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What you need to know

Airspace over El Paso & elsewhere closed under rare defense & security orders

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has imposed an unusually sweeping temporary flight restriction over El Paso, Texas, and parts of southern New Mexico. The measure halts all aircraft operations within the restricted areas for roughly ten days. The FAA has classified the zone as “national defense airspace” and cites “special security instructions” as the rationale, without offering a public explanation.

The FAA notice (NOTAM FDC 6/2233) defines a 10-nautical-mile radius (18.5 km [11.5 miles]) centered near the El Paso VORTAC, from the surface up to 17,999 feet mean sea level. It is effective from 06:30 UTC on 11 February (23:30 local time, 10 February) until 06:30 UTC on 21 February (23:30 local time, 20 February), excluding Mexican airspace. The notice warns that aircraft that do not comply “may be intercepted” and references legal authorities used for security restrictions.

Two features have unsettled pilots and aviation observers. First, multiple aviation trackers describe the restrictions as prohibiting all aircraft operations within their boundaries, rather than allowing flights that remain in contact with air-traffic control or carving out exceptions for medical and law-enforcement missions. Second, the notice appears to have been issued at 03:32 UTC, less than three hours before taking effect at 06:30 UTC.

With the FAA providing only broad security language, any assessment of the purpose is necessarily speculative. Possible explanations include a sensitive security operation on the ground that requires a protected airspace bubble, a counter-drone or counter-air-incursion posture around a specific asset, or a defense activity that planners want conducted without civilian traffic overhead.

If the closure is tied to a discrete operation, the next clues are likely to come in one of three forms: an FAA statement that clarifies scope without operational detail, an amended notice that introduces carve-outs (for example, medical or law enforcement), or acknowledgments by local, state, or federal agencies of a drill, event, or security incident.

This type of airspace closure is highly unusual, and nothing of this extent has been seen since 9/11.

Move fast and break things

U.S. jobs report due, as White House seeks to reset expectations

The U.S. payrolls report is due at 08:30 a.m. Eastern time today (one hour from now), with markets braced for another downbeat reading.

The figures arrive in a politically charged setting. Yesterday, White House trade advisor Peter Navarro urged investors to rethink what constitutes a normal monthly jobs number. He argued that job growth below 100,000 should not automatically be read as trouble, and that something closer to 50,000 a month may become the new baseline if tighter immigration enforcement slows labor-force growth.

That framing carries two implications. First, the administration appears to be preparing markets for weaker headline payroll numbers, while encouraging a greater focus on unemployment and participation. Second, if labor-force growth is slowing, the pace of hiring required to keep unemployment steady may be lower, which would make smaller monthly payroll gains less informative about underlying demand.

For the Federal Reserve System, the risk is that revisions and a slower-growing labor force blur the picture. A small payroll increase could sit alongside a stable jobless rate, pushing policymakers to pay closer attention to wages and the household survey than to the headline payroll number.

The House cracks open the door to tariff-repeal votes

The U.S. House of Representatives has narrowly rejected a Republican procedural move that would have prevented lawmakers from forcing votes to roll back tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.

On Tuesday, 10 February, the chamber voted 217–214 against the rule, a rare setback for the majority that gives the minority a clearer route to bring politically awkward questions to the floor.

Speaker Mike Johnson had sought to extend a moratorium on fast-track challenges to the tariffs until late July, or August depending on the legislative calendar, arguing that the chamber should wait for legal clarity on the emergency powers the president has cited. The House rejected the rule, with three Republicans joining all Democrats: Thomas Massie, Kevin Kiley, and Don Bacon.

The immediate effect is to reopen a pathway for “privileged” resolutions that can be brought up even over leadership’s objections. Democrats have indicated that they intend to use it repeatedly in the months leading up to the election, turning tariff policy into a steady series of recorded votes.

The first test is expected on Wednesday, when the House is set to debate H.J. Res. 72, a measure aimed at ending the national-emergency basis used to justify some tariffs on Canada. The House agreed by unanimous consent to schedule that debate after the rule failed.

Even if the resolution passes, it is likely to be more message than policy: the White House could veto it, and tariff authorities are spread across multiple statutes and legal rationales. Even so, the episode highlights unease among even some Republicans about the economic and political costs of sweeping tariffs, and it offers Democrats a campaign-ready argument about Congress’s role in trade and taxation.

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

Moscow tightens screws on Telegram, undermining its own military comms

Telegram messenger says Russia has begun restricting access to the service as part of an effort to steer users toward a state-backed alternative that critics describe as built for surveillance and political control.

Telegram’s founder and chief executive, Pavel Durov, described the pressure as an attempt to trade citizens’ privacy for administrative convenience, and said the company would not change course.

The immediate trigger appears to be a new round of enforcement by Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communications regulator. Russian media, including RBC, reported that the watchdog planned to begin partial restrictions from Tuesday, 10 February, with some measures already being applied. Officials have described the move as a response to alleged legal violations and the use of the platform by criminals.

Outage trackers and local reporting have described a rise in complaints that messages were not sending, media would not load, and notifications were delayed, with disruptions reported across major regions including Moscow and St. Petersburg. In practice, throttling can be more useful to the authorities than a formal ban: it preserves plausible deniability while making a service unreliable enough to nudge people elsewhere.

That “elsewhere” appears to be Max, a state-sponsored messenger that Russia has been promoting as part of a broader push for “digital sovereignty”. Moscow has spent years squeezing foreign platforms through bans, technical slowdowns, and compliance demands that encourage self-censorship.

The restriction carries a direct military implication.

Russian pro-war commentators have long argued that Russian military units and aligned warblogger networks rely heavily on Telegram channels, bots, and group chats for improvised command-and-control, including passing targeting information and coordinating fires.

This pressure arrives just days after Ukraine said it had worked with Elon Musk and SpaceX to deactivate Starlink terminals used by Russian forces in Ukraine, a deep setback for Russian battlefield connectivity and drone operations.

Two simultaneous communication constraints, one on the front-line messaging layer and one on the satellite uplink, increases friction for the networks that for the Russian military have become a substitute for resilient military communications.

Claims of Ukrainian advances mix known facts with fog of war

Russian military commentators have spent a second day amplifying claims that Ukrainian forces broke through the line in Zaporizhzhia by as much as 16 km (10 miles), though Ukraine’s General Staff has not confirmed any such advance and the reports have not been independently verified.

Separately, there is firmer evidence of Ukrainian progress in the Kharkiv region: open-source assessments indicate that Ukrainian forces have cleared positions around Chuhunivka near Velykyi Burluk.

There are also claims that elements of Russia’s 18th Motorized Rifle Division, deployed as part of Moscow’s “buffer zone” effort, are now losing previously seized settlements, and that some Russian troops have begun surrendering under sustained pressure in harsh winter conditions. These claims are circulating mainly through Ukrainian and Russian social media channels and should be treated as plausible but unverified pending further confirmation.

Energy strikes widen in Ukraine and Russia

Ukraine and Russia traded new long-range strikes overnight, expanding a campaign that is increasingly focused on energy systems on both sides of the front.

In southern Ukraine, officials in Zaporizhzhia said Russian drones hit a power generation installation, setting off a large fire and cutting electricity to more than 11,000 customers across two districts. Emergency crews were still working at the impact site as authorities assessed damage to what they described as critical energy infrastructure.

Across the border, a major Lukoil refinery in Volgograd caught fire after what Ukrainian and Russian social media described as a mass drone attack. The Kyiv Post said a 108-drone barrage struck Russian territory and added that the Volgograd facility has been attacked at least nine times since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.

The latest exchange reflects a familiar winter pattern. Russia has intensified missile-and-drone attacks against Ukraine’s power system, while Ukraine has sought to raise the cost by striking refineries, depots, and logistics nodes deep inside Russia. On 7 February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched more than 400 drones and about 40 missiles in a single assault aimed at Ukraine’s energy network.

EU weighs sanctions on oil ports in Indonesia & Georgia

Brussels is preparing to take a step it has so far avoided: sanctioning ports outside Europe that help keep Russia’s oil exports flowing.

In a draft of its 20th package of measures linked to the war in Ukraine, the European Union has proposed adding two third-country terminals, Kulevi in Georgia and Karimun in Indonesia, to its sanctions list.

If approved, the move would bar EU firms and individuals from doing business with the ports, an effort to cut some of the logistics that sustain Russia’s war economy.

The logic is simple. As Western restrictions have tightened, Russian crude and refined products have increasingly moved through shadow channels, including opaque ownership structures, frequent flag changes, and offshore hubs where cargoes can be stored, blended, relabeled, and re-exported. Karimun, in particular, has been described in trade reporting as a regional storage and blending node for Russian fuel oil and diesel that then moves on to third markets.

Targeting ports would also complement a broader shift under discussion in Brussels: moving beyond the G7 price-cap approach toward a wider ban on maritime services tied to Russian oil shipments, including insurance and other support. That would increase the cost and friction of moving Russian barrels even when they pass through intermediaries.

As ever, the politics may be harder than the policy. Sanctions packages typically require unanimity among EU member states, giving holdouts leverage to dilute or delay measures. Still, the direction of travel is clear: the EU is increasingly focused not only on Russian entities, but also on the external infrastructure, including banks, traders, shippers, and now ports, that helps Moscow keep exporting and earning.

House tightens the financial screws on China over Taiwan

On 9 February the U.S. House of Representatives passed the PROTECT Taiwan Act by 395 votes to 2, a lopsided display of bipartisan support for raising the prospective economic cost of coercion against Taiwan.

The bill sets out a policy to seek the exclusion of Chinese representatives, “to the maximum extent practicable”, from six influential global financial forums and standard-setters if the President notifies Congress, under the Taiwan Relations Act, that Chinese actions threaten Taiwan’s security or its social or economic system and endanger U.S. interests.

If enacted, the measure would direct the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the Securities and Exchange Commission to take the steps needed to advance that exclusion policy, while allowing the President to waive it on national-interest grounds. It would also sunset after five years (or sooner if terminated). The bill must still pass the Senate and be signed by the President before becoming law.

This comes as Taiwan’s Vice Premier, Cheng Li-chiun, is currently heading to the U.S. to sign the new U.S.-Taiwan trade agreement.

Birthplace of civilization

Trump sets out a maximalist yardstick for any Iran deal

President Donald Trump said in an interview on Fox Business Network with Larry Kudlow yesterday that any new understanding with Iran would require “no nuclear weapons, no missiles, no this, no that, all the things you want.”

Pressed on what a deal should demand, he delivered the line in his familiar shorthand. The intent is clear: a narrow bargain focused on limits to uranium enrichment would not suffice; a broader package would also have to cover missiles and other capabilities.

The remarks came amid renewed diplomatic maneuvering after a first round of indirect talks in Oman, and on the eve of a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is expected to press the case that any arrangement must reach beyond the nuclear file.

Netanyahu will meet Trump on Wednesday morning at the White House after flying in last night.

U.S. Treasury targets Hezbollah’s financial networks

In an official statement, the U.S. Treasury Department said its Office of Foreign Assets Control was moving to disrupt two funding channels on which Hezbollah depends: revenue generation in coordination with Iran and the exploitation of Lebanon’s informal financial sector.

The sanctions focus in part on what the Treasury describes as a gold-trading pipeline linked to Al-Qard al-Hassan, a Hezbollah-controlled financial institution (registered as a charity in Lebanon) that Washington has long accused of functioning as a shadow bank. The Treasury said it had designated a Lebanon-licensed gold-exchange firm, Jood SARL, alleging that it helps convert Hezbollah’s gold holdings into cash and operates under Al-Qard al-Hassan’s supervision.

The Treasury also designated individuals it says sit behind the company, including Al-Qard al-Hassan officials described as co-owners and managers, as well as an overseer previously sanctioned by the U.S.

Alongside the gold-exchange measures, the Treasury said it was also sanctioning an international procurement and commodities-shipping scheme it attributes to Hezbollah financiers operating across the region, including in Iran, in an effort to disrupt additional revenue streams.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. would work to cut Hezbollah off from the global financial system, saying that sustained financial pressure would give Lebanon a better chance at stability and prosperity.

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