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What you need to know

Iran’s internet blackout lengthens, unrest continues, U.S. prepares

Iran’s internet blackout has now lasted more than eight days, with no sign of the communications block being lifted. That may reflect a shift toward a more permanent model, with Iran using the outage to build something akin to China’s “Great Firewall” and tighten citizens’ access to outside information.

Deaths are reported to have climbed into the tens of thousands. Even so, the uprising appears far from spent.

A fresh wave of protests is reported across Lorestan province and in Mashhad, Rasht, Tehran, and Karaj, coinciding with burials and third-day mourning ceremonies for recently returned victims, which often become flashpoints for unrest. Other reports point to an increase in nighttime anti-government chants and the continuation of strikes in multiple areas. In Rasht, the central market was reportedly burned; witnesses allege security forces set it alight to restrict protesters’ movement and then fired on crowds. Across several cities, accounts describe a sharp deterioration each evening, with streets under martial-law controls. There are also reports of frequent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) reconnaissance-drone flights.

Several thousand Iraqi militiamen aligned with Iran, including members of Kataib Hezbollah, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, and the Badr Organization, are reported to have entered Iran to help suppress the uprising, suggesting that Iran’s own forces are under strain.

The ultimate U.S. response remains unclear. The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group is steaming toward the Middle East from southeast Asia and is expected to arrive within roughly six days. Such deployments, alongside other capabilities, could be intended to deter or defend against Iranian retaliation if the U.S. or Israel were to target the IRGC, senior figures, or oil-export infrastructure.

On Thursday, Senator Lindsey Graham, a key congressional ally of President Donald Trump, warned that it would be a mistake to assume that kinetic options are off the table.

Also on Thursday, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff set out the administration’s stated compliance objectives for Iran. He said he hopes the situation can be handled diplomatically rather than through a U.S. strike, and framed a potential agreement around four issues: nuclear enrichment, Iran’s missile inventory, its stockpile of enriched nuclear material (which he put at roughly 2,000 kg [about 4,400 lb] enriched between 3.67% and 60%), and Iran’s regional proxies. If those problems cannot be resolved diplomatically, he said, “the alternative is a bad one.”

The new Monroe Doctrine & the Trump Corollary 

U.S. presses Mexico over “verifiable” border results & joint cartel raids

The United States has warned Mexico that “incremental” progress on border security is “unacceptable”, tightening the tone of bilateral talks as Washington demands measurable action against fentanyl trafficking and the criminal networks it says sustain it.

The warning followed a phone call on Thursday between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Mexico’s foreign minister, Juan Ramon de la Fuente. In its readout, Washington said forthcoming bilateral engagements would need to deliver “concrete, verifiable outcomes” to dismantle “narcoterrorist networks” and produce a “real reduction” in fentanyl flows, presenting the issue as a shared threat to communities on both sides of the border.

Mexico’s government, in its own account of the call, stressed the importance of the bilateral relationship and reiterated cooperation on security, while avoiding Washington’s phrasing. The exchange comes amid an intensifying debate in Washington over how far the United States should go in confronting Mexico-based cartels.

U.S. officials have been pressing Mexico to allow American personnel to participate more directly in operations inside Mexico that target suspected fentanyl laboratories, an expansion of U.S. involvement that Mexico has long rejected on sovereignty grounds.

U.S. officials are proposing that U.S. Special Operations troops or CIA officers accompany Mexican units on raids intended to dismantle fentanyl production sites.

The reported push for joint operations follows a period of escalating rhetoric from President Donald Trump, who has said cartels “control” Mexico and has suggested the U.S. could strike cartel-linked targets inside the country. Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has publicly opposed any U.S. military intervention on Mexican soil and has recently described such intervention as “unnecessary”, indicating Mexico’s political red lines around foreign forces operating in the country.

The emerging dispute illuminates a central tension in the security relationship: Washington’s demand for visible enforcement outcomes and Mexico’s insistence that cooperation must not resemble intervention. The U.S. focus on “verifiable outcomes” implies a preference for evidence of disrupted networks and reduced flows over broad commitments or process measures.

For Mexico, the stakes extend beyond domestic politics to the management of a sprawling bilateral agenda that includes trade, migration, and law-enforcement coordination. Sheinbaum has sought to present collaboration with Washington as pragmatic and continuous, while maintaining a firm line against U.S. troops operating inside Mexico.

What happens next will depend on the “upcoming bilateral engagements” referenced by Washington and on whether Mexico offers steps the United States deems concrete enough without crossing Mexico’s sovereignty threshold. For now, the official U.S. message is that progress must accelerate.

It’s the U.S. vs China, everyone else needs to pick a side

U.S. allies tighten logistics & planning arrangements across the western Pacific

Japan and the Philippines signed a new logistics pact on 15 January, deepening a fast-expanding security relationship as both countries face recurring maritime friction with China.

The Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement is meant to let the Japan Self-Defense Forces and the Armed Forces of the Philippines provide one another with supplies and services, including fuel, food, and ammunition, during joint activities such as training and other operations. The agreement was signed in Manila and will require ratification in Japan before it enters into force.

The logistics pact builds on a broader strengthening of defense ties between Tokyo and Manila.

After concluding a Reciprocal Access Agreement in 2024, intended to make joint drills and rotational deployments easier, the two governments have accelerated maritime cooperation. The latest announcements also include additional Japanese security assistance aimed at bolstering Philippine maritime capabilities, including support linked to Japan-donated patrol vessels and related facilities.

Taiwan, meanwhile, said four additional U.S. arms sales are “in the pipeline” for congressional notification, following a recent record-scale package. Taiwanese officials did not disclose the systems involved, citing legal constraints around pending notifications. The move highlights Taipei’s drive to speed procurement as it builds stockpiles and improves readiness, while Washington keeps military support on a steady track.

Instability from Sahel to Horn of Africa amid state fragility, Russian interference, & Islamist insurgencies

Cairo talks revive Sudan diplomacy as Saudi–UAE rift spills across Yemen & Sudan

Efforts to end Sudan’s war resumed in Cairo this week. Egypt and the United Nations urged the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces to accept a nationwide humanitarian truce, as access for aid agencies worsens and fighting continues across multiple theaters.

The renewed push comes as regional competition between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, long-time partners in Yemen, turned into conflict. Recent tensions between Saudi- and Emirati-aligned allies in southern Yemen escalated into clashes and a sharper political contest last month, and it appears that this has helped to bring Saudi and Emirati allies in Sudan to the negotiating table.

Egypt has presented the Cairo discussions as an attempt to secure an initial nationwide pause to enable relief operations and open space for a broader ceasefire and political process. The United Nations has echoed that message, urging a humanitarian truce as a first step toward negotiations on a durable settlement.

Birthplace of civilization

Trump inaugurates Gaza’s Board of Peace

President Donald Trump said on 16 January 2026 that the Board of Peace for Gaza had been inaugurated. He described it as an international supervisory panel meant to oversee a transitional governing arrangement in the territory as the ceasefire process moves into its second phase.

Under the framework outlined in Trump’s 20-point plan, day-to-day administration in Gaza is to be handled by a 15-member Palestinian technocratic committee, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, led by Ali Shaath, a former Palestinian Authority deputy minister. The Board of Peace, chaired by Trump, is intended to supervise that committee and to set the overall redevelopment framework, including funding arrangements, during a transitional period. Trump said the board has been formed, and that member names would be announced shortly.

The plan anticipates that the board’s work will run alongside a broader security track: negotiations over Hamas’s disarmament, further Israeli withdrawal tied to that demilitarization, and the still-undefined deployment of an international stabilization or peacekeeping force.

Former U.N. envoy Nickolay Mladenov is expected to play a senior role representing the board on the ground. The board is expected to include officials from U.S. allies, an earlier plan named former British prime minister Tony Blair in an unspecified capacity.

Reactions in Gaza, as described by regional reporting, have mixed cautious hope with skepticism about decisions being imposed from outside, and doubts over whether the new structure can deliver tangible improvements in daily life amid ongoing insecurity and severe humanitarian strain.

The planet will be fine, it’s the humans who should be worried

Copernicus: a three-year warming milestone, as the oceans keep banking heat

Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) says 2025 was the world’s third-warmest year on record, just 0.01°C cooler than 2023. It was also only 0.13°C cooler than 2024, showing how tightly the warmest years are now clustered at the top of the record.

More telling than the annual ranking is Copernicus’s three-year measure. It says the global average temperature for 2023–2025 rose above 1.5°C over the pre-industrial baseline (1850–1900) for the first time. Copernicus and other climate agencies stress that this does not mean the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal has formally been crossed, because that threshold is usually judged over longer periods (around two decades) to smooth out natural variation. Still, the three-year reading suggests the climate is operating uncomfortably close to the Paris guardrail.

The oceans are conveying the same point. A separate ocean-heat assessment reports that 2025 set a new record for ocean heat content. Because the oceans absorb most of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases, ocean heat content is a reliable gauge of the planet’s underlying energy imbalance. The new record indicates that, even as year-to-year surface temperatures swing with patterns such as El Niño and La Niña, the long-run stock of heat in the climate system continues to rise.

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