Iran Factory Fills Weird Void: Making US Flags to Burn

Watch footage of anti-US or anti-Israel protests in Iran, and you're likely to see a familiar scene: protesters burning American and Israeli flags. But Iran is under US sanctions and has no official contact with Israel, all of which presents a strange logistical hurdle, notes the Washington Post: Where to get the flags? Reuters provides the answer. A factory outside Tehran in the town of Khomein churns out 2,000 US and Israeli flags a month for the express of purpose of being torched by demonstrators.

For the record, they also make British flags for the same reason. "We have no problem with the American and British people," says Ghasem Ghanjani, owner of the Diba Parcham flag factory. "We have [a] problem with their governors. We have [a] problem with their presidents, with the wrong policy they have." Given the state of relations between Tehran and the US at the moment, "business is booming," per Reuters. (More Iran stories.)