US warns Iraq over cabinet posts for Iran-backed armed groups, source says

Behrouz Morovati, a disability rights activist, said the situation for people with disabilities has become extremely critical, with government support far below subsistence levels.

“Even in the best case, when a person with a severe disability receives a stipend, subsidy, and livelihood allowance, the total comes to around thirty million rials per month (nearly $28),” Morovati told the ILNA on Friday.

“In a country where the poverty line is estimated at 300 to 700 million rials (around $277 to $650), this gap shows how impossible it has become for people with disabilities to meet basic needs.”

Years of delay in job fund implementation

The Employment Opportunity Fund for Persons with Disabilities was supposed to launch in 2018 but has made no progress after nearly seven years, ILNA reported.

The fund’s legal framework, Morovati said, dates back to 2004 but has been repeatedly stalled by bureaucratic disputes, objections to its bylaws, and political disagreements over leadership appointments.

“This delay has only deepened the financial strain on disabled people,” he said.

Incomplete welfare payments and unfulfilled quotas

The government, according to Morovati, has failed to fully implement Article 27 of the law, which requires that monthly disability payments equal at least 20 percent of the annual minimum wage. Around 300,000 eligible people are still waiting for assistance, he added.

He further criticized the government for not meeting the legally mandated three-percent employment quota for persons with disabilities, saying only about one percent of those positions have been filled.

According to Iran’s Welfare Organization, there are more than 9.7 million people with disabilities nationwide -- around 11.5 percent of the population -- with roughly 60,000 new cases added each year, mostly from road accidents.

Although the June attacks on Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordo “severely damaged” Iran’s nuclear program, the country retains the knowledge and material “to manufacture a few nuclear weapons,” Grossi told FRANCE 24.

“To reconstruct that industrial technological base, Iran would need time,” Grossi said, adding that the strikes marked a sharp shift “from diplomacy to the use of force” and urging a return to negotiations. “Diplomacy is the only path toward a durable solution,” he said.

Politicized report and call for renewed talks

Grossi dismissed remarks that an IAEA safeguards report provided justification for the strikes, saying it had been politicized and contained nothing new. He also rejected suggestions that artificial intelligence influenced the agency’s conclusions, emphasizing that “our findings are made by human inspectors, not machines.”

The IAEA’s Board of Governors found Iran in non-compliance with its nuclear obligations on June 12 after the agency said Tehran had failed to explain the presence of undeclared nuclear material at multiple sites. Inspectors last verified more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium in Iran shortly before the June conflict began.

In late September, 70 members of Iranian parliament in a letter to the heads of the branches of government and the Supreme National Security Council requested that, by changing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s previous fatwa and in order to create deterrence, the Islamic Republic undertake the manufacture and possession of a nuclear bomb.

In recent months, and especially after the 12-day war with Israel, several officials of the Islamic Republic have criticized Grossi’s reports. Some called him a “Mossad agent,” and even Kayhan -- a newspaper overseen by Khamenei’s representative -- demanded his execution on charges of spying for Israel.

Tehran tenants ended the Iranian month of Mehr (late September to late October) facing a 34 percent year-on-year jump in rental prices, according to data from the Statistical Center of Iran cited by Khabar Online.

The government’s promised measures to regulate the housing market, the report said, have failed to materialize, with renters still squeezed by weak supply and spillover demand from the unaffordable homeownership market.

In major cities such as Tehran, typical monthly rents for standard apartments range from around $400 to $1,800, depending on location and quality.

On a broader national average basis, one-bedroom urban rentals are reported at approximately $250-$300 per month. However, the average monthly net salary is around $200.

While officials have highlighted a minor decline in the overall pace of housing inflation, figures published by the center confirmed rents continue to surge. Monthly housing inflation stood at three percent in late October, year-on-year housing inflation at 34.2 percent, and the annual rate at 36.6 percent -- only slightly below September’s 37.5 percent.

The outlet Tabnak reported that despite the withdrawal of genuine buyers, prices rose another three percent during the period, widening what it called the gap between “the expectation to sell high and the buyer’s zero purchasing power.” A 36.6 percent annual inflation rate, it added, compared with stagnant wages, has pushed first-time buyers out of reach of homeownership.

With both housing and rental prices rising together, accommodation costs now absorb a growing share of household income, fueling urban sprawl and eroding living standards.

The depreciation of the rial -- now trading around 1.08 million per dollar -- has intensified broader economic strains, which analysts link to renewed pressure following the reactivation of UN sanctions under the snapback mechanism.

“Iran has been asking if the sanctions could be lifted. Iran has got very heavy US sanctions, and it makes it really hard for them to do what they'd like to be able to do. And I'm open to hearing that, and we'll see what happens, but I would be open to it,” Trump said.

Earlier this week, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said cooperation between the two countries was impossible as long as Washington continued to support Israel, maintain military bases, and interfere in the Middle East.

“As long as America supports the Zionist regime and interferes in the region, cooperation with it is neither rational nor possible,” Khamenei said on Monday.

Trump also said that the United States directed Israel’s first strike on Iran during the June conflict. “Israel attacked first. That attack was very, very powerful. I was very much in charge of that,” Trump told reporters late on Thursday.

“When Israel attacked Iran first, that was a great day for Israel because that attack did more damage than the rest of them put together.”

After taking office for his second term in January, Trump reimposed his maximum pressure campaign on Iran, a policy aimed at preventing Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. In June, the United States bombed Iranian nuclear sites, further straining ties between the two countries.

The two sides held five rounds of nuclear talks before a 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June. Negotiations have since stalled over uranium enrichment, with Western powers insisting Iran end enrichment on its own soil, a demand Tehran has rejected.

Last month, Khamenei described negotiations with the United States as “useless and harmful” and declared any talks with Washington forbidden. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also said no direct dialogue had taken place, adding that Tehran would discuss only nuclear matters and would never negotiate on regional issues.

Ahmad Baledi was hospitalized with about 70 percent burns and remains in critical condition, the rights group said.

The report said municipality workers, accompanied by police officers, arrived at the kiosk on Sunday without notice and began demolishing it.

Baledi's wife and son Ahmad staged a sit-in inside the kiosk to try to stop the demolition, but officers continued, Karun said.

The group said the deputy for municipal services in the district “behaved violently” and threw Baledi's wife out of the kiosk.

In protest at what was described as unjust and violent treatment, Ahmad Baledi poured gasoline on himself and set himself on fire in front of the officers.

Witnesses cited by Karun said some of the officers made no effort to stop him and watched with indifference and mockery.

The incident comes amid deepening economic hardship in Iran, where soaring joblessness and inflation have pushed many households into street vending, peddling, and other informal work to survive.

The self-immolation also echoes, in unsettling ways, the act by Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi that helped ignite the Arab Spring in 2011.