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VIENNA, NOVEMBER 24: Western powers have been reluctant to get tough on Tehran for fear of aggravating Middle East tensions, as Iran grows its nuclear programme and reduces cooperation with the UN watchdog, diplomats say. Worries of a wider regional conflict have sharpened since Hamas' shock October 7 attack and Israel's retaliatory bombardment and ground offensive aimed at destroying the Palestinian militants in Gaza. At this week's Board of Governors meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, the United States and the so-called E3 group ~ France,...

TEHRAN, FEBRUARY 27: An Iranian Deputy Minister on Sunday said "some people" were poisoning schoolgirls in the holy city of Qom with the aim of shutting down education for girls, state media reported. Since late November, hundreds of cases of respiratory poisoning have been reported among schoolgirls mainly in Qom, south of Tehran, with some needing hospital treatment. On Sunday the Deputy Health Minister, Younes Panahi, implicitly confirmed the poisonings had been deliberate. "After the poisoning of several students in Qom schools, it was found that some people wanted all...

Tehran, January 10: Iran's judiciary has ordered police to "firmly punish" people who violate the country's hijab law, a news agency reported Tuesday, after nearly four months of deadly protests against the measures. Demonstrations have swept Iran since the September 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old ethnic Kurd, after her arrest in Tehran for allegedly failing to adhere to the law. Since the outbreak of the protests, the morality police unit charged with enforcing the hijab rules has been less visible and women have taken to the...