[Dan Bashakov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images]
An overnight Russian bombardment on Kyiv left thousands of residential buildings and parliament without heating and water in -14C temperatures and killed at least one man on Tuesday, just as the Ukrainian capital was scrambling to restore vital utilities destroyed in earlier attacks.
More than half a million people have evacuated from the capital this month, when Russia unleashed its strongest attack on the capital’s energy infrastructure in the war, the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, told AFP.
Sheltering in a metro station in the centre of Kyiv, Marina Sergienko, a 51-year-old accountant, said she thought the repeated Russian strikes, which have left millions in the cold and dark over recent weeks, had a clear purpose.
“To wear down the people, push things to some critical point so there’s no strength left, to break our resistance,” she told AFP, taking cover alongside dozens of others bundled in hats and coats.
Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga lashed out at Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying Putin, whom he called a war criminal, continued to wage a genocidal war against women, children and the elderly.
He said Russian forces had targeted energy infrastructure overnight in at least seven regions, and urged Ukraine’s allies to bolster its air defence systems
Zelensky says ‘we are living in Groundhog Day’ in scathing attack on world leaders over lack of support
Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a scathing speech at Davos, criticising European leaders for their perceived inaction, “endless internal arguments”, and ‘Groundhog Day’ approach to supporting Ukraine against Russia.
During his address, the Ukrainian president announced that the first trilateral peace talks involving Kyiv, Moscow, and the US would take place in the UAE on Friday.
Zelensky implored European leaders to demonstrate greater unity and courage, urging them to act independently of the US and not rely on Donald Trump to change his stance.
He specifically criticised Europe’s failure to utilise frozen Russian assets for Ukraine’s benefit and questioned why the continent was not stopping Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ of oil tankers.
Hours after Zelensky’s remarks, the French navy, supported by Britain, intercepted a sanctioned Russian ‘shadow fleet’ oil tanker in the Mediterranean, with French President Emmanuel Macron confirming the action.
PARIS (AP) — France’s navy, working with intelligence provided by the United Kingdom, on Thursday intercepted an oil tanker in the Mediterranean Sea that traveled from Russia, in a mission targeting the sanctioned Russian shadow fleet, officials said.
French maritime authorities for the Mediterranean said the ship, the Grinch, is suspected of operating with a false flag. The French navy is escorting the ship to anchorage for more checks, the statement said. The tanker departed from the city of Murmansk in northwestern Russia, it said.
I’m interrupting our data center tour to post about the turmoil President Trump has caused with his obsession for controlling Greenland.
As with mass tariffs last April, the president has now pushed through the line where Trump-talk — volatile blather easily reversed the next week with little real-world impact — becomes Trump transforming the real world. He’s openly demanding Greenland now, and threatening to use military force to do it.
Here at The Energy Adventure(r), I try to look past most of the craziness and disruption emanating from Washington, for all sorts of reasons. There are other news organizations and analysts focused on these developments as they follow on one another like the finale of a July Fourth fireworks show.
But as far away as Greenland may feel, Trump’s crossing this line bears directly on data centers and artificial intelligence and energy, on the role America will play leading the AI revolution or being overwhelmed by it.
Trump did something like this last April, when his “liberation day” tariff blitz transformed forever the way the world’s economy has functioned for more than a century.
Trump followed through on some of those tariff threats and backed off others. What was important, though, is that America’s trade partners understood that the rules-based international economic order was over.
Ever since, financial institutions, businesses and governments the world over have been groping for a new way forward, with economic stress rising almost everywhere as a result.
All knew there’s no going back.
With this new Greenland push — coming fast on the heels of a military action to capture the head of the Venezuelan state — Trump has struck an equivalent blow against the global security system. Anchored by the same America — always self-interested but usually ways that shared the benefits, even with competitors — that framework of international rules has now been shattered.
Russia broke those rules when it forcibly annexed Crimea in 2014, and again in attempting to swallow Ukraine. Europe, Japan, South Korea and many other countries took advantage of the rules, to one extent or another, to freeload some on their own defense — with America’s blessing and sometimes encouragement.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and America’s security alliances in Asia could survive that.
Only the U.S. could break the system, which is what Trump has now done. The U.S. may wind up “buying” Greenland, whatever might mean. It might annex Greenland. Or Donald Trump may not get Greenland at all, because he changes his mind or is somehow denied. It matters very much which of those comes to be. But not in terms of the system surviving.
NATO is meaningless once its most important member has territorial designs on another member. That’s true whether the coercion works or not in the end.
And if U.S. commitments to Europe are meaningless, so are alliances in Asia.
All know there’s no going back.
As Europe scrambles for its footing with troop deployments to Greenland and speeches at Davos, as Japan’s new Prime Minister calls for new elections, the groping for a new path forward has already begun.
With its anchor pulled up, the international security order is already adrift, just as the global economic order has been since April.
This is not some disaster in the abstract. It bears as concretely on the competition for the three seas we looked at last month as it does the data centers we’re touring now.
Remember that the super-advanced semiconductor chips used in the data centers of Tennessee, Louisiana and Texas are manufactured exclusively in Taiwan with indispensible, irreplaceable machines from Europe and Japan.
The international economic and security order built by the U.S. after World War II — first and foremost for itself, also the benefit of allies — made that happen in some sense.
With both legs now knocked out from under that order, we’ll have to see whether a new system can be found to do the same anywhere near as well.
And in the US energy bills are rising rapidly as the cost of energy increases due to many factors, but a major pull is the drawdown from datacenters:
Energy bills in the U.S. have been rising significantly, with residential electricity prices increasing by about 25% from 2020 to 2024. This rise is largely driven by growing demand from data centers and other commercial users, while residential customers are facing the highest price increases. theinvadingsea.com CNBC
And consumers are shocked by simple use of AI can cost a massive amount of energy:
Before you can ask an AI model to help you with travel plans or generate a video, the model is born in a data center.
Racks of servers hum along for months, ingesting training data, crunching numbers, and performing computations. This is a time-consuming and expensive process—it’s estimated that training OpenAI’s GPT-4 took over $100 million and consumed 50 gigawatt-hours of energy, enough to power San Francisco for three days. It’s only after this training, when consumers or customers “inference” the AI models to get answers or generate outputs, that model makers hope to recoup their massive costs and eventually turn a profit.
“For any company to make money out of a model—that only happens on inference,” says Esha Choukse, a researcher at Microsoft Azure who has studied how to make AI inference more efficient.
As conversations with experts and AI companies made clear, inference, not training, represents an increasing majority of AI’s energy demands and will continue to do so in the near future. It’s now estimated that 80–90% of computing power for AI is used for inference.
All this happens in data centers. There are roughly 3,000 such buildings across the United States that house servers and cooling systems and are run by cloud providers and tech giants like Amazon or Microsoft, but used by AI startups too. A growing number—though it’s not clear exactly how many, since information on such facilities is guarded so tightly—are set up for AI inferencing.
Praxis Group plans to set up cryptocurrency cities:
These Billionaires Bet Big On Greenland—After Trump Took Interest
ByMartina Di Licosa,Forbes Staff. Martina Di Licosa is a reporter covering consumer businessesFollow Author
Jan 09, 2026, 06:30am ESTJan 16, 2026, 07:02pm EST
Topline
Just months after President Donald Trump first expressed interest in the United States possibly gaining control over Greenland, some of the richest people in the world—including Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg—began making strategic investments in the mineral-rich island.
A network state is a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states.
When we think of a nation state, we immediately think of the lands, but when we think of a network state, we should instantly think of the minds. That is, if the nation state system starts with the map of the globe and assigns each patch of land to a single state, the network state system starts with the 7+ billion humans of the world and attracts each mind to one or more networks.
Here’s a more complex definition that extends that concept and pre-emptively covers many edge cases:
A network state is a social network with a moral innovation, a sense of national consciousness, a recognized founder, a capacity for collective action, an in-person level of civility, an integrated cryptocurrency, a consensual government limited by a social smart contract, an archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories, a virtual capital, and an on-chain census that proves a large enough population, income, and real-estate footprint to attain a measure of diplomatic recognition.
OK, that’s a mouthful! It’s lengthy because there are many internet phenomena that share some but not all of the properties of a network state. For example, neither Bitcoin nor Facebook nor a DAO is a network state, because each lacks certain qualities — like diplomatic recognition — which are core to anything we’d think of as the next version of the nation state.
(If you want to skip ahead, we expand on each part of the definition in Chapter 5. But it’ll make more sense if you read the text all the way through. For what it’s worth, the technical definition of a nation state is similarly multi-clausal, because it needs to exclude things we don’t typically think about, like stateless nations.)
‘The Old Order is Not Coming Back’: Mark Carney’s Speech to the World Economic Forum
The following is the text of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 20, 2026.
It’s a pleasure — and a duty — to be with you at this turning point for Canada and the world.
I’ll speak today about the rupture in the world order, the end of the pleasant fiction and the dawn of a brutal reality in which great-power geopolitics is unconstrained.
But I submit to you all the same that other countries, in particular middle powers like Canada, aren’t powerless. They have the power to build a new order that integrates our values, like respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and the territorial integrity of states.
The power of the less powerful begins with honesty.
Every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.
This aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable — the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself. And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety.
It won’t.
So, what are our options?
In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless. In it, he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself?
His answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world, unite!” He does not believe it. No one believes it. But he places the sign anyway — to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists.
Not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.
Havel called this “living within a lie.” The system’s power comes not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops performing — when the greengrocer removes his sign — the illusion begins to crack.
It is time for companies and countries to take their signs down. For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, praised its principles, and benefited from its predictability. We could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.
We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.
This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.
So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct: we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics laid bare the risks of extreme global integration.
More recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. You cannot “live within the lie” of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination. The multilateral institutions on which middle powers relied— the WTO, the UN, the COP—the architecture of collective problem solving — are greatly diminished.
As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions. They must develop greater strategic autonomy: in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance, and supply chains. This impulse is understandable. A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself. But let us be clear-eyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable.
And there is another truth: if great powers abandon even the pretence of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from ‘transactionalism’ become harder to replicate. Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. Buy insurance. Increase options. This rebuilds sovereignty— sovereignty which was once grounded in rules—but which will be increasingly anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.
This classic risk management comes at a price. But that cost of strategic autonomy, of sovereignty, can also be shared. Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortress. Shared standards reduce fragmentation. Complementarities are positive sum.
The question for middle powers, like Canada, is not whether to adapt to this new reality. We must. The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls — or whether we can do something more ambitious.
Canada was amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture. Canadians know that our old, comfortable assumption that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security is no longer valid.
Our new approach rests on what Alexander Stubb has termed ‘values-based realism’ — or, to put it another way, we aim to be principled and pragmatic. Principled in our commitment to fundamental values: sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter, respect for human rights. Pragmatic in recognising that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner shares our values.
We are engaging broadly, strategically, with open eyes. We actively take on the world as it is, not wait for the world as we wish it to be. Canada is calibrating our relationships, so their depth reflects our values. We are prioritizing broad engagement to maximize our influence, given the fluidity of the world, the risks that this poses, and the stakes for what comes next. We are no longer relying on just the strength of our values, but also on the value of our strength.
We are building that strength at home. Since my government took office, we have cut taxes on incomes, capital gains and business investment, we have removed all federal barriers to interprovincial trade, and we are fast-tracking a trillion dollars of investment in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors, and beyond. We are doubling our defence spending by 2030 and are doing so in ways that builds our domestic industries.
We are rapidly diversifying abroad. We have agreed a comprehensive strategic partnership with the European Union, including joining SAFE, Europe’s defence procurement arrangements. We have signed twelve other trade and security deals on four continents in the last six months. In the past few days, we have concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We are negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines, Mercosur.
To help solve global problems, we are pursuing variable geometry — different coalitions for different issues, based on values and interests. On Ukraine, we are a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per-capita contributors to its defence and security. On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future.
Our commitment to Article 5 is unwavering. We are working with our NATO allies (including the Nordic Baltic 8) to further secure the alliance’s northern and western flanks, including through unprecedented investments in over-the-horizon radar, submarines, aircraft, and boots on the ground.
On plurilateral trade, we are championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European Union, creating a new trading block of 1.5 billion people. On critical minerals, we are forming buyer’s clubs anchored in the G7 so that the world can diversify away from concentrated supply. On AI, we are cooperating with like-minded democracies to ensure we will not ultimately be forced to choose between hegemons and hyperscalers.
This is not naive multilateralism. Nor is it relying on diminished institutions. It is building the coalitions that work, issue by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together. In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations. And it is creating a dense web of connections across trade, investment, culture on which we can draw for future challenges and opportunities. Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu. Great powers can afford to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity, the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not.
But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what is offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating. This is not sovereignty. It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.
In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: to compete with each other for favour or to combine to create a third path with impact. We should not allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong — if we choose to wield it together.
Which brings me back to Havel. What would it mean for middle powers to “live in truth”?
It means naming reality. Stop invoking the “rules-based international order” as though it still functions as advertised. Call the system what it is: a period where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as a weapon of coercion.
It means acting consistently. Apply the same standards to allies and rivals. When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window.
It means building what we claim to believe in. Rather than waiting for the hegemon to restore an order it is dismantling, create institutions and agreements that function as described. And it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion.
Building a strong domestic economy should always be every government’s priority. Diversification internationally is not just economic prudence; it is the material foundation for honest foreign policy. Countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation.
Canada has what the world wants. We are an energy superpower. We hold vast reserves of critical minerals. We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are amongst the world’s largest and most sophisticated investors. We have capital, talent, and a government with the immense fiscal capacity to act decisively. And we have the values to which many others aspire.
Canada is a pluralistic society that works. Our public square is loud, diverse, and free. Canadians remain committed to sustainability. We are a stable, reliable partner—in a world that is anything but—a partner that builds and values relationships for the long term.
Canada has something else: a recognition of what is happening and a determination to act accordingly. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is.
We are taking the sign out of the window. The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, and more just. This is the task of the middle powers, who have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from a world of genuine cooperation.
The powerful have their power. But we have something too — the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together. That is Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently. And it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.
Investigative journalist Ellie Leonard broke major news on today’s show about Michael Cohen’s previously unknown connections to Jeffrey Epstein’s network. Leonard, who has been meticulously combing through the Epstein files, discovered that Cohen was working on Epstein-related matters as early as 2003 – years before his official role as Trump’s personal attorney. According to Leonard’s analysis of the documents, Cohen was involved in the same kind of catch and kill operations he later executed for Trump with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. Blundell observed that Cohen’s pattern was consistent across cases, handling these matters with the same playbook. The discovery raises significant questions about the depth of Trump’s knowledge of Epstein’s activities and when that relationship really began. Leonard explained that Cohen was Trump’s fixer during a critical period when Trump and Epstein were allegedly involved together in the Katie Johnson case.
And of Greenland, Nev Shalev writes on Substack today:
Back in April, I exposed how Vladimir Putin —not Trump— laid the groundwork for this crisis. My piece, “Putin’s Arctic Narrative,” revealed how he reframed Trump’s Greenland ambitions as a justified continuation of American history—cherry-picking the 1860s and glossing over Russia’s Arctic Council expulsion after Ukraine.
An international team of researchers, led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS), is setting out to discover how glacier calving around Antarctica can trigger powerful underwater tsunamis.
When icebergs break off glacier fronts and fall into the ocean (a process called calving) they can create powerful underwater tsunamis. These hidden waves, often several metres in height, cause powerful bursts of ocean mixing, where different layers of water get churned together. This process strongly mixes heat, oxygen and nutrients between different depths, and is critical for marine life and climate regulation in the region.
This mixing was previously thought to be primarily driven by wind, tides and heat loss at the ocean surface. However, initial calculations suggest underwater tsunamis play a significant role in polar oceans, rivalling the effect of wind-driven mixing in certain locations, and having a bigger impact than tides in redistributing heat in the ocean.
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Underwater tsunamis, and the resulting mixing, could have significant implications for the Southern Ocean and beyond. Increased ocean mixing could draw more warm water up from the deeper parts of the ocean, speeding up the melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheet which would raise sea levels around the world. It can also change how nutrients are distributed in the ocean, which would affect the growth of phytoplankton (the “grass of the sea”), with consequences for the rest of the ocean food chain.
“Antarctica remains one of the most mysterious places on Earth, and we’re constantly discovering previously unknown processes that are shaping our planet. What makes this research so important is that everything in Antarctica is connected – ice, ocean and atmosphere – and those connections reach all the way back to our doorsteps. Rising sea levels, shifting weather patterns, these are Antarctic processes playing out in our lives.”
A key question going forward is understanding whether the current warming climate might increase how often these calving and tsunami events occur, and how strong they are. By learning more about this phenomenon, scientists will refine the ocean models that predict how climate will change in the future.
SANTIAGO, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Chilean President Gabriel Boric declared a state of catastrophe in two regions in the south of the country on Sunday as raging wildfires forced at least 20,000 people to evacuate and left at least 18 people dead.
According to Chile’s CONAF forestry agency, firefighters were battling 24 active fires across the country as of Sunday morning, with the largest being in the regions of Ñuble and Bío Bío, where the government declared the emergency. The regions are about 500 km south of the capital, Santiago.
Climate Change, due to excessive carbon emissions, is devastating Latin America:
Climate Change Impacts in Latin America
Latin America’s climate is changing. Precipitation patterns are shifting, temperatures are rising, and some areas are experiencing changes in the frequency and severity of weather extremes such as heavy rains. The impacts range from melting Andean glaciers to devastating floods and droughts.
The two great oceans that flank the continent—the Pacific and the Atlantic—are warming and becoming more acidic while sea level also rises.
Unfortunately, greater impact is in store for the region as both the atmosphere and oceans continue to rapidly change. Food and water supplies will be disrupted. Towns and cities and the infrastructure required to sustain them will be increasingly at risk. Human health and welfare will be adversely affected, along with natural ecosystems.
This photo story shows the devastating impacts across Latin America.
Gripped by a terrible drought now entering its sixth year, Iran’s cities are on the brink of what its meteorological organisation calls “water day zero”: the boundary beyond which supply systems no longer function. This was crossed by Chennai in India in summer 2019 and is now threatening Mashhad, Tabriz and Tehran, where taps in the city’s southern districts had already run dry by early December.
According to the Middle East expert Juan Cole, the head of the regional water company reported in early November that the five main water supply dams to Tehran, the capital, were only 11% full, and criticised the government for its inaction.
Tehran, home to 10 million people, has been threatened with the most drastic measure of all – evacuation. “If it does not rain in Tehran by December we should ration water; if it still does not rain, we must empty Tehran,” the country’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said back in November
During the summer of 2025, Iran experienced an exceptional heat wave, with daytime temperatures across several regions, including Tehran, approaching 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) and forcing the temporary closure of public offices and banks. During this period, major reservoirs supplying the Tehran region reached record-low levels, and water supply systems came under acute strain. By early November, the reservoir behind Amir Kabir Dam, a main source of drinking water for Tehran, had dropped to about 8 percent of its capacity. The present crisis reflects not only this summer’s extreme heat but also several consecutive years of reduced precipitation and ongoing drought conditions across Iran. As a result, the capital of Iran is now facing a potential “Day Zero” when taps could run dry.
The drought quickly disrupted Tehran’s urban systems. With dry soils and high evaporation, rivers and wetlands shrank. Falling reservoir levels led to disruptions in hydropower generation, and water shortages prompted strict saving measures across parts of the capital. Amid these escalating pressures, officials warned that the capital city may even have to be evacuated if water supplies fail to recover. In November, President Masoud Pezeshkian said the capital would have to be moved. These cascading impacts exposed how vulnerable Tehran’s infrastructure, economy, and communities have become under compounding heat and drought stress.
These cascading impacts stem from a prolonged shortage of precipitation in recent years (Figure 1a). Precipitation around Tehran typically peaks between December and April, replenishing reservoirs behind dams before the onset of the dry summer. Over the past five years, precipitation during this wet period has remained consistently below the long-term climatological baseline, with the 2024-25 season showing the most pronounced and prolonged deficit across the entire rainy season. When such prolonged dryness was followed by an exceptionally hot summer, it amplified hydrological stress across the region.
This prolonged precipitation deficit was not confined to Tehran but was part of a broader regional anomaly extending across much of Iran (Figure 1b). Satellite-based estimates for November 2024 to April 2025 reveal a pronounced north–south precipitation dipole, with enhanced precipitation north of latitude 40° N but markedly reduced precipitation across central and southern Iran. The precipitation deficit was particularly evident along a broad corridor extending from the eastern Mediterranean through Iran, indicating reduced storm activity across the region. This weakening of storm activity led to marked reductions in snowpack accumulation and reservoir inflows, aggravating the ongoing water scarcity crisis. In maps of global projections of climate change impacts on precipitation, the region over and around the Mediterranean basin stands out because of the magnitude and significance of its precipitation decline. MIT researchers Alexandre Tuel and Elfatih Eltahir have explained why this region stands out as a hot spot for climate change. A more recent follow-up study by our group projects future declines in winter and spring precipitation extending to Mesopotamia and surrounding regions under a high-emission scenario by the end of the century. The projected change of the air circulation over the central and eastern Mediterranean, where most storms originate during winter, inhibits the formation of storm systems and consequently limits their eastward propagation, thereby reducing precipitation over Mesopotamia and adjacent regions eastward, including the area around Tehran.
Another contributing factor is the poleward displacement of storm tracks. During the spring season, the projected changes in regional air circulation due to global climate change move northward from the Mediterranean into southern Europe pushing the storm tracks further north and creating a dipole pattern (more precipitation in the north, less precipitation to the south) that reduces precipitation around Tehran. Consistent with this theory, simulations by IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) models of future climate in this region project a pattern of change that resembles the regional pattern observed this last year, especially during the spring (Figure 1c). This similarity between observed and projected patterns suggests that the dry conditions observed this year may offer a glimpse of relatively dry conditions in the future, especially in spring season.
The region around Tehran falls in a transitional zone between the tropics and midlatitudes, with complex dynamics of storms systems. The nature and origins of storms in this region are different between winter and spring seasons. IPCC models do not fully agree on the projections of winter precipitation around Tehran. Future research will be needed to better understand natural climate variability as well as impacts of future climate change on precipitation, especially during the winter season.
The extreme heat and drought affecting Tehran this year were exceptional in both magnitude and duration. Events of this kind are projected to become more frequent in the future around this region as the climate warms. If this trajectory continues, Tehran is likely to face more frequent droughts, reducing reservoir levels, limiting urban water supply, and presenting significant hazards to the vital systems of public health, energy, and food supply. Taken collectively, the findings from this recent event expose an outstanding set of climate related risks and underscore the need for immediate, dual-track action—rapid global emissions mitigation alongside proactive local adaptation—to limit escalating risk.
Iran has gone through a decade of economic woes marked by international sanctions, the COVID-19 pandemic, and high inflation. Despite a slight recovery in 2021, the economy is fragile and remains the government’s top priority. Developments in climate policy, including renewable energy, have been limited. Notably, Iran remains one of the few countries that has not yet ratified the Paris Agreement. The Climate Action Tracker continues to rate Iran’s provisional climate pledge and climate policy as “Critically insufficient”.
As of 18:00 on 12 January 2026, unless otherwise noted
This report, issued every Tuesday and Friday, outlines efforts and progress made by the UN and its partners to scale up the humanitarian response across the Gaza Strip under the ceasefire that entered into effect on 10 October 2025. The next report will be issued on 16 January. For all situation reports see here.
HIGHLIGHTS
Over 3,000 people have been affected by a new wave of heavy rains and strong winds across the Gaza Strip since the evening of 12 January, with at least 47 injuries and six reported fatalities caused by hypothermia and collapsing shelter structures, according to the Site Management Cluster.
Despite sustained response efforts and the relatively increased entry of shelter items since the October 2025 ceasefire, recent rainstorms have reversed gains made.
A shipment of chemicals, including antiscalant and sodium hypochlorite, was delivered to the Southern Gaza Desalination Plant and is being distributed to desalination facilities across the Strip to ensure safe and continued production of potable water.
To strengthen Gender-Based Violence prevention and response services, 20 new Women and Girls’ Safe Spaces (WGSS) have been established, bringing the total number of operational WGSSs to 56 across the Gaza Strip.
SITUATION OVERVIEW
Between 8 and 12 January, airstrikes, shelling and gunfire continued to be reported across the Gaza Strip.Harsh weather conditions are taking a heavy toll on civilians, especially families living in makeshift shelters, flood-prone areas, or war-damaged buildings, further compounding their vulnerabilities and exposing them to cold temperatures and contaminated floodwaters.
Between 9 and 10 January, the Site Management Cluster (SMC) received urgent alerts from 34 sites in northern Gaza, where heavy rains affected more than 1,300 households whose shelters were destroyed and who are now in immediate need of tarpaulins and tents.
New heavy rainfalls and strong winds have been recorded since the evening of 12 January, causing extensive damage across multiple displacement sites. Field teams report that 597 tents and makeshift shelters were blown off or heavily damaged, directly impacting more than 3,000 people and leaving many exposed to severe weather conditions.
As of 13 January, Site Management partners report 47 injuries, while six fatalities have been confirmed: three children who succumbed to extreme cold in Khan Younis and Gaza city and three other people who lost their lives in the Al Shati area of Gaza City due to the collapse of the structure in which they were sheltering. In addition, SMC partners recorded 18 distress calls relating to critical site maintenance and hazard mitigation. These included opening clogged manholes, cleaning drainage systems, clearing blocked gullies, reinforcing shelters with tarpaulins, and garbage removal. In response, rescue and emergency teams coordinated by Site Management partners responded to multiple life-threatening incidents affecting families in Khan Younis, Rafah, and Gaza city.
While the overall shelter gap was expected to decrease due to sustained response efforts and the increased entry of shelter items – albeit limited – recent rainstorms have significantly reversed these gains, with thousands of households affected, preventing a reduction of shelter needs as anticipated.
The latest WFP Market Monitor indicates food consumption patterns in December remained broadly similar to November, reflecting a modest recovery from October but continuing to remain well below pre-conflict levels. While further improvements are possible with increased humanitarian and commercial entries, overall access to food remains severely constrained, particularly for meat and eggs, with most households relying primarily on cereals, pulses, and limited amounts of dairy and oil. Availability of cooking gas remains critically constrained. The limited entry of cooking gas covers the needs of less than 3 per cent of the population. As a result, 46 per cent of households continue to rely on waste burning for cooking, while others use raw materials such as wood.
Recent market monitoring by the Gaza Market Monitoring Committee (GMMC) indicates continued improvement in the flow of commercial and humanitarian goods, with no reported looting incidents during the reporting period (5–11 January) and sustained entry through Kerem Shalom Crossing and other crossings. Food markets remained generally supplied, with stable or slightly declining prices for key staples. However, non-food and winter-related items, including shelter materials, bedding, and heating-related goods, remained limited and costly, particularly in northern Gaza.
Despite improved market supply, household access continued to be constrained primarily by limited income and purchasing power rather than market availability. GMMC price and index trends confirm that while prices have moderated compared to previous months, the overall cost of the consumer basket remains well above pre-October 2023 levels.
Preliminary analysis indicates further improvement in the nutritional status of children and pregnant and breastfeeding women (PBW). Preparations are underway to conduct a Standardized Monitoring and Assessment of Relief and Transitions (SMART) survey to gain deeper insights into malnutrition levels across the Gaza Strip. Although the number of acute malnutrition cases has decreased compared to previous months, levels remain significantly higher than those recorded in February–March of last year’s ceasefire and the pre-war period.
Child Protection risks remain elevated, including increasing child labour involving hazardous activities such as collecting plastic and firewood; heightened exposure to explosive remnants of war, particularly in newly accessed or return areas; health risks linked to overcrowding, poor hygiene, and limited access to medical care; and psychosocial distress due to prolonged displacement and insecurity. Access to education is severely limited in several locations due to overcrowded or inaccessible schools and the absence of recreational or safe spaces.
UNITED NATIONS-COORDINATED AID ENTRY*
Between 9 and 12 January, at least 2,708 pallets of aid administered by the UN and its partners were offloaded at Gaza’s crossings, based on data retrieved from the UN 2720 Mechanism dashboard at 18:00 on 13 January. About 55 per cent of these pallets contained food, followed by nutrition (16 per cent), shelter (15 per cent), water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) items (8per cent), health items (5 per cent) and protection supplies (1 per cent).
During the same reporting period, UNOPS international monitors deployed at Gaza’s crossings verified the collection of at least 10,277 pallets of aid – all collected from Kerem Shalom Crossing. These comprised inter alia over 6,000 pallets of food assistance, and more than 2,800 pallets of shelter items including tents, blankets, tarpaulins and kitchenware.
The above data does not include bilateral donations and the commercial sector.
Between 9 and 12 January, 14 out of 17 humanitarian movements inside Gaza that required coordination with Israeli authorities were fully facilitated, of which 11 were accomplished and two partially, enabling inter alia the collection of food, nutrition, shelter, medical, hygiene supplies and fuel from the crossings, while one – the attempted rescue of an injured minor from the Az-Zaytoun area of Gaza city – could not be completed. Two movements faced impediments: one was eventually completed, while the other was only partially accomplished. In addition, one mission was cancelled by the organizer.
HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE
The below are preliminary updates shared by Clusters at the time of reporting and will be reconciled and aggregated in the coming days as Clusters receive more data from the capillary network of partners active on the ground.
Food Security
As of 10 January, Food Security Sector (FSS) partners continued to prepare and deliver 1,622,000 hot meals daily through 190 kitchens across the Strip, including 482,000 meals through 50 kitchens in northern Gaza and 1,140,000 meals through 140 kitchens in southern and central Gaza.
As of 11 January, approximately 170,000 two-kilogram bread bundles were produced and distributed daily. One third of this bread is distributed for free to more than 400 shelters and community sites, while two thirds are sold through 148 retailers at a subsidized price of 3 NIS ($0.95) per bundle. The subsidized bread distribution network continues to expand, with 30 more retailer shops contracted by FSS partners as of 1 January 2026, compared to 118 as of late 2025.
Nutrition
In December, Nutrition Cluster partners screened over 76,000 children and identified 4,971 cases of acute malnutrition, including 822 with the most severe form. This brings the total number of acute malnutrition cases identified in 2025 to 94,455, including approximately 19,000 children with severe acute malnutrition (SAM).
To strengthen response efforts, partners have continued expanding nutrition service sites, including in the North Gaza governorate, where two additional sites were opened by a Cluster partner this week.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
Between 8 and 12 January, WASH Cluster partners distributed 744,000 bars of soap, 3,400 water jerry cans, 1,750 hygiene kits and 795 latrine kits, as well as laundry and dishwashing powder, benefiting approximately 400,000 people in northern and southern Gaza.
A shipment of water chemicals, including antiscalant and sodium hypochlorite, was delivered to the Southern Gaza Desalination Plant and is being distributed to other desalination facilities across the Strip to ensure safe, and continued production of potable water.
Solid waste collection activities have resumed to previous levels following the securing of sufficient fuel this week, with partners collecting 1,100 cubic meters of solid waste daily. However, waste collection in North Gaza and Gaza city remains insufficient to meet daily needs due to increased population pressure and the significant waste accumulation that built up during the two-week reduction in services caused by fuel shortages.
WASH partners have received eight new dump trucks, which are currently being operationalized, with an additional 14 dump trucks expected by the end of the month to further support solid waste collection activities.
Health
Over the past four days, Health Cluster partners launched the Limb Reconstruction Screening Programme at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, with 40 cases screened during the first outpatient clinic day, of which 13 were identified as complex cases requiring major limb reconstruction. Such treatment typically spans six months to three years, involving 2–8 surgeries and 12–30 physiotherapy sessions, with costs reaching up to $40,000 per patient. However, essential surgical items, including advanced imaging, power drills, and carbon fiber fixators, remain unavailable in Gaza. Plans are ongoing to expand screenings to the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah, and Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza city to cover patients in the two northern governorates.
During the first few days of 2026, Health Cluster partners resumed operations at one Primary Healthcare Center (PHC) for Non-Communicable Diseases in Gaza city and established a new PHC in the same governorate. As of 10 January, 91 out of 197 PHCs were partially functional across the Gaza Strip, including 27 in Gaza city.
Shelter
Between 8 and 12 January, Shelter Cluster partners distributed 369 tents, 2,400 tarpaulins, 10,992 blankets and other bedding items, 1,656 kitchen sets, and 350 clothing kits and vouchers, benefiting 7,773 households cumulatively
The Shelter Cluster continues to coordinate and support the relocation of households living in locations at high risk of flooding, including shoreline areas, and structures at risk of collapse. However, limited land availability remains one of the most significant challenges affecting the scale and speed of shelter interventions.
Site Management
From 9 to 11 January, site care and maintenance activities were integrated into the winterization response, with Cash-for-Work and community mobilization focusing on winter preparedness and flood risk mitigation, including the clearing of clogged water channels to address cold-season risks. Fire safety awareness campaigns were launched, alongside three community-led initiatives addressing critical needs such as fire prevention, though progress remains constrained by the high cost and limited availability of suitable materials.
Lighting systems were installed in two displacement sites to improve safety and living conditions, with procurement underway for eight additional units, while site maintenance toolkits were distributed to support ongoing operations. Help desks and site management committees were established in 10 camps, with efforts ongoing to create dedicated coordination spaces for winterization and risk reduction, and collaboration with the Health Cluster is underway to provide first aid training to site committees.
Protection
Child Protection
Between October 2025 and 11 January 2026, Child Protection partners distributed approximately 320,000 winter clothing sets and 112,503 pairs of children’s shoes, primarily targeting younger children. They also installed 150 high-performance tents at child protection service delivery points, including child-friendly spaces (CFS) and safe spaces, to support service continuity across the Gaza Strip.
Community feedback highlighted appreciation for psychosocial and awareness activities, alongside persistent concerns regarding limited education access, insufficient winter assistance, and critical gaps in winter clothing for adolescents aged 11–17.
Gender-Based Violence (GBV)
Between 8 and 11 January, GBV response partners continued providing multisectoral services through Women and Girls’ Safe Spaces (WGSSs) across Gaza, which serve as a critical entry point for psychosocial support, case management, cash assistance, and referrals to other essential services. Efforts to scale up GBV services resulted in the establishment of 20 new WGSSs, bringing the total number to 56. Of these, 25 per cent are located in the north and 75 per cent in the south, extending GBV response services across the governorates.
Between 8 and 11 January, approximately 1,500 people were reached with multisectoral GBV services, including case management, MHPSS, legal awareness, cash for protection, and recreational activities.
Forty-three consultations with women across multiple governorates to support navigating legal procedures.
GBV response partners distributed menstrual hygiene and dignity kits to meet the essential hygiene needs of women and girls to 872 people across Gaza, as well as others distributed through the UN-led joint distribution platform.
Mine Action
Between 8 and 11 January, two Explosive Hazard Assessments (EHAs) were conducted in Gaza city in support of ongoing humanitarian operations by assessing the risks posed by the presence of explosive ordnance (EO).
During the same period, mine action partners conducted 62 Explosive Ordnance Risk Education and Conflict Preparedness and Protection (EORE-CPP) sessions, reaching 1,394 people and four targeted EORE training sessions for 89 humanitarian workers
Education
Cluster partners established 18 additional temporary learning spaces (TLSs) across the Gaza Strip over the past four days, serving 35,479 school-aged children, with the assistance of 768 teachers. Overall, a total of 440 TLSs are now operational across Gaza, serving 268,000 learners supported by 6,308 teachers.
Damage assessments of accessible public-school buildings aimed at identifying sites eligible for tent installation and light rehabilitation for TLSs have assessed 160 schools to date.
As part of winterization preparedness efforts, cluster partners dispatched to the Ministry of Education and Higher Education:
7,500 lice-treatment shampoos for 14 learning sites across the Gaza Strip. The intervention targets approximately 7,500 students, including 3,500 in Khan Younis, 1,000 in Deir al Balah, and 3,000 in North Gaza. In addition, 2,500 anti-lice kits were dispatched to Khan Younis for distribution across five learning centers.
370 mattresses to equip 30 unfurnished classrooms in three learning spaces in Khan Younis, and 4,000 blankets to support 53 learning sites across the Gaza Strip.
Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA)
Between 9 and 11 January, Cash Working Group (CWG) partners distributed Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA) to over 2,600 households. Each household received 1,250 NIS (approximately US$378) in digital payments, in line with the minimum expenditure basket (MEB) transfer value.
Emergency Telecommunications
To enhance VHF coverage in southern Gaza, the ETC relocated a repeater from Deir al Balah to Khan Younis. Installation was completed on 7 January with coordination ongoing to reconfigure and test the secure link to the Jerusalem Security Operations Centre (JSOC).
* All figures solely refer to UN and partner assistance dispatched through the UN-coordinated system. They are preliminary and will be reconciled in the course of the ceasefire. Supplies entering through bilateral donations and the commercial sector are not reflected.
CAIRO/GAZA: A rainstorm swept across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, flooding hundreds of tents, collapsing homes sheltering families displaced by two years of war and killing at least six people, local health officials said.
Medics said five people, including two women and a girl, died when homes collapsed near Gaza City’s beach, while a one-year-old boy died of extreme cold in a tent in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza.
Tents were torn from their stakes, some flying dozens of meters before crashing to the ground. Others lay crumpled in muddy pools as families scrambled to salvage what they could. Residents tried to re-secure remaining shelters, hammering in loosened pegs and stacking sandbags around the edges to keep floodwaters from pouring inside.
And now (Jan 17 2026) news which has not been widely warmly received:
“The Trump administration has named US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former UK prime minister Sir Tony Blair as two of the founding members of its ‘Board of Peace’ for Gaza.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will also sit on the ‘founding executive board,’ the White House said in a statement on Friday.
Trump will act as chairman of the board, which forms part of his 20-point plan to end the war between Israel and Hamas.”
Trump relishes the concept of a Riviera style complex over the corpses of Gazans:
Two US House of Representatives members have asked a federal judge to appoint a special master to compel the justice department to release all files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender.
On Thursday, Ro Khanna, a Democratic representative of California and his Republican colleague Thomas Massie of Kentucky asked US district judge Paul Engelmayer to release the full Epstein files, as required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Criticizing the justice department for not releasing the full set of files on last year’s 19 December deadline, Khanna and Massie in a letter said: “The conduct by the DOJ is not only a flagrant violation of the mandatory disclosure obligations under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, but as this Court has recognized in its previous rulings, the behavior by the DOJ has caused serious trauma to survivors.
Justice Department can unseal Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking case records, judge says
FILE — Audrey Strauss, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks during a news conference to announce charges against Ghislaine Maxwell for her alleged role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of multiple minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein, July 2, 2020, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
So I thought I would educate myself about Rare Earth Processing:
Rare earth metal processing involves extracting and refining rare earth elements from ores, which are typically found in complex mixtures. The process includes crushing the ore, separating the rare earth elements using various chemical methods, and purifying them into usable forms for applications in electronics, magnets, and other technologies. ameslab.gov sfa-oxford.com
‘Blue solution’:
Rare Earth Metal Processing. Blue solution in tanks at a rare earth metal processing plant, with technicians in the background ensuring quality control and efficient production.
This is a satellite image collected on Nov. 13, 2012, of the Maoniuping Mine, one of China’s largest rare earth elements mines, located near Mianning, Sichuan province, China. DigitalGlobe/Maxar via Getty Images
How China came to rule the world of rare earth elements
It has taken China many decades of trial and error before they could achieve the world dominance in mining THEN PROCESSING rare earth elements. Other countries are trying to catch up, such as Germany and Riyadh.
Human industrial activity always harms the ennvironment. That is why everyone has let China get poisoned first but they are trying to mitigate the harm:
Highlights
•REEs are 17 critical metals essential for green technologies like electric vehicles and wind turbines.
•Conventional mining is energy-intensive, generating hazardous and radioactive wastes.
•In-situ leaching causes severe soil acidification and water contamination.
•EKM offers high efficiency with minimal environmental impact.
•LCA is crucial for evaluating and mitigating environmental impacts of REEs production.
The engine of industry is still coal in many countries, but also oil. The crisis in Iran is said to foresee the likely collapse of the Iranian supply chain of oil to China:
This is the potential unraveling of a 1.8 million bpd oil supply chain that exclusively feeds Chinese refineries at an $8-12 discount to global benchmarks. When that supply chain breaks,and what we are seeing suggest it will, the ripple effects will reshape everything from Brent crude pricing to Beijing’s refining margins to the geopolitical balance of power across the Persian Gulf.
See Giacomo Prandelli, Merchant News, Substack, Jan 14, 2026
He goes on to explain:
After Trump walked away from the nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions, Iran’s oil exports cratered from 2.5 million barrels per day to just 350,000-500,000 bpd by 2020.
The regime should have collapsed under that pressure (It didn’t) instead, Tehran found a lifeline… China’s independent refineries in Shandong province, desperate for cheap crude and willing to look the other way on sanctions.
Fast forward to today, and Iran is exporting near-record volumes again—roughly 1.8 to 2.3 million bpd—with 90-95% going exclusively to China. In 2024 alone, Chinese buyers imported 533 million barrels of Iranian crude, representing about 13.6% of China’s total oil purchases. That’s not a marginal source anymore. That’s a structural dependency.
But Iranian crude doesn’t just flow to China because of political alignment. It flows because of the discount. Iranian oil consistently trades $7-12 below Brent benchmark prices. For Chinese refiners operating on low margins, that discount is the difference between profitability and bankruptcy. They’re not buying Iranian crude out of ideology…they’re buying it out of economic necessity.
The sanctions evasion machinery is sophisticated: ship-to-ship transfers in international waters, rebranding Iranian crude as “Oman Blend” or “Malaysian Light,” routing payments through Chinese banks outside the US financial system, and shell companies in the UAE and Malaysia providing plausible deniability. It works because Washington has largely looked the other way during Biden’s presidency, and because China has been careful not to involve state-owned oil majors that need access to Western capital markets.
And the regime appears desperate:
In at least one city, security forces have already refused to fire on protesters. That’s the domino that brings down authoritarian regimes.
So as China contemplates the implications, countries around the world are not in a position to replace China’s sophisticated prowess in rare earth process:
China’s Role and Global Constraints
China’s near-monopoly is not limited to mining but extends to processing and refining, stages that are capital-intensive, environmentally contentious, and politically sensitive in many democracies. This reality constrains how quickly alternatives can be built. Even with strong political will, new mines and processing facilities take years to develop, and environmental and labour standards emphasised by Japan and others add further complexity. As a result, efforts to diversify supply chains are likely to be gradual and uneven, leaving countries exposed in the interim.
The countries of the world are gripped with the crises facing us all just now.
And as Merchant News warns:
Trump wants low oil prices. But oil staying cheap makes Venezuela investment economically not feasible.
And China depends on oil imports:
China imports roughly 10 million barrels of crude oil per day. Domestic production covers only about 3.5 million barrels, leaving a 6.5 million barrel gap that must come from overseas.
We are on the edge of our seats as history unfolds.
Of course, Israel been keen to see Khamenei disappear:
How deeply are Israel’s Mossad spymasters involved in Iran protests?
Story by YONAH JEREMY BOB
• 54m
Protestors burn images of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a rally held in Solidarity with Iran
The IDF and Israel in the public sphere are doing all they can to stay out of the current Iran protests crisis to avoid being caught in Tehran’s crosshairs with ballistic-missile fire. But what about the Mossad in the shadows?
Why is US moving USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group to Middle East amid Iran tensions?
US carrier deployment to the Middle East is underway as the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group has been redirected to the CENTCOM area of responsibility
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