Iran has wrecked 100,000 "morally harmful" satellite dishes and receivers, AFP reported Sunday, citing an Iranian news agency. "The truth is that most satellite channels... deviate the society's morality and culture," General Mohammad Reza Naghdi, the head of Iran's Basij militia was quoted as saying. "What these televisions really achieve is increased divorce, addiction and insecurity in society." Naghdi said a million Iranians had "voluntarily" handed in their satellite equipment.

There is a conundrum facing Iranian officials. The government, on the one hand, wants Iranians to read more. At the same time, with the other hand, it wants to cover their eyes. Love of the written word is deeply rooted in Iranian society, due to its extraordinary history of arts, sciences and literature. However, Iranians aren’t reading enough. Bookstores in Iran are a rarity, with some 1,500 shops for a population of almost 80 million. There was a time when publishers gave books a print run of 3,300-5,500 copies. Now, the numbers have dropped drastically to 500, sometimes even 300 copies.

A team of militants linked with ISIS were paid 600,000 euros to carry out a bombing campaign at 50 locations in Tehran and other big cities in Iran, according to a documentary aired on Iranian state TV on Monday. Officials in predominantly Shi'ite Iran have said in recent weeks that Sunni militants from ISIS are targeting the country. Two weeks ago, Iranian intelligence authorities said they had foiled a large-scale terrorist attack, arresting 10 militants, and had seized about 100 kilograms...

Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday deemed Iran's presence in Iraq to be "helpful" to American attempts to beat back the threat of ISIS, given their common enemy. The measured praise for a country with which the U.S. has a fraught relationship came at the Aspen Ideas Festival, where the secretary of state was asked to assess whether Iran was "more helpful or more harmful" there. "Look, we have challenges with Iran as everybody knows and we are working on those challenges...

Iran has flogged dozens of students for attending a mixed-gender party after a graduation ceremony. The young men and women who attended the party in a villa near Qazvin, 140km (87 miles) north-west of the capital Tehran, received 99 lashes as punishment by the country's notorious “Morality Police”. Ismaeil Sadeqi Niaraki, a mullah who acts as the prosecutor in the city, told the Mizan news agency that a special court session was set up after the young people were discovered.

The archenemies Iran and Saudi Arabia are battling for supremacy in the Middle East and are carrying out their struggle in proxy wars in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Domestically, though, the two countries are facing remarkably similar problems.

Over the years the state crackdown on women’s dress has become more of a show to placate the country’s hardline base. Our correspondent shares stories from her personal repertoire illustrating the point

Reza, a 20-something mechanical engineer working at an automotive parts factory in the northeastern Iranian city of Sabzevar, takes his web videos seriously. He’s watched the TED talk of amputee snowboarding champion Amy Purdy “over and over again.” The YouTube videos of Boston Dynamics robots Big Dog and Cheetah, which most of us find creepy, he describes as inspirational. “I was mesmerized by those videos,” he writes in an email...

A solid-fuel rocket engine North Korea tested in March was built with technology from Iran, an Israeli analyst said. Tal Inbar, of Israel's Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, said Pyongyang has also made significant progress in developing ballistic missile technology, Voice of America reported Tuesday. Inbar made the statements at a congressional briefing addressing the "ballistic axis," a reference to Iran's and North Korea's space program.

The Supreme Court handed Iran's central bank a loss on Wednesday, saying Congress acted constitutionally when it passed a law saying nearly $2 billion in frozen Iranian funds should be turned over to Americans who U.S. courts had found were victims of Iranian terrorist attacks. The issue here was not whether Iran should pay, instead it was whether Congress had infringed upon the territory of the judiciary by essentially awarding damages.

Anoosh and Arash are at the center of Tehran’s underground techno scene. Tired of hiding from the police and their stagnating career, they organize one last manic techno rave under dangerous circumstances in the desert. Back in Tehran they try their luck selling their illegally printed music album without permission. When Anoosh is arrested, there seems to be no hope left.

A scientist's eye on his country's architectural heritage and natural beauty.

Submit...no thanks.

A U.S. official has told CNN that Iran has the ability to launch a three-stage rocket with a satellite on top "at any minute." It would be Iran's first ever launch of this configuration, and like the North Korean test earlier this year, would give Iran further insights into intercontinental ballistic missile technology. The assessment followed reports in Iran's state media that it had test-fired two ballistic missiles last Wednesday.

Really?

Iranian billionaire Babak Zanjani has been sentenced to death for corruption, authorities said Sunday. Zanjani and two others were convicted of embezzling billions of dollars from the national oil company, judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Ejei said. One of the charges he faces is "corruption on earth," which carries the death penalty, according to Iranian state TV. The oil mogul was sanctioned by the EU and the United States for helping Iran evade sanctions.

President Obama has made his share of foreign policy mistakes, particularly in the Middle East. But it’s ironic that Republican critics now hammer him hardest over his nuclear deal with Iran, a bet that has already paid out for those who want to undermine Iran’s hard-liners. Elections for Iran’s parliament and its Assembly of Experts–which picks the nation’s Supreme Leader–were hardly free and fair. Conservatives managed to block..

Instagram photographer m1rasoulifard captures the structural and artistic intricacies of iran's most renowned places of worship and cultural complexes.

Allies of Iran’s reformist President Hassan Rouhani win a landslide victory in Tehran, in the first elections since the nuclear deal with world powers.

Every man in an Iranian village has reportedly been executed by the government on drug charges. Shahindokht Molaverdi, the vice president for women and family affairs, was arguing for increased provision for convicts’ families when she made the admission. “We have a village in Sistan and Baluchestan (province) where every single man has been executed,” she told the Mehr news agency.