to FinCEN, the network spans the UAE, Hong Kong, and Singapore, with Iranian front companies in sectors from shipping to investment. The findings stress how Tehran’s financial system relies on layers of intermediaries to maintain access to global markets despite sanctions.

The new analysis, the Treasury said, would assist US and foreign banks in tracing suspicious transfers and reinforcing compliance efforts.

“We're all in the same boat shaped by the sacrifices of the martyrs of the Islamic Revolution, and it would be a shame if our differences created weaknesses", he said in an interview with state media

It sounded, at first, like an appeal for unity. But in the opaque language of the Islamic Republic, moral parables are rarely innocent.

Beneath the call for calm was a political warning: a message to rival factions inside the regime to stop leaking, stop exposing, stop fighting, before their infighting sinks the whole ship.

When Shamkhani urged everyone not to “puncture the boat,” he invited an obvious question: whose boat? Was he speaking of the Iranian nation or of the VIP mariners like himself who have captained it for nearly five decades?

In one reading, the “boat” is the state itself, a vessel battered by sanctions, protests and crises. From that vantage point, Shamkhani’s warning was a familiar one: security men urging unity to preserve the ship of state.

But there’s another interpretation, and it’s the one most Iranians heard. This wasn’t a plea for national survival.

It was a coded SOS from the elite, a reminder to fellow insiders that the leaks threatening to sink them were coming from within their own cabin. Their “boat” isn’t the Islamic Republic; it's the luxury vessel of privilege, patronage and power that keeps them afloat while the rest of the country treads water.

History has shown that when Iran’s political ship hits rough waters, it’s not the captains who drown, it’s the crew.

Economic collapse, inflation, repression, all of it falls hardest on those already half-submerged: workers, teachers, pensioners and the youth. Meanwhile, those steering the ship have lifeboats waiting: foreign bank accounts, Dominica passports, villas on Private Islands or even in London.

So when Shamkhani warns that “we’ll all sink together,” he isn’t speaking to the street vendors or nurses who can’t afford rent. He’s speaking to his peers, the sanctioned oligarchs and security bosses who know that too much sunlight might burn their privilege.

The crumbling myth of piety

The scandal’s power lies not in the wedding itself, but in what it reveals: the erosion of the ruling system's last claim to legitimacy and moral authority.

For decades, the Islamic Republic justified its rule through an ethic of sacrifice and piety. The message was simple: we may be strict, but we are righteous. Now, its ruling class lives like exiled royalty and curses its critics.

Every leaked image of over-indulgence, every glimpse behind the velvet curtain, peels away another layer of the revolution’s moral armor.

Corruption is not a crack in the hull; it is the hull. And the public knows it. Outrage has given way to a colder recognition: the ship has been taking on water for years.

The Iranian people no longer expect reform from within. They have learned that the system cannot self-correct because it was never built to share accountability, only to protect those who built it.

And so, Shamkhani’s metaphor holds, but not in the way he intended.

Iran is a boat, yes. But it’s one where a few dine under chandeliers while others take on water in the dark. The waves are rising. And this time, the passengers in steerage are no longer willing to go down quietly.

“The international community must urge the Iranian regime to give up its false hope of revolution, forego its ambitions toward its neighbors, and stop meddling in the politics of other countries in the region,” Michael Waltz said in a speech at the UN.

“Instead, Iran should engage in direct and good-faith dialogue with the United States for the benefit of the Iranian people and the security of the region,” Waltz added.

Iran's relations with Washington appear to be deteriorating as an impasse over Iran's disputed nuclear program festers and European countries triggered the so-called snapback of international sanctions on Tehran last month.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in a speech on Monday that Washington sought to bully Iran by making it concede defense capabilities, appearing to reject a peace overture the previous week by US President Donald Trump.

Speaking on the Gaza peace plan, Waltz praised the Trump administration for its achievement and called for greater pressure on Iran to ensure full implementation.

“Because of tough action against Iranian proxies, we are seeing historic opportunities in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and across the region. In this spirit, the United States supports the reimposition of UN snapback sanctions on the Iranian regime,” he said.

The sanctions have further strained Iran's economy after a punishing 12-day war with Israel and the United States in June.

“The regime will continue to face consequences as long as it remains on its path of destruction,” Waltz said.

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, rejected the remarks, saying Iran’s foreign policy is based on “respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-interference and good neighborliness,” and that it “has always been ready for fair and genuine dialogue.”

Tehran maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful and that repeated US accusations were aimed at justifying what it calls its aggression.

Western countries have called for Tehran to engage in renewed diplomacy with Washington and restored access to international nuclear inspectors.