Prior to a May 1 takeoff for a midnight flight out of San Francisco’s International Airport, by actual count, 61 wheelchair passengers or the people who were pushing them were congregated in a roped-off area waiting to board Philippine Airlines flight 105 for Manila, a Boeing 777-300ER carrying 370 passengers.

After PR 105 landed at Ninoy Aquino International Airport 14-1/2 hours later, the scrum of passengers galloping off the plane left just two wheelchair patients aboard. Another half dozen or so sat down in wheelchairs in the jetway and ended up in the baggage area where Philippine airline attendants wrestled their luggage for them.

This is a phenomenon that has become known to flight attendants and ground handlers as “Jetway Jesus” or “miracle flights,” according to a December 18, 2025 Wall Street Journal article complaining that it creates severe delays and leaves passengers with legitimate mobility issues waiting for limited assistance. Those who fly regularly have seen an exponentially growing number of their fellow travelers sitting in wheelchairs. The spike in wheelchair requests has led to up to 80 percent usage on certain flights, according to one study.

But for those in wheelchairs, it guarantees avoidance of notoriously long lines and immigration attended by sour TSA agents, not to mention a first crack at limited overhead bin space aboard, especially for any flight involving Filipinos, who are famous for packing on bags of pasalubongs and other flotsam and jetsam for the folks back home. It’s a chance to get on first, check out the movies on the seat back while the flight attendant strains her back throwing your carry-on baggage into the overhead bin and not have to face the hundreds of passengers stumbling by you. Flying out of Manila, you’re met at the curb by a cheerful numbered staff attendant who handles you all the way through passenger registration, immigration, the waiting area and onto the plane.

For Marites Danguilan Vitug, a Filipino journalist and author, it was a transformative experience. Vitug in March caught herself at a Bangkok International Airport brief layover to find out that the queue to immigration was incredibly long.

“We knew that we couldn’t catch our flight,” she said. “An airport staff told us to proceed to transfer desk 3 for a speedier process. Which meant that we had to walk and run, again, anxiety written on our faces. Two Thai men in white tops and dark pants, apparently their uniform, approached us and asked where we were going. Manila, we said.”

“Mama, Mama, ride here, wheelchair! Your gate is C7, we take you there. You will be on time!”

“I was hesitant. Never have I used a wheelchair in my travels, but we had little choice,” she wrote on Facebook. “Time was running out. The two men zoomed the wheelchairs past the slow-moving queue. ‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ the lead pusher said with a strong sense of urgency, and everyone gave way. And there we were, at the Immigration, in a short queue of passengers on wheelchairs.”

“From there, it only took a few minutes to our gate. I started to get off the wheelchair, but my pusher said to sit down. He wheeled me down the ramp to the waiting area! Whew! The boarding would begin in 5 minutes or so. Thank God for these wheelchair men. We made it.”

For the airlines, it’s a growing nightmare as they face major operational and financial challenges due to the unprecedented surge in requests, stemming from a mix of genuine passenger needs, a growing aging population, and a viral trend of able-bodied travelers faking disabilities to skip security lines, gain priority boarding, and secure better seating. Many airlines express frustration over a rise in what they describe as “shameless line-skipping hacks” where able-bodied travelers request wheelchair assistance to bypass long security and boarding lines.

This sharp increase in wheelchair assistance requests is creating severe logistical and safety strains across the aviation industry. Each wheelchair transport costs airlines between US$30 and US$35 according to an Air India study, which reports handling more than 100,000 assistance requests monthly, leading to severe resource depletion and delayed flights. Airline executives say this severely disadvantages and delays passengers with genuine mobility impairments.

Airlines, according to studies, mishandle an unacceptable number of genuine wheelchairs and mobility scooters. Industry data shows top carriers mishandle or damage more than 1100 wheelchairs annually, a much higher rate of damage than standard checked luggage. In extreme cases, a ruined chair leaves travelers stranded at their destination.

There seems to be little that can be done. Airlines are legally prohibited from capping the number of disabled or incapacitated passengers they carry and certainly not all disabilities are visible. Instead, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) says it is focusing on improving accessibility, standardizing assistance, and accommodating the rising demand through better infrastructure and technology.

Aviation authorities are pushing for solutions ranging from biometric screening to proposing stiff penalties for service abusers, similar to fines for parking in a handicap space, according to the IATA. But for now, as passengers stand in immobile lines awaiting grumpy TSA agents patting them down and demanding their shoes and belts, there’s little that can be done besides standing there and watching the passengers in wheelchairs merrily sailing down the concourse towards their flights -- and meeting them again on landing as they scramble out of the plane with you side by side.

A recent crackdown on an international scam and human trafficking ring in Dubai involving the US and China, Dubai and Thailand may indicate warming relations between the US and China, ahead of US President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing on May 14 and 15, when he will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“With so many Americans impacted by …

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On March 26, Vietnamese state media announced that all households in Ho Chi Minh’s Thủ Thiêm New Urban Area had “agreed to move,” accepting compensation and resettlement. Domestic media had already announced that vehicles would be restricted in the area so that undisclosed but urgent construction tasks could be carried out.

However, widely circulated videos on social media tell another story. Streets were blocked by police for days as residents protested against low compensation and the coercive eviction from their land. Livestreamed testimonies said the Internet had been disabled, with electricity and water cut off. Despite resistance, the forced eviction was successful, in a way. After decades of lawsuits, residents lost their land.

The project in the central business area has resulted in the eviction of nearly 15,000 households and the demolition of numerous religious and historic monuments, with little say given to the public.

If ever there was an area ripe for redevelopment, however, it is the Thủ Thiêm ward, a massive 657-hectare horseshoe-shaped peninsula directly across the Saigon River from Ho Chi Minh City’s historic District 1. Envisioned as the “Manhattan of Vietnam,” it is designed to be the city’s new modern financial and cultural hub for the 21st century.

Unfortunately, the Thủ Thiêm ward had a thriving population who had lived there perhaps for centuries. 14 to 15,000 households have already been ousted, with 5,000-odd still left. The area is designed to eventually accommodate roughly 130,000 to 145,400 permanent residents once completed, as well as over 217,000 regular employees and up to a million visitors during peak events.

As the country undergoes rapid development, land disputes have increased nationwide. Cases of forced land seizures have been reported across the country. What is presented as compliance is often driven by coercion rather than genuine consensus.

Opposition costs too high

The heavy police presence in Thủ Thiêm evokes painful memories of the deadly, long-running land dispute in Đồng Tâm commune on the outskirts of Hanoi. On Jan. 9, 2020, thousands of police entered the commune and clashes erupted, killing three policemen and a civilian, Lê Đình Kình, a veteran, former local official, Communist Party member, and leading protest figure. He had become a spiritual leader and vowed to defend what villagers considered their ancestral land, but which the government designated as public land for state-defined purposes.

That tragedy demonstrated that earlier promises of dialogue between the state and affected communities were hollow. Under Party General Secretary and President Tô Lâm, the Ministry of Public Security has become unprecedentedly powerful. Four out of 19 Politburo members, including Tô Lâm, have police backgrounds.

Vietnam’s 2013 Constitution says land is collectively owned by the people and administered by the state. In practice, however, this framework – combined with inconsistent and often lax management by local authorities – has created fertile ground for disputes, particularly in cases where historical land-use rights are ambiguous.

In practice, compensation is typically limited to land formally recognized by land-use rights certificates and remains subject to interpretation by local authorities. The amended 2024 Land Law introduced no fundamental change. Land, in effect, remains under state control, with authorities retaining broad powers to reclaim or lease it for self-styled socio-economic development or national defense purposes.

As a result, even those holding land-use rights certificates often find themselves in a precarious position, effectively tenants on their own land, paying taxes on property that can be seized at any time.

It is now common in Hanoi to see large groups of landowners gathered at the central offices of the Communist Party of Vietnam to demand justice. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City stand out as cities where citizens have been openly dissatisfied with below-market compensation for land confiscation.

Disciplining leaders does not mean justice for victims

The municipal People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City has publicly apologized to local residents for shortcomings in the Thủ Thiêm project, acknowledging that it had not “followed what was approved,” particularly in relation to households on approximately 4.3 hectares outside the planning zone. However, the apology didn’t translate into any meaningful redress.

In 2020, government officials in Ho Chi Minh City faced charges for land mismanagement in a massive urban development project that led to the confiscation of land rights for 15,000 people. Lê Thanh Hải, a former member of the Politburo and former Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee, was expelled from the Communist Party. But this did not necessarily mean that justice would be served for the affected citizens.

Thủ Thiêm residents may feel an even deeper sense of injustice. Under the former South Vietnamese regime (1955–1975), citizens were allowed to own land. Private land ownership formally remained in place until 1980, when the new Constitution abolished the right to private land ownership in a unified Vietnam.

Last December, at a national conference reviewing anti-corruption, anti-wastefulness and anti-negativity efforts during the term of the Party’s 13th National Congress, Tô Lâm said that 80-90 percent of misconduct cases lodged against officials were related to land, which speaks volumes about discontent over land issues.

Yet Tô Lâm is also known for championing fast GDP-centric economic growth. Modernization has been equated with mushrooming real estate projects. According to state media, the state is building the largest plaza in Vietnam in Thủ Thiêm, which is to become a landmark of modern Ho Chi Minh City. Yet for thousands of residents, modernization has carried profound and often overlooked costs – chronic insecurity, fractured communities, lost livelihoods and a generation left behind.

Also, the police under Tô Lâm are major law-makers. Last December, in a draft decree on integrating security with socio-economic development, the Ministry of Public Security proposed participating in reviewing national master plans, national land-use planning, socio-economic development plans, and even medium-term and annual public investment plans.

More violence to come

The 2020 violence of the Đồng Tâm clash extended far beyond the death of the spiritual leader Lê Đình Kình. His two sons were sentenced to death, and his grandson received a life sentence, all on murder charges, even though they had been attacked by the police. Several villagers, including Lê Đình Kình’s adopted daughter, were given prison terms of between 12 and 15 years, while others received shorter sentences for “resisting law enforcement officers.”

As of now, local police have reportedly refused to issue a death certificate for Lê Đình Kình on the grounds that his wife must state that he died in the field, not at home. As a result, he has been denied even official recognition of being killed.

The government has branded those who suffered in Đồng Tâm as terrorists and rioters, and forced arrested villagers to confess their alleged crimes on TV. Domestic media accused them of receiving external funding and direction from exiled opposition groups that the government labels terrorist organizations.

Human rights defenders who advocated in the case have also paid a high price. Before rising to the top post, Tô Lâm headed the Ministry of Public Security from 2016 to 2024. As of 2026, he has put more than 70 independent journalists in prison.

To pay respects to Lê Đình Kình and support the residents of Đồng Tâm, activist Nguyễn Thúy Hạnh raised funds on social media platforms. Around $20,000 in local currency was contributed by people across the country. Shortly after, the Ministry of Public Security subsequently froze the bank account, and the funds remain inaccessible.

In April 2021, Nguyễn Thúy Hạnh was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on the concocted charge of “making, storing, or spreading information, materials or items for the purpose of opposing the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” Such charges were also brought against the family of prominent land-rights defender Cấn Thị Thêu and her two sons for disseminating information about the Đồng Tâm incident on social media. The three were sentenced to a total of 37 years in prison.

People in Thủ Thiêm are aware of the possible consequences, yet being homeless and jobless on their own land after decades of hard work and hardship leaves many with nothing more to lose.

On several streets in the Thủ Thiêm area, signs of protest remain. Hopefully, the history of Đồng Tâm won’t repeat itself. It is not only a story of the past, but also a test of the future. Monetary compensation could be paid, but public trust has already been lost.

The author’s name is being withheld out of concern for prosecution by the Vietnamese government.

Japan is suffering a nationwide shortage of surgeons in more than half of its teaching hospitals, even in major urban centers like Tokyo and Osaka. Even as the total number of physicians grows nationwide, the number of surgeons is declining. There are severe shortages in rural areas, especially in Tohoku, where surgical…

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On April 12, a 53-year-old construction worker named Jhony Lanquino was trying to beat the 38-degree heat by shedding his tee-shirt while mixing cement outside his home in Mandaluyong City in the Manila national capital region when he was surrounded by barangay officials and police officers including SWAT members trained for high-risk operations.

Lanquino was fined ₱500 (US8.33) for violating a local ordinance on public decency by being shirtless, although two days later, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla descended on Lanquino at home and personally apologized, returning the ₱500 fine amid public outcry and acknowledging lapses in the initial implementation of his “Safer Metro Manila Plan,” also called the “Safer Cities” initiative.

Jonvic, suspected of being the Marcos camp’s candidate to take on Sara Duterte in the 2028 presidential sweepstakes, rolled out the plan on April 6 with the fanfare of a national event to take on one of the world’s most chaotic, polluted, traffic-choked, slum-ridden cities, which for decades has cheerfully resisted all attempts to redeem or reform it.

While designed to instill discipline, Remulla’s drive has faced criticism for allegedly targeting poor individuals, leading to calls for better police discretion, compassion and refinement in its implementation. Over 72,000 individuals were flagged in Metro Manila alone within the first 10 days, with a daily average of 6,000–7,000 apprehensions.

If there is a certain nostalgia, a balik-tanaw spreading in Metro Manila, something people here have seen before, it is justified. Manila saw it under Imelda Marcos, then first lady, governor of Metro Manila and minister for human settlements and mother of the current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. She was nicknamed the Steel Butterfly, sometimes the Iron Butterfly for her unique combination of fragile beauty, lavish lifestyle and iron-fisted, unyielding political ambition.

Appointed governor of Metro Manila (1975–1986) by her strongman husband Ferdinand Marcos Sr, she led the Manila Cleanup Crusade” to polish the city’s streets, waterways and public spaces in preparation for major international events, a failing effort to put a shine on the chaotic conurbation of 15 cities, suburbs and slums into a “City of Man” including construction of the Cultural Center of the Philippines and a “Great Wall of Manila” to hide poverty-stricken slums behind white walls from the view of visiting foreign dignitaries.

Alas, Manila, often noted for its high levels of happiness and contentment, cheerfully resisted all attempts to redeem or reform it, lost as she focused on aesthetics to mask deep-seated social issues and ignoring actual sanitation and welfare needs.

Remulla’s new attempt, led by his Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Philippine National Police, aims to bridge the gap between crime statistics and the public’s sense of security through high-visibility policing and strict enforcement of “quality-of-life” ordinances. In short, make police more visible and streets more orderly to fix the feeling of insecurity. His modern echo, flagging shirtless workers and shutting down late-night karaoke parlors amid public outcry, is driven by the Philippines’ hosting the ASEAN Summit. Once again, Manila is being dressed up for the world, and poverty is treated as a public relations problem.

After his apology to Lanquino, he insisted that his initiative would be strictly enforced, albeit with clearer guidelines. Men going shirtless without practical reasons will be fined, he said, even in secluded alleys.

“Working shirtless men are allowed,” Remulla told the Manila Bulletin. “But those just hanging out topless outside, walking that’s prohibited.’’ However, he said, “anything goes, even shirtless men roaming the streets may be allowed during special celebrations like fiestas, as long as no troubles or violent incidents transpire during these festivities.

Where Imelda reshaped what people saw, this policy targets how people behave, which immediately has drawn condemnation from progressive and human rights groups, describing it misdirected and a crackdown against the poor. Critics say the pattern is clear. The plan’s visible targets are not major criminals but minor violations: public drinking, curfew breaches, noise complaints, and “indecent exposure.”

“This is not about safety,” said Secretary General Cristina Palaba of the human rights NGO Karapatan. “This is a crackdown on the poor, plain and simple. We have seen this before. Thousands were rounded up in the name of ‘order,’ yet nothing changed for the better in the lives of the people. Instead, the poor were harassed, detained, some of them even get killed in these operations.”

The irony is hard to miss. In a city where trillion-peso flood control projects disappear into the ether and high-profile fugitives slip through international borders with the grace of Olympic gymnasts, enforcement zeroes in on small, visible offenses. It’s easier to police behavior than dismantle systems that make the city unsafe.

Much like Imelda’s rush to hide “eyesores” before international conferences and beauty pageants, Remulla’s initiative seems less about long-term crime reduction and more about presenting a sanitized, “disciplined” facade to ASEAN delegates.

Enforcement also reveals a class divide. Shirtless laborers are fined, but joggers in gated villages are not. Curfews apply in poorer districts, while nightlife districts run late. Order, it seems, depends on where you live.

The Interior Department plans to expand the program to other cities after its Metro Manila pilot. As it does, the question becomes clearer: do we want a city that is truly safe, or one that simply looks orderly? Until deeper inequalities are addressed, these patrols risk becoming little more than performance—highly visible, tightly enforced, and aimed at those with the least power to resist.

Few environmental disasters illustrate the consequences of human mismanagement as starkly as the fate of the Aral Sea. Once the world’s fourth-largest inland body of water, it has lost roughly 90 percent of its volume since the 1960s after the main flow of the rivers that sustained it were diverted for large-scale irrigation projects. …

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Women’s rights are actually regressing globally, with millions of women and girls denied equal rights to education, employment, pay, inheritance and land rights. Nearly a quarter of countries report a rollback, according to the 2026 UN Secretary-General’s reports on women and girls, which highlight a seve…

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Bhutan, the isolated Himalayan nation that has gained worldwide distinction for its royal family’s voluntary relinquishment of power and its replacement of gross national product with gross national happiness as a measure of wellbeing, now expects its first railway connection, courtesy of India, to link the southern ci…

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The Indian government is faced with the monumental task of ensuring functional, gender-segregated toilets in all schools and distributing free, biodegradable sanitary pads via vending machines for millions of girls in the wake of a January 30 landmark judgment by the Supreme Court of India declaring menstrual health an integral component of individual fundamental rights.

The ruling moves menstrual hygiene from a welfare scheme to an enforceable right, targeting the reduction of school dropout rates and enhancing gender equality. The Court announced it would follow up after three months to determine how well the mandates have been implemented, which makes India the only country in the world to mandate such a constitutional guarantee.

Equally important toilet scheme

The decision dovetails with an equally important scheme launched in 2014, officially known as the Swachh Bharat Mission or toilet scheme, that could do more than almost anything to cement Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s place in Indian history. It has provided for some of the most basic human sanitation needs for hundreds of millions of poverty-stricken Indians, emphasizing sustainable sanitation, solid waste management, and the construction of new toilets to meet growing demand.

The Swachh Bharat Mission has facilitated the construction of more than 120 million household toilets across India by last September, significantly increasing sanitation access with more than 110 million of them built in rural areas. The scheme in rural India has been of enormous significance for women, not only for dignity and hygiene but by reducing the risk of sexual assault and disease. Previously, more than 70 percent of sexual assaults in some areas occurred when women left home for bowel movements, often at night.

Lack of essential hygiene sparks dropouts

Some 23 million girls drop out of school annually in India due to a lack of proper menstrual hygiene management facilities, including toilets and sanitary products. Nearly 60 percent of girls skip school during their menstrual cycle, with 70 percent unable to afford sanitary pads. The lack of affordable disposable pads causes menstruating girls to use newspaper, old rags, sponges and dried leaves despite the 2011 launch of the Menstrual Hygiene Scheme (MHS) by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, a landmark attempt to destigmatize menstruation at a national level, by targeting adolescent girls aged 10–19 with subsidized sanitary pads and menstrual education.

The court’s 127-page judgment mandates all Indian states and union territories to ensure that proper sanitation is essential for dignity and bodily autonomy, not just charity. All public and private schools must install vending machines for eco-friendly sanitary pads and provide, at minimum, “Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) corners” in schools, equipped with spare uniforms, underwear and waste disposal systems including soap and disposal bags to ensure the provision of functional, accessible, and gender-segregated toilets in every school with usable water and handwashing facilities and safe environmentally compliant mechanisms for their disposable. It requires integration of gender-responsive education on menstruation and related health concerns into school curricula to break the stigma around puberty and menstruation.

“Despite some progress, menstrual hygiene discourse in India has not been discussed vocally as a fundamental right,” said activist Debanjana Choudhuri. “Onset of menstruation leads to irregular school attendance. Inadequate toilet facilities, lack of privacy, unavailability of sanitary products and fear of embarrassment compel many girl students to remain absent during their menstrual cycle. This has a huge impact on her life choices, economic freedom and her dignity. What begins as a temporary absence frequently develops into an academic difficulty and, in several cases, results in discontinuation of education. She just simply stops going to school.”

“When girls are forced to sacrifice their education or dignity due to biological realities, the harm is constitutional in nature. When a society allows this harm to happen then we fail as a society collectively. If this happens because of stigma or taboo for menstruation, then we have completely failed despite all the years of advocacy and activism in India for gender rights,” said Debanjana Choudhuri, a gender justice activist, emphasizing that the Supreme Court decision on menstruation talks about living with dignity.

There are also the needs of out-of-school adolescents, many of whom belong to the most marginalized communities in India, or those who drop out of school due to early marriage or some other social reason. They also need equal access to menstrual hygiene interventions, as those in formal education. Civil society, communities, and policymakers will be called upon to work together to achieve success.

Global problem as well

The problem is not confined to India. Even in wealthy countries including the US, one in five teens as well as homeless, low-income, and/or imprisoned women struggle to afford products, with four in five missing some class time, according to a 2023 World Bank study. A new report launched by UNICEF and the World Health Organization analyzes for the first time emerging national data on menstrual health and hygiene in schools globally. The report underscores the urgent need for global action to improve menstrual health and hygiene in schools.

Globally, more than 500 million women lack access to adequate menstrual products and sanitation facilities. Use of sanitary pads leads to a significant reduction in sexually transmitted infections and bacterial vaginosis. Poor menstrual hygiene can pose serious health risks, like reproductive and urinary tract infections. Promoting menstrual health and hygiene is an important means for safeguarding women’s dignity, privacy, bodily integrity, and, consequently, their self-efficacy.

Studies show that menstruation-related stigma and discrimination remain widespread. It is often fuelled by harmful social norms and cultural taboos around menstruation. In some parts of the world, even today, menstruating girls and women are seen as dirty or untouchable, restricting their movement and access to spaces. Myths include that menstruating women and girls should not touch certain food, or it would rot, or enter places of worship as they are unclean, and that they should be isolated.

Shobha Shukla is the award-winning founding Managing Editor and Executive Director of Citizen News Service (CNS). Follow her on X or read her writings here. Shared under Creative Commons (CC)

Singapore has taken a major step in helping to dismantle the alleged multi-billion dollar criminal empire put together by Benjamin Mauerberger, a 47-year-old South African who parlayed his connections to top Cambodian and Thai officials to amass a fortune from cyber scams, according to a statement by the Monetary Authority of Singapore on March 9.

Police…

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On March 6, the US State Department announced that the first charter flight of Americans from the Middle East had arrived back in the Unted States, the latest in a flurry of such messages internationally as government-sponsored refugee flights landed in Germany, the UK, Spain, India and other countries carrying stranded diplomats, tourists and others eager to escape the widening war, which has seen retaliatory missiles and drones spatter wreckage not only in Israel and Iran but a long list of other gulf states.

But there seemingly has been little attention paid to the plight of as many as 41.4 million international migrant workers and refugees hosted by Arab countries, according to the International Labor Organization. More than 24 million of them are migrant workers, 83 percent of them men, representing a significant portion of the Middle East workforce, particularly in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. There are also millions of women from the Philippines, Indonesia and Bangladesh who have signed contracts as domestic helpers.

Governments seeking solutions

Governments of the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Pakistan said they are monitoring the location of their citizens and urged them to shelter in place. Although some governments are preparing evacuation and repatriation plans should the attacks worsen, which they seem to be doing, commercial airports throughout the region are closed. Many of the unfortunate are in low-income work and often lack adequate protection.

The situation is characterized by a “perfect storm” of physical danger, economic desperation, and, for many, abandonment by employers, according to reports by the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration, which reported on March 2 that the conflict “has already resulted in the deaths and injuries of migrant workers, including Filipinos, Pakistanis, Nepalis, and Bangladeshis, due to missile and drone strikes on civilian and critical infrastructure. Workers in areas like Lebanon, Israel, and Iran face immediate risks from airstrikes. In early March, a Filipino caregiver was killed in Israel during a counterattack.”

Other media describe thousands of workers trapped in their accommodations, unable to commute to work, with limited access to food, medical care and security. Thousands are seeking, or have already initiated, repatriation, which means losing their source of income and facing financial ruin at home, as many are the sole breadwinners for their families, according to the Philippine Inquirer. Previous conflicts in the Middle East have seen some migrant workers abandoned by employers, often without their wages or travel documents, according to the London-based Business and Human Rights Center.

Implications likely to endure

Beyond the immediate human rights crisis, the rise of these countries is thanks to the labor or tax benefits of people with no stake in them. And even if the war is short, the implications for the Gulf states and their economies will endure. This time, instead of being confined to the warring parties Israel and Iran and its client states, the war is being taken to countries with large foreign worker populations that previously hadn’t had to endure the violence. That includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, and Cyprus, all of which have been hit, putting these workers’ lives in danger and triggering a wider exodus – if they can find transportation out. The violence has closed thousands of commercial flights.

The scale of dependency on foreign workers in the Middle East is breathtaking as the oil-rich find poverty-stricken workers, the preponderance of them from the Global South, to do what is called “3D” jobs—Dirty, Dangerous, and Difficult— construction, engineering, healthcare, and domestic service. Local citizens universally avoid these jobs. The jobs are largely managed through the Kafala (sponsorship) system, which gives employers significant control over workers’ legal status and movement.

In Qatar and the UAE, foreign workers make up 88 percent of the population of each, 60 percent of Kuwait, 55 percent of Bahrain, 44 percent of Saudi Arabia, and 43 percent of Oman.

At the other end of the pipeline, foreign remittances are a significant contributor to poor countries’ GDP, leading to overseas foreign workers being termed “economic heroes” although “economic hostages” might be more appropriate given the strain and damage to family and community relationships back home.

India, the world’s largest recipient, with 10 million workers in the Gulf, received US$137 billion in 2024 from overseas workers although it benefits from a shift toward high-skilled workers in the US and Europe, according to the World Bank. Although that is a fraction of India’s US$4.15 trillion economy, other countries like Nepal, for instance, with 1.7 million Nepali nationals estimated to be living and working across the Middle East, derived 25.2 percent of GDP from inward remittances.

More than 4.5 million Pakistanis live and work in the Middle East, sending home roughly 10 percent of the country’s GDP. Formal remittances to Bangladesh equaled roughly 4.6 percent to 5 percent of its GDP based on 2022-2023 data. In 2025, total cash remittances from all overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) reached a record high of US$35.63 billion, accounting for 7.3 percent of GDP. Although the US is the top source of remittances, the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, account for roughly 30 percent. Total remittances from 946,000 overseas Indonesian workers reached a record US$12.7 billion by Q3 2025, although given the size of Indonesia’s US$1.5 trillion economy, that amounted to less than 1 percent.

Desperate plight

Returning home for tens of millions of these workers prematurely not only means losing jobs, which could lead to severe debt for those who paid for the jobs, according to the American Community Media, but loss of income for millions of families in home countries, posing a significant threat to local economies, especially in South Asia. But staying where they are means many are in the direct line of fire, with reports of casualties among Filipino, Pakistani, Nepali, and Bangladeshi nationals. Many have been forced to take shelter as missiles and drones strike near residential and work areas. There seem no viable choices.

Hong Kong courts in recent days have concluded two trials, one convicting the father of a prominent US‑based democracy activist on February 11 for allegedly helping to pay for his daughter’s US-based protest activities against the government, and the other on February 26, quashing the convictions of jailed publisher and democracy advocate Jimmy Lai and …

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Cybercrime has metastasized across the globe, becoming one of the most widespread and damaging forms of crime, generating large volumes of illicit proceeds through the exploitation of victims, according to a new study by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force.

Cyber fraud now accounts for 40 percent of all crimes in the Unite…

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Asia’s demographic story is shifting with startling speed. Fertility rates are plummeting across much of the region. Japan’s population has been shrinking for 16 years. South Korea’s birth rate remains one of the lowest in the world. China’s population has also begun to decline, falling for the fourth consecutive year in 2025 …

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Jolted awake at 2 am, I rushed into the hotel bathroom. The churn in my stomach had a certain culprit: a nondescript mom-and-pop hotpot restaurant down the street. I was being extra careful with boiling the thin slices of beef and checking to make sure that the eatery was patronized by repeat customers. Still, I was ensnared by the ingred…

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When torrential rains triggered floods and landslides across three provinces in Sumatra late last year, entire villages were swept away, more than 1,200 people were killed and forests upstream collapsed under the weight of decades of unchecked exploitation. Now, Indonesia’s government is moving to hold companies accoun…

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When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos married Lauren Sánchez in Venice last June, the nuptials were estimated to have cost up to US$56 million, a lavish, multi-day celebration for approximately 200–250 guests included venue buyouts, high-profile celebrity guests, and extensive security. But Bezos looked li…

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Iran today resembles the Iran of the late Sassanids: a frail body, a heavy, swollen head (the militarized state) and a weary soul ready to open the gates to anyone promising change. The longing for the alien is not born of treachery but is the final refuge of a nation that has become a stranger in its own fatherland. The path from 2009, when protests broke out in major cities in support of opposition candidates, to 2026 has been a descent from civic agency to waiting passivity. If in 2009 people asked: “Where is my vote,” in 2026, through silence or monarchist chants, they ask “Where is the Savior?”

The 12-Day War last June with Israel and this January’s massacre have driven the final nails into the coffin of the social contract. A society that witnesses 36,000 dead and Black Bags has nothing left to lose. But the danger lies in this very desperation: A society that ties its hope entirely to the Other is susceptible to accepting any form of change from without, even if it entails territorial disintegration or infrastructural ruin. The absence of “Woman, Life, Freedom,” the rallying cry for women’s rights and autonomy following the September 2022 death of Mahsa Amin, in 2026 is a grave warning; a warning that democratic and human rights values have been crushed under the boot amid the struggle for survival.

The history of the Iranian plateau has often been narrated through the lens of invasion and resistance, a narrative in which the “Other” or “Foreigner” has invariably occupied the position of the antagonist against whom national identity is forged. However, deeper examination reveals a more complex dynamic: oscillation between aggressive xenophobia – prejudice against people from other countries – and desperate xenophilia – longing for help from anything foreign.

Contemporary Iranian society is undergoing a painful transition from hope for endogenous reform to longing for exogenous intervention. This national desperation is rooted in the total asphyxiation of civil society, the collapse of the middle class, and the failure of reformist paradigms.

The Semantic Rupture of 2009

The 2009 Green Movement, the mass protests following the disputed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, marked a turning point in Iranian society’s engagement with the concept of foreign power. Previously, the dominant discourse, even among critics, was based on independence. However, the slogan “Obama, Obama, are you with them or with us,” directed at former President Barack Obama, heralded a new paradigm.

Contrary to interpreting this as a call for military intervention, it was a moral appeal for recognition. Protesters were signaling to the US President that the policy of engagement should not come at the cost of ignoring the suppression of civil society. At that juncture, society still believed in reform. The request to Obama was not for crippling sanctions, but for the delegitimization of the Ahmadinejad administration.

The Obama administration’s relative silence and continuation of diplomatic tracks was interpreted by many protesters as a betrayal. This sense of abandonment sowed deep cynicism. Society realized that global diplomacy prioritizes security interests over human rights. This disillusionment laid the groundwork for the shift from reformist discourse to more radical postures in the following decade.

The Rise of the Punitive Savior

With the US withdrawal by the Trump administration from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 agreement between Iran and the world powers to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, the dynamic between Iranian society and the West underwent a fundamental transformation. If the request in 2009 was for “solidarity,” by 2019, segments of society began to welcome pressure.

The first Trump administration’s campaign pushed Iran’s economy to the brink. Yet, statistical and field evidence suggests a significant portion of society blamed domestic inefficiency, not sanctions, for their plight. A 2021 survey by the Netherlands-based Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAAMAN) revealed that 86 percent of Iranians believed domestic corruption and mismanagement were the primary causes of the economic crisis, while only 10 percent blamed foreign sanctions.

For parts of the opposition, Trump embodied the strict father figure who does not hesitate to punish the unruly child (the regime), which can be viewed as strategic self-destruction, in which society is willing to endure the pain of sanctions if it leads to the weakening of the ruling structure.

The Death of the Middle Class

Sanctions and mismanagement shattered the backbone of the Iranian middle class. This class, the primary carrier of democratic values, plummeted below the poverty line. The Grey Layer merged with the Barefoot Class. The result was a massive, angry populace no longer concerned with the intellectual nuances of 2009, but seeking bread and revenge, a shift evident in the slogans of 2017 and 2019, which directly targeted the core of the system.

The final turning point in the collapse of society was the brief but devastating war between Iran and Israel last June, which severed the regime’s last thread of legitimacy: the promise of security. The conflict began with preemptive Israeli strikes on nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordow. Iran retaliated with over 550 ballistic missiles and 1,000 drones. Israeli and US defenses intercepted the majority of the projectiles. The Israeli Air Force, maintaining air superiority, destroyed critical infrastructure, including refineries and the state broadcaster studios in Tehran. The destruction of air defense systems left the country virtually defenseless.

The most shocking aspect was the societal reaction. Unlike the Iran-Iraq War, which galvanized patriotism, the 12-Day War exposed a complete state-society rupture. A September postwar GAMAAN survey revealed bitter truths: 44 percent held the Islamic Republic responsible for starting the war, 51 percent believed Israel was successful and achieved its objectives. These figures indicate absolute alienation – Iranians interpreted the bombing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities not as an attack on the country, but as the weakening of the jailer. The myth of “we provide security,” used for years to justify internal repression and regional intervention, evaporated.

National Desperation and the Black Bags

The protests of January 2026 were not a civic movement for reform but a rebellion of absolute despair. Facing internal collapse following the military defeat, the regime opted to erase the problem. The Supreme National Security Council issued orders for direct fire against protesters. Hospital lists confirmed by surgeons indicate over 30,304 deaths in just two days, January 8 and 9. The scale of killing overwhelmed the logistical system. Reports emerged of authorities running out of body bags and using refrigerator trucks to transport piles of corpses. The term “Black Bags” became a grim symbol of this era.

January slogans reveal a profound ideological metamorphosis. The progressive slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” central to the 2022 uprising was completely absent from street protests. 65 percent of slogans were negative/negating (”Death to the Dictator,” “We don’t want...”). 20 percent of slogans explicitly praised the Pahlavi era (”Reza Shah, Bless Your Soul”). This shift signifies desperation regarding modern democratic models. When society faces naked violence and absolute poverty, priorities shift from civil liberties to order and sustenance. The return to monarchist slogans is a plea for a strongman from the past, a desire for a savior to end the chaos with an iron fist.

Why the Stranger?

Shi’a culture is intertwined with the concept of “Waiting” (Intizar) for a Savior. The Islamic Republic attempted to fill this void with the “Velayat-e Faqih,” or guardianship of the Islamic Jurist. With its failure, society did not discard the mechanism of “waiting” but secularized it. The savior is no longer the Hidden Imam, but an external force –Trump, Israel – or a historical king.

Repeated cycles of protest and suppression (1999, 2009, 2017, 2019, 2022, 2026) have induced learned helplessness in the collective psyche. Iranians have concluded that internal change is impossible against a ruthless apparatus. Thus, the only salvation lies in a superpower capable of militarily matching the IRGC.

In political psychoanalysis, the despot plays the role of the “bad father.” When the father kills his children and loots their future, the children suffer from unresolved Oedipal conflict. In this state, the children turn to the neighbor – the foreigner – to punish the father. Implicit support for foreign pressure is a manifestation of the desire for patricide. Society is willing to see the house (homeland) damaged, provided the tyrannical father is buried under its rubble.

This psychological state is not a new phenomenon but has been brewing in the intellectual subconscious for decades. It was diagnosed by the renowned poet Mehdi Akhavan Sales (M. Omid) in the 1960s. Addressing himself by his pen name Omid (Hope), he wrote in a moment of historical despair:

“Again they say: wait for another tomorrow...

Wait until another appears...

No Kaveh [The Internal Hero] will be found, Omid...

Would that an Alexander [The Foreign Conqueror] be found...”

Akhavan’s verse captures the chilling essence of 2026. He realizes that Kaveh the Blacksmith, the mythical internal champion of justice, will not rise. In this vacuum, the collective unconscious trades the dream of a national hero for the nightmare of an Alexander, willing to accept the alien conqueror if it means the end of the current stagnation.

This is written by a resident of Tehran who writes to Asia Sentinel: “I managed to access the internet using various VPNs and some specific workarounds during a brief window where the connection seems slightly more accessible. I have not stopped writing; for me, it is the only way to shout to the world that I am still alive and surviving.”

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