People in Iran have described deteriorating hospital services, rising treatment costs, shortages of medical staff and equipment, and long waits for care, as healthcare workers struggle with low wages and growing workloads, according to accounts shared with Iran International.
Retirees staged protests in several Iranian cities on Sunday over soaring living costs, inadequate pensions and healthcare problems, with some demonstrators also chanting against government corruption, repression and executions.
Investment in trade routes linking Asia and Europe through Central Asia and the Caucasus is putting pressure on Iran’s ambitions to become a major transit hub, with neighboring countries developing transport and digital networks that bypass Iranian territory.
A growing number of former Iranian officials and political figures are calling for an agreement with the United States, while hardliners and military commanders continue to push for confrontation, exposing a deeper struggle over the direction of Tehran’s foreign policy.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf says part of the government’s anti-terror financing regulations violates Iranian law, adding that decisions on who is designated as terrorist must remain with the Supreme National Security Council.
Iran’s central bank governor has dismissed claims of economic collapse, while domestic media reports describe wages failing to cover basic living costs and families struggling to afford medicines, housing and car repairs.
Tehran’s hardline mayor Alireza Zakani has drawn accusations of using municipal resources to prepare for another presidential bid after announcing a freeze on basic food prices and payments to new parents.
A Social Security hospital in Tehran has locked its main building and moved treatment into a cramped clinic in its courtyard, a member of the insurer’s healthcare oversight committee said, two months after officials listed it among the capital’s unsafe hospitals.
Iran and its allies hit water plants, airports, refineries and a nuclear power station across the Persian Gulf with a precision that rules out the official story of falling debris, a Reuters investigation has found, showing the civilian damage was the aim, not a side effect.
Nearly five decades after the 1979 Revolution brought an end to Iran's legal wine industry, the country retains vast vineyards and a centuries-old winemaking heritage but remains absent from a global wine export market worth $37.8 billion in 2025.
A former Iranian labor minister has drawn ridicule after saying the country has no economic problems other than high prices and inflation, remarks that came as official data showed year-on-year inflation approaching 90%.
Iranians receiving unemployment benefits say payments have been delayed by up to two months, leaving some struggling to pay for food and service debts, according to messages sent to Iran International.
Iranian wheat farmers told Iran International that delayed government payments for their previous harvest are leaving them short of cash for autumn planting, while inflation and the falling rial erode the value of money they are still owed.
Iran’s stock market is raising eyebrows with a sustained rally even as the country’s economy struggles with dwindling foreign-currency inflows, energy shortages and uncertainty over the war.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents to an Iran International Instagram poll backed continued US pressure on the Islamic Republic, while thousands of comments revealed deep divisions over its economic cost and whether it could bring political change.
The International Monetary Fund forecast Tuesday that Iran’s economy would shrink 7.6% in 2026, a worse outlook than for its main Middle Eastern rivals amid the war, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE facing smaller contractions and Israel and Turkey expected to grow.
Washington’s new sanctions are unlikely to stop a China–Iran freight train at the border, but may make the route Tehran has turned to under pressure from the US naval blockade costlier and less reliable.
The cost of transporting goods from Turkish ports to Iran has surged over fivefold in less than two months to about $8,000, Iranian media reported, as Washington pressures Turkey to help cut off Iran's overland trade routes to further isolate Tehran economically.
Iran is seeking more electricity from Turkey and Turkmenistan as war damage and other outages leave thousands of megawatts of industrial and petrochemical power capacity offline, even as Washington presses neighboring countries to help restrict Tehran’s remaining economic routes.
Iran has reached a preliminary understanding to allocate land at Chabahar to Taliban-run Afghanistan to build infrastructure for moving its goods to the sea, an Iranian lawmaker said.
More than two-thirds of respondents to an Iran International Instagram poll said the Trump administration’s pressure on the Islamic Republic is hurting ordinary Iranians more than the authorities.
Saudi Aramco has hired a US engineering firm to upgrade an offshore oil field it shares with Iran, which has fallen far behind several neighbors in developing shared energy reserves.