Category World News

The Kremlin is confident that mass protests in Iran have peaked, and Tehran’s leadership has managed to squash domestic resistance to its rule, according to one of Russia’s pre-eminent experts on Iran.

Russia’s embassy in Tehran apparently informed Moscow that the protests have died down and that the Kremlin “can breathe a sigh of relief”, Nikita Smagin told Al Jazeera.

The protests over economic hardships erupted on December 28, spreading to hundreds of cities and towns throughout the sanctions-hit nation of more than 90 million.

Iranian law enforcement squashed them, possibly violently, and Moscow “thinks that nothing threatens Iran from within”, said Smagin, who fled Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

On Tuesday, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned “the illegal Western pressure” and lambasted the unnamed “external forces” that strive to “destabilise and destroy” the Islamic Republic.

“The notorious methods of ‘colour revolutions’ are being used, when specifically trained and armed provocateurs turn peaceful protests into cruel and senseless lawlessness, pogroms, the killing of law enforcement officers and average citizens, including children,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mariya Zakharova claimed.

She used a decades-old Kremlin mantra about “colour revolutions” allegedly organised and paid for by the West in former Soviet nations of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan in the early 2000s to topple Moscow-friendly authoritarian governments.

The threats from United States President Donald Trump to interfere in the Iranian protests are “categorically unacceptable”, Zakharova said, adding that the “decline in the artificially-instigated protests” may lead to stabilisation in Iran.

On Tuesday, Trump urged Iranians to “take over institutions” and claimed that US “help is on its way”.

On January 2, he wrote: “We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” and in June, called Ayatollah Ali Khamenei an “easy target”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not commented on the protests – just as he ignored the January 3 abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Moscow’s closest ally in Latin America.

Despite the condemnation of Trump’s threats, Moscow “can hardly do anything about it”, Smagin said.

Prior to its Foreign Ministry’s rhetorical fireworks on Tuesday, for almost two weeks, Moscow was silent about the protests.

The Kremlin was not sure that Khamenei’s administration would survive and that any harsh statements “would hinder the mending of ties with new authorities” that could have replaced it, Smagin claimed.

Russia’s position appears similar to its response to the toppling of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

In October 2025, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa visited Moscow and pledged to “honour” the deals al-Assad had made with Russia, including energy contracts and the presence of Russian air force and naval bases.

To an observer in Ukraine, Moscow’s fuming about “colour revolutions” is a tired cliche.

Russia interprets “any protests against dictatorship and mass rallies for democratisation as a result of external meddling”, Kyiv-based analyst Vyacheslav Likhachev told Al Jazeera.

Later, the pro-Kremlin figures used the term to describe popular uprisings elsewhere, including the Arab Spring protests of the early 2010s that toppled Moscow-friendly leaders in Egypt and Libya.

Similarly, any protests in Russia were seen as instigated by “foreign ill-wishers”, Likhachev said.

Iran has accused foreign nations of being behind the unrest. A television channel in Israel that is aligned with the government claimed that “foreign agents” had armed Iranian protesters.

Several analysts have told Al Jazeera in recent days that while the protesters have legitimate concerns, they believe Israel is playing a role in inflaming the tensions.

More than 100 security personnel have been killed in two weeks of unrest, Iran’s state media has reported, while opposition activists say the death toll is higher and includes thousands of protesters. Al Jazeera cannot independently verify the figures; the internet has been cut off in Iran for five days.

Russia will not risk ‘another reputation failure’, says former diplomat

Centuries-old Russia-Iran ties have not always been cordial.

Russian tsars bit off huge chunks of Iranian territory that now constitute Russia’s Northern Caucasus and the ex-Soviet republics of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.

Communist Moscow strove to turn northern Iran into a “Soviet republic” in the early 1920s, briefly advocated for the independence of Iranian Kurds, and sought to control Tehran’s oil reserves after World War II.

But post-Soviet Moscow became Tehran’s main international backer, shielding it from United Nations’ resolutions and Western sanctions, building its Bushehr nuclear power station and supplying it with sophisticated weaponry.

The latter included the “advanced” S-400 air defence systems that failed, however, to repel Israeli and US drone and missile strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure last June.

In return, Tehran aided Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine by supplying drones, artillery shells, mortar mines, small gliding bombs and, reportedly, ballistic missiles.

But the 20-year “strategic partnership” agreement that Russia and Iran inked a year ago did not foresee military assistance. Moscow’s words on Trump’s threats did not even amount to “sabre-rattling”, a former Russian diplomat said.

“Why rattle sabres if it will only result in yet another reputation failure?” Boris Bondarev, who quit his Foreign Ministry job to protest the invasion of Ukraine, told Al Jazeera.

The Kremlin is too afraid the White House could lose interest in its numerous concessions on the Ukraine war – while Trump does not need Moscow to agree to his possible actions in Iran, Bondarev said.

“What does Russia have to respond with? Withdraw troops from Ukraine and send them [to Iran]? Threaten Trump so that he completely loses interest towards Russia and the ‘deal’?” he asked rhetorically.

Western sanctions keep hobbling Russia’s economy, while average Russians are exhausted by the deaths on the Ukrainian front line, air raid sirens, airport shutdowns, galloping prices, pervasive propaganda and repression.

“Iran? What Iran? We’re busy surviving. My son is grieving the blocking of [popular online game] Roblox, my husband barely earns enough for our mortgage payments. Don’t pester me with questions about Iran,” Irina, a mother of two from the Urals Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, told Al Jazeera.

She withheld her last name for security concerns.

But a renowned pro-Kremlin analyst, Sergey Markov, optimistically predicted Moscow’s help to “reform” Iran after the protests are over.

United States authorities have said they will suspend the processing of immigrant visas for applicants from 75 countries.

The suspension will take effect on January 21 and will affect applicants from Latin America and the Caribbean, the Balkans, and several countries in South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

The change only affects people who want to move to the US permanently. It does not apply to visitors or short-term visa holders. But the latest move comes five months before the US hosts the FIFA World Cup along with Canada and Mexico, at a time when a series of crackdowns on immigrants, refugees, foreign students and visa applicants have raised questions about its attitude towards visitors.

Here is what we know about the latest crackdown:

What has the US administration announced?

The State Department said it had told US consulates to stop processing immigrant visa applications from the affected countries. The move follows a broader order issued in November that tightened checks on potential immigrants who could become a financial burden on the US.

“The Trump administration is bringing an end to the abuse of America’s immigration system by those who would extract wealth from the American people,” the department said in a statement.

“Immigrant visa processing from these 75 countries will be paused while the State Department reassess immigration processing procedures to prevent the entry of foreign nationals who would take welfare and public benefits.”

How does it work?

According to the State Department, nationals of the affected countries may still submit immigrant visa applications, but no immigrant visas will be approved or issued while the pause is in place. The US government has not indicated any deadline for when the suspension might be lifted.

An exception applies to dual nationals who apply using a valid passport from a country not included in the suspension.

The suspension will not apply to non-immigrant, temporary, tourist, or business visas.

Which countries are affected?

The list of 75 countries includes:

What other steps has Trump taken to restrict immigration?

In recent months, the Trump administration has tightened immigration rules, particularly for people from countries whose vetting processes it has said are not robust enough, or that it believes are potential national security risks. The State Department has expanded limits on migration from these nations.

In a statement released in January 2025, the White House said the US could not accept large numbers of migrants, especially refugees, without putting pressure on public resources, creating security concerns, or making it harder for newcomers to integrate.

In June, the administration went further by imposing a full travel ban on citizens from 12 countries: Afghanistan, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

By October, the White House announced the lowest refugee admissions cap in US history, setting a limit of just 7,500 refugees for the 2026 fiscal year – mostly to be used for white Afrikaners from South Africa. Trump has amplified debunked conspiracy theories alleging a genocide against white South Africans, though data shows that violent crime is high in the country, with victims across races.

At the same time, the Trump administration has cut foreign aid programmes that support refugees living in other countries.

The administration has also moved to limit skilled immigration, saying the aim is to protect jobs for US citizens. In September, it sharply increased the fee for H-1B visas – used by US companies to hire foreign workers – raising the cost to $100,000 per application.

Following the arrest of an Afghan national linked to the November shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, DC, the government introduced additional travel restrictions. The ban list was expanded to include six more countries, beyond the 12 countries whose citizens were previously banned. The six new additions were Palestine, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan and Syria.

Immigration officials also paused asylum cases and stopped processing citizenship and green card applications for people from the countries first affected by the bans.

Has the Trump administration also been deporting people at record rates?

It has.

By early December, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security said it had deported more than 605,000 people, while another 1.9 million people had “self-deported”.

Five United States legislators say they have been contacted by the Justice Department after posting a video on social media calling on members of the US military and intelligence agencies to refuse to follow illegal orders.

The legislators – Senator Elissa Slotkin and US Representatives Jason Crow, Maggie Goodlander, Chrissy Houlahan, and Chris Deluzio – are all Democrats who previously served in the military, CIA, and naval intelligence.

The legislators released a video in November as US forces carried out air strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, and as US President Donald Trump ordered the National Guard to deploy to major US cities to crack down on undocumented migrants and crime.

“This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens,” the lawmakers said in the video.

“No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or Constitution,” they said.

Following the release of the video, President Trump accused the legislators of “seditious behaviour, punishable by death” in a post on his Truth Social platform.

The FBI opened an inquiry in November into the five legislators, plus Senator Mark Kelly, who also appeared in the video, according to CBS News.

Kelly, in particular, has faced a series of actions for appearing in the video that critics describe as an unconstitutional attack on his First Amendment right to free speech.

Shortly after the video came out, the Defense Department announced it had opened an investigation into Kelly and warned that the senator could face a court-martial depending on the results.

Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he was seeking to demote Kelly from the rank he reached at his retirement, as well as reduce his retirement pay.

On Monday, Kelly said he had filed a lawsuit against the Defense Department and Hegseth over a campaign of “punitive retribution” that had trampled his free speech rights.

It was not known if Kelly was also being investigated by the Justice Department.

‘Trump’s political cronies’

Crow, a former US paratrooper and army ranger, wrote on X that he and his colleagues were under investigation by the Justice Department.

“Trump’s political cronies at the Justice Department are trying to threaten and intimidate us. Well, he’s picked a fight with the wrong people. I will always uphold my oath to the Constitution,” Crow said on X.

Slotkin, Goodlander and Houlahan all shared similar posts on X.

US news outlet CBS News reported that Deluzio had also been contacted by the Justice Department.

“Like my colleagues, I was contacted by federal prosecutors who are investigating me for making a video reminding service members not to follow illegal orders,” Houlahan wrote on X.

“The six of us are being targeted not because we said something untrue, but because we said something President Trump and Secretary Hegseth didn’t want anyone to hear.”

Houlahan said the investigation was “ridiculous,” especially as Trump was contemplating launching attacks to protect free speech in Iran, which is under a communication blackout following widespread antigovernment protests.

Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has tested the limits of his presidential authority as the commander-in-chief of the US Armed Forces, including ordering the attacks on vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, which legal experts and governments in Latin America have blasted as extrajudicial killings.

Trump’s deployment of the US National Guard in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, DC, has also been controversial, as military forces should only be deployed when the US is facing a threat of invasion or domestic unrest.

For Palestinians maintaining their land and heritage, which is under Israeli occupation since 1948, became a national priority.  The Palestinian Authority has formally moved to register 14 new cultural and natural sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage tentative list in a bid to safeguard its cultural and historical sites from Israeli appropriation and attacks.

“Palestine is not just a space of political conflict, but a civilisation rooted in human history,” Marwa Adwan, acting director-general of World Heritage at the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism, told Al Jazeera.

“This diversity is the strongest response to attempts to monopolise the historical narrative,” she said, referring to Israeli attempts to appropriate symbols of Palestinian culture and history.

The submission announced by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities on January 1, aims to grant international recognition to endangered landmarks across the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by Israel’s genocidal war. More than 200 historical sites were destroyed by Israeli bombing in what experts called a “cultural genocide“.

The new list brings the total number of Palestinian sites on the tentative list to 24, covering a vast timeline from the Canaanite city-states dating back to 3,000 BC to Gaza’s Old City.

The 14 submitted sites

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities confirmed the full list of sites submitted to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list spans prehistoric caves, religious routes, and modern architecture. The sites are:

• The historic centre of Gaza, including the Great Omari Mosque and the Church of Saint Porphyrius
• The Byzantine Church of Jabalia (Mukheitim)
• Canaanite city-states
• The historic city of Nablus and its environs
• The Holy Miracles of Jesus Christ in Palestine
• Monasteries of the Jerusalem wilderness (El-Bariyah)
• Maqamat (shrines) in Palestine
• Jerusalem water system Qanat es-Sabeel
• Jabal al-Fureidis / Herodium
• The Lower Jordan River Valley
• Archaeological Palaces of Tulul Abu el-‘Alayiq
• Cultural landscape of Wadi Kharitoun prehistoric caves
• Dwelling caves (Al-Maghayir) of Palestine
• Modern architecture in Palestine

Saving Gaza’s history

A crucial component of the bid is the protection of heritage in Gaza, which has faced catastrophic destruction during Israel’s genocidal war. The list includes the Great Omari Mosque, built nearly 1,400 years ago, and the Church of Saint Porphyrius, both targeted during Israeli bombardment. The Greek Orthodox Church was built in 425.

Adwan described the move as a strategic step for the “day after” the war.

“Listing sites like the Great Omari Mosque … is an initial international recognition of their global value and their urgent need for protection,” she explained.

“We are counting on UNESCO not just for funding, but to document damages as an international legal source to preserve our cultural rights.”

‘Heritage is a bridge’

The initiative has drawn a sharp response from the Israeli government, particularly regarding sites located in Area C of the West Bank, such as Herodium (Jabal al-Fureidis), which is under full Israeli military control. Area C forms more than 60 percent of the West Bank.

According to Israel’s Channel 14, Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu sent an urgent letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, labeling the Palestinian move as “archaeological terrorism”.

Eliyahu demanded the formation of a government task force to block the bid, arguing it is a “strategic arena for a political struggle” aimed at seizing sites of “Jewish historical importance”.

“Lack of response will be interpreted in the international arena as silent acceptance,” Eliyahu warned, claiming the move is a prelude to “international legal interventions”.

Israel has been accused of erasing Palestinian cultural heritage and weaponising archaeology to appropriate Palestinian land. It has designated dozens of Palestinian archaeological sites in the occupied West Bank as “Israeli heritage sites” to grab Palestinians land and entrench its occupation.

The UN General Assembly in September 2024 passed a resolution asking Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian within a year. The resolution came after the International Court of Justice ruled that Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories was unlawful.

Palestinian officials have rejected the Israeli characterisation.

“Heritage is not a weapon, but a bridge,” Adwan told Al Jazeera. “Trying to link heritage to security or calling it ‘terrorism’ is a deliberate distortion.”

She noted that the files were selected based on technical criteria to highlight Palestine’s religious and cultural diversity, including the “Miracles of Jesus” route and the Monasteries of the Jerusalem Wilderness (El-Bariyah).

“This reflects a rare cultural and religious pluralism that must be preserved for all of humanity,” Adwan added.

Severing UN ties

The row over heritage unfolds as Israel moves to cut ties with the United Nations system entirely.

On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announced that Israel would “immediately sever all contact” with several UN bodies, including UN Women and the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, citing “anti-Israel bias”.

Last year Israel banned the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which is considered a lifeline for Palestinians in the occupied territories as well as in neighbouring countries hosting Palestinian refugees. More than 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland leading up to the creation of Israel in 1948.

This follows a recent decision from the administration of US President Donald Trump to withdraw from UNESCO for a second time. The United States, Israel’s closest regional ally, has also cut funds to UNRWA.

Despite the hostile diplomatic climate, Adwan insisted the Palestinian bid is a “sovereign right”.