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Iran's Currency Reaches Lowest Value Ever against the Dollar

Iran’s currency on Monday dropped to its lowest value ever against the dollar. (AFP)
Iran’s currency on Monday dropped to its lowest value ever against the dollar. (AFP)
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Iran's Currency Reaches Lowest Value Ever against the Dollar

Iran’s currency on Monday dropped to its lowest value ever against the dollar. (AFP)
Iran’s currency on Monday dropped to its lowest value ever against the dollar. (AFP)

Iran’s currency on Monday dropped to its lowest value ever against the dollar and officials warned Iranian exporters to bring their foreign earnings home from abroad.

Money exchange shops briefly traded the Iranian rial 200,000 for a dollar and later in the day, the currency was valued at 198,000 rials against the dollar. The lows were a new record after the rial on Saturday traded at 190,000 for the dollar.

The plunge of the rial comes amid severe US sanctions imposed on Tehran. Iran's Senior Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri on Monday urged Iranian exporters to bring home their earnings from abroad. Last week, Jahangiri said Iran’s oil revenues have plummeted to $8 billion from $100 billion in 2011.

The country’s commerce ministry warned that it would revoke export licenses for those who fail to comply and bring the hard currency home while Iran's central bank said on Sunday that it would publish the names of the violators.

Iranian companies reportedly export non-oil products in the value of more than 40 billion dollars a year, and officials say about half of that money stays abroad.

The rial has tumbled from a rate of 32,000 rials to $1 at the time of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The currency unexpectedly rallied for some time after President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the nuclear deal and reimpose crippling trade sanctions on Iran more than two years ago.

The sanctions have caused Iran’s oil exports, the country’s main source of income, to fall sharply.

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World

North Korea Affirms its Status as a Nuclear Power is 'Irreversible'

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides guidance on projects in the defense industry sector in North Korea, in this picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on September 19, 2026. KCNA via REUTERS
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides guidance on projects in the defense industry sector in North Korea, in this picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on September 19, 2026. KCNA via REUTERS
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North Korea Affirms its Status as a Nuclear Power is 'Irreversible'

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides guidance on projects in the defense industry sector in North Korea, in this picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on September 19, 2026. KCNA via REUTERS
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides guidance on projects in the defense industry sector in North Korea, in this picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on September 19, 2026. KCNA via REUTERS

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, accused the International Atomic Energy Agency on Saturday of double standards after it adopted a resolution criticizing Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, reported Reuters.

The IAEA's "biased viewpoint and double standards" are "the fundamental factor causing the collapse of the international nuclear non-proliferation system", Kim Yo Jong said in ‌a statement in ‌state media KCNA.

She said the ‌agency ⁠had turned a ⁠blind eye to the "blatant nuclear proliferation activities" of the United States and South Korea's "nuclear submarine introduction plan", while forcibly adopting a resolution against North Korea's "self-defensive and legitimate nuclear activities".

In a separate KCNA statement, North Korea's Foreign Ministry also dismissed the ⁠resolution, declaring that its status ‌as a nuclear power ‌is irreversible and backed by its nuclear deterrent.

KCNA also said ‌North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ‌carried out a three-day inspection tour of major munitions factories this week.

Kim said North Korea's efforts to modernize all components of its defense capability are bringing ‌about "a significant change" in the composition and means of its armed forces, KCNA said.

Analysts ⁠say ⁠North Korea has been overhauling its military with Russian help since the two countries signed a mutual defense treaty in 2024. They say combat experience gained by Pyongyang's troops deployed to the war in Ukraine has also aided the effort.

Kim also gave a lecture to a propaganda workers' training session in Pyongyang on Friday, KCNA reported, telling attendees modern "ideological warfare" needed to be innovative, creative and aggressive rather than repeating old methods.

World

South Sudanese Migrant Jailed in UK for Piloting Record Channel Boat Crossing

FILE PHOTO: Life jackets abandoned by migrants are seen in the Slack dunes, the day after migrants died when their dinghy deflated as they attempted to cross the English Channel, in Wimereux, near Calais, France, November 25, 2021. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Life jackets abandoned by migrants are seen in the Slack dunes, the day after migrants died when their dinghy deflated as they attempted to cross the English Channel, in Wimereux, near Calais, France, November 25, 2021. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol/File Photo
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South Sudanese Migrant Jailed in UK for Piloting Record Channel Boat Crossing

FILE PHOTO: Life jackets abandoned by migrants are seen in the Slack dunes, the day after migrants died when their dinghy deflated as they attempted to cross the English Channel, in Wimereux, near Calais, France, November 25, 2021. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Life jackets abandoned by migrants are seen in the Slack dunes, the day after migrants died when their dinghy deflated as they attempted to cross the English Channel, in Wimereux, near Calais, France, November 25, 2021. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol/File Photo

A South Sudanese man was jailed for two years and three months in an English court on Friday after he admitted piloting a small boat across the Channel from France, which carried a then-record 165 people.

Chan Mathok Atak, 19, previously pleaded guilty to endangering another during a July crossing to Britain in an inflatable dinghy.

The record for most migrants travelling to Britain across the Channel by small boat was broken again last month, when 230 people made the journey.

Atak's sentencing comes as the numbers of those arriving in Britain across the Channel have fallen, but the crossings remain a prominent political issue which ⁠successive British governments have ⁠struggled to tackle.

Earlier this month, hundreds of black-clad protesters gathered twice in two days on Britain's south coast, blocking streets in response to arrivals of small boats, which a government minister described as "thuggish".

Right-wing opposition parties and anti-migration activists have called for more action, but greater cooperation with French authorities and even repeated deaths have not ⁠deterred many people from seeking to make the perilous journey.

Atak was sentenced to 27 months in prison at Canterbury Crown Court. Prosecutor James Harrison said Atak piloted the dinghy for at least 90 minutes while it carried 164 other people, including 31 children aged 14 to 17.

He said there was no navigational or first aid equipment on the boat, which had only one of its two engines working and was slowly deflating and taking on sea water before it was intercepted by Britain's Border ⁠Force.

Atak's lawyer ⁠Audrey Cherryl Mogan said Atak was a young asylum seeker from South Sudan who did not have anything to do with the number of people or the conditions on board.

Judge Sarah Counsell accepted there was no evidence Atak organized the journey, but said that "those who chose to steer such vessels assume responsibility for the safety of those on board".

"This undermines public confidence in the immigration system and places considerable strain on already stretched public resources," she added.

The National Crime Agency's senior investigating officer John Turner said in a statement: "Chan Atak was unimaginably reckless and his actions could have easily resulted in many deaths had this boat not been intercepted."

World

At Least 16 Killed in Suicide Attack on Police Facility in Northwest Pakistan

File photo: Firefighters work to extinguish the burning cars at the site of bomb explosion, in Quetta, Pakistan, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
File photo: Firefighters work to extinguish the burning cars at the site of bomb explosion, in Quetta, Pakistan, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
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At Least 16 Killed in Suicide Attack on Police Facility in Northwest Pakistan

File photo: Firefighters work to extinguish the burning cars at the site of bomb explosion, in Quetta, Pakistan, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)
File photo: Firefighters work to extinguish the burning cars at the site of bomb explosion, in Quetta, Pakistan, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

At least 16 people, including five police personnel, were killed in northwest Pakistan on Friday after a suicide attacker rammed an explosives-laden car into a police facility as people were praying at a mosque inside, police said. 

The incident occurred in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province's Kohat city, with the ‌vehicle ramming ‌into an outer wall ‌of ⁠the police facility and ⁠gunmen who accompanied it opening fire, provincial police chief Zulfikar Hameed said. 

It was a suicide attack, he added. 

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, according to Reuters. 

The blast occurred close ⁠to a mosque where the ‌police personnel, their ‌family members, and other civilians were offering ‌Friday prayers, a police statement said. 

A ‌gun battle was still raging between police and the attackers, and one assailant wearing an explosives-laden vest had been killed, ‌the statement said. 

The interior ministry said the "cowardly actions" of ⁠the attackers ⁠could not weaken the "nation's firm resolve". 

Militancy in Pakistan's border areas has risen sharply in recent months, targeting mainly the military and police. 

Islamabad says the militants use safe havens in Afghanistan to train and plan attacks in Pakistan. Afghanistan's Taliban government has denied the charge and said militancy is Pakistan's domestic problem.