By Sean Rayment The Kremlin has announced that Russia would be willing to store Iran’s enriched weapons-grade uranium in a bid to de-escalate tensions between Washington and Tehran. A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said that an offer to process or store Iran’s uranium had been under discussion for some time. Asked whether Russia was discussing with Iran and the United States the possibility of taking Iranian enriched uranium, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “This topic has been on the agenda for a long time.” “Russia has been offering its services for quite a long time as a possible…

By Andre Pienaar Executive order establishes secondary-sanctions-style mechanism targeting any country that sells petroleum to Cuba WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday declaring a national emergency with respect to Cuba. The order establishes an unprecedented tariff mechanism designed to sever the island’s access to foreign oil by penalising supplier nations with duties on their US-bound exports. The order, which took effect today, invokes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the National Emergencies Act (NEA) to authorise additional ad valorem tariffs against any country determined to “directly or indirectly” sell or provide oil to…

By Andre Pienaar Ukraine’s ministry of defence has unveiled a new secure data environment designed to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence systems capable of autonomously detecting and intercepting Russian unmanned aerial systems. The initiative, known as the Brave1 Dataroom, marks a significant escalation in Kyiv’s technological response to Moscow’s intensifying drone campaign. The platform operates within Ukraine’s government-backed Brave1 defence innovation cluster and uses software infrastructure provided by the US defence technology firm Palantir Technologies. It provides Ukrainian developers with access to structured visual and thermal datasets collected directly from frontline operations, allowing machine learning models to be trained…

By Andre Pienaar Analysis of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s warning on AI risks In a sweeping new essay published this month, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has issued what amounts to a strategic warning to national security establishments worldwide: artificial intelligence is approaching a threshold that will fundamentally alter the global balance of power, and the window for establishing effective safeguards is closing rapidly. “The Adolescence of Technology,” published in January 2026, frames the emergence of “powerful AI” as “the single most serious national security threat we’ve faced in a century, possibly ever.” Unlike his previous essay “Machines of Loving Grace,”…

By Staff Writer More than 36,000 unarmed Iranian protesters calling for a change of government have in the Islamic state been shot dead by security forces, it has been alleged. The killings are believed to have taken place between January 08 and 09 according to Iran International, a London-based Persian-language news channel covering political developments and human rights issues in Iran. Details of the deaths have emerged at the same time as the US aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln accompanied by three warships arrived in the Middle East, bringing a renewed potential that President Donald Trump could opt to order…

By Staff Writer South Africa’s government is engulfed in a row about control of the military, following allegations that the top brass might have ignored orders to sideline Iran from controversial naval exercises. A board of inquiry is due to investigate this week whether Cyril Ramaphosa’s instructions were disregarded or miscommunicated during naval drills off Cape Town last week. The incident has sparked debate about whether the elected government has a constitutional grip on one of the most well regarded militaries in sub-Saharan Africa. Three Iranian warships arrived in False Bay earlier this month to join a week of BRICS…

By Staff Writer Pressure is mounting on European Union member states to list Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation. Several capitals, including Germany, are publicly pushing for a decision that would place the Guards on the EU’s terror list alongside groups such as Daesh and al-Qaeda. But legal and political constraints remain, and key states such as Italy, France, Spain and Luxembourg have not yet backed the move amid reports that at least 16,500 protesters have been killed and about 330,000 injured during Iran’s unrest, according to a report compiled by doctors inside the country. European concern…

By Staff Writer In the wake of the lethal repression of civilian protests across Iran, with fatalities now estimated to exceed 15,000, the board of MTN-Irancell dismissed Alireza Rafiei as the company’s chief executive yesterday for “disobeying orders from security bodies” to implement the internet shutdown immediately. Tasnim, the media group owned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported on Monday 19 January that it took Rafiei and his management team at MTN-Irancell several hours to implement the order from the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) to shut down the internet nationwide. The SNSC issued the order on the…

By Staff Writer Iran’s exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, has warned that “the slaughter has not stopped” inside the country, as the United States withdraws personnel from the region and foreign governments scale back their presence in Tehran. United States officials said Washington had begun withdrawing some personnel from military facilities across the Middle East, describing the move as a precaution. The decision follows repeated warnings from Tehran that any US strike would be met with retaliation against American bases in neighbouring countries. United States President Donald Trump told reporters he was monitoring developments closely and suggested that reports of…

By Asal Abasian, Committee to Protect Journalists Iranian authorities have imposed a near-total internet shutdown as nationwide protests intensify, severely restricting journalists’ ability to report and cutting off communication with the outside world. The blackout began on January 8, more than a week after protests erupted in late December over mounting economic pressure, currency devaluation, and rising living costs. Journalists and rights advocates say the internet shutdown and restricted telephone access — a practice used by authorities in previous mass protests — appear aimed at suppressing coverage of the unrest and obscuring the scale of arrests and casualties. “Iran’s near-total shutdown of the internet is a blatant assault on press…

By Staff Writer On the day Iran’s security services moved to tighten their grip on the streets, millions of Iranian families received a stark and unsettling text message on their mobile phones. The message did not address protesters directly. Instead, it targeted parents, turning the private sphere of family life into an extension of the state’s coercive apparatus. “Dear parents, inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country.” The message was delivered via MTN-Irancell, Iran’s largest mobile network operator, reaching deep into households across the country. For many…

By Staff Writer While the Tehran regime is reported to have killed thousands of innocent civilians in recent days, the South African government authorised a joint naval exercise between the South African Navy and the Iranian Navy called “Will for Peace 2026”. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps deployed at Simon’s Town Naval Base The South African government granted three Iranian naval vessels privileged access to the strategic Simon’s Town Naval Base, which secures the vital international maritime route linking the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean around the Cape. One of the Iranian vessels, IRIS Shahid Mahdavi (L110-3), is a…