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What you need to know

Iran and the U.S. circle each other ahead of Friday talks

On Tuesday the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, operating small boats, attempted to interdict a U.S.-flagged oil tanker, the Stena Imperative. The vessel ignored the Iranian craft and was later escorted by a U.S. Navy frigate. Two Iranian drones operating near the Stena Imperative and the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier were shot down by U.S. forces.

Iran demanded yesterday that talks with the U.S. be held in Oman rather than in Türkiye, and also sought to exclude other regional powers. The discussions are expected to involve only the U.S. and Iran, with Oman acting as mediator. Iranian officials are said to be unwilling to meet their American counterparts face to face, opting instead for indirect talks conducted from separate rooms.

It is widely believed that President Donald Trump is pressing four demands in the forthcoming negotiations: the abandonment of Iran’s nuclear program, an end to its ballistic missile activities, a halt to funding for proxy groups, and improved treatment of protesters involved in anti-regime demonstrations.

Israel and several other regional states remain focused on Iran’s missile program. With Iran’s air force and navy in poor condition, missiles provide the country with its most credible means of projecting conventional military power. Its proxy militias serve a different purpose, extending Iran’s reach through asymmetric methods across the region.

Iran’s nuclear weapons effort was effectively buried after a B-2 bombing raid destroyed a key facility in June last year. Still, if Tehran were to offer limits on its enriched uranium program, Mr Trump might present that as a diplomatic success. Iranian officials, for now, maintain that their right to enrich uranium is not open to compromise.

We’re struggling to see how a compromise might be found at Friday’s talks.

Birthplace of civilization

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi killed in Libya

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and a potential future national political figure, has been killed in western Libya, according to Libyan officials and multiple media reports. The attorney general’s office said he died of gunshot wounds in the town of Zintan and that a criminal investigation has been opened.

Details of the killing remain contested. Officials said four armed men entered his residence and opened fire, but they have not publicly identified suspects or a motive.

Saif al-Islam had long occupied an ambiguous place in Libya’s fractured politics. Before the 2011 uprising he was promoted internationally as a reform-minded heir, only to become a prominent defender of the regime as protests spread. After his capture and years of detention in Zintan, he resurfaced as a political aspirant, registering a bid in Libya’s aborted 2021 presidential process. He remained wanted by the International Criminal Court over alleged crimes committed during the uprising.

Some Libyans viewed him as a potential rallying point for Gaddafi-era loyalists; others saw his re-emergence as a challenge to the two major power brokers in today’s Libya, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, the Prime Minister located in Tripoli, and General Khalifa Haftar, who heads a rival administration in Tobruk. His killing may further complicate already stalled efforts to restore a unified government and revive elections in Libya since it is likely to intensify the tensions between Dbeibah and Haftar as their only major rival is removed.

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

New START’s expiration looms

New START, the last remaining treaty between the United States and Russia that imposes legally binding caps and verification rules on their strategic nuclear forces, expires tomorrow, 5 February 2026.

Signed in 2010 and extended in 2021, the agreement limits each side to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, 700 deployed delivery vehicles, including intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers, and 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers in total.

Once the treaty expires, there will be no shared framework governing the size and declared composition of the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. That does not necessarily imply an immediate surge in warhead numbers. It does, however, remove transparency and predictable limits, increasing the scope for miscalculation and worst-case planning.

Russian officials have said Moscow will not be drawn into an arms race. Russia has also floated the idea of informal, time-limited restraint after expiry, while the U.S. has expressed interest in a broader arrangement that would also include China. For now, those ideas fall short of a successor agreement.

Unlicensed laboratories draw renewed scrutiny in Nevada and California

U.S. federal and local authorities have carried out a law-enforcement raid on an unlicensed laboratory in Las Vegas that investigators say is linked to Jesse Zhu, the individual associated with an illegal biological laboratory uncovered in Reedley, California, in the summer of 2023.

The Reedley facility was closed after inspectors identified extensive regulatory breaches, including the presence of biological materials and laboratory animals kept without the required permits or biosafety controls. The discovery prompted the involvement of state and federal agencies and led to criminal and immigration-related proceedings against Zhu. Although the case attracted national attention, officials released little information about the laboratory’s financing or intended purpose, citing ongoing investigations.

Officials familiar with the Las Vegas operation say the newly raided site was also operating without the necessary licenses or registration and appears to have operational links to Zhu. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and local law-enforcement agencies have not publicly described the materials recovered and have not said whether additional arrests are anticipated.

The Las Vegas laboratory’s proximity to Nellis Air Force Base, a major U.S. Air Force installation, has attracted attention. Authorities have stressed that they have found no evidence of a direct threat to military personnel or nearby communities. Public-health officials have likewise said that no immediate exposure risk has been identified.

Investigators are assessing whether the Reedley and Las Vegas sites represent isolated violations or part of a wider pattern.

The House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party report from last year portrays Jesse Zhu as a Chinese citizen whose Reedley laboratory operated under his direction via Universal Meditech and who maintained associations with Chinese government-linked companies. It alleges that he previously served as vice chairman of a state-controlled Chinese enterprise in which government entities held a controlling stake, and that some of his linked companies were based in a high-tech industrial park described as operating under Chinese Communist Party governance structures. The report further points to indirect United Front–related connections through a business intermediary (“Accountant 1”) who helped establish Zhu’s U.S. companies and had ties to CCP-linked organizations; this intermediary allegedly facilitated fraudulent companies that ran the Reedley lab.

Federal agencies say any further disclosures will depend on the results of forensic testing, financial analysis, and interagency coordination.

Move fast and break things

Another funding reprieve, not a resolution

Democrats have stepped in to avert further disruption to government operations, backing a short-term measure that prevents a shutdown and keeps the Department of Homeland Security functioning. The cost of that intervention is postponement rather than settlement. Long-term funding for the department was intentionally excluded, deferring the central dispute instead of resolving it.

What was left out is as important as what passed. The SAVE Act, a Republican priority aimed at tightening voter-eligibility rules, was not included in the package. Its absence shows that Democrats were prepared to offer procedural rescue but not substantive concessions on election-related legislation, drawing a firm boundary between maintaining basic government operations and rewriting the political rulebook.

The outcome is a tight two-week window in which substantive negotiations must now take place. Lawmakers are required to reach agreement not only on funding for the Department of Homeland Security but also on the future direction of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where disagreements over enforcement priorities, detention practices, and executive authority remain intense. Whether this interval delivers a lasting compromise or simply another temporary fix will depend on how each side weighs the benefits of brinkmanship against the appeal of stability.

U.S.-backed fund buys stake in Glencore’s copper and cobalt assets

A U.S. government-backed mining investment fund has agreed to buy a 40 per cent stake in copper and cobalt projects owned by Glencore, a move that represents a notable intensification of Washington’s effort to secure access to critical minerals beyond supply chains dominated by China.

Under the transaction, the U.S.-backed vehicle will take a large minority position while Glencore retains operational control. The arrangement is designed to underpin long-term supplies of copper and cobalt for Western markets. Both metals are central to the energy transition. Copper is essential for power grids, electric vehicles, and data centers, while cobalt remains a key input for many lithium-ion battery chemistries. Policymakers in Washington have become increasingly concerned that mining, processing, and refining capacity is concentrated in too few jurisdictions, creating strategic and economic vulnerabilities.

Although the full terms of the deal have not been disclosed, the fund’s participation is expected to bring preferential offtake arrangements, governance protections, and political-risk mitigation. These features are likely to make the projects more appealing to downstream manufacturers in the U.S. and allied countries. For Glencore, the sale provides a means of recycling capital while preserving exposure to high-margin assets, and of easing regulatory and geopolitical pressures associated with mining operations in emerging markets.

The agreement sits within a broader shift in U.S. policy toward the use of equity stakes, concessional finance, and public-private partnerships, rather than traditional aid or trade instruments, to reshape critical-minerals supply chains. It also reflects a pragmatic readiness to work with established global commodity traders instead of attempting to build parallel systems from the ground up.

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

The quiet return of U.S. boots to Nigeria

Washington has acknowledged deploying a small U.S. military team to Nigeria, its first public admission of personnel on the ground since U.S. airstrikes struck suspected Islamic State-linked targets on 25 December. The disclosure suggests that the administration is moving away from reliance on air strikes toward closer operational support for Nigerian forces, while continuing to avoid any discussion of a renewed long-term footprint.

U.S. and Nigerian officials have offered few details, but the purpose is apparent: to reinforce Nigeria’s counterterrorism campaign with specialized American capabilities, notably intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting support. In practice, such teams often integrate information from local sources with U.S. sensors, improve operational planning, and lower the risk of misidentification during fast-moving missions.

The timing reflects a deteriorating security environment in Nigeria. Jihadist violence by Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province has endured in the northeast, while banditry and kidnapping for ransom have spread across the northwest and north-central states. The Christmas Day strikes in Sokoto drew attention to U.S. concern about Islamic State-affiliated cells operating far from the better-known Lake Chad theater.

For Abuja, hosting a small U.S. team offers added capability without the political burden associated with large foreign bases. For Washington, it brings influence and situational awareness in a region where security partnerships have grown more difficult following recent military takeovers and reduced U.S. access elsewhere in the Sahel.

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