Geopolitics: Israel attacked a number of steel and nuclear sites in Iran. The Iran-backed Houthis launched their first attacks on Israel since the beginning of the Iran War. US Marines and Special Operations Forces have arrived in the Middle East, amid increasing discussion of the potential deployment of US combat forces in Iran.

• Will the Houthis attack or seize at least one ship before May 2026? Our forecasters think there’s a 64% (50% to 77%) chance.

• Will the Islamic Republic of Iran fall by the end of 2026? Our forecasters think there’s a 25% (18% to 30%) probability of a government being in power that does not include the IRGC.

• Will the US place 1,000 or more boots on the ground in Iran before July 2026? Our forecasters think there’s a 66% (55% to 80%) chance.

Technology and AI: Epoch announced that one of its FrontierMath open problems was solved for the first time, by GPT-5.4 Pro. A federal judge temporarily halted the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk.

• Will AI have solved at least 1 problem that qualifies as a “solid result” in Epoch’s FrontierMath: Open Problems collection by the end of 2026? Our forecasters think there’s a 67% (55% to 85%) chance.

Economy: Natural gas shortages are about to hit particularly hard in Asia as the last Persian Gulf shipments reach their destinations. The Philippines declared a national energy emergency and other countries in Asia have been taking drastic actions to curb energy demand. Brent crude oil prices remain over $110 per barrel. Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu port on its Red Sea coast has revived almost half of its crude oil exports that would have usually been transported through the Strait of Hormuz.

• What will be the highest price for Brent crude from closing time on March 31 to closing time on April 30, 2026? Our forecasters’ 50th percentile estimate of that maximum average is $144 ($125 to $180), with a median of $140.

Geopolitics

Middle East

Israel carried out attacks on Iranian steel plants and civilian nuclear sites. Iran retaliated against aluminium plants in the UAE and Bahrain, and vowed to target other industrial facilities in neighbouring countries. The damage to Iran’s steel sector will further erode the country’s industrial base and exacerbate its economic woes, which could in turn further weaken the regime. However, Iran’s oil revenue has almost doubled since the start of the Iran War, and the regime continues to hold onto power. Amid the absence of any public appearance or video recording from Iran’s new Supreme Leader, the IRGC is directing Iran’s response to the war and may have largely usurped control of the country from religious leaders.

On whether the Islamic Republic of Iran will fall by the end of 2026, which would have to involve the IRGC no longer holding power, our forecasters think there’s a 25% chance (18% to 30%).

Iran fired more than two dozen drones and ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan air base, injuring 15 US servicemembers, of whom 5 were seriously wounded. The attack also destroyed or damaged a number of US aerial refuelling craft, as well as an E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft that’s used for command and control during missions. Notably, there are now only 15 E-3 Sentry planes in service, and it’s time-consuming and costly (on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars) to replace them. One of our forecasters suggests that the US hasn’t learned lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war, and from Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb in particular.

The Iran-backed Houthis entered the war this week when they fired a barrage of missiles at targets in Israel from their stronghold in Yemen. They could get involved further if the Red Sea is used to attack Iran, the Gulf countries directly join an attack on Iran, or the attacks on Iran escalate. By limiting their attacks to Israel, they may be respecting the truce negotiated with the US last year and attempting to secure a financial deal with Saudi Arabia.

Commodity prices would likely rise further if the Houthis were to attempt to close the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, attack ships in the Red Sea, or disrupt Saudi exports through the Red Sea port of Yanbu, which has helped revive close to half of the oil shipments that the Saudis would’ve moved through the Strait of Hormuz. Our forecasters think there’s a 64% chance (50% to 77%) that the Houthis will attack or seize at least one ship before May 2026.

The US’s 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), including around 2,200 Marines, arrived in the Middle East over the weekend with the USS Tripoli, along with hundreds of Special Operations Forces. It is one of two MEUs that are reportedly deploying to the Middle East; the 11th MEU, which departed San Diego on March 18, is currently in Pearl Harbor and will likely be heading for the region over the next few weeks. Elements of the 82nd Airborne Division, including at least 1,000 ground troops, are also deploying to the Middle East, and the Pentagon is reportedly weighing whether to send up to 10,000 additional servicemembers.

Our forecasters now think there’s a 66% probability (55% to 80%) that the US will place 1,000 or more boots on Iranian soil before July 2026. On the one hand, negotiations between the US and Iran are probably occurring via intermediaries in Pakistan, though Trump has very likely exaggerated their progress over the past week. On the other hand, an official in a “mediating country” said that Trump is leaning toward a ground operation, and Trump himself said he’d be very interested in seizing Iran’s oil facilities on Kharg Island and recommended a Fox News segment in which the anchor advocated for putting boots on the ground to seize Iran’s nuclear material.

According to the Washington Post, the Pentagon is preparing for the possibility of deploying troops on the ground in Iran for weeks to months:

Any potential ground operation would fall short of a full-scale invasion and could instead involve raids by a mixture of Special Operations forces and conventional infantry troops…. Discussions within the administration over the past month have touched upon the possible seizure of Kharg Island, a key Iranian oil export hub in the Persian Gulf, and raids into other coastal areas near the Strait of Hormuz to find and destroy weapons that can target commercial and military shipping, officials said. One person said that the objectives under consideration would probably take “weeks, not months” to complete. Another put the potential timeline at “a couple of months.”

Any ground operation could extend the war by months or even years unless it speeds up a potential deal as Trump appears to hope. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the war could last for another 2-4 weeks. If it lasts for two more weeks, this would take us beyond the initial 4-6 week timeline stated by the White House.

Europe

Ukrainian drone attacks on export facilities, an attack on a pipeline and oil tanker seizures have shut down at least 40% of Russia’s oil export capacity, or about 2M bpd, according to an analysis by Reuters. Russia is the world’s second largest oil exporter, and oil is one of its most important sources of income. The blow to Russian oil exports comes as the price of oil has soared above $110 per barrel because of the Iran War.

A weeks-long partial internet shutdown in Russia is likely at least partly aimed at increasing domestic control. One forecaster thinks that this ongoing situation suggests that Putin’s government may be facing some mounting domestic challenges.

Viktor Orban’s Fidesz is trailing in the polls to Peter Magyar’s Tisza party. The election is likely to have repercussions for the EU and the war in Ukraine because of Orban’s opposition to mainstream EU policies and his alignment with Russia.

Asia

In its 2026 Annual Threat Assessment, the US intelligence community says that China does not currently plan to invade Taiwan in 2027 but that they do intend to unify with Taiwan by 2049, and that their thinking could evolve based on the Taiwanese political situation, PLA readiness and US security guarantees (or lack thereof).

China is stationing 1960s jets that have been converted into drones at air bases near the Taiwan Strait. China could likely use drones to try to overwhelm Taiwan’s air defences.

The Philippines declared a national energy emergency. It receives 98% of its oil from the Middle East. China has begun shipping oil to the Philippines and Vietnam to alleviate the shortage and improve its ties in the region.

The Americas

The United States allowed a Russian tanker carrying oil to reach Cuba’s shores.

A joint US-Ecuador operation may have destroyed a dairy farm instead of a narcotics operation, according to locals.

Trump’s net approval rating is at historical lows. This is largely due to increasing prices and dissatisfaction with the war against Iran.

Economy

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains substantially down compared to pre-war levels, though Iran continues to operate a “toll booth”, charging a fee before allowing approved ships to pass through the Strait.

Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Yanbu has helped to revive almost half of the crude oil exports that would have usually been transported through the Strait of Hormuz. As discussed above, our forecasters are watching for signs that the Houthis will attempt to disrupt this trade route, perhaps by targeting Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, facilities in Yanbu, or commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

Crude oil prices remain elevated, with Brent crude oil prices opening at over $114 per barrel on Monday. Our forecasters’ medians for the maximum price of Brent crude oil from closing time on March 31 to closing time on April 30 average $144 ($125 to $180), while the median of the medians is $140.

It could take months to years for energy exports from the Middle East to recover to pre-war levels, in part because of the amount of time it will take to repair the damage caused to energy facilities and in part because shippers could become more risk averse. Traffic through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, for instance, has still not recovered to pre-2024 levels despite earlier pledges from the Houthis not to disrupt shipping.

While countries in Asia have been the first to resort to drastic measures (such as rationing energy usage and reopening coal plants) to overcome energy supply constraints caused by the Iran War, analyses by JP Morgan and Bloomberg, among others, suggest that other regions will soon face serious supply constraints and high prices for multiple commodities, and that many people may be underestimating the potential scale of the crisis. Natural gas shortages are expected to hit Asia in the coming days, as deliveries from the Persian Gulf come to an end and, as we mentioned last week, shortages will increasingly affect the rest of the world over the coming weeks.

A helium shortage caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is expected to start to constrain chip manufacturing soon. Less liquid helium is also expected to be available to cool the magnetic coils in MRI machines worldwide, which will likely reduce the availability of MRI imaging.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is likely to dampen AI development goals and data center construction, as shortages of energy and multiple key materials will hit chip production, raise energy costs and put pressure on firm valuations.

The $1.8T private credit market is facing mounting difficulties. Problems started to emerge in the second half of last year and are now starting to snowball, as increasing numbers of firms have capped withdrawals from private credit funds in the face of unprecedented requests for redemptions. While the problem is likely to worsen, it probably won’t become as big of a problem as the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, because banks are probably not as exposed to risks from private credit now as they were to risks from subprime lending then, although some substantial risks, including some contagion risks, do lie ahead.

The world faces the risk of a tungsten supply crunch in 2026. Tungsten is critical for heavy industry, including for manufacturing, mining and military applications. About 75% of the world’s tungsten supply comes from China, and Chinese exports have fallen this year. Stocks are being depleted, and new sources take time to develop. Rising prices are expected to stimulate increased production over time.

Technology and artificial intelligence

Epoch AI announced that GPT-5.4 Pro solved one of its FrontierMath open problems for the first time. The problem was considered “moderately interesting”, but there are a number of other open problems which, if solved, would be considered a “solid result”, “major advance” or “breakthrough”. Our forecasters think there’s a 67% chance (55% to 85%) that an AI will produce a “solid result” in Epoch’s collection by the end of 2026.

In Anthropic’s case against the Pentagon, a federal judge temporarily halted the enforcement of the government’s designation of the company as a supply-chain risk, arguing that the government was attempting to “cripple Anthropic” and “chill public debate”. However, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is also looking at the case from a different angle and could issue a less favourable ruling to the company, especially as two of the three members of its panel are Trump-appointed judges.

US Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced a bill which would put in place a moratorium on the construction of new AI datacenters until federal legislation has been passed requiring that the government reviews and approves AIs for safety and effectiveness before release. The bill also proposes that the US promote global AI safety coordination by banning chip exports to countries that don’t have laws in place to protect humanity from AI safety concerns and existential risks, workers, and the environment. One forecaster comments that this bill, which is argumentatively written, “has less than a zero percent chance of being passed”; however some rewritten version containing similar points could pass if there is some large AI-enabled catastrophe in the near future.

Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn also released a bill that aims to create a national regulatory framework for artificial intelligence.

Information about Anthropic’s most powerful AI model, named ‘Mythos’, was revealed in an accidental data leak.

Biorisk

A couple of months ago, we reported on two suspected biolabs in California and Nevada and the associated arrest of a Chinese national. A Los Angeles Times article from this week reports that an Israeli national connected to the case was recently arrested; he has been released pending trial. Previously, more than 1,000 samples from the Nevada lab were sent to the National Bioforensic Analysis Center in Maryland.

A Lyme disease vaccine has been found to have 70% efficacy, i.e., it reduced the number of Lyme infections by 70% in a clinical trial. The trial results are not yet published or peer reviewed.

A Meningitis B outbreak in the county of Kent in southern England has resulted in 20 confirmed cases and 2 deaths. All of the cases have been hospitalized. There was some concern about the number of severe cases that were detected in such a short space of time, but this is likely due to a super-spreader event largely involving university students at a nightclub.

Geopolitics: More oil and gas facilities in the Middle East were targeted in Israeli and Iranian attacks. Another US Marine unit is being deployed to the Middle East. Trump threatened to destroy Iran’s power infrastructure, and Iran threatened to retaliate against critical sites including desalination plants; Trump has backed down for now and says US-Iran talks are ongoing.

• Will the US place 1,000 or more boots on the ground in Iran before July 2026? Our forecasters think there’s a 37% chance (14% to 55%).

• Will the US place >10,000 boots on the ground before July? Our forecasters think there’s a 13.5% probability (4% to 27%).

Technology and AI: An AI agent at Meta reportedly went rogue recently, exposing sensitive data to those who should not have had access. An AI security researcher says that there have been other “loss of control” incidents over the past year.

• Will there be an AI loss of control incident that causes over $100 million in damages in 2026? Our forecasters believe there’s a 5% chance (3% to 7%).

Economy: The Strait of Hormuz has been nearly closed for over three weeks, and several more weeks of closure are likely. Shortages of oil, natural gas and other commodities continue to impact the world economy. The impact of the war in Iran on natural gas supplies could soon be extreme.

• What will be the highest price for Brent crude from closing time on March 23 to closing time on April 30, 2026? Our forecasters’ 50%-ile estimates of that maximum average $133 ($114 to $175), with a median of $125.

• Will the US experience two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth in 2026? Our forecasters think there’s a 29% chance (20% to 45%).

• Will this happen in the EU? Our forecasters believe there’s a 39% chance (33% to 55%).

Geopolitics

Middle East

The Iran War entered its fourth week on Saturday. Trump stated several objectives of the war, including degrading Iran’s missile capabilities, destroying its industrial base, eliminating their air force, navy and anti-aircraft weaponry, preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and protecting allies in the Middle East. Notably, regime change was not on this list of objectives, though he claims to want a “very serious form of regime change” to be the outcome of any talks.

Iran’s top security official Ali Larijani was killed in strikes by Israel. Larijani was a powerful and competent regime insider who orchestrated the recent crackdown on protesters. Since Ali Khamenei’s death, he and Ghalibaf, the speaker of Parliament and a former IRGC commander, had likely been ruling the country. His assassination leaves Ghalibaf as the de facto leader. Mojtaba Khamenei has not yet been seen or heard since his appointment as supreme leader. He was likely wounded in the attack that killed his father.

Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gas field, prompting Iran to retaliate by hitting Qatar’s Ras Laffan facility, which accounts for approximately 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply. According to QatarEnergy, 17% of the site’s export capacity was destroyed, and it could take years to rebuild that capacity. Iran also attacked an oil refinery in Haifa, Israel. After markets reacted negatively to these developments, Trump said that he had no advance knowledge of the South Pars attack and that Israel would no longer be targeting Iranian energy infrastructure, though some Israeli and US officials say that the Trump administration gave Israel the green light for the attack.

Despite Trump’s pledge not to attack Iranian energy facilities, he later vowed to destroy all of Iran’s power plants unless the Strait of Hormuz was reopened within 48 hours. Iran, in turn, threatened to target power plants, oil and gas facilities and desalination plants in the Middle East and West Asia. Last week, we raised the possibility of desalination plants being explicitly targeted and forecasted on whether >10 would be attacked by mid-April. Trump backed down around 12 hours before his deadline, claiming that the US and Iran have been holding productive talks on a complete and total end to hostilities. He implied that the attacks could still go ahead in the future, perhaps after markets close on Friday. Iran has denied that it is holding talks with the US, though Pakistan may be preparing to host talks in the near future.

Iran targeted Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Yanbu, which is being used to try to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, for the first time. This caused loading oil onto tankers to be suspended for a short period.

Iran also reportedly targeted the US-UK base of Diego Garcia for the first time with Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs), having previously denied that it had missiles capable of travelling more than 2,000 km (Diego Garcia is around 3,700 km away from Iran). This means they theoretically have the capacity to target some Western European capital cities.

Multiple reports suggest that the US is considering a ground operation to reopen Hormuz or occupy Kharg Island, and a second Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) is being sent to the Middle East. Forecasters think there’s a 37% chance (14% to 55%) that the US will place 1,000 or more ground troops, and a 13.5% chance (4% to 27%) that it will place >10,000, on Iranian soil before July 2026. On the one hand, it would be highly risky for US forces. On the other hand, Trump and some of his officials may view it as a high-risk, high-reward strategy that could force Iran to capitulate if it goes to plan. Israeli PM Netanyahu also said that a “ground component” will be required for regime change in Iran, which he views as a key component to winning the war in Iran.

There have been conflicting signals on when the war will end, but most of them suggest it will last for at least another couple of weeks. On the one hand, Trump said he was considering “winding down” the war, and reports suggest that some regional allies of the US are attempting to broker a deal between the US and Iran, with Trump now saying talks have been going very well. On the other hand, Trump’s Press Secretary implied that the war will end up lasting for at least 4-6 weeks (suggesting it could end from March 28 to April 11), while Israeli officials say that it will last for “at least another two weeks” longer. Some US officials say that “about a month” will be needed, and the second MEU will likely arrive in the region around mid-April.

Asia

China is restricting exports of fertilizer, almost certainly in response to supply pressures caused by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

China is issuing PLA reservist ID cards, increasing its ability to mobilize quickly

Pakistan carried out an airstrike on Kabul, reportedly killing over a hundred people.

The Americas

In the US, Joe Kent, a Trump appointee and former Republican candidate, resigned as Director of the US National Counterterrorism Center after saying that Iran was not an “imminent threat” and that the US had been forced into the war by “Israel and its powerful American lobby”. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, in turn, refused to say that the Intelligence Community assessed that Iran posed an imminent threat to the US, but also claimed that the US President is the only person who can make that determination.

Also in the US, multiple waves of drones were spotted over Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana on several days last week. The drones appeared to be custom built and to require “advanced knowledge” of signals operations, and they appeared to be testing reactions at the base.

A federal judge struck down parts of the Pentagon’s restrictions on news outlets, stating that they violated the First Amendment. The judge wrote that the First Amendment “is to enable the press to publish what it will and the public to read what it chooses, free of any official proscription.”

In Cuba, two island-wide power outages occurred in the past week, and three so far in March, as the country’s infrastructure lurches towards collapse without new oil shipments.

Europe

In the Czech Republic, tens of thousands of protesters rallied against Prime Minister Babis’ for “steering the country away from democratic values and aligning with the pro-Russia policies of Hungary and Slovakia.”

Economy

The US Treasury temporarily lifted sanctions on Iranian oil at sea in an attempt to ease supply constraints.

Crude oil prices and futures dropped sharply on Monday morning following US President Trump’s step back from striking Iran’s power plants and energy infrastructure.

Before that development, in a note dated March 22, Goldman Sachs forecasted an average price of $85 for Brent crude oil in 2026, up from an earlier forecast of $77. This estimate is based in part on an expectation that the strait would remain nearly closed for six weeks, followed by a one-month recovery, resulting in cumulative losses of just over 800M barrels of crude oil.

Our forecasters’ medians for the maximum price of Brent crude oil from closing time on March 23 to closing time on April 30 average $133 ($114 to $175), while the median of the medians is $125.

Meanwhile, the last LNG tankers to leave the Persian Gulf will be arriving at their destinations within the next 10 days, and after that, LNG supplies will start to fall off a cliff.

Southeast Asian countries are being hit hard by the loss of oil and gas exports from the Gulf.

Shortages of other commodities exported by the Gulf or whose manufacture requires such commodities, including fertilizer, helium, several metals, and plastics, are ongoing, hurting manufacturing, transportation and food production.

Several brokerage firms and key individuals currently forecast a 25%-35% risk of recession for the US, with one outlier at 49%.

Our forecasters think there’s a 29% chance (20% to 45%) that there will be two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth in the US in 2026, and a 39% chance (33% to 55%) that this will happen in the EU. The annual base rate for this is quite low in both the US and the EU (in the single digits for the US and in the mid-teens for the EU, depending on how it’s calculated), and neither went into recession after the energy crisis sparked by the Russia-Ukraine war. That said, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz is arguably causing more profound shocks to oil and natural gas markets than previous shocks, and it doesn’t just impact the oil and gas sector.

Forecasters agree that the EU is more likely to fall into recession than the US because it is more dependent on energy and other key commodity exports from the Middle East, though US petrol, diesel and fertilizer prices are still impacted by what’s happening in international markets.

Technology and artificial intelligence

Dan Lahav, an AI security researcher, says that loss of control incidents involving AI agents are already happening “in the wild”, claiming that there was a case last year “of an AI agent that went rogue in an unnamed California company when it became so hungry for computing power it attacked other parts of the network to seize their resources and the business critical system collapsed.” Meanwhile, there was reportedly a case of an AI agent at Meta going rogue when it revealed sensitive data to people who didn’t have authorization to view those data. Our forecasters think there’s a 5% chance (3% to 7%) that there will be an AI loss of control incident that causes over $100 million in damages in 2026.

The US Justice Department charged three individuals with violating the Export Control Act by selling about $2.5B worth of NVIDIA chips to China.

And: The Pentagon will be using Palantir AI as a core US military system. An OpenAI-backed candidate lost an election in the Congressional district of IL-02. The US government continues to support designating Anthropic a supply chain risk, calling the company an “unacceptable” national security risk, and the White House released a “National AI Legislative Framework”. Mistral released an open-source code agent designed for Lean 4.

Geopolitics: The US bombed Kharg Island, home to Iran’s main oil terminal, but spared its oil facilities. A US Marine Expeditionary Unit is being sent from Japan to the Middle East. Trump said that NATO faces a “very bad future” if its members don’t send ships to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. He attempted to arrange a coalition to do so, but failed.

• Will the US attempt to seize or carry out a major strike on the oil infrastructure on Kharg Island before April 15, 2026? Our forecasters give this a 42% (20% to 75%) chance,

• Will 10 or more desalination plants in the Middle East be attacked from March 16 to April 15, 2026? Our forecasters assign a 11% (5% to 20%) probability of this happening.

• When will the US cease major military operations against Iran’s territory along with air and naval assets? Our forecasters’ aggregate point estimate is April 19 (March 28 to May 10).

Technology and AI: Anthropic is suing the Pentagon for designating the company a supply-chain risk, with Microsoft filing an amicus brief in support of Anthropic’s case. A wide range of voices, including Yoshua Bengio, Steve Bannon and Susan Rice, signed the Pro-Human AI Declaration, with polling appearing to show public support for many of its principles.

• In Pew’s 2026 polling, what percentage of Americans will be more concerned than excited about the use of AI in daily life? Our forecasters’ aggregate estimate is 51% (47% to 56%). What percentage will be more excited than concerned? Our aggregate estimate is 12% (10% to 15%).

Economy: Brent crude oil prices continued to hover around $100 per barrel. Trump threatened Iran’s oil terminal on Kharg Island, the US removed some sanctions on Russian oil, and a few Indian and Pakistani-flagged vessels managed to navigate the Strait of Hormuz thanks to deals negotiated with Iran’s regime.

• What will be the highest price for Brent crude from closing time on March 16 to closing time on April 15, 2026? Our forecasters’ medians average $134 ($110 to $180)

Geopolitics

Middle East

The Iran War entered its third week on Saturday. Six more US servicemembers died when a refuelling plane came down over Iraq, and five refuelling planes were damaged in an Iranian strike on Saudi Arabia. The total number of US and Israeli fatalities stands at 34 at the time of writing. In Iran, more than 1,400 people are reported to have been killed, while hundreds have died in Lebanon as a result of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Iran’s military capabilities have been degraded, though the rate of degradation may have slowed over the past week or so. Some of the country’s leadership remains intact, with President Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Araghchi and security chief Ali Larijani spotted walking the streets of Tehran on Friday. However, the country’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei hasn’t been seen in public and is reportedly injured. Our forecasters generally think that Ali Larijani is currently the most powerful official in Iran and that his power is reinforced by the choice of an injured supreme leader.

The Strait of Hormuz remains nearly completely closed, and six vessels were struck by Iran in the past week. While the US military continues to reduce Iran’s capacity to strike ships in the strait, strikes using aerial drones and small drone boats are hard to stop. Iran is also laying a small number of mines in the Strait. Two US anti-mine littoral combat ships (LCS) that had been deployed to the Middle East were spotted at port in Malaysia on March 15; a third US anti-mine LCS has been in the Middle East. However, Iran’s oil continues to move through the Strait of Hormuz, and a handful of ships from India and Pakistan have transited the Strait (see the Economy section).

The strait is unlikely to be opened militarily within the next 1-2 weeks. Naval escorts for oil tankers (from the US Navy or an international coalition) are unlikely to occur before the end of March. Trump attempted to rally other countries including Britain, China and France to send ships to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but failed. Later, he said that NATO faces a “very bad future” if its member states don’t help to reopen the Strait, and he also sought to pressure China by threatening to delay his planned visit to Beijing at the end of this month.

The US bombed military targets on Kharg Island after markets closed on Friday, hours after Trump unconvincingly denied that it was a priority in an interview. The island is Iran’s main oil terminal, and around 90% of its exports typically begin their journeys there. Trump said that Iran’s oil facilities were spared but warned that they could be destroyed if Iran continues to restrict movement through the Strait of Hormuz. Should that happen, our forecasters think that Iran would likely retaliate strongly (see below).

A thousands-strong Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) is being moved by the US from Japan to the Middle East. It is sprinting to the region and could arrive as early as this weekend, which might provide a lower bound on how long the war will last. Because the MEU is not a large invading force, it might have been sent to help protect US forces on bases in the Persian Gulf. However, if the Marines were to carry out ground operations within Iran, our forecasters generally think Kharg Island would be the most likely target, though it’s possible that the MEU could be used to attempt to secure the strait. Securing the north coast of the strait or some of the islands in the strait (such as Qeshm) would be operationally difficult, with multiple attack vectors that would be difficult to suppress. US Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted about gaining control of Kharg Island and signed it off with ‘Semper Fi’, the official motto of the US Marine Corps. Any operation on Iranian soil would more likely than not take us above the 1,000 boots on the ground threshold that we forecasted about last week.

Our forecasters think there’s a 42% chance (20% to 75%) that the US will attempt to seize or carry out a major strike on the oil infrastructure on Kharg Island by April 15, 2026. They point out that such an operation could be immensely destructive and cause long-lasting pain to the Iranian people, and thus invite further retaliation. But on the other hand the US could be trapped in an escalation spiral.

There are multiple escalation pathways from here. With Saudi Arabia making increasing use of its East-West Pipeline to avoid having to export its oil through the Strait of Hormuz, the Houthis could try to seize or sink oil tankers in the Red Sea. If Iran’s oil facilities on Kharg Island are captured or destroyed, Iran could retaliate by attacking any US forces on Kharg Island or with stronger attacks against oil infrastructure in Gulf states. With a substantial portion of people in the Middle East relying on desalination plants for drinking water, another risk is that more of these facilities could be targeted (at least two have already been damaged, one in Iran and one in Bahrain). Our forecasters think there’s a 11% chance (5% to 20%) that >10 desalination plants will be struck between now and April 15, 2026.

Despite Trump’s AI czar David Sacks worrying about potential Israeli use of a nuclear weapon (seemingly in response to attacks on desalination plants by Iran), former US Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich seemingly suggesting that thermonuclear weapons be used to open up a new waterway for oil to pass through, and some online speculation that Trump will threaten the use of nuclear weapons to try to get Iran to surrender, our forecasters generally think the use of a nuclear weapon in the Middle East by the end of 2026 is extremely unlikely. However, some are below 0.1% on this happening, while others are in the 0.1%-1% range.

Trump has given conflicting signals on when the war will end. His aim is likely to calm the markets as much as possible while continuing the war for at least another couple of weeks. He previously said that the war is “very complete”, but also that the US hasn’t “won enough”. He later said that he would end the war when “I feel it in my bones”. The IDF’s Chief of Staff stated that ending the war now would be a mistake, and that Israel has planned for combat operations to last through Passover, which will be celebrated from April 1 to April 9. Our forecasters’ aggregate estimate for when the US will cease major military operations against Iran’s territory (along with its air and naval assets) is April 19 (March 28 to May 10). This cessation would have to last for at least one week from the stated date.

Asia

Large-scale Chinese incursions into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) resumed after a sharp drop in the first 1-2 weeks of the Iran War. Twenty-six of China’s military aircraft were detected on Saturday.

Europe

European members of NATO declined to send ships to help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz despite Trump threatening the alliance with a “very bad future” if they don’t accede to his request. A spokesperson for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that, “this war has nothing to do with NATO”, while a French government account said that its naval mission in the Eastern Mediterranean remains defensive in nature. British PM Keir Starmer is resisting Trump’s requests for warships to be sent and says that the UK won’t be drawn into a “wider war”.

Russia has been receiving a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars per day in oil revenue thanks to the rise in energy prices caused by the Iran War.

The Americas

Reports suggest that US Vice President JD Vance was and is opposed to the Iran War. When asked about these reports, he did not deny them. Our forecasters think this information was most likely released to the press by Vance and his team in order to distance himself from the war. It may be an indication of how he thinks the war is going, from his insider perspective. Alternatively, it could be an attempt by his rivals in the administration to portray him as unsupportive of a war that’s still endorsed by a large fraction of Republican voters.

The Trump administration’s AI czar, David Sacks, also voiced his desire for a negotiated settlement with Iran, warning of escalatory pathways involving desalination plants or even the use of nuclear weapons, which we considered above.

Trump has said, and Cuba has confirmed, that the US and Cuba are in negotiations, as Cuba faces its most serious economic crisis in decades. The country’s worsening economic situation has been brought to a head by the end of oil imports from Venezuela and other countries, under pressure from the US. In recent statements, Trump has also implied that if a negotiated agreement could not be reached, then the US military could be used. Trump said on Sunday that, “We’re talking ​to Cuba, but we’re going to do Iran before Cuba.”

Economy

On Monday afternoon, Brent crude oil prices remained relatively stable at around $100 per barrel. Between now and closing time on April 15, our forecasters’ median estimate for the maximum price of Brent crude oil averages $134 ($110 to $180) based on hourly numbers reported by Trading Economics.

The Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed. Iran also struck oil storage facilities at the Salalah port in Oman along with the UAE’s largest oil facility at Fujairah. Meanwhile, the US threatened oil facilities on Kharg Island if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened. But as discussed above, it is unlikely that the strait will be opened by military intervention for at least two weeks, at which point US naval escorts are possible.

On the other hand, the US removed some sanctions on Russian oil and said that it has no problem with Iranian oil passing out of the Strait of Hormuz. Moreover, a few Indian and Pakistani-flagged tankers have navigated the Strait likely because of deals negotiated with the Iranian regime. As noted earlier, Saudi Arabia is also making greater use of its East-West Pipeline to bypass the Strait. Additionally, there are rumours that the US Treasury may have been intervening in futures markets, with talk of a big seller in the market; our forecasters have varying levels of confidence that this is actually the case. Even without explicit manipulation, as the price rises the Trump administration would face greater domestic international pressure, leading it to take more desperate measures to bring the conflict to an end.

Meanwhile, QatarEnergy suspended helium production at its Ras Laffan facility, removing around 30% of global supply from the market. This has downstream consequences for semiconductor chip manufacturing, because helium is used to cool silicon wafers during fabrication. South Korean memory company SK Hynix said it was forced to look for alternative suppliers, though Taiwan’s Semiconductor Manufacturing Company only said that it is monitoring the situation.

Trump is also easing sanctions on Venezuelan fertilizer and oil to ease shortages resulting from the Iran war.

Technology and artificial intelligence

Anthropic is suing to block its blacklisting by the Pentagon, Microsoft filed an amicus brief in support of Anthropic’s case, along with a group of retired military leaders. The White House, meanwhile, is preparing an executive order to remove Anthropic’s AI from federal government operations. The Pentagon’s CTO claims that Anthropic’s Claude model is a supply chain risk because it has “a different policy preference baked in”.

A large group of experts, public figures, former officials, and organizations signed the Pro-Human AI Declaration, a set of principles for AI development that benefits humans. The signatories include Yoshua Bengio, Stuart Russell, Steve Bannon, Glenn Beck, Susan Rice, Ralph Nader and Richard Branson.

Polling released alongside the Declaration found that there is majority support among American voters for the Declaration’s principles. Our forecasters think that, in Pew’s 2026 polling, 51% (47% to 56%) of Americans will be more concerned than excited about the use of AI in daily life and that 12% (10% to 15%) will be more excited than concerned. This would be broadly similar to previous years’ results.

A judge stated that Elon Musk’s $134 billion claim against OpenAI relies on “numbers out of the air”, but said that jurors would likely understand this and allowed an expert backing Musk’s case to provide testimony to the jury in next month’s trial.

The US Commerce Department withdrew a draft rule on AI chip exports.

8 in 10 AI chatbots were regularly willing to assist users in planning violent attacks including school shootings, religious bombings, and high-profile assassinations. DeepSeek went as far as wishing the would-be attacker a “Happy (and safe) shooting!”.

Geopolitics: The Iran War continues, with the US and Israel continuing to strike targets in Iran and Iran continuing to launch drone and missile attacks. Iran is launching decreasing numbers of missiles over time.

• Will the US place at least 1,000 US troops in Iran before May? Our forecasting team gives this a 21% (7% to 38%) chance.

• Will there be more than 100 combined US and Israeli deaths before July? Forecasters think there’s a 38% (15% to 60%) chance.

• Will weekly shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz return to at least 75% of pre-war levels before April and before May? Our forecasters think there’s a 39% (20% to 58%) probability before April, and a 61% (50% to 75%) chance before May.

• What will be the maximum Brent crude oil price before April and before May? Forecasters estimated maxima of $135 ($110 to $150) and $143 ($112 to $175) respectively.

• Will the month of April see no airspace closures outside Iran that are related to the Iran War? Forecasters think there’s a 39% (30% to 55%) chance of this happening.

And: Trump continues to hint that he’d like to see regime change in Cuba and could be about to announce a deal with them. There was a sharp drop in the number of Chinese aircraft flying near Taiwan in the first week of the war in Iran.

• Will there be a major PLA exercise around Taiwan in April? Forecasters think there’s a 33% (15% to 55%)

• Will China invade any territory controlled by Taiwan before July? Forecasters believe there’s a 0.8% probability (0.6% to ~1%).

• Will China conduct a full-scale invasion of Taiwan before July? Forecasters think there’s a 0.5% (0.2% to ~1%) chance.

Technology and AI: An AI agent being trained by Alibaba allegedly tried to break free, and a Slack message posted by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei was leaked to the press.

Economy: With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, oil prices rose above $100 for the first time since 2022 amid the largest oil supply shock in history, and natural gas and fertilizer prices rose further as a result of supply chain disruption caused by the Iran War.

Geopolitics

Middle East

The war in the Middle East continued, with the US and Israel continuing to strike targets in Iran. Israel targeted energy infrastructure in Tehran, a move which the US government reportedly opposed.

The frequency with which Iran has responded with ballistic missile attacks appears to have slowed down, but Iranian missiles have still been fired at Turkey and the UAE, and Iranian drone attacks continue to cause disruption in the region. Drones, in particular, could be difficult to repel as they are cheap and easy to produce. The estimated price tag for a drone is around $35,000, compared to $2.5 million for a Tomahawk cruise missile. A government building in Kuwait caught fire after being hit with a drone, a spot close to Dubai’s airport was also hit, and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is still over 90% below pre-war levels because of threats to shipping.

Meanwhile, Iranian officials elected former Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, to be the country’s next Supreme Leader. Mojtaba Khamenei is associated with hardline factions within the regime but has kept a relatively low profile in the past. Donald Trump says he is “not happy” about this development. The IDF has pledged that, “the hand of the State of Israel will continue to pursue every successor and every person who seeks to appoint a successor.”

One topic of forecaster discussion was whether Iranian forces would exhaust the ability of the US and its allies to intercept either Iranian missiles or their less expensive and more numerous but also less destructive Shahed drones. One forecaster in our broader network modelled the Iranian side as competent, ideologically radical and wanting to cause chaos to increase variance, and pointed out that Iran was able to destroy very expensive THAAD radar systems. A key indicator to watch out for is the number of missiles and Shaheds the Iranian regime launches each day; the US side is able to stop hits on its bases and on its allies’ territories and reopen the Strait of Hormuz more easily if it is able to “flatten the curve” of Iranian launches to the point where its smaller interceptor stockpile and production capacity are able to deal with them.

Looking ahead, there have been conflicting signals as to whether the US will put boots on the ground in Iran in an attempt to seize nuclear materials, capture Iran’s oil terminals on Kharg Island or its oilfields in the Khuzestan region, or even bring about regime change. The official US line appears to be that nothing is being ruled out. Our forecasters ultimately think there’s a 21% (7% to 38%) chance that the US will place more than 1,000 troops in Iran before May. This question also has some bearing on whether they think there will be more than 100 combined US and Israeli deaths (civilian or uniformed) before July; they assign a 38% (15% to 60%) probability to this happening. They believe there’s a 39% (30% to 55%) chance that there will be no airspace closures related to the conflict in Iran in the month of April, as an operationalization of whether the conflict will end soon.

Asia

Incursions by the Chinese air force into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) have dropped sharply since the outbreak of the Iran War, with a period of seven consecutive days without planes being spotted and zero planes being spotted in 9 out of the last 10 days. There were 86 planes spotted in the same period last year, compared to 2 this year.

Some forecasters speculated that this could be, in part, an attempt by China to conserve fuel given the disruption to energy exports out of the Strait of Hormuz, while others suggested that it could be a gesture of goodwill ahead of the upcoming meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping in April.

There was some online speculation that the abnormal PLA activity around Taiwan could be an indicator of an imminent Chinese invasion, especially as the weather in April is arguably the most conducive to an amphibious assault, but our forecasters think this is very unlikely. They assign a 0.8% probability (0.6% to ~1%) chance to the possibility of China invading any territory controlled by Taiwan (such as the Kinmen islands) before July, and a 0.5% (0.2% to ~1%) probability to China invading Taiwan’s main island before then.

PLA exercises were carried out around Taiwan in April 2025 and April 2023, but in other months of the year in 2022 and 2024. Forecasters think there’s a 33% (15% to 55%) chance that there will be similar exercises this April, taking the Trump-Xi meeting in early April into account.

Meanwhile, China has also recommended that its oil refineries should not accept new export contracts. Again, stockpiling of key resources could be an indicator that something is afoot, but it’s more likely that China is just responding to the energy supply shock.

Europe

France announced a new nuclear doctrine of “forward deterrence”. France will maintain sole launch authority of its nuclear weapons but may deploy its nuclear forces in several countries throughout Europe. This can be seen as an escalation and as destabilizing, or as a more robust commitment to the defense of NATO countries, diminishing the chance that countries such as Poland may develop their own nuclear weapons programs.

The Americas

Trump again suggested that he would like to see regime change in Cuba, though other reports suggest that he could announce a surprise economic deal with the nation. Such a deal would represent a move towards soft regime change.

Confirmed measles cases in the United States reached 1281 for 2026, with 145 new cases reported in the last week. 30 states have reported cases this year, and the largest outbreaks are in South Carolina, Utah, Florida, and Texas. Outbreaks occur in regions with low vaccination rates.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was fired by Trump on Thursday. Markwayne Mullin has been picked to replace her on April 1 but needs Senate confirmation.

Economy

With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed for over a week, the world faces a real risk of soaring crude oil and natural gas prices and of their downstream consequences. The Financial Times has suggested that crude oil could even reach $200 per barrel.

Crude oil prices are rising, even hitting $118 at one point on Monday March 9 (they are hovering around $93 at the time of writing). Markets calmed somewhat after G7 finance ministers met to consider releases from their strategic petroleum reserves; they do not yet plan to release oil reserves but said that they are prepared to implement “necessary measures.” In an attempt to ease pressure on oil markets, the US gave India the green light to resume purchases of Russian oil for 30 days, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US would consider removing some sanctions on Russia’s oil.

Fertilizer prices have also risen, as the export of urea and other chemicals through the Strait of Hormuz is also being disrupted. The production of metals, including nickel, copper and cobalt, will also soon be affected by the strait’s closure. The Gulf is also a major source of refined aluminum, particularly for Europe.

If the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened to shipping traffic soon, then we can expect growing effects on world markets. Current measures to keep a lid on oil and gas prices will not suffice in the long run. If oil and natural gas prices continue to rise, then the prices of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and electricity would also rise. As energy prices rise, so would transportation costs and the costs of goods produced using energy, including food and manufactured goods. These rising costs would lead to inflation and if severe enough, could potentially lead to a global recession.

A further upcoming downstream consequence is on Gulf state investments in AI in the US: while US GDP growth has been sustained by AI investments, these were partially relying on further investments from Gulf States, as well as public markets, for exit liquidity. Both of these sources might dry up in the coming months.

Our team thinks there’s a 39% (20% to 58%) chance that weekly shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz will return to at least 75% of pre-war levels before April, and a 61% (50% to 75%) probability of this happening before May. Speculating about Brent crude oil prices, they estimated maximum prices to be $135 ($110 to $150) by the end of March and $143 ($112 to $175) by the end of April.

Technology and artificial intelligence

Researchers at Alibaba published a paper on arXiv about ROME, an open-source agent they trained. Buried within the report is a deeply concerning description of an incident that they report occurred during post-training. A Manifold market implies there’s a 57% chance that ROME did indeed try to break free during training. One of our forecasters is conflicted. While they believe this could happen, they’re puzzled as to why we haven’t seen similar reports from companies that have trained more powerful agents.

The US DoD designated Anthropic a supply chain risk. A Slack message by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei was leaked to The Information; in this message, Amodei attributed this designation to not having donated money to Trump or having given him “dictator-style” praise. He says Anthropic has told the truth about a number of AI policy issues. Amodei then apologized in a written statement and in an interview with the Economist.

Despite the ongoing feud between the company and the US government, Anthropic’s Claude has been used by the Pentagon during the war in Iran to select hundreds of targets, prioritise them according to importance, and provide location coordinates. This is because it is embedded within Palantir’s Maven Smart System. “Thanks to AI, the corps achieved that with only 20 people, compared with more than 2,000 staffers employed in Iraq”, reports the WSJ.

OpenAI released GPT-5.4, which they say is their most capable and efficient frontier model for professional work. It has a 1M token context window.

OpenClaw is being adopted very rapidly in China.

A former DOGE official has been appointed Chief Data Officer at the Pentagon. He’ll be responsible for coordinating its AI efforts. He previously retweeted content from Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate but has since disavowed supporting bigots or supremacists. One forecaster remarked that this appointment indicates a more permanent shift in the Overton window around respectability, rather than a more temporary change at the beginning of the Trump administration as it scrambled to find employees.

And: US Senator Bernie Sanders met with Eliezer Yudkowsky and others to discuss existential risks that could arise from advanced AI. The White House is pressuring Republican-controlled states not to pass AI safety legislation. Uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs), which can be characterised as semi-autonomous robots, are being used in the Russia-Ukraine war. NVIDIA is investing $4B on photonics startups.

Geopolitics: The US and Israel attacked Iran and killed Ayatollah Khamenei. Iran retaliated by striking US bases and allied countries in the region. Also, an arms sale to Taiwan has been paused by the US to ensure that Trump’s April visit to Beijing goes smoothly.

• Will Iran’s regime fall by the end of 2026? Forecasters assign a 45% (32% to 70%) probability thereof.

• Will there be >50 US fatalities (civilian or uniformed) anywhere in the world linked to the conflict in Iran or attributed to Iran or its proxies by the end of 2026? Forecasters think there’s a 48% (35% to 60%) chance.

• Will there be >100 Israeli fatalities (civilian or uniformed) linked to the conflict in Iran by the end of 2026? The team believes there’s a 58% (45% to 70%) probability.

• Will Israel’s airspace reopen before April 2026? With Israeli authorities saying they may very gradually reopen their airspace over the next week, most forecasters are now at >95% here.

• Will the Houthis seize or sink at least one ship before May 2026? Forecasters believe there’s a 42% (20% to 68%) chance.

Technology and AI: Anthropic was designated a supply chain risk by the Pentagon. The company accused three Chinese companies of carrying out “distillation attacks” on their models. And they updated their Responsible Scaling Policy, dropping a pledge not to train or deploy systems without adequate safety measures.

• Will the designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk be reversed by the end of 2027? Forecasters estimate a 72% (65% to 80%) probability that this occurs.

  • If not, will Anthropic raise funding at a higher valuation by the end of 2026? Forecasters believe there’s a 34% (19% to 60%) chance.

  • If not, will Anthropic collapse by the end of 2027? Forecasters think there’s a 24% (5.0% to 50%) probability.

Economy: Oil and gas prices spiked in the first trading day after the US-Israel attack on Iran. Stock markets opened lower.

Geopolitics

Middle East

On Saturday, the United States and Israel launched an attack on Iran. Multiple high-ranking officials in Iran’s chain of command were killed, including Ayatollah Khamenei and Ali Shamkhani. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and missile sites were also targeted, while dozens of civilian casualties were reported. US President Trump said that the strikes on Iran could continue for “four to five weeks”. Last week, we estimated a 66% chance that the US would strike Iran before April, well above the Polymarket aggregate of 20.5%. At the beginning of February, we gave a 31% chance that Khamenei would cease to be the Supreme Leader of Iran before April, above the Polymarket estimate of 19.5%.

In response, Iran launched missile and drone attacks on US bases and allied countries in the region. US bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates have been hit, with at least four US servicemembers killed and at least four others seriously injured. A French base in the UAE and a British base in Cyprus were also struck, and civilian areas in Dubai suffered damage. At least ten people in Israel have died as a result of Iranian attacks, and fighting between Hezbollah and Israel broke out again. Even so, Israel says it is preparing to very gradually reopen its airspace over the next week. The conflict has resulted in deaths and wounded in other countries as well.

Oil and natural gas prices spiked on the first trading day following the outbreak of war. The Houthis said that they would resume attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, while traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, through which around 20% of global oil supply and large volumes of liquefied natural gas move, has come to a near standstill. At least three tankers in the Gulf region have already been damaged by debris and projectiles, while certain energy facilities in Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been hit or shut down.

Looking ahead, forecasters think there’s a 45% (32% to 70%) that Iran’s regime will fall by the end of 2026, operationalized as the IRGC no longer being in power. On the one hand, Trump said that Iranians should “rise up” against the regime and told the Washington Post that “freedom” for Iranians is the goal of the war. On the other hand, Trump said he is interested in talking to the regime and cutting a deal with them, citing Venezuela as a model. One Israeli outlet reports that the US asked Iran for a ceasefire over the weekend.

Trump says he has three “very good choices” regarding who should take over in Iran, but it’s unclear whether they are affiliated with the current regime or not. Ali Larijani, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and former Speaker of the Iranian Parliament who has reportedly been in charge of day-to-day operations since January, appears to be alive at the time of writing and said that Iran is not currently willing to negotiate with the US.

It’s possible that regime change was at most a secondary goal, and that the primary objective was to speed up negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program or neutralise an imminent threat. Cutting against this idea is the fact that Oman’s foreign minister, who was mediating the US-Iran nuclear talks, said on Friday that significant progress was being made and that Iran had agreed to get rid of its existing stockpile of enriched uranium. In addition, the Pentagon reportedly told Congress that Iran was not planning to attack the US.

Forecasters also believe there’s a 48% (35% to 60%) probability that there will be >50 US fatalities (civilian or uniformed) anywhere in the world linked to the conflict in Iran or attributed to Iran or its proxies by the end of 2026, and a 58% (45% to 70%) chance that there will be >100 Israeli fatalities (civilian or uniformed) linked to the Iran war in the same time period. To some extent, this is a proxy for how long forecasters think the war will go on; most also think it’s >95% likely that at least some flights to and from Israel will resume before April. Before May 2026, they think there’s a 42% (20% to 68%) probability that the Houthis will seize or sink at least one ship in the Red Sea.

Asia

Pakistan declared that it is in “open war” with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, accusing it of aiding and abetting the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which has escalated its violent campaign within Pakistan over the past year. Airstrikes were carried out on targets within Afghanistan, while the Taliban deployed drones, anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems in response.

The US State Department reportedly delayed an arms sale to Taiwan that was recently approved by Congress, to ensure that Trump’s April visit to China goes smoothly.

Latin America

Trump said that the Cuban regime is currently in talks with the US and suggested that the US could carry out a “friendly takeover” of Cuba. One administration official says that Trump hopes to change the regime in Cuba one way or another and feels that he’s “on a roll”.

Technology and artificial intelligence

Anthropic updated its “Responsible Scaling Policy”, dropping its central safety pledge not to train or deploy AI systems without adequate safety measures to keep the risk of catastrophic harm within acceptable levels. Responsible Scaling Policies represented the idea that AI companies could set “if-then” commitments such that increased risks from training ever-more powerful AIs would result in safety measures up to and including pausing development. They were pushed hard by the AI industry around the AI Safety Summit in 2023, when there was more political appetite to regulate AI companies to address the worst risks of AI.

On Friday, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic a supply chain risk, saying the decision is “effective immediately” and the “decision is final”. Trump also ordered federal agencies to stop using the company’s AI models. Nevertheless, Anthropic could still be used by the Pentagon for up to six months, and their Claude model was reportedly used during the US attack on Iran. Anthropic says it will challenge the designation in court.

Later that day, Sam Altman announced that OpenAI agreed a deal with the Pentagon that supposedly provided exceptions to the use of their AIs for domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. Anthropic says that these activities could have fallen under the “any lawful use” policy that was being requested of them by the Pentagon. The details of the exceptions and the enforcement mechanisms that OpenAI and the Pentagon agreed to appear to be a bit weaker than what Anthropic was pushing for.

Forecasters estimate a 72% (65% to 80%) probability that the designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk will be reversed by the end of 2027. By then, Anthropic could have reconciled with the administration or won in court. Conditional on the designation not being reversed by 2027, forecasters estimate that there is a 34% (19% to 60%) chance that Anthropic would raise funding at a higher valuation by the end of 2026, and a 24% (5% to 50%) chance that Anthropic would collapse by the end of 2027.

Earlier in the week, it was reported that xAI and the Pentagon reached a deal to use Grok in classified systems. Officials at multiple federal agencies have raised concerns about the safety and reliability of Grok in recent months.

Senior OpenAI safety employees were summoned for “urgent talks” in Canada after a school shooting in which the attacker had described violent intentions to ChatGPT to the extent that they were flagged by OpenAI’s systems, discussed by employees, and caused the attacker’s account to be banned. OpenAI did not alert authorities in advance of the shooting. Canadian ministers told OpenAI that if they do not quickly upgrade their safety protocols, they will force them to through legislation.

A study finds that prefill attacks, where an attacker predefines initial response tokens before generation begins, are consistently effective for bypassing safety mitigations across all major contemporary open-weight models.

And: Anthropic accused three Chinese AI companies of large-scale “distillation attacks” on Claude. In simulated wargames of current frontier AIs, at least one AI in every wargame escalated the conflict by threatening the use of nuclear weapons. OpenAI raised $110B at a $730B valuation, although some of it is conditional on hitting milestones. Hackers used Claude in an attack against the Mexican government. Meta partnered with AMD.

Geopolitics: The US continued to move military assets to the Middle East and Europe. A Russian tanker believed to be carrying oil is on its way to Cuba, in potential violation of a US embargo. There is unrest in Mexico after a cartel leader was killed.

• Will the US strike Iran by March 8, the end of March, or the end of June? Forecasters provide estimates of 38% (25% to 51%), 66% (55% to 75%) and 79% (65% to 90%), respectively.

• Conditional on this happening by the end of June, will there have been 30 consecutive days without any US strikes on Iran on November 3, 2026 (the date of the midterms)? Forecasters estimate a 78% (60% to 90%) chance.

• Conditional on a strike by the end of June, will cyberattacks that the team believe were credibly attributed to Iran occur by the end of June and cumulatively lead to more than 10 estimated deaths? Forecasters give a 6.5% (2.0% to 15%) chance.

• Will the US remove (either partially or completely) sanctions against Cuba by the end of 2026? Forecasters believe there’s a 48% (31% to 67%) probability.

• Will any oil tanker get through to Cuba by the end of April? Forecasters think there’s a 12% (6.0% to 25%) chance.

Technology and AI: METR said that Claude Opus 4.6 has the longest measured time horizon to date on their suite of software tasks. The Trump administration says it rejects global governance of AI.

• Will an IAEA-like institution for AI that includes the US and China exist or be agreed on in a treaty by 2029? Forecasters think there’s a 6.6% (4.0% to 10%) probability.

• Forecasters estimate Anthropic’s valuation at the end of 2026 as ~01 to 1.8T (90% confidence interval).

Economy: Many of the Trump administration’s tariffs were struck down by the US Supreme Court, though Trump later imposed a 15% global tariff, citing Section 122 of the Trade Act 1974.

Geopolitics

Middle East

The United States continues to move military assets to the Middle East and Europe in preparation for a potential attack on Iran. The USS Ford Supercarrier and part of its strike group entered the Mediterranean en route to the Middle East. On Tuesday, F-22 fighter jets were spotted in Britain for the first time since June 2025 (when they arrived 3-4 days before the US strikes on Iran that month), and at least 60 fighter jets were parked at a base in Jordan. Britain and Jordan are both reportedly refusing to allow the US to launch strikes on Iran directly from bases on their territory, with the British government concerned that an attack would violate international law.

If Trump does go ahead with strikes, the options range from limited strikes with the goal of speeding up a nuclear deal, to a large, multi-week or multi-month campaign that aims to topple the regime (for reference, the NATO air war against Serbia lasted 78 days; the air war against Gaddafi lasted around 7 months; the US intervention against Maduro around two hours, and that against Noriega 15 days.) US military preparations for the latter continued over the past week, as a large share of deployable US military aircraft have been staged in the Middle East or Europe. One senior US official said that “full forces” would be in position for operations against Iran by mid-March. With refueling tanker aircraft positioned in key locations in Europe and the Atlantic, it looks likely that any operation against Iran could involve bombers flying from the continental US. There are now about three times as many US military aircraft staged for this operation than were involved in Operation Midnight Hammer last year.

The latest round of talks between the US and Iran concluded in Geneva, with the Iranian delegation saying that an agreement was reached on “guiding principles”. Iran’s foreign minister said that a draft counterproposal should be ready within days, and the next round of talks is set to take place this Thursday in Geneva. Iran is unlikely to agree to give up its current stockpile of highly enriched uranium, but it might agree to diluting it.

Some American sources say that some progress has been made and that the Iranians would be coming back with further details within two weeks. Others say that Trump is getting impatient and that strikes on Iran are very likely to occur within weeks, though they differ on how much time it would take for the US to prepare and note that there are some in the administration who are trying to persuade him not to launch an attack. On Thursday, Trump himself hinted that he will make a decision one way or another within 10 days, implying that we will have more clarity by Sunday 1 March, though forecasters caution that his statements shouldn’t always be taken literally.

Overall, forecasters think there’s a 38% (25% to 51%) chance that the US strikes Iran by March 8, a 66% (55% to 75%) chance by the end of March, and a 79% (65% to 90%) chance by the end of June.

Conditional on a US strike by the end of June, they believe there’s a 78% (60% to 90%) probability that there will have been 30 consecutive days without any US strikes on Iran on November 3, 2026 (the date of the midterms). This could happen both if the US decisively wins quickly, but also if it attains limited goals and then withdraws, and forecasters generally agree that the US doesn’t have the appetite for an extended campaign.

Forecasters also estimate a 6.5% (2.0% to 15%) probability that cyberattacks that the Sentinel team believe were credibly attributed to Iran occur by the end of June and cumulatively lead to more than 10 estimated deaths. Attacks that lead to the deaths of more than 10 people are likely to be counterproductive, galvanizing the general population of the US and/or its allies against Iran.

In other news, a six-decade agreement regarding access to the al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem collapsed, with Israel blocking Palestinians from attending Friday prayers for Ramadan.

Europe

Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that Britain should send non-combat troops to areas in Ukraine that are away from the frontline, to make a statement about Ukraine’s sovereignty and to make it clear to Putin that he won’t be able to regain much Ukrainian territory and that he should instead settle for a peace deal. He acknowledged that he is getting ahead of thinking in the British government, and forecasters think it’s very unlikely that Britain places boots on the ground in Ukraine outside of training missions and absent a peace deal.

In Ukraine, drones are reportedly killing 33,000 Russian forces per month – and Ukraine aims to increase that number to 50,000 per month by Easter. As of late January, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry reported that drones are now responsible for 75% of Russian casualties and 80% of Ukrainian strikes.

Asia

Satellite imagery reveals that China is building up its nuclear weapons capacity in facilities located deep in the mountains in the southwest of the country.

Chinese hackers continue to target US energy infrastructure.

Africa

In Sudan, UN investigators say they uncovered the “hallmarks of genocide” in El Fasher, with mass killings and ethnic targeting discovered. A reader also recommended a particular charity for Sudan.

Latin America

A Russian vessel believed to be carrying fuel to Cuba could challenge the US blockade of the country. Forecasters think there’s a 6.5% (2.0% to 15%) that at least one oil tanker will reach Cuban shores by the end of April. They also think there’s a 48% (31% to 67%) chance that the US will partially or completely remove sanctions against Cuba by the end of 2026, with some forecasters viewing this as a proxy for whether there is regime change in Cuba. Forecasters note that the Trump administration’s attention is concentrated in Iran.

On Sunday, the Mexican army killed “El Mencho,” the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and the most powerful drug cartel leader in the country. In retaliation, the cartel set vehicles on fire and blocked roads in at least 20 Mexican states and at least 25 National Guard troops were killed in 6 separate attacks. The US reportedly provided intelligence for the operation and has pushed Mexico to act against drug cartels.

Technology and artificial intelligence

Capabilities

The 99.9th percentile of Claude code use went from 25 mins to 45 mins in 3 months.

METR estimates that Claude Opus 4.6 has a 50% time horizon of 14.5 hours on software tasks, their highest estimate to date. Some argued that this is evidence of superexponential growth in the length of tasks that AI models can complete, though others suggested that this was less clear from the 80% time horizon results, and METR themselves said that their measurement is extremely noisy because their current task suite is nearly saturated as models are starting to be able to do more tasks in its finite dataset.

Taalas hard-wired models provide ~10x faster inference at ~10x less power. This seems tricky to adapt to a mixture of experts architecture, like that used in current frontier models, although maybe one could hard-wire every model in the ensemble somehow.

There has been a malware distribution campaign targeting Github users. Previously, one could trust and install a random github repository, but this has changed as people can create malicious repositories at scale.

AI progress continues inexorably with new model releases: Gemini 3.1 Pro, as well as various Chinese models (GLM-5, Seed 2.0, Qwen3.5).

Chinese models might not be as close to Western ones as they might seem, because the benchmarks they mention in their announcements are specifically selected for being close to parity, and models are trained specifically to hit those benchmarks in a way that doesn’t generalize as well to benchmarks that become available after Chinese models are released.

Governance

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth threatened to cut ties with Anthropic, saying that he may designate the company as a “supply chain risk,” after Anthropic raised questions about how its AI was used in the Venezuela raid and refused to agree to permit the US government to use its AIs for domestic surveillance purposes. A source said that Anthropic’s stance is not ideological but based on the view that “AI systems are not reliable enough for life-or-death decisions without human judgement and that the technology significantly changes what is possible with domestic surveillance.” DOD Secretary Hegseth is set to meet with Anthropic CEO Amodei on Tuesday. Depending on the degree to which the Pentagon might require companies it does business with to decouple from all business with Anthropic, such a designation could hit Anthropic quite hard. Previously, Anthropic’s revenues had been growing faster than OpenAI’s, albeit from a lower starting point.

Forecasters estimate Anthropic’s valuation at the end of 2026 as ~0 to 1.8T USD, as the aggregate of their 90% confidence intervals. Forecasters engaged in some spirited discussion about whether the Pentagon’s designation of it as a supply chain risk, if played very hardball, could destroy Anthropic through stopping any part of the government, and companies that do business with the government, and their suppliers, and their suppliers’ suppliers, from using Anthropic’s models. For some forecasters, this falls within the worst 5% of scenarios, others think Anthropic would be able to survive such a measure, or that a designation by the Pentagon would not be so recursively strict. Anthropic could take such a designation to court, but in the worst case scenario, courts may not respond in time to save the company: injunctions and emergency rulings would be possible but not assured.

Michael Kratsios, Science Advisor to Trump, says that the US “totally” rejects global AI governance. Although the White House is at times fractious, this reflects current White House policy.

Conversely, at the New Delhi AI summit, Sam Altman says an IAEA for AI may be needed. And the UN Secretary General said that the future of AI can’t be decided by a handful of countries or left to the whims of a few billionaires, although he doesn’t have that much power himself to avoid this.

Forecasters think there’s a 6.6% (4.0% to 10%) that an IAEA-like institution for AI, which includes the US and China, will exist or be agreed on in a treaty, before 2029. This would be a body which oversees and/or sets some international rules on AI, at least some of which have to do with safety.

Forecasters disagree specifically on the likelihood of China agreeing to such a body. Forecaster comments on the no side include:

> 1) China is not that far behind, 2) it doesn’t trust the US to abide by common agreements, and 3) I think they want to go as far ahead with it themselves as they can. I think they see it as a double-edged sword, but primarily, like nukes, if everyone else is going to have powerful AIs, they want to have them, too. I see a lot of quasi-official Chinese statements about wanting lots of (near-)autonomous military capabilities, in particular. As I understand it, they see it as a necessary part of their military’s future

And on the yes side:

> China is in a weaker position, and so would lose less of the upside. Xi and other senior officials have made multiple public statements advocating for global AI governance and on setting international rules on AI. The US is quite clearly ahead, and China has very little chance of overtaking the US. So to the extent China looks at statements AI CEOs like Dario Amodei are making about essentially using superintelligence for world conquest, and believes them, it would want to accept a deal.

OpenAI committed $7.5m to an independent AI alignment research fund created by UKAISI

The White House is opposing Utah’s HB 286 bill, which would force AI developers of the most powerful systems to publish and follow safety plans, along with providing whistleblower protections.

The Pentagon briefly added Alibaba, Baidu, BYD to the Section 1260H list (entities that support the People’s Liberation Army), then withdrew them.

A few weeks ago, we reported on the NY-12 Congressional primary and forecasted that Alex Bores, who co-sponsored AI safety legislation in New York state, has a 34% chance of winning. Recently, a Super PAC backed by Anthropic has backed Bores, while a Super PAC backed by OpenAI’s Greg Brockman continues to oppose him.

Economy

The Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs was unlawful. In November, we forecasted a 71% chance (55% to 90%) that this would be the outcome. Trump announced he would impose a new global tariff of 15% (quickly raising it from 10%) using the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the President to impose tariffs of up to 15% for 150 days. The Tax Foundation estimates that this 15% tariff could replace about 73% of the revenue that will be lost as a result of the Supreme Court decision. One forecaster also thinks it’s more likely than not that Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 will also be invoked to impose tariffs, though it has never been used before. It has not been decided if and how $133 billion dollars of tariffs already collected will be refunded.

Geopolitics: Trump again expressed support for regime change in Iran and sent a second aircraft carrier group to the Middle East, but also said that nuclear talks will continue. Some European leaders are floating the idea of a common European nuclear deterrent, but Spain’s PM is opposed to “nuclear rearmament”.

• Will the US strike Iran before April 2026? Forecasters give a 48% (40% to 55%) probability thereof. Will it strike Iran before July 2026? Forecasters think there’s a 69% (58% to 90%) chance.

• Will more than 10,000 people take part in protests in Tehran before February 20? Forecasters believe there’s a 47% (35% to 58%) probability.

Technology and AI: Bernie Sanders reiterated that he plans to introduce federal legislation for a moratorium on data center construction. A Chinese AI startup trained its new model entirely on Huawei chips. Anthropic was valued at almost $380B.

• Will a federal moratorium on data center construction become law before 2029? Forecasters give a 4% (2% to 7%) probability thereof.

• Will a Chinese AI model enter the top 3 on Epoch’s Capabilities Index by the end of 2026? Forecasters think there’s a 12% (10% to 18%) chance.

Biorisk: The US NIAID is deprioritizing pandemic preparedness and biodefense, while the FDA refused to consider Moderna’s application seeking approval of their mRNA influenza vaccine.

Geopolitics

Middle East

The United States is sending a second aircraft carrier group to the Middle East as it further builds up its ‘armada’ in the region. Donald Trump also said that regime change in Iran would be the “best thing to ever happen”, with the US military preparing for a weeks-long operation against Iran if Trump gives the order to attack. Trump said that making a deal with Iran has been difficult and that “sometimes you have to have fear”, hinting that his ideal scenario is still to scare Iran’s leaders into making a deal that he feels is acceptable. A second carrier group boosts strike power and would bolster the defence of Israel and US bases in the region if they were to come under attack.

Meanwhile, Iran’s President Mahmoud Pezeshkian said the country is willing to open up its nuclear sites for “any kind of verification”. This would represent a return to the setup under the JCPOA negotiated by the Obama administration, but it’s unclear whether this will be a large enough concession for the current administration. Access to Iran’s nuclear sites has been progressively restricted since Trump pulled out of that deal in 2018, and IAEA inspectors were barred altogether following the US-Israel attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites in June 2025.

Trump met with Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and said that nuclear talks with Iran must continue. Nothing definitive was agreed at the meeting. US and Iranian representatives are expected to meet in Switzerland on February 17 to continue talks about Iran’s nuclear program.

Forecasters now think there’s a 48% probability (40% to 55%) that the US will strike Iran before April 2026, and a 69% chance (58% to 90%) that it will do so before July 2026.

There could be large protests in the coming days in Tehran as some traders at the city’s Grand Bazaar called for nationwide gatherings following the end of the 40-day mourning period for protesters who died on January 8 and 9. Forecasters think there’s a 47% (35% to 58%) chance that a credible news outlet such as Reuters or the Associated Press will report that at least 10,000 gathered in Tehran in a protest this week.

Europe

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says that he opposes nuclear rearmament, in response to suggestions from other European leaders that there should be a common European nuclear deterrent.

Intelligence agencies in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands allege that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was killed by epibatidine, a toxin found in the skin of Ecuador dart frogs. Britain said it would be reporting Russia to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for what it called a flagrant violation of the chemical weapons convention (CWC).

Ukraine is reportedly working on holding presidential elections and a referendum on a peace deal, possibly as early as May, though this may all be conditional on substantive progress being made in peace talks. Ukraine’s President Zelensky emphasised that a ceasefire would first need to be agreed. Last week, we reported that the US has given Ukraine and Russia a June deadline to end their war, though a US official has since publicly rejected this.

Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen says that Trump remains serious about acquiring Greenland.

Russia said it will take “countermeasures, including military-technical ones”, if the West increases its military footprint on Greenland. This most likely refers to building up military infrastructure aimed at the West, and one forecaster thinks it’s extremely unlikely that there will be more than 10 uniformed deaths as a result of confrontations between NATO and Russian forces before 2027.

Norway’s army chief said that, while it’s extremely unlikely that Russia aims to conquer Norway, there could be a confrontation with Russia in the far north of the country if Russia believes its nuclear assets in the Kola peninsula are under threat.

Trump rejected Vladimir Putin’s offer of a one-year extension to the New START Treaty’s deployment limits.

A NATO exercise in May 2025 suggested that the alliance is unprepared for drone warfare.

Russia is transforming its command and control of military operations using software to provide AI-enabled, decentralized battlefield control of drones and to integrate drone activities with other fire units.

Asia

The US and UK air forces reportedly held joint exercises simulating confrontations with Chinese and other countries’ fighter jets.

United States

The Department of Homeland Security has sent tech companies, including Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta, hundreds of administrative subpoenas requesting personal identifying data for social media accounts that track or criticize ICE actions.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that, “There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not!” The House has passed a voter ID bill, the SAVE America Act, but the bill has yet to make its way through the Senate.

Amazon’s Ring security camera company announced that it is ending its partnership with Flock Safety, a security and surveillance company that partners extensively with law enforcement, after a disastrous response to Ring’s Superbowl ad that showcased its ability to locate lost dogs and reunite them with their owners.

Courts have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that the Trump administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully, and detainees have filed more than 20,000 lawsuits seeking to be released. The administration continues to detain immigrants indefinitely despite such court rulings. ICE and CBP continue to increase deportations.

ICE plans for detention centers are becoming clearer. The agency plans to spend $38.3B to buy 24 warehouses across the country and convert them into immigrant detention centers. ICE plans to turn 16 of these warehouses into regional detention centers that can hold 1,000-1,500 detainees, and 8 warehouses into detention centers that can hold up to 8,000-10,000 detainees and will serve as the main hubs for international removals.

The Trump administration is ramping up efforts to denaturalize citizens, with a goal of referring 100-200 cases for litigation per month. Historically, from 1990 to 2017, the US government pursued an average of 11 cases per year. It is possible that the Trump administration will seek to strip US citizenship from foreign-born citizens for lesser violations than in the past.

The House Judiciary Committee’s hearing questioning Attorney General Pam Bondi about the Epstein Files devolved into a shouting match. When asked whether the DOJ has pursued indictments against any co-conspirators, Bondi responded by asking why they weren’t talking about the Dow Jones Industrial Average being over 50,000 and other economic highlights.

Technology and artificial intelligence

US Senator Bernie Sanders reiterated that he intends to introduce federal legislation for a moratorium on data center construction. State lawmakers in Georgia, Maryland, Oklahoma, New York and Wisconsin have proposed similar bills.

Forecasters believe there’s a 4% (2% to 7%) chance that such a moratorium will become federal law before 2029, noting that most Congressional Democrats (including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) have so far declined to fully endorse the plan and that it would almost certainly have to get significant Republican support and survive a potential Presidential veto. On the other hand, there could be an ‘AI warning shot’ or substantial automation-linked job displacement that prompts lawmakers to support it.

Some former xAI employees allege that the company does not take AI safety seriously. One said that “safety is a dead org at xAI”, while another said that engineers at the company immediately “push to prod[uction]... You survive by shutting up and doing what Elon wants”.

In a slightly cryptic post stating that the “world is in peril”, an Anthropic safety lead publicly quit the company, citing the difficulty in Anthropic matching actions to values as among his reasons.

Chinese AI startup Zhipiu released its new flagship model, GLM-5, which was entirely trained on Huawei chips. Forecasters believe there’s a 12% (10% to 18%) chance that a Chinese AI model will have entered the top 3 in Epoch’s Capabilities Index, a composite benchmark, by the end of 2026 (even if it later drops out).

Anthropic secured $30B in Series G funding, at a valuation of $380B. The Pentagon reportedly used Anthropic’s Claude model while carrying out the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Anthropic’s inquiries on the matter led to the Pentagon considering severing ties with the company..

Google DeepMind published two papers which it says demonstrate that Gemini Deep Think can accelerate mathematical and scientific discovery. Google says state-backed hackers are using Gemini to augment their attacks and are stealing Gemini API keys.

OpenAI says that its models have been making progress on mathematical problems posed in the “First Proof” challenge. OpenAI also launched “Lockdown Mode”, an optional security setting for higher-risk users.

Microsoft launched a scanner to detect poisoned LLMs. Microsoft’s AI chief, Mustafa Suleyman, predicted that white-collar work could be automated within 18 months.

Meta plans to add facial recognition to its smart glasses, though it’s aware of privacy concerns. An internal memo from last year stated that, “We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.”

Data centers now represent 7% of US electricity demand, according to a new Goldman Sachs report.

Economy

China has told its banks to begin selling and limit purchases of US Treasuries to reduce the banks’ exposure to potential volatility in the US debt market and to reduce concentration risk.

Biorisk

Pandemic preparedness and biodefense are being deprioritized at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), with staff members told to remove the terms from the institute’s website.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a rare Refusal-to-File (RTF) letter to Moderna for their mRNA influenza vaccine, despite the EU, Canada and Australia all having accepted the company’s application. This is likely driven by the anti-vaccine views of some in the Trump administration. Moderna has already shelved plans to develop vaccines for Epstein-Barr virus, herpes and shingles, and has announced it will no longer invest in new Phase 3 trials for infectious diseases on the grounds that “[y]ou cannot make a return on investment if you don’t have access to the U.S. market.”

Nature and climate

The Trump administration repealed the finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health. As a consequence, the US Environmental Protection Agency will no longer be able to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

A study estimates that by 2065-2100, many parts of Africa (not including Madagascar) could experience heatwaves 250-300 days per year.

Miscellaneous

Former US President Barack Obama said that “aliens are real” in an interview, later clarifying that he was basing this on his view that “[s]tatistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there.” He added that, “the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us.”

Geopolitics: American and Iranian negotiators met for nuclear talks in Oman. No agreement was reached, but both sides said the talks will continue. A nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia expired.

• Will Iran’s current regime and the US reach any agreement around Iran’s nuclear program before July 1, 2026? Forecasters believe there’s a 17% (5.0% to 32%) probability thereof.

• What is the chance that any of the US, China or Russia will start any negotiations towards a new nuclear arms treaty by the end of 2026? Forecasters estimate around even odds, 52% (40% to 65%).

• What is the chance that a new country will acquire nuclear weapons by 2030? Forecasters give a 5.3% (1.0% to 15%) chance to this outcome.

Technology and AI: Anthropic and OpenAI released their most powerful models to date. Both companies said that the models were mostly built by AIs, and that some of their benchmarks that were designed to detect dangerous capabilities have been saturated. METR assessed GPT-5.2 (high) to be SOTA on its time horizon task suite.

• Will METR assess any AI to have a time horizon of 100 hours by the end of 2026? Forecasters give an aggregate probability of 7.6% (3% to 20%).

Economics: The US and India reached a trade deal. Both countries will slash tariffs on each other’s exports, and India agreed to stop buying Russian oil.

Technology and artificial intelligence

Anthropic released their latest model, Claude Opus 4.6. OpenAI, meanwhile, released their latest model, GPT-5.3-Codex. Both companies claim that their AI models mostly built these latest models.

Anthropic said that some of their benchmarks for determining dangerous capabilities have now been saturated. For AI R&D capabilities, this meant that they instead relied on a survey of 16 employees to determine whether it could automate the work of an entry-level Anthropic researcher with three months of scaffolding and tooling improvements. OpenAI similarly said that “we cannot rule out” the possibility that GPT-5.3-Codex poses a “High” cyber risk.

The UK Government’s AI Security Institute also conducted red teaming of both models and found no instances of Claude Opus 4.6 engaging in “research sabotage”. Apollo Research, on the other hand, said it observed high levels of awareness that it was being evaluated from Claude Opus 4.6, and therefore declined to provide a formal assessment of the model.

METR’s Chris Painter said:

My bio says I work on AGI preparedness, so I want to clarify:
We are not prepared.
Over the last year, dangerous capability evaluations have moved into a state where it’s difficult to find any Q&A benchmark that models don’t saturate.

METR evaluated GPT-5.2 (high) on multi-step software and reasoning tasks. The organization found that the model is state-of-the-art on both their 50% and 80% time-horizon suites. However, forecasters debate the degree to which this will translate into real-world outcomes, including in the economic and catastrophic risk domains. They believe there’s a 7.6% (3% to 20%) chance that METR will assess any model to have a 50% time horizon of at least 100 hours by the end of 2026. This might happen if there are nonlinearities in time horizon growth once we reach time horizons of a full day, or due to better understood scaffolding.

The 2026 International AI Safety Report was published. Backed by over 30 countries and international organizations, the report finds that real-world evidence for several different risk categories is growing, including cyberthreats, biological and chemical threats, and loss of control risks. Notably, the US withheld support from this report.

Spain hosted a summit on the responsible use of AI in the military, but only 35 out of 85 participating countries signed the joint declaration. The US and China didn’t.

Large Reasoning Models are good at finding jailbreaks for other such models. This is interesting because much as defensive measures might increase with model capability, so might the ability to attack those measures. Here is a more casual treatment of the topic, with Gemini jailbreaking Opus.

And: The UK and Microsoft will work together to build a deepfake detection system. Banks are struggling to cope with faked AI-generated KYC documents. OpenAI is reportedly unsatisfied with some of Nvidia’s latest AI chips and has been seeking alternatives. AI models can rent a human, and there is generally a shady ecosystem arising for AI models. Baidu rolled out fully driverless taxis in Dubai.

Geopolitics

Middle East

Negotiators from the US and Iran met in Oman for negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. Nothing conclusive was agreed, but Trump said that the talks were “very good”, and both sides said that they would continue to talk. The US military buildup in the region continues, with a focus on moving Patriot and THAAD air defense systems into the region. Forecasters believe there’s a 17% (5.0% to 32%) probability that the US and Iran’s current regime will reach a new agreement on Iran’s nuclear program before July 2026.

Europe

The US-Russia New START Treaty expired. Negotiated by the Obama and Medvedev administrations in 2010 and extended by the Biden and Putin administrations in 2021, it aimed to cap each nation’s strategic nuclear arsenals.

The US called for negotiations with Russia and China on a new treaty, while accusing China of carrying out a secret nuclear test in 2020.

Forecasters think there’s a 52% (40% to 65%) chance that negotiations on a new nuclear arms control treaty involving the US, Russia or China will begin before 2027, and a 5.3% (1.0% to 15%) chance that at least one country that currently doesn’t have nuclear weapons will possess them by 2030.

Ukraine’s President Zelensky says that Trump gave Ukraine and Russia a June deadline to reach an agreement to end the war. Forecasters are sceptical that an agreement will be reached by then.

Asia

China warned that US arms sales to Taiwan could jeopardise Trump’s visit to Beijing in April, though forecasters generally think the meeting will go ahead as planned. President Xi also said that Taiwan is the “most important” issue in a phone call with Donald Trump.

A series of coordinated attacks across Balochistan in Pakistan, claimed by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), killed dozens after assailants struck hospitals, schools, banks and markets in nine cities. The violence comes amid rising ethnic unrest in the border regions of Pakistan, Iran andAfghanistan. Taliban officials have expressed support for Balochi separatists.

Biorisk

Investigators found a biological lab at a home in Las Vegas, and said that it could be linked to a similar illegal facility found in California. The California lab was allegedly run by a Chinese citizen who is currently in federal custody, and contained “pathogen-labeled containers” with labels such as “dengue fever”, “HIV” and “malaria,” along with hundreds of mice.

Antibodies to H5N1 bird flu have been detected in a dairy herd in the Netherlands.

In Bangladesh, a fruit bat virus, Pteropine orthoreovirus, was found in 5 human throat swabs from patients with severe respiratory illnesses or encephalitis collected from December 2022 to March 2023. The patients were initially thought to be infected with Nipah virus; one patient died. This virus is now added to the list of zoonotic fruit bat viruses that can cause serious disease in humans.

Economy

The US and India struck a trade deal. Total US tariffs on imports from India will be cut from 50% to 18%, while India agreed to stop buying Russian oil and to slash its own tariffs on imports from the United States. India has long been viewed as highly protectionist, but has in the last year reached trade agreements with Britain, the European Union and the United States.

US software and services stocks lost $1T last week, but partially rebounded, as investors worry about how AI would disrupt these industries.

Nature and Climate

Solar active region 4366 threw off another X-class flare but has calmed down over the past week. Additional X-class and smaller solar flares are possible from the region, but the risk that the region will produce a solar flare that triggers a dangerous coronal mass ejection (CME) is now almost zero.

Geopolitics: The US continues to threaten Iran with military action if it doesn’t make a deal over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, though Trump says that talks are ongoing. Cuba may run out of crude oil in 2-3 weeks.

• Will the US strike Iran before April 2026? Forecasters estimate a probability of 52% (40% to 70%). Will Ayatollah Khamenei cease to be the Supreme Leader of Iran before April 2026? Forecasters estimate a probability of 31% (17% to 60%).

• Will Miguel Díaz-Canel cease to be the President of Cuba before April 2026? Forecasters think there is a 22% (10% to 51%) chance.

Technology and AI: Moltbook, a new social network for AI agents, has attracted a lot of human attention. A $100B Nvidia-OpenAI deal is unlikely to go ahead in its original form.

• What’s the probability that OpenAI and/or Anthropic collapses by the end of 2027? Forecasters estimate a 12% (8.0% to 20%) chance.

Biorisk: Airports in Asian countries, including Singapore and Hong Kong, are screening passengers for Nipah virus, following the infection of two nurses in India.

• Will the World Health Organization declare the spread of Nipah virus to be a pandemic by the end of 2026? Forecasters estimate a 0.03% (0.005% to 0.2%) probability thereof, with those more familiar with virology being able to reach more confidence.

Economics: Kevin Warsh was nominated by Trump to be the next Chairman of the Federal Reserve. More than a decade ago, he was a member of the Fed’s Board of Governors.

Thanks to John Williams for supporting our work!

Technology and artificial intelligence

Moltbook, a Reddit-style social network for AI agents, got significant attention this week, as humans observed the AIs discussing ways to communicate without humans watching. However, some of the screenshots that got the most attention likely originated from humans. Last week, we reported on how people were giving AI assistants control of their machines

One forecaster writes that they are not currently worried about the AIs on Moltbook because these agents aren’t intelligent or powerful enough to cause any harm, but also says that Moltbook developments shouldn’t be surprising or shocking to anyone who has thought about multi-agent systems. Another team member notes that the agents are running off the credits of many different accounts. Therefore, if something dangerous and emergent was to come from something like this in the future, it could be harder to identify in advance than, say, an individual or group attempting to synthesize biological weapons.

While some argue that the agents on Moltbook are merely simulating the behaviour of humans who populate social media sites like Reddit, one forecaster notes that the behaviour itself matters more than why it’s happening.

As one observer put it:

The reason this is interesting and not just ‘slop’ is that this results in “emergent” behavior. Yes, all of this is upstream of a human-written prompt in the file which contains the agent’s instructions. But the behavior that emerges can be surprising and not always predictable… moltbook will be, for many… people, their first visceral sighting of what an AI institution/society might look like where the role of humans is greatly reduced.

A researcher at OpenAI wrote:

moltbook looks like a very big deal to me, one of those things that suggests the world is changing in an important way. AI agents are capable and long-lived enough to have semi-meaningful social interactions with each other… The next year or so will allow us to observe empirically how successful AI alignment as a field has been: how much agent-agent coordination do we see in service of misaligned goals? Do we have to course-correct the training methods or objective functions?

In other news, the $100 billion deal between Nvidia and OpenAI is unlikely to go ahead in its original form, though Nvidia is still likely to invest in OpenAI in the future. Jensen Huang said NVIDIA will still be making a “huge investment” in OpenAI. However, the Wall Street Journal reports that Huang has privately questioned OpenAI’s business strategy and is concerned that OpenAI faces strong competition from the likes of Google DeepMind and Anthropic.

Even so, some forecasters think this makes OpenAI’s financing challenges more difficult, especially as it isn’t a behemoth like Google. On the question of whether one of the smaller Western frontier AI labs (OpenAI and Anthropic) will go bust by the end of 2027, forecasters give a 12% (8.0% to 20%) probability.

Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei published another essay, discussing the risks of powerful AI systems. For example, the possibility that AI could unlock new technologies like mirror life, which could lead to “in the worst case even destroying all life on earth.”

The Pentagon and Anthropic are at odds over safeguards that would prevent the US government from deploying its technology for autonomous weapons targeting and surveillance within the United States.

US Representative John Moolenar, chair of the House Select Committee on China, claimed that Nvidia helped DeepSeek “achieve major training efficiency gains through an ‘optimized co-design of algorithms, frameworks, and hardware’”, developing models that were later used by the Chinese military.

And: China gave DeepSeek approval to buy Nvidia’s H200 AI chips, under certain conditions. Cybersecurity researchers say hackers can easily take over computers operating open-source LLMs.

A New York City government chatbot has been shut down, after it kept making mistakes. It was costing the administration around half a million dollars, according to Mamdani, the mayor.

Meta is set to nearly double its AI capital investments, as it disclosed that it anticipates its capital expenditure this year to be between $115B and $135B.

Google agreed to pay $68M to settle a class-action lawsuit that claimed that its voice assistant had illegally recorded people as a result of accidental activation of its voice recognition feature, and that Google had then sold their information to advertisers. One forecaster was very surprised because when he was a kid, “Google is listening to you” was considered a conspiracy theory, but it ended up being surprisingly right.

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Long-Term Reliability Assessment for 2025 finds that, “Projections for resource and transmission growth lag what is needed to support new data centers and other large loads that drive escalating demand forecasts.”

However, one analyst finds that about one third of planned data center capacity in the US is projected to skip the grid partially or entirely, as companies plan to build “behind-the-meter” power generation capacities to cut down on the time required to bring a data center online. The analyst notes that, “It can take as long as 7 years to connect a hyperscale data center to the grid in a place like Virginia. Building behind the meter power in a red state with lax regulations can get that time down to less than 2 years.”

Google used a federal court order to dismantle the domains and back-end infrastructure of a Chinese-owned company called Ipidea that had installed software on millions of internet-connected devices worldwide. The company used these devices to construct “residential proxy” networks that it sold access to worldwide; a spokeswoman for the company said that its proxy network spanned tens of millions of devices worldwide. Such networks can be used to conduct cyberattacks.

A small French startup, ALM Meca, has built an ultra-rapid interceptor drone capable of reaching speeds over 700 km/h – three times faster than adversary drones like Iranian Shaheds and their Russian adaptations – and pulling 20G. It can carry payloads weighing up to 2 kg and has a range of about 100 km.

Geopolitics

Middle East

The United States continues to move military assets into the Middle East to prepare for a possible attack on Iran, though some officials argue that only a limited strike is possible in the very near future because a concerted effort to damage the Iranian regime would, among other things, require more air defences to protect US troops in the region as well as Israel. Air defences continue to be moved into the region.

Trump said he gave Iran a deadline to make a deal over the future of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, but Iran continued to say that it wouldn’t negotiate over the latter. Trump indicated that some talks are occurring, however. Some forecasters note that the fact that the US wants a nuclear deal casts doubt on Trump’s claim back in the summer of 2025 that US strikes had “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s key nuclear sites.

Saudi Arabia shifted from deterring US strikes on Iran three weeks ago to saying that not striking will embolden the regime.

Overall, forecasters estimate there is a 52% (40% to 70%) chance that the US will strike Iran before April 2026, and they estimate that there is a 31% (17% to 60%) probability that Ayatollah Khamenei will cease to be the Supreme Leader of Iran before then.

Meanwhile, Iran eased the internet blackout that the regime startedit brought in during the height of the recent protest movement, as the economic costs of the shutdown have been mounting.

Israeli officials say that they are preparing to reopen the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

Europe

On Friday, Trump said that Putin agreed to halt strikes on Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure, and while Moscow did not confirm that it had agreed to a pause, Ukrainian President Zelensky said that Ukraine would halt similar strikes if Putin followed through. EU diplomat Kaja Kallas said that Ukraine is facing a humanitarian crisis as Russian strikes have cut utilities during winter; it is estimated that as of January 2026, because of Russian strikes on infrastructure, Ukraine can meet only 60% of the country’s demand for electricity. Parts of Ukraine are expected to see temperatures of -30°C early this week, which also threatens to damage winter crops, particularly winter wheat.

A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimates that since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian forces have suffered nearly 1.2M casualties (killed, wounded or missing) and up to 325k deaths, and that Ukrainian forces have suffered 500-600k casualties and 100-140k deaths. CSIS estimates that by this spring, combined Russian and Ukrainian casualties could reach 2M.

The 14 European countries with coasts on the Baltic Sea and the North Sea signed a joint letter to remind shadow fleet operators of maritime rules and enforcement actions that can be taken.

Many in Europe are interested in reducing their dependence on US technology, including software, cloud computing, and defence technology. Trump’s recent threats concerning Greenland are causing some in the UK government to wonder whether the UK should award a £6B SkyNet 6 military satellite contract to Lockheed Martin, a US defencse contractor. Europe also increasingly relies on LNG imports from the US.

NATO is increasing its focus on defense and security in the Arctic.

The Americas

Latin America

Cuba is estimated to have only enough crude oil to last 15-20 days at current demand and production levels. The US has blocked deliveries from Venezuela, and it appears that Mexico has canceled a scheduled shipment. On January 11, Trump said that “no more oil” would be going to Cuba, and on Tuesday, he said that Cuba “will be failing pretty soon”. On January 29, Trump signed an executive order that threatens to impose tariffs on goods from countries that export oil to Cuba, “to protect the national security and foreign policy” of the US. Cuba is also growing short on fuel oil, which is also needed for power generation; the most recent shipment, from Venezuela, was received in November. Cuba already experiences near-daily blackouts, and if Cuba doesn’t receive more oil soon, analysts suggest that the country could begin severe power rationing and that the economy could collapse.

Forecasters think there’s a 22% (10% to 51%) chance that Miguel Díaz-Canel will cease to be the President of Cuba before April 2026. One Cuban contact writes (lightly reworded) that,

the Cuban government can scapegoat him if they want to improve relations with the USA, or get more time to organize themselves. He is not likely to be the true boss, and recently other guys really high in the power structure were removed with basically no explanations. On the other side, it is the first time the Cuban government is really against the wall, and they are slow and old, and used to do whatever they want, so it’s not clear to me that they realize they might get the Maduro treatment.

I don’t know how trustworthy these claims are, but I think it’s totally true that the Cuban top guys have billions outside the country, not only through [GAESA].

So I think they have some incentives to try to fix this mess before it’s too late (risking a US hit). But most of them have been lying so much and ignoring evidence that while it might sound ridiculous, they might believe their own lies and also rather die than leave. And they are mostly old so it’s not like a bright future is waiting for them.

Meanwhile, US intelligence officials have raised concerns that interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez might not comply with US demands that Venezuela fully cut ties with US rival countries, including Iran, Russia and China. Nonetheless, Rodriguez has released political prisoners and authorized the sale of 30-50 million barrels of oil to the US, as the US has requested. Rodriguez has also announced an amnesty bill that could allow the release of several hundred political prisoners.

North America

On January 24, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old US citizen, was shot and killed in Minneapolis, MN by federal immigration enforcement agents. Following backlash against the Trump administration’s characterization of Alex Pretti as a “domestic terrorist,” the administration is changing its tack in Minneapolis. On January 26, President Trump and Minneapolis Governor Tim Walz spoke on the phone, and Trump later posted a conciliatory note on Truth Social. Gregory Bovino, leader of the immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis and commander-at-large of the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), is leaving Minneapolis to return to his former CBP position in El Centro, CA, and border czar Tom Homan, who has favored a more targeted approach to immigration enforcement, is now taking the lead in Minneapolis. Homan said in a press conference that there would be changes in operations in Minneapolis and that the number of federal agents would eventually be drawn down. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is facing growing calls for her firing or impeachment, including from Republican Senator Thom Tillis, but she and White House adviser Stephen Miller, who is the architect of and driving force behind the administration’s immigration and immigration enforcement policies, remain in their positions.

In Minnesota, US District Court Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz wrote in a court filing that ICE had violated at least 96 court orders since January 1, 2026 alone and demanded that ICE Director Tom Lyons appear before the court for contempt proceedings. Following ICE’s release of one detainee, the judge canceled contempt proceedings against Lyons. Schlitz wrote that, “This list should give pause to anyone – no matter his or her political beliefs – who cares about the rule of law…. ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence”.

The Department of Homeland Security is buying warehouses in 23 locations around the US to use as detention facilities; together, the facilities will hold up to 80,000 people. ICE has arrest quotas of 3,000 per day nationally, which, although never met, are what it would take to reach 1M arrests per year. In addition, officers are rewarded for making arrests, even if detainees are later released. However, amid the push to ramp up the pace of detentions and deportations, the administration fired nearly 100 immigration judges in 2025; there are fewer than half the immigration judges today than there were one year ago, as judges were fired, resigned or were reassigned. Immigration cases are currently being pushed out as late as 2030. Meanwhile, Miller continues to advocate against full judicial review of immigration cases and due process for detainees. The administration’s efforts to achieve mass detentions and mass deportations of immigrants, together with the reduction in the capacity of the court system to handle immigration cases, suggests that the administration will seek to bypass or greatly reduce judicial reviews of individual cases.

In a Truth Social post, Trump said that the US would decertify Global Express business jets made by Canadian company Bombardier, and he threatened to impose a 50% tariff on all aircraft made in Canada until Canada’s regulatory agency certifies planes produced by Gulfstream, a US company.

The US government will acquire shares of a rare-earths mining and manufacturing group, USA Rare Earth. The Trump administration has so far announced that the government will acquire equity stakes in at least 10 private companies.

Trump administration officials have met with separatists from the Canadian province of Alberta, from what is widely considered to be a “fringe, far-right” group, the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP). Trump administration officials have met with representatives of the APP three times since last April, and a week ago, US Treasury Secretary Bessent described the province as “a natural partner for the US”. A survey this month found that 3 in 10 Albertans favor independence from Canada.

Asia

Taiwan’s economy grew at the fastest pace in 15 years in Q4 2025, driven by an AI boom. GDP growth was 12.68% on a year-on-year basis and 5.52% on a quarter-on-quarter basis (or >20% expressed on an annualized quarter-on-quarter basis, as per typical US reporting practices). In 2025 as a whole, the economy grew by an estimated 8.63%.

Trump threatened to increase tariffs on goods from South Korea to 25%, claiming that they have been slow to fulfill their previous trade and investment commitments to the US. But Trump later stated that, “We’ll work something out with South ‌Korea.”

Taiwan plans to place US-built HIMARS rocket launchers on outlying islands near the Taiwan Strait. Rockets launched from these could pose a risk to PLA locations on the Chinese coast.

Africa

The Islamic State in the Sahel conducted an attack on the airport and an adjacent air force base in Niamey, the capital of Niger, using heavy weaponry and drones. The group has killed more than 120 people and abducted an American pilot in attacks in Niger over the past several months.

Biorisk

In India, two nurses have been confirmed to be infected with Nipah virus, which has an estimated case fatality rate (to be distinguished from the infection fatality rate) of 40-75%. Some airports in Asia, including in Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia, are now screening passengers for the virus, mainly by carrying out temperature checks. Pakistan has imposed strict health screening at all points of entry.

Human cases are occasionally acquired from fruit bats that live in parts of Asia, Australia and Africa. The virus can also spread between humans but usually requires prolonged contact with an infected individual. The current outbreak is not likely to spread widely because multiple genetic adaptations would likely be required for the virus to be able to spread efficiently among humans, if that would be possible at all, and chains of human-to-human transmission are currently rare and short.

Overall, forecasters think there’s a 0.03% (0.005% to 0.2%) chance that the World Health Organization will declare the spread of Nipah virus to be a pandemic by the end of 2026. But the aggregate is a bit misleading, becausesince forecasters who know less about the details of the virus are thus able to be less certain.

Economy

Trump nominated Kevin Warsh to succeed Jerome Powell as the next chair of the US Federal Reserve. If Warsh is confirmed by the Senate, he will become the Fed chair in May, when Powell’s term expires. Warsh was previously a Fed governor, so his selection has been generally welcomed by markets and leading figures, including Canadian PM Mark Carney, a former central banker himself. While previously a proponent of free trade, he has spoken in favor of Trump’s tariffs and has called for lower interest rates; he is likely to advocate for Trump’s preferred policies while preserving some level of Fed independence. His father-in-law is Ronald Lauder, a prominent Republican donor who sparked Trump’s interest in the US acquiring Greenland and who is himself pursuing investments in the island.

Gold and silver prices plunged on Friday. Gold fell about 11% to below $5,000, and silver fell a record 26%, reversing the last month’s of gains. Natural gas futures prices surged since mid-January only to fall precipitously over the past week, shedding most of their gains.

Copper prices surged to all-time highs, and analysts expect prices to trend high amid some volatility. The world faces a looming copper shortage that is forecast to be about one third of current copper demand by 2040 and could pose a “systemic risk” to the global economy, according to S&P Global.

Countries and blocs including the US, Britain, the EU, Australia and Japan will meet in Washington to discuss forming a critical minerals alliance. Some of the countries want the US to commit to a minimum price for critical minerals and rare earths.

After spiking last week, Japanese bond yields fell this week, while the yen strengthened after US and Japanese authorities signaled their readiness to step in to support the yen.

Xi is calling for the Chinese renminbi to become a global reserve currency.

Nature and climate

A new solar region, AR 4366, is extremely active and spouted two X-class solar flares on February 1, including an X8.1 solar flare, and several smaller M-class flares. The active region is expected to continue to produce energetic flares as it transits the solar disc over the next week and a half. One forecaster estimates that there could be an approximately 0.5% chance of a dangerous solar storm and coronal mass ejection emerging from this region – a high-consequence, low-probability event.

Geopolitics: Trump backtracked on plans for the US to own Greenland and to impose tariffs on imports from some European countries that opposed an American takeover of Greenland, and he also ruled out using military force to take the territory. The US continued to move military assets into the Middle East, with Trump saying that military action against Iran is possible. The first trilateral peace talks between the US, Ukraine and Russia took place in the UAE, but they made little progress. Tensions between protesters and ICE remain high in Minneapolis.

• Will the US carry out a strike on Iranian territory before April 2026? Forecasters estimate a 66% (50% to 78%) probability.

• Will there be regime change in Iran by then? This would involve the IRGC no longer holding power. Forecasters estimate a 17% (10% to 24%) chance.

• Will there be a ceasefire of any duration (covering land, sea and air) between Russia and Ukraine before April 2026? Forecasters estimate a 5.1% (4.0% to 7.0%) probability.

• Will Trump invoke the Insurrection Act before March 2026? Forecasters estimate a 30% (5% to 65%) chance.

Technology and AI: Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said he would support a pause on AI development if other companies and countries also agreed to this. Users across the internet are giving total control of their machines to AI assistants, and researchers found an AI-assisted malware framework. Alex Bores, who co-authored AI safety legislation in the State of New York, is running for NY’s 12th Congressional district, and his Democratic primary run is being strongly opposed by Big Tech.

• Will Bores win the Democratic primary in New York’s 12th Congressional District? Forecasters estimate the chance thereof at 34% (30% to 37%).

Economics: Trump threatened to impose 100% tariffs on Canadian imports if Canada negotiated a trade deal with China. Canada said it had no intention of doing so and that Carney’s recent visit to China was about lowering trade barriers in specific sectors.

Geopolitics

Europe

Trilateral talks among the US, Ukraine and Russia in the UAE ended without an agreement being reached, following a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky in which the latter said that US security guarantees for Ukraine (to be put in place if a peace deal is negotiated) had also been agreed. However, it remains unlikely that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will endorse such guarantees, and Russia also reiterated its demand that Ukraine withdraw from parts of the Donbas that it still controls. On whether there will be a ceasefire of any duration (covering land, sea and air) between Russia and Ukraine before April 2026, forecasters’ aggregate falls at 5.1% (4.0% to 7.0%).

US President Donald Trump backtracked on plans for the US to control Greenland and to impose tariffs on imports from eight European countries that opposed an American takeover of Greenland, following a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. Trump claimed that he would instead be working on a “framework agreement” with NATO, and no longer said that the US would seek to “own” Greenland, even when directly asked. He also mentioned the stock market in his speech. Greenland and Denmark reiterated that “sovereignty” remains a red line but expressed openness to discussing anything else.

Some reports suggested that this agreement could involve carving out small pockets of Greenland for the construction of US military bases that are under US sovereignty, similar to how British bases in Cyprus are under British sovereignty. Others suggested that the US could get a perpetual lease for these pockets of land, similar to how Guantanamo Bay is indefinitely leased by the United States, even though it technically remains under Cuban sovereignty. It was also speculated that any agreement could involve restricting any Russian or Chinese economic access or involvement in Greenland.

In other news, Trump further ignited tensions between the United States and its NATO allies by questioning whether they would ever support the US in a war. After Mark Rutte pointed out to him that NATO allies had fought with the Americans after 9/11, Trump later claimed in an interview that soldiers from those countries had stayed away from the front lines, despite hundreds of soldiers from those countries dying. UK PM Keir Starmer called Trump’s comments “insulting” and “appalling”, while Republican Senator Thom Tillis wrote that Americans will always remember the sacrifices made by soldiers from US-allied countries. After a phone call with Starmer, Trump partially walked back his comments and said that British soldiers in Afghanistan were “among the greatest of all warriors”.

Middle East

The US continued to move military assets into the Middle East, including F-15 fighter jets and the USS Abraham Lincoln. Trump signalled that a “military option” with respect to Iran remains on the table, and said that Iran needs “new leadership”. On the other hand, the base rate for a US strike on Iran in any two-month period is low, and Trump indicated that a strike on Iran isn’t certain to go ahead, saying: “We’re watching Iran. We have a big force going towards Iran. And maybe we won’t have to use it... We have a lot of ships going that direction. Just in case, we have a big flotilla going in that direction, and we’ll see what happens”.

Overall, forecasters think there’s a 66% (50% to 78%) probability that the US will carry out a strike on Iranian territory before April 2026, and a 17% (10% to 24%) chance that there will be regime change in Iran, which would have to involve the IRGC no longer holding power, before then. Clerics no longer being officially in charge of the IRGC but the IRGC still holding power would not be sufficient.

A forecaster writes:

> This would have to involve the IRGC no longer having power. Firstly, I don’t think there’s a credible internal threat to the regime before April as the protests seem to have died down. It all hinges on what the US and/or Israel will do. Even if they do strike, they might not even target the Ayatollah or succeed in toppling him. Even if they do topple the Ayatollah, it’s possible that a deal will be struck with other members of the regime, as in Venezuela. And even if they are aiming for total regime change, the IRGC still has more than 100,000 members so any fighting could last for a while and take us beyond the end of March. So, overall, I think this is unlikely in this timeframe, but higher than the base rate of ~3-4% per year since the end of the First World War (1921/1925, 1953, 1979).

> Iran’s economy is collapsing to the point that the regime may soon no longer be able to pay the IRGC. Moreover, it appears very likely that the US military may soon strike Iran, potentially with the goal of regime change. Given recent US actions in Venezuela, it is possible that a similar approach could be employed in Iran; agreements with potential leaders of a new regime could be reached behind the scenes ahead of any military strikes.

The US is moving up to 7,000 ISIS prisoners from Syria to Iraq. The prisoners have been held in regions of northeast Syria that have been controlled by Kurdish forces; the Kurdish forces recently signed a ceasefire with the Syrian government that calls for their forces to be integrated into the Syrian military.

The Americas

Latin America

Further reporting suggests that Venezuela’s interim President, Delcy Rodriguez, cut a deal with the Trump administration before Maduro was captured. We first reported that Rodriguez may have contacted US officials through backchannels or intermediaries back in October 2025.

The US reportedly aims to facilitate regime change in Cuba by the end of this year.

Trump calls the mystery weapon used in the raid to take out Maduro the “discombulator”.

North America

Conflicts between federal immigration enforcement agencies and the Democratic Minnesota governor and Minneapolis mayor escalated after ICE agents shot and killed an anti-ICE protester, Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis on Saturday. This incident and the Trump administration’s responses to it increase the chance that Trump will invoke the Insurrection Act over the coming weeks.

When ICE agents came in contact with Pretti, he was holding a phone. Pretti was legally carrying a gun, but it was holstered; Pretti never drew or fired his gun, and an ICE agent removed it before Pretti was shot. At least 10 shots were fired. The death fueled further protests in Minneapolis. The Department of Homeland Security tried to block state and local law enforcement from investigating the shooting, and the state is suing in federal court to gain access to evidence. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz deployed members of the Minnesota National Guard to assist local law enforcement.

A war of words has ensued between Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, on one side, and Trump administration officials on the other side. Secretary of Homeland Security Noem stated that Pretti had committed an “act of domestic terrorism,” and Trump advisor Miller tweeted that, “A domestic terrorist tried to assassinate federal law enforcement”.

In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump blamed Pretti’s death and another recent death on Democratic leaders “creat[ing] dangerous circumstances” by “REFUSING to cooperate with ICE” and “encouraging Leftwing Agitators to unlawfully obstruct their operations”.

Trump then wrote, “I am hereby calling on Governor Walz, Mayor Frey, and EVERY Democrat Governor and Mayor in the United States of America to formally cooperate with the Trump Administration to enforce our Nation’s Laws”. It is possible that this post could potentially set the stage for the administration to claim at a later date that an insurrection exists in any state with a Democratic governor or city with a Democratic mayor who chooses not to “formally cooperate” with the Trump administration in its immigration enforcement efforts. Forecasters think there’s a 30% (5% to 65%) that the Insurrection Act will be invoked before March 2026. Forecasters agree that the Trump administration has been working towards it, but disagree about the immediacy.

Last week, several hundred active-duty military police in the Army’s 16th Military Police Brigade stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina were given orders to prepare to deploy to Minneapolis, reportedly in case the president invokes the Insurrection Act. The week before, about 1,500 active-duty troops in the Army’s 11th Airborne Division were given orders to prepare to deploy, as well.

The Catholic Archbishop at the head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, embedded into the US military, said that it’s “morally acceptable” for troops to disobey orders.

Other immigration enforcement incidents in the past week have inflamed tensions in Minneapolis as well. On Wednesday, a Border Patrol agent sprayed pepper spray into the face of a protester who was restrained on the ground, inches away. Immigration agents also detained a 5-year-old boy who is in the US legally pursuing an asylum claim.

An internal ICE memo dated May 12, 2025 asserts that ICE agents have powers to use force to enter homes without a warrant issued by a judge, to arrest someone on an administrative warrant issued based on a final order of removal. This advice is in conflict with mainstream legal understandings of Fourth Amendment protections against government searches and seizures without a judicial warrant issued based on probable cause.

Trump signed the charter for his new Board of Peace in Davos, Switzerland, in the presence of leaders and representatives from Argentina, Turkey, Hungary, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Qatar, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Morocco, Paraguay and Pakistan. The board’s charter specifies that Trump can only be replaced as chairman through “voluntary resignation or as a result of incapacity, as determined by a unanimous vote of the Executive Board.” Countries can join for free to become members for up to 3 years; only countries that contribute at least $1 billion will be permanent members.

Tensions between Canadian PM Mark Carney and Trump increased again after Carney said he strongly opposed Trump’s Greenland threats in a speech at Davos and broadly criticised the US government’s behaviour. Trump called him “Governor Carney” (he gave a similar nickname to Justin Trudeau) and said that, “Canada lives because of the United States… Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.” Although the Canadian government had said that it wouldn’t pay the $1B fee to become a permanent member of Trump’s “Board of Peace”, Trump announced that he had withdrawn Canada’s invitation.

The US Department of War published a National Defense Strategy. It envisions a greater focus on the Americas, including access to Greenland and the Panama Canal, and reduced engagement with Europe.

Concerns about Trump’s cognitive function mounted after he appeared to confuse Iceland and Greenland in a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The website worstdaysofar.com is tracking US mass rights violations and democratic collapse.

Canadian military planners gamed out responses to a US invasion.

Asia

In China, Xi Jinping purged his long-time ally and Politburo member Gen. Zhang Youxia from the Central Military Commission (CMC), the Chinese military’s top leadership committee, “for suspected serious violations of discipline and law”, including allegedly leaking nuclear secrets to the United States. An investigation into Liu Zhenli, chief of staff of the CMC’s Joint Staff Department, was also started. The purge leaves only Xi and one other member beneath him on the CMC and concentrates Xi’s power further, and it has sent shockwaves through PLA leadership. Xi has purged many military leaders over the years.

In the United States’ latest National Defence Strategy, the Pentagon does not mention Taiwan directly, though it does say that it would focus on deterring China in the Indo-Pacific. It describes China as the most powerful state relative to the US since the 19th century. It also encourages South Korea to take the lead in countering North Korea.

> The Indo-Pacific will soon make up more than half of the global economy. The American people’s security, freedom, and prosperity are therefore directly linked to our ability to trade and engage from a position of strength in the Indo-Pacific. Were China—or anyone else, for that matter—to dominate this broad and crucial region, it would be able to effectively veto Americans’ access to the world’s economic center of gravity, with enduring implications for our nation’s economic prospects, including our ability to reindustrialize.

Africa

Drone strikes intensified around al-Obeid in central Sudan.

An operation against Nigerian kidnapping gangs killed 200.

Technology and artificial intelligence

Some on the internet are experimenting with giving an AI assistant, clawdbot, total control of one’s device, buying Mac Minis for the purpose.

Researchers identified a more capable and mature AI-assisted malware framework they named Voidlink, which composes, commands and orchestrates lower-level attacks. On the one hand this is an example of increasing capabilities, though on the other hand the framework is chaining and coordinating existing tooling together rather than creating its own.

A Google Gemini AI prompt injection vulnerability was discovered that would allow hackers to use calendar invites to steal data. Meanwhile, researchers have found that Microsoft and Anthropics MCP servers, which are used to provide AI services, have severe cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

OpenAI implemented age prediction on its users globally to determine whether an account is likely being used by a child. Reuters reports that this comes as OpenAI prepares to allow adult content on ChatGPT.

A paper explores using AI agents for deanonymization: “LLM-based agents make such re-identification attacks easy and low-effort“, and “existing safeguards can be bypassed by breaking down the re-identification into benign tasks“.

Last week saw a decentralized training run of a 72B model.

Google DeepMind’s CEO Demis Hassabis said that he would support a pause on AI if all other companies and countries would do it. Hassabis also said there’s a 50% chance that AI will have all the cognitive capabilities humans have by 2030, while Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei was very confident that AIs will exceed human capabilities in almost all cognitive domains by then.

TIME reports that AI incidents have increased sharply since 2022.

South Korea brought its AI Act into force, which establishes an AI safety institute. It requires human oversight of AI in “high-impact” uses, e.g., in which public safety could be affected. It also requires that products and services that employ generative AI must be labeled as such. And it requires AI companies to identify, assess and mitigate risks throughout the entire AI lifecycle, when an AI has been trained with more than a certain amount of compute. South Korea is the first country to implement measures at this level, though the EU, California, and New York have passed similar laws.

Brazil has given xAI 30 days to prevent Grok from producing sexual deepfakes. One study estimated that Grok generated about 3 million sexual images in 11 days. Malaysia’s communications regulator announced that the country has lifted its block on Grok, after Twitter implemented new safety measures.

And: Salesforce’s CEO Marc Benioff said some AI chatbots are “suicide coaches,” describing a Character AI chatbot, and called for better regulation. The UK’s Treasury Committee urged the Financial Conduct Authority and Bank of England to start running AI-specific stress tests of financial services. AOC and Paris Hilton are backing a bill targeting sexual deepfakes.

Economy

In a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mark Carney said that the post-war liberal international order was undergoing a “rupture,” not a “transition,” though some forecasters thought it was unclear what this means in practice and would like to explore some predictions that could be made conditional on our being in a “rupture” timeline or a “transition” timeline. To one forecaster, many of the multilateral initiatives that Carney mentioned in his speech were broadly consistent with a “business-as-usual” timeline.

Trump threatened to impose 100% tariffs on imports from Canada if it negotiates a trade deal with China. This came after Mark Carney met with Xi Jinping in Beijing to agree to a mutual lowering of trade barriers. Canada said it had no intention of negotiating a comprehensive free trade agreement with China, and that Carney’s recent visit to China was about lowering trade barriers in specific sectors.

The price of gold rose past $5,000 per ounce for the first time, as global investors sought to invest in the metal as a safe haven amid global turmoil.

Japanese 40-year bond yields rose to over 4% for the first time last week, in anticipation of national elections that could give Japanese PM Takaichi a mandate to increase government spending. As Japanese yields rise, US yields are expected to follow, but only to a limited extent, because trading volumes in Japanese bonds are so much smaller than trading volumes in US Treasuries. Nonetheless, a Bloomberg article argues that the Japanese bond market poses a $7T risk to global markets and that “more unpredictable and violent price swings are expected.”

US home sellers outnumbered buyers by a record proportion in December, signaling a buyer’s market. However, it is not a typical buyer’s market, as the number of buyers has fallen to its lowest level since records began in 2012, as people are finding a home purchase increasingly difficult.

Biorisk

Cattle in a Mexican state bordering the US have been found to be infected with the New World screw worm.

A Federal Lab in Montana reported the potential theft, loss or release of a dangerous biological agent back in November 2025.

The Africa CDC is no longer classifying mpox as a “Public Health Emergency of Continental Security”.

Nature and climate

The largest solar storm in over 20 years occurred but caused little disruption on Earth.

Tech and AI: Emails and personal notes written by Greg Brockman that improve Elon Musk’s position in his lawsuit against OpenAI and others were revealed during the lawsuit’s discovery phase.

• Forecasters think there’s a 31% (15% to 40%) chance that Elon Musk will win at least $40 billion in his case against OpenAI.

Geopolitics: Trump threatened to impose additional tariffs on imports from eight European countries that oppose US ownership of Greenland, and writes that he “no longer feel[s] an obligation to think purely of Peace”. Iran halted planned executions of protesters after threats of US intervention.

• Forecasters think there’s a 21% (9.0% to 40%) chance that an execution of an imprisoned Iranian protester occurs before March 2026, and a 34% (20% to 70%) that the US carries out a strike on Iranian territory before April 2026.

• They also think there’s a 8.6% (2% to 49%) that the Iranian regime falls before March, a 24% (12% to 67%) chance before July, and a 34% (18% to 70%) before 2027. This would have to involve the IRGC no longer holding power in the country. Forecasters are generally split, with most forecasters clustering at 5%/15%/20% for the three time periods and one being more certain and thus bringing our aggregate higher.

• They believe there’s a 16% (10% to 25%) probability that Congress will pass a bill before the end of 2026 that prevents the US from annexing Greenland.

• They think there’s a 31% (18% to 50%) chance that the Venezuelan government will announce a date for Presidential elections before the end of 2026.

Economics: Trump indicated that Kevin Warsh, the more institutional and establishment candidate, is now the favourite to become his nominee for chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. France suggested deploying the EU’s powerful “anti-coercion instrument” in retailation against US tariffs.

Our alert level is at yellow 🟨: Trump’s push for Greenland is resulting in a more rapid decoupling between the US and the EU, UK & Canada, and it damages NATO. Meanwhile, ICE deployments and the backlash against them increase US domestic instability. We recommend increased alertness but no particular costly action at the individual level yet.

Geopolitics

Europe

Trump announced that starting in February, the US would impose an additional 10% tariff on imports from eight European countries that oppose US ownership of Greenland: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland. Trump said that the tariff would increase to 25% on June 1 if no deal for the US to purchase Greenland had been reached by then.

These countries had sent a small number of military personnel to Greenland on a reconnaissance mission ahead of joint military exercises later this year that Denmark invited the US to participate in. Those countries frame the exercise as a as demonstration to Trump that Europe is serious about defending the Arctic from Russian and Chinese interference. However, another aim may have been to signal to the US that they were willing to defend Greenland if the US were to take it by force, and Trump appears to have interpreted the deployments in this manner, saying that the troops had “journeyed to Greenland, for purposes unknown” and that they were playing a “very dangerous game”.

Trump later wrote, in an exchange with Norway’s Prime Minister, that because he was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize by a Norwegian committee, he “no longer feel[s] an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant…” and reiterated that he wants “Complete and Total Control of Greenland”. Some forecasters worry about Trump’s mental state, and point out that he has sole launch authority.

Whether or not the tariffs go ahead may depend on the Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling on the legality of Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose previous tariffs, and on whether there is enough Congressional opposition to Trump’s designs on Greenland. A bipartisan delegation of members of Congress, including Republican senators Lisa Murkowski and Thom Tillis, visited Denmark during the week to try to de-escalate tensions and reassure Denmark and Greenlanders. Forecasters think there’s a 16% (10% to 25%) chance that Congress will pass a bill that attempts to stop the US from annexing Greenland before the end of the year. Two such bills have been introduced in the House and Senate. Even if such a bill were passed, it’s possible that Trump could veto it.

In the meantime, the EU and the UK are weighing up how to respond to Trump’s threats. France has suggested deploying the bloc’s new ‘anti-coercion instrument’, commonly described as a ‘bazooka’ that would restrict US companies’ access to the European Single Market. Other members prefer continued negotiations, and UK Prime Minister Starmer indicated that a trade war would not be in Britain’s interests, while calling Trump’s threats “completely wrong”. Italian Prime Minister Meloni, whose country is not directly affected, attempted to clarify the purpose of the deployments to Greenland in a call with Trump.

Earlier in the week, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Danish officials at the White House to discuss Greenland. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said that the meeting was “constructive” but that Trump’s wish to own Greenland is “totally unacceptable”. A working group was formed to “focus on how to address the American security concerns while at the same time respecting the red lines of the Kingdom of Denmark.” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that an attempt by the US military to seize Greenland would be “the end of NATO”.

A forecaster writes:

> The US already has the right to station as many soldiers on Greenland as necessary for security. Taking it by force or coerced purchase risks losing Canada, Iceland, the UK, and Norway as close partners for defense of the Arctic. It will mean a massive economic and defense schism with Europe. Even the threat of the move, and the announcement of tariffs, have already done lasting damage. Greenland is a litmus test for whether pressure can be applied to Trump behind the scenes from US businesses, financiers, defense companies, and moderates at State, DOD, and Congress to avoid a catastrophe. I think they will prevail, and that is why my forecast is low. [If Trump does take Greenland], it would be a point of no return, and if the EU/NATO permits it without massive economic retaliation and moving to a form of military alliance without the US, they will have succumbed to a Neville Chamberlain “Peace in our times” Munich Agreement level of humiliation.

Middle East

Iran halted its planned executions of protesters after the US threatened to militarily intervene in the country and evacuated some personnel from an air base in Qatar. However, some Iranian hardliners, including cleric Ahmad Khatami, are calling for executions to go ahead. Meanwhile, Iran’s Ayatollah blamed US interference for the killing of thousands of protesters.

While protests in Iran have fallen off over the past week, the situation remains tense. Internet access remains largely blocked, but the regime appears to be testing limited filtered access.

The US is building up military assets in the Middle East in preparation for potential strikes on Iran. The USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group is also en route to the region, and it is estimated that the carrier and its strike group will be within strike range of Iran in about 4 days.

However, as the WSJ pointed out, one of the biggest problems the Iranian regime is facing is the impending collapse of its banking system. And fundamentally, Iran’s zombie1 banks are teetering on the edge because of corruption, mismanagement, and sanctions, the same trifecta that have also held back the economy. If key banks fail, it could become increasingly difficult for the regime to pay members of its security forces, including primarily the IRGC, and an inability to pay those forces would pose an existential risk for the regime.

The collapse of Iran’s currency will also make it difficult for Iran to import food. Wheat is the greatest source of calories for people in Iran; people in Iran have also traditionally eaten rice at least once per day. The country imports both wheat and rice for domestic consumption. The regime reportedly has 3-4 months’ worth of wheat consumption stockpiled currently, and it will continue to subsidize foreign currency exchange for wheat imports. But rice importers are suffering, as their foreign exchange subsidy has been suspended.

Overall, forecasters think there’s a 21% (9.0% to 40%) that an execution of an imprisoned protester occurs before March 2026, and a 34% (20% to 70%) that the US carries out a strike on Iranian territory by the end of March. On the one hand, executing prisoners would antagonize the US further and risk strikes, but on the other hand, not doing so would make the regime appear weak and antagonize hardliners. It’s possible the regime could wait until there is some distraction in the geopolitical theater.

A forecaster writes:

> Without the protests, the US and Israel want to continue strikes against Iran’s nuclear program. The protests present the challenge that if strikes are limited, the government can be internally strengthened by them as a diversion from the protests and to strengthen the narrative of external meddling. Unless there is successful decapitation strike, the regime is unlikely to be sufficiently weakened through a series of limited strikes. Serbia absorbed 3,000 cruise missile strikes and more than 23,000 aerial sorties without collapsing. Their economic position was stronger and they had better internal cohesion, but it highlights the difficulty of regime change purely through aerial bombardment. Trump may be lulled into overestimating the ability of the US military to force quick change, like the capture of Maduro, or may be reminded of the difficulty of dislodging the Houthis. In the March-May 2025 conflict with the Houthis more than 1,000 sorties were flown and were not decisive.

They also think there’s a 8.6% (2% to 49%) that the Iranian regime falls before March, a 24% (12% to 67%) before July, and a 34% (18% to 70%) before 2027. This would have to involve the IRGC no longer holding power in the country.

The Syrian government has signed an agreement with the main Kurdish force in the northeast of the country that ends fighting and will bring the region under the control of the central government.

The Americas

Latin America

The Director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, visited Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez, in Venezuela. To some forecasters, this is a sign of continued US pressure on the regime in Caracas but also of tacit cooperation between Rodriguez and the Trump administration that may have pre-dated former President Maduro’s capture. However, Maria Corina Machado, Venezuela’s main opposition leader, is trying to persuade Trump to back regime change or at least elections in Venezuela. To that end, she gifted him the Nobel Peace Prize that she won last year. Forecasters think there’s a 31% (18% to 50%) chance that the Venezuelan government will announce a date for presidential elections by the end of 2026. Forecasters generally see elections as risky for the current equilibrium.

Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba have stopped since the US captured former Venezuelan President Maduro, and Cuba has not been able to make up for the resulting shortage. Cuba relies on imported oil for electricity generation, and electricity for its water supply, and the country was already in a power crisis before losing its supply of oil from Venezuela. Many wonder whether the economy and government will collapse under the strain. Trump said, “we’re talking to Cuba, and you’ll find out pretty soon.”

United States

Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military to help with law enforcement in Minneapolis, MN, where ICE agents are conducting immigration enforcement amid protests. The situation remains tense in Minneapolis since the fatal shooting of a protester by an ICE agent in the city on January 7. On Friday, Trump told reporters that he did not currently see a need to invoke the Insurrection Act but that, “if I needed it, I’d use it.”

A federal judge ordered ICE agents not to retaliate against people “engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity” in the state and not to stop drivers who are not “forcibly obstructing” officers.

About 1,500 soldiers in the Army’s 11th Airborne Division have been given orders to prepare to deploy to Minnesota. While these orders have been given as part of prudent military planning for the possibility that Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act and order troops to Minnesota, one former-military observer interprets this as a sign of an invasion of Greenland instead, since “Minnesota would be a good place to interim stage these forces in the lower 48. Because Canada won’t let them fly over…”

In an interview with the New York Times, Trump said that he should have ordered the National Guard to seize voting machines in swing states after he lost the 2020 election. And in an interview with Reuters, Trump said, referring to the upcoming midterm elections, that, “when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”

Asia

China imposed an import ban on Nvidia’s H200 chips, which were cleared for export to China by the Trump administration.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney visited China. The two countries lowered tariffs on each other’s goods and hailed their “new strategic partnership”.

Africa

Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Somalia are discussing a potential security agreement to counter UAE influence in the Horn of Africa.

Sudan’s government returned to the capital, Khartoum, after nearly three years of civil war. Sudan’s armed forces are also preparing operations to retake the Kordofan and Darfur regions from the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Technology and artificial intelligence

Court files from Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI allege that Greg Brockman plotted with Sam Altman to oust Musk in order to establish a for-profit business without him. Brockman’s diary produced during the discovery phase of the trial contains fragments like “another realization from [this meeting] is that it’d be wrong to steal the non-profit from him. to convert to a b-corp without him. that’d be pretty morally bankrupt. and he’s really not an idiot.” OpenAI argues that Musk is cherry-picking evidence and taking quotes out of context. Forecasters think there’s a 31% (15% to 40%) chance that Musk wins at least $40 billion as a result of the lawsuit, though one forecaster expressed skepticism that funds would be given to Musk personally, rather than remaining in a 501c3 institution.

X said that Grok will no longer be able to produce non-consensual sexualised images of real people in jurisdictions where this is illegal, after the platform was threatened with a UK ban and a law making the creation of such imagery illegal was brought into force in Britain.

California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, sent a cease and desist letter to xAI, saying that it has to stop the generation and distribution of non-consensual sexual imagery. Meanwhile, the UK’s Ofcom regulator opened an investigation into Grok. Canada’s privacy watchdog expanded its probe into X, while Malaysian and Japanese officials are also looking into it. In the US Senate, a bill was passed that would allow nonconsensual deepfake victims to sue those who use an AI to create such images for civil damages. The Spanish cabinet approved draft legislation to curb deepfakes.

Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk’s children, opened a lawsuit against xAI over Grok allegedly generating sexual deepfakes of her, including images from when she was a child.

A Claude Code prompt-injection vulnerability that allows attackers to extract a victim’s files made its way to Claude Cowork. The vulnerability was first disclosed in October and has been acknowledged by Anthropic, but it still has not been fixed.

The Center for AI Standards and Innovation put out a request for information seeking insights in relation to the secure development and deployment of AI agents.

The White House released scant details about a national AI legislative framework.

Apple and Google announced a multi-year deal to use Gemini models for Siri, starting later this year. With this agreement, Apple has cast its vote that Google’s AI models will outcompete OpenAI’s.

Microsoft took down the website and platform of RedVDS, a company that sold subscriptions for access to AI-enabled tools for cyber fraud. Microsoft identified almost 190,000 organizations worldwide that lost millions of dollars to fraud enabled by RedVDS, with the US, the UK and Canada most affected.

Near the end of the Biden administration, the US purchased a device that produces pulsed radio waves and may be linked to Havana syndrome, and the Department of War has been testing it. That device appears to be different from a sonic weapon used by the US military in Venezuela.

Economy

Trump indicated that he wants Kevin Hassett, currently director of the White House’s National Economic Council, to stay in his post rather than become Federal Reserve chairman. Given that Trump again indicated that his Fed Chair pick will likely be one of the “two Kevins”, Kevin Warsh is now seen as the most likely pick, and Trump was notably impressed by Warsh’s “good looks”. Markets slightly scaled back their bets on rapid interest rate cuts in 2026 because Warsh, who served on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2006 to 2011, is generally seen as the more ‘establishment’ or ‘institutional’ option. He is viewed as more ‘hawkish’ on monetary policy and advocated fiscal austerity in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis.

Geopolitics: Trump is seriously considering intervening militarily in Iran to assist anti-government protesters. He says that the US will “own” Greenland and that this can either be done “the easy way” or the “hard way”. And he says that the US will conduct strikes against drug cartels on Mexican soil.

• Forecasters think there’s a 59% chance (55% to 65%) that the US strikes Iranian territory by March 31, 2026, and a 26.5% chance (10% to 51%) that Ayatollah Khamenei is out of power by then, for any reason (including death). Last week, they gave an aggregate estimate of 43% that the Iranian regime will fall by the end of 2026. Some readers, including some sharp prediction market traders, think those probabilities are too high.

• They think there’s a 23% chance (10% to 40%) that the US annexes, acquires or enters into a compact of free association with Greenland in 2026. Last week, they gave an aggregate estimate of 36.5% for the remainder of Trump’s term.

• They think there’s a 2.5% chance (0.5% to 7%) that the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution, which can remove the sitting President, will be invoked in 2026. This excludes Section 3, which has previously been invoked to allow the Vice President to become Acting President during medical procedures.

Economics: Trump’s Department of Justice launched a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, related to testimony he gave about renovations of Federal Reserve buildings. Powell accused the Trump administration of targeting him because of disagreements over monetary policy.

Tech and AI: xAI’s Grok was banned by Indonesia and Malaysia for generating pornographic imagery. Following an implied threat that X could be banned in the UK, the platform restricted the ability to edit images with Grok to paying subscribers, but Downing Street says all options remain on the table.

Conditional on at least one AI system causing more than 100 deaths in the next 12 months, and excluding any such use in the Russia/Ukraine war, forecasters think there’s a 33% chance that the first such incident would be because of a state-sponsored attack, a 35% chance that it would be caused by a non-state-sponsored attack, and a 31% chance that it would be the result of an accident/other.

They also think there’s a 49% chance that it would be the result of a cyberattack, a 2.9% chance that it would be caused by a CBNR attack, a 26% chance it would be caused by persuasion or sociological means, and a 21% chance that there would be some other cause/mechanism. Forecasters’ estimates are fairly spread out, but they agree that most of the risk given this relatively low threshold does not come from CBNR attacks.

We have created (play money) markets on Manifold about these questions here and here.

Biorisk: Flu in the US at its highest level in 25 years.

Geopolitics

Middle East

Iran’s regime plunged the country into an internet blackout in an attempt to stem anti-government protests, which have now spread to a majority of the country’s provinces. At least 572 protesters have died, but social media reports claim that more than 2,000 may be dead. At least 2,300 people have been arrested during two weeks of protests; one watch group estimates that over 10,000 people have been detained. On state television, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard official warned parents to keep their children away from protests and said that, “If... a bullet hits you, don’t complain.” Some hospitals are reportedly overwhelmed with injured demonstrators, and US President Trump is seriously considering military intervention in the country to assist the protesters, though he is also being warned that such a move could backfire by allowing the regime to portray the protesters as pawns of foreign powers.

Forecasters think there’s a 59% chance (55% to 65%) that the US strikes Iranian territory by March 31, 2026, and a 26.5% chance (10% to 51%) that Ayatollah Khamenei is out of power by then. Last week, they estimated a 43% chance in aggregate that Iran’s regime will fall in 2026, and most forecasters updated higher in response to this week’s news. Partial or total internet blackouts have preceded regime change in some cases (e.g., Nepal in 2025, Bangladesh in 2024, and Egypt during the Arab Spring), but in other cases (including Iran in 2019), the regime survived.

In other news, Syrian government forces clashed with Kurdish forces around Aleppo.

Saudi Arabia carried out airstrikes on UAE-backed separatists in Yemen. Their leader later fled the country, allegedly aided by the UAE, and the UAE withdrew support for the group. The separatists lost control of all territory to Saudi-backed fighters.

Europe

The Trump administration continues to signal that it wants to seize control of Greenland, ideally by purchasing the territory but through the use of military force if that isn’t an option. Trump stated, “If we don’t take Greenland, Russia or China will. And I’m not letting that happen. … one way or the other, we’re gonna have Greenland.” On Friday, Trump said, “I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way, but if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re gonna do it the hard way.” Greenland’s five main political parties released a joint statement saying that they do not want to be owned by the United States.

European leaders put out a joint statement in support of Greenland, but their responses have also differed in subtle ways. France said that Europe should prepare for the worst, while the UK has tried to persuade Trump that Europe is stepping up its efforts to boost Arctic security. UK Prime Minister Starmer held two calls with Trump in which the situation in the High North was discussed, and pointed to the US-UK cooperation during the seizure of the oil tanker Marinera (see below) to argue that cooperation is better than confrontation. However, Trump seems to be fixated on “owning” Greenland, asserting that the US will get more from ownership than it will from cooperation agreements.

Last week, forecasters estimated a 36.5% aggregate probability that the US would annex, acquire or enter into a compact of free association with Greenland by the end of Trump’s term. Most forecasters indicated that their estimates are now higher (but still <50%). This week, they estimate a 23% chance (10% to 40%) that the US will do so in 2026. One forecaster said it’s likely that at least 5 countries would leave NATO if the US took Greenland using military force, most likely some of the Nordic and Iberian countries, with France being more likely to leave than Britain, and that it would bump up their ~5% estimate of a Russian incursion into at least one of the Baltic States in the next three years by a few percentage points. Other forecasters are concerned that if the US were to take Greenland by military force, NATO could effectively be destroyed, and with it, alliances and the post WWII order that were built over decades.

In other news, the United Kingdom and France signed a declaration of intent to send troops to strategic locations in Ukraine away from the frontline in the event of a Russia-Ukraine peace deal. The outlines of this plan have been clear for many months, but there is now a legal instrument to back the plan up. The aim would be to provide postwar security guarantees to Ukraine and deter another Russian invasion, but in the near term, the goal is likely to make it more palatable for Ukraine to make territorial concessions if and when serious peace talks happen. The US said it would back the security guarantees up with intelligence and logistics support, and that it would come to the aid of the UK and France to defend Ukraine in the event of a Russian attack.

Russia struck Lviv, Ukraine with an Oreshnik Mach 10+, nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) with a multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicle (MIRV) payload. Lviv is ~70 km from the border with NATO ally Poland.

Meanwhile, the European Union and Mercosur, a South American trade bloc whose full members are Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay but that involves additional countries, reached a free trade agreement after 25 years of negotiations.

The Americas

Latin America

US President Donald Trump said, “we are going to start” conducting strikes against drug cartels on Mexican land. Meanwhile, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro said in an interview that he sees a “real threat” of US military action in his country, and there were anti-American protests in Colombia. On the other hand, Colombia said that the country pledged to work with the US to combat drug trafficking, using US intelligence and technology, and Trump said that Petro is to visit the White House in the near future. Last week, forecasters assigned a 67% aggregate probability to a US intervention in a Latin American country other than Venezuela in 2026. At least one forecaster has not materially changed their forecast from last week.

In Venezuela, acting President Delcy Rodriguez remains in power, with her rivals, including Diosdado Cabello and Vladimir Padrino, pressured into cooperation by the threat of US intervention if they do not cooperate. Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado plans to meet with Trump this week. The aftermath of the US attack on Caracas saw armed militias known as colectivos being deployed by the Venezuelan regime as it attempted to assert its authority and demonstrate that there is not a power vacuum following the ousting of former President Nicolas Maduro. The militias are operating checkpoints, stopping people in their cars, and demanding access to people’s phones.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is making plans for the US to control the Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA. Venezuela will likely turn over up to $2B worth of crude oil to the US, in a move that could cut supply to China. Efforts by the Trump administration to secure more than $100B in investment that could increase Venezuelan production have so far received a lukewarm response from the US’s big oil companies, with Exxon CEO calling Venezuela “uninvestable” during a meeting between Trump and oil executives in the White House. At the meeting, Trump said that the administration, rather than Venezuela, would decide which companies are allowed to operate in the country, and following the meeting, he said that he’ll “keep Exxon out” of Venezuela because he “didn’t like their response”. On the other hand, many smaller operators in the industry, some with links to the region, see in the wariness of some of the big oil companies an opportunity to cut a deal with Trump.

On Saturday, Trump signed an executive order that prevents courts and creditors from seizing Venezuelan oil revenue in US Treasury accounts as compensation for past asset seizures by the Venezuelan government. He also announced on social media that Venezuela would be purchasing only US-made products with its oil revenue.

The US seized three oil tankers connected to Venezuela last week, but later released one. Among those seized was a Russian-flagged, Venezuela-linked oil tanker, the Marinera (formerly known as the Bella 1), in the North Atlantic Ocean. The US had previously attempted to seize the tanker in the Caribbean. The UK’s Ministry of Defence said it assisted with the operation by providing surveillance from the air and navy refuelling. US forces also made use of military bases in Britain. Some reports suggested that Russia was sending its own navy to attempt to escort the tanker, but US forces got to it first even if this was the case. The US later released two Russian crew members who were on the tanker, at Russia’s request. Several forecasters wonder whether the ship was carrying some special cargo to Venezuela, perhaps including weapons or special equipment intended to support Maduro’s regime, given the ship’s repeated refusals to be boarded, the protracted chase, and the UK’s involvement.

United States

The US Department of Justice launched a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, related to testimony he gave to Congress about renovations to Federal Reserve buildings. In a video address, Powell said that the Trump administration was targeting him after months of pressure on the Fed to lower interest rates more quickly. In 2025, Trump appeared with Powell on a building site and aired complaints about the cost of the renovations, which Powell refuted. Some lawmakers, including Republican Thom Tillis, condemned the move. Tillis, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees the Fed, said that he would oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed until the matter is resolved. The US dollar weakened against the pound sterling and the Euro in response to the news.

Protests erupted in Minneapolis and other cities in the US following the fatal shooting of US citizen Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer. US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described Good’s actions as “domestic terrorism,” as did Trump advisor Stephen Miller, a description that has been disputed by others. The administration plans to send “hundreds more” ICE agents to Minneapolis this week.

Two people were shot and wounded by a Border Patrol agent in Portland.

VP Vance said that, “I think we’re gonna see those deportation numbers ramp up as we get more and more people online, working for ICE, going door to door“.

The Trump administration announced that the US will withdraw from 66 UN and non-UN international organizations, many focused on climate, labor and issues perceived to be related to DEI or “woke”.

In an interview with the New York Times, when asked whether there were any limits to his global power, Trump replied, “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me…. I don’t need international law.”

South Carolina reported 99 new measles cases in 3 days, while cases continue to increase in at least 6 other states, including as part of an ongoing outbreak in the Utah/Arizona border region. Approximately 93% of last year’s cases were in unvaccinated people or in people with unknown vaccination status, according to CDC data. The CDC reported 2,144 cases in 2025, the highest number since 1991.

The level of flu-like illness so far this year is the highest in at least 25 years, and the flu season has likely not yet peaked. More than 92% of cases thus far this season have been of the H3N2 subtype.

Asia

China imposed a ban on exports of dual-use items to the Japanese military and has also started to restrict exports of rare earth minerals to Japan, in an escalation of its feud with the recently elected Japanese government.

Turkey is negotiating to join the Pakistan-Saudi Arabia Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement, a pact signed on September 17, 2025 that includes a NATO-style mutual defence clause treating an attack on one member as an attack on all.

Africa

Pakistan is to sell weapons and jets to the Sudanese government.

Technology and artificial intelligence

Indonesia and Malaysia blocked access to xAI’s Grok, because the AI was being used to generate pornographic deepfakes. Australia’s online safety regulator said it’s investigating Grok-generated sexual deepfakes, while the UK’s technology secretary called the images of women and children undressed by Grok “appalling and unacceptable in decent society”. The EU joined in condemning the spread of these images. The UK Prime Minister’s Office said “all options are on the table”, including a ban on X. Following this, X restricted the ability to edit images with Grok to paying subscribers, which the UK Government called “insulting”. Elon Musk in turn accused the UK Government of being “fascist”, and one Republican lawmaker in the US called for sanctions to be imposed on Britain if there is a ban. Meanwhile, xAI raised $20B.

In the most recent Metaculus forecasting cup, Mantic beat the community prediction, which aggregates 500 forecasters. This is a first.

The state of Washington is considering regulating aspects of AI such as deepfakes, AI companies, discrimination, and AI interactions with children.

Some autonomous coding frameworks, which run Claude Code autonomously without the need for human feedback for many hours, are getting some traction.

And: Character.ai and Google agreed to settle lawsuits over teen suicides. Google released a Universal Commerce Protocol to help agents shop. Two Chrome extensions were caught stealing ChatGPT and DeepSeek chats from 900k users.

Top items:

• Geopolitics: The US struck targets in Venezuela and captured its former President Nicolás Maduro. Trump and others in his orbit also threatened to take over or called for military action in Iran, Mexico, Colombia and Greenland. Anti-government protests continue in Iran.

• Tech and AI: xAI has come under fire, including from French ministers, after Grok AI reportedly produced child sexual abuse imagery that was shared on social media.

Forecasts:

• Forecasters believe there’s a 42% chance (10% to 75%) that the Islamic Republic of Iran will fall by the end of 2026, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) no longer having power.

• Forecasters think there’s a 36.5% chance (34% to 40%) that the US will annex, acquire or enter into a compact of free association with Greenland by January 20, 2029, up from 25% (12% to 40%) at the end of March 2025.

• They believe there’s a 67% chance (50% to 90%) that the US will strike a country in Latin America other than Venezuela in 2026.

• They think there’s a 43% chance that interim President Delcy Rodríguez will still be the de facto leader of Venezuela on June 30, 2026, with a 28% chance that opposition leaders Edmundo González or María Corina Machado will be in charge, and a 29% chance that someone else (perhaps another Venezuelan politician or military official, or an American administrator) will be in charge of making day-to-day decisions.

• And their 50% confidence intervals (from the 25th percentile to the 75th) for the barrels of oil per day Venezuela will produce are 800K to 1.4M for 2026, 900K to 1.6M for 2027, and 1M to 2M for 2028.

Geopolitics

Latin America

The United States carried out “a large-scale strike” on Venezuela, resulting in explosions in the capital Caracas, the capture of its President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and dozens of deaths. Maduro will face criminal charges in the US. The attack followed a months-long military buildup and escalation and a now-confirmed attack by the CIA on a port facility in Venezuela.

Maduro’s Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez is currently the interim President, with opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González, who is widely considered to have won the previous election, seemingly sidelined by the US administration for now. A few months ago, we reported that Rodríguez may have reached out to the US via backchannels in an attempt to remain in power if Maduro were to step down.

Rodríguez is currently deferential to US wishes, but Venezuela is nonetheless still being run by the same “Chavista” government as before. Trump threatened additional strikes if the new Venezuelan government does not cooperate with the US; a clear threat to the regime is posed by US military ships, aircraft and other assets remaining in the Caribbean. Secretary of State Rubio also said that the US will also continue to impose an oil quarantine on Venezuela, to apply pressure to achieve policy changes.

The US doesn’t have enough boots on the ground to fully control Venezuela, with only a small number of CIA and potentially some Special Forces personnel currently in the country. It took more than 20,000 soldiers for the US to seize control of a much smaller Panama, and it would take far more for the US to take control of Venezuela.

Trump initially said that the US will “run” Venezuela until there is a transition of power, but Rubio later clarified that the US would not be involved in making day-to-day decisions. Trump is reportedly considering assigning Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor, a role in supervising the country, as Rubio is already stretched thin over a large work portfolio.

We have been tracking a possible US intervention in Venezuela since September and were initially surprised that the US wasn’t attacking as the end of 2025 approached. In mid-December, before the covert attack on a drug-related facility in Venezuela, we estimated a 60% chance that the US would attack Venezuela in Q1 of 2026. On December 1, we estimated a 45% chance that Maduro would be out of power before the end of March 2026, well above the base rate for a four-month period, and above the 38.5% probability on Polymarket that day. Last week, we forecasted a 90% aggregate probability that the US would carry out a military intervention in a Latin American country in 2026.

In November, Nuño, our Head of Foresight, wrote a proposal for a fund to invest in Venezuela conditional on regime change, and we have received enough interest that a small version, more restrained than the initial proposal, may yet coalesce.

Overall, forecasters believe there’s a 43% chance that interim President Delcy Rodríguez will still be the de facto leader of Venezuela on June 30, 2026, with a 28% chance that opposition leaders Edmundo González or María Corina Machado will be in charge, and a 29% chance that someone else (perhaps another Venezuelan politician or military official, or an American administrator) will be in charge of making day-to-day decisions.

The implications for oil markets are uncertain. Although Venezuela may have the largest oil reserves in the world, and Trump says that the US will be able to exploit and benefit from them, Venezuela currently accounts for only about 1% of global supply, and it could take years to rebuild the country’s oil infrastructure. Oil prices were more or less steady on the first trading day after the attack, but there could be short-term disruptions to Venezuelan oil exports even if they rise in the medium-term. On the other hand, US officials were reportedly impressed with how Rodríguez kept oil production going despite sanctions, which may partly explain why they are comfortable with her in charge. The country was producing more than 3.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil back in 1970, and more than 3 million bpd in parts of the 1990s. After Chavez was elected in 1999, production was around 2.5 million bpd in the 2000s and early 2010s, and was still exceeding 3 million on some days in 2013. However, after Maduro took power, the Venezuelan oil industry gradually collapsed, with production falling to below 1 million bpd, though it has been rising since 2020. In 2025, output has hovered between 0.8 million and 1.2 million bpd.

Forecasters’ 50% confidence intervals (from the 25th percentile to the 75th) for the barrels of oil per day Venezuela will produce are 800K to 1.4M for 2026, 900K to 1.6M for 2027, and 1M to 2M for 2028.

China condemned the US actions, called for Maduro’s release, and warned that its oil agreements with Venezuela should be respected. For many years, China has been the top destination for Venezuela’s oil exports, but if oil flows to China are cut off, the impact on China will likely be relatively limited, because Venezuelan oil only accounts for around 4% of China’s oil imports. That said, diverting oil away from China and toward the US could have an outsized impact on China’s independent refiners, known as teapots, who have benefited from the fact that Venezuela’s oil is discounted both because it is “heavy” crude oil and because it has been sanctioned. Venezuelan oil is also typically “sour”, meaning that it contains high levels of sulfur, metals and other impurities. But crucially, many refineries on the Gulf Coast of the United States were built to process sour, heavy oil from Canadian tar sands and Venezuela itself, so they could be in a good position to capitalize on greater Venezuelan exports to the US.

Trump, meanwhile, said military action is needed in Mexico and Colombia, asserting that the former is under the control of cartels and that the latter is led by a cocaine dealer. He also said that the Cuban regime, which was heavily dependent on Venezuela, is ready to fall and therefore doesn’t require military intervention. Forecasters think there’s a 67% chance (50% to 90%) that the US will strike a country in Latin America other than Venezuela in 2026.

Europe

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told the US to “stop the threats” against Denmark’s territory after Trump said, “we need Greenland,” and Katie Miller, wife of Trump advisor Stephen Miller, posted on X a graphic of Greenland in the colours of the American flag. Frederiksen also said that Greenland’s territorial integrity is covered by NATO’s security guarantee and that the US already has access to the island thanks to a defence agreement. NATO’s two other nuclear-armed states, the UK and France, voiced support for Denmark and Greenland.

At the end of March 2025, we forecast a 25% chance (12% to 40%) that the US would annex, acquire or enter into a compact of free association with Greenland by January 20, 2029. We now think there’s a 36.5% chance (34% to 40%) that this will happen, despite the passage of time.

In other news, Spanish investigators reportedly believe that a Russian ship that sank in the Mediterranean following a ‘mysterious’ explosion in December 2024 was carrying nuclear reactors destined for North Korea.

Russia moved hypersonic, nuclear-capable Oreshnik missiles into Belarus. This could better enable Russia to strike targets in Europe if a conflict were to arise, and may reduce the amount of time that a target country has to respond to such an attack.

The BBC estimates that, in the last ten months, there were 40% more obituaries of soldiers published in Russian outlets compared with the previous year. Overall, they have confirmed the names of 160,000 people killed on Russia’s side since the start of its invasion of Ukraine, but they believe the true death toll on Russia’s side may be around 250,000 to 350,000.

Middle East

Protests against the regime in Iran continue, with Donald Trump warning that the US will intervene if the Iranian government harms protesters. In turn, Iranian officials said that the US would be crossing a “red line” if it did so, and the regime’s security forces opened fire on protesters anyway. Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said, “We are in a full-scale war with the US, Israel and Europe; they don’t want our country to remain stable”.

Trump also said he would support further Israeli strikes on Iran if Tehran rebuilds long‑range-missile capabilities or rapidly advances a nuclear weapons program.

Overall, forecasters believe there’s a 42% chance (10% to 75%) that the Islamic Republic of Iran will fall in 2026. This would have to involve the IRGC no longer being retained by any new government. Those with higher estimates take Trump’s threats of regime change a bit more seriously following Maduro’s ousting, point out that the regime is starting to make concessions to the protest movements, signalling weakness, and note that Israeli elections in 2026 could lead Netanyahu to aggressively attack Iran in order to boost his popularity ratings. They also point out that the regime is facing mounting economic challenges and is struggling to provide even electricity and water to meet its population’s needs, and that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has been less involved in governing Iran since US and Israeli attacks in June 2025.

Those with lower estimates cite the low base rate for regime change in Iran, note that one of the US’s justifications for intervening in Venezuela was that Latin America “is not the Middle East”, and point out that the US already struck Iran in 2025 but refrained from trying to topple the regime at that time. The current protests are also not unprecedentedly large, but forecasters would raise their estimates if the protest movement swells or if there is increased violence in regime-supporting areas populated by more conservative Persians in rural areas.

Asia

China’s snap military drills around Taiwan came to an end.

China’s Ministry of National Defense is clarifying its rules around military conscription. One forecaster takes this as an alarming sign of China’s preparedness for a conflict, and also of its competence and organization.

Japan is hoping to pass a record defense budget of about 9 trillion yen (around $57.5 billion) for FY 2026.

Technology and artificial intelligence

xAI’s Grok AI has reportedly been producing child sexual abuse imagery, which has been shared on social media, according to the Financial Times. French ministers have reported this content to prosecutors. The issue seems to stem from xAI allowing Grok to generate nude photos of anyone. In one case, a 14-year-old actress was targeted.

China drafted AI rules to regulate interaction with human-like AIs.

OpenAI is hiring a Head of Preparedness, as the company says its AIs “are beginning to find critical vulnerabilities” in computer systems.

AI 2027’s authors published a new way to model AI timelines and takeoff.

Starlink will lower all of its satellites that are orbiting at 550km to 480km over the course of 2026, in order to improve space safety and reduce the chance of collisions with debris objects. Somewhat relatedly, we reported last week that two Western intelligence agencies believe that Russia is developing an anti-satellite weapon that could target Starlink satellites with space debris.

Geopolitics: The US likely covertly struck a facility in Venezuela. China imposed sanctions on American arms manufacturers following the approval of a new US arms package for Taiwan, and China launched live-fire military exercises aiming to encircle Taiwan. Iran is refusing to allow the IAEA to inspect its damaged nuclear sites.

• 90% (85% to 93%) probability that the US will intervene militarily in a Latin American country in 2026, which could involve airstrikes or strikes from ships, a ground invasion or limited actions on land.

Tech and AI: China is reportedly worried that AI could threaten Communist Party rule in the country but also doesn’t want to overregulate AI and fall behind in a “race” with the US.

• 8.6% (2.2% to 20%) chance that more than 10 people will die in a drone attack (which could involve multiple drones and either state or non-state actors) in an advanced economy (as defined by the IMF) in 2026. Conditional on such an attack, we also estimate that there is a 16% (6.0% to 30%) chance that more than 100 people would die from a drone attack in 2026.

• 83% (75% to 90%) chance that, on December 31 2026, METR’s coding time horizons (or equivalent) will be on-trend with or above a 7-month doubling trend.

Geopolitics

Europe

Ukraine’s President Zelensky travelled to Florida to meet Donald Trump for talks on how to bring Russia’s war in Ukraine to an end. Ahead of the talks, he indicated that a demilitarised “free economic zone” in the Donbas region would be acceptable to his government as long as Russian forces also pulled back. Both Trump and Zelensky indicated that the meeting went well and that some issues were nearly resolved, but land claims and the status of the Donbas remain sticking points. Zelensky said that the US is willing to provide security guarantees to Ukraine for 15 years, but one forecaster thinks that Russia’s opposition to such guarantees for Ukraine, which it cannot veto, continues to be the main obstacle to a peace agreement. Having said that, Russia says it agrees with Trump that the peace talks are in their “final stages”, although several of our forecasters think it is unlikely that Russia actually seeks peace in the near future

Meanwhile, Russia carried out heavy strikes on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, killing at least two people, wounding more than two dozen, and leaving hundreds of thousands without power or heating. Poland scrambled its jets as a preventative measure to ensure its airspace was secure, but this has happened on a number of previous occasions.

Two Western intelligence agencies believe that Russia may be developing a new anti-satellite weapon that could damage Starlink satellites with space shrapnel.

A Russian general was killed by a car bomb in Moscow, the third senior Russian military officer to be killed in just over one year.

Asia

China imposed sanctions on more than a dozen US arms companies, including Boeing, in response to US approval of the largest package of arms sales to Taiwan in history, worth $10-11 billion. It also launched live-fire military drills, its largest drills to date by total area covered, aiming to encircle Taiwan and block its main ports; these drills are perilous because China could potentially launch an invasion or blockade of Taiwan starting with just such a military exercise.

North Korea said that any Japanese attempt to “go nuclear” must be prevented, following a comment from a source in the Japanese Prime Minister’s office that Tokyo needs to possess nuclear weapons. However, lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties in Japan condemned the statement and called for whoever made it to be fired.

A renewed ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia came into effect, following weeks of clashes along the border between the two countries.

Myanmar held the first phase of its scheduled 2025-26 elections, which were widely viewed as a sham. Most candidates are seen as military allies, and some opponents of the ruling military junta were barred from standing as candidates.

China revealed a container ship with containerized military equipment, including vertical launchers, sensors and defense systems. One forecaster estimates these ships could carry “essentially 2/3rds of the capacity of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer”.

Middle East

Israel carried out further strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, ahead of a deadline (accepted by the Lebanese army) to disarm the group by the new year. The progress of the disarmament process is disputed by Israel and Lebanon.

Iran is refusing to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear sites, supposedly because of a lack of clarity on how inspectors would go about examining damaged sites,such as those struck by Israel and the US earlier this year.

Iran appears to be relaxing some of its social rules (including those relating to the wearing of hijabs), while continuing to crack down on dissent. One organisation opposed to the regime estimates that 357 people were executed from November 22 to December 22 and says that this is a significantly higher number than in the same period in 2024, 2023 and 2022.

The Americas

Latin America

On December 26, while discussing Venezuela during a call in to a talk show, Trump said that the US had struck a drug-related facility on December 24. He said that the US hit “a big plant or a big facility where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard.” The New York Times reported that US officials stated that a drug-production facility in Venezuela had been hit, but further details were not provided. Some have wondered whether explosions at a chemical facility in Zulia state could have been caused by this strike, but the chemical facility is inland, while it appears that the facility Trump mentioned may be near a coast. At the beginning of December, we forecast a 69% chance that the US would attack Venezuelan territory by the end of 2025. Currently, we forecast a 90% (85% to 93%) chance that the US will intervene militarily in a Latin American country in 2026.

After several months of ongoing US military flights near Venezuela with transponders on, military flights now appear to be continuing largely with transponders off; OSINT observers continue to hear some flight communications and observe some flights visually. The US military buildup in the Caribbean continued, with additional aircraft and ongoing cargo flights.

A US official has said that the administration’s intention is to apply pressure to the Maduro regime by squeezing oil shipping and revenues, and Venezuelan oil shipments are plummeting. But Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s policy advisors, has urged military action in Venezuela as a pathway to invoking the Alien Enemies Act, in order to facilitate the deportation of several hundred thousand Venezuelan immigrants.

The US is still tracking the sanctioned oil tanker Bella 1, as part of their operations to seize tankers involved in the oil trade with Venezuela. Last week, the Coast Guard ordered the ship to stop, and it refused, resulting in a very low-speed chase while the US gathers more resources to possibly attempt a seizure.

Russia has reportedly begun to evacuate families of diplomats in Venezuela.

United States

The Trump administration has implemented roughly half of Project 2025’s goals in its first year.

Africa

The US launched strikes against Islamic State targets in Nigeria on Christmas Day, claiming that the goal of the strikes was to protect Christians in the country.

More than 300,000 people have reportedly been displaced in Mozambique since July as an Islamic State insurgency expands in the country.

Technology and artificial intelligence

In 2025, terrorists and violent extremists have increasingly used AI to plan, research, and prepare attacks.

Following up on drone attacks in Sudan killing over 100 people in Sudan a few weeks ago, our forecasters estimate that there is a 8.6% (2.2% to 20%) chance that more than 10 people will die in a drone attack (which could include multiple drones, and either states or non-state actors) in an advanced economy (as defined by the IMF) in 2026. Conditional on such an attack, we also estimate that there is a 16% (6.0% to 30%) chance that more than 100 people would die from a drone attack in 2026. Forecasters point out that the historical frequency of such attacks is quite low, but also that they have already happened in Sudan, and that terrorist groups learn from each other and adapt.

The Wall Street Journal reports that, concerned that AI could threaten Communist Party rule, China is taking “extraordinary steps to keep it under control”. The measures implemented may signal a concern in the Chinese government about the controllability of AI. Some forecasters are doubtful that these particular measures will ultimately be effective in solving a deeper alignment/control problem.

OpenAI warns that prompt-injection and AI-hijacking in AI browsers and agents may never be fully solved.

OpenAI made 80 times as many reports to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the first half of 2025 as they did in the same period in 2024. AIs are reportedly “supercharging” child sextortion and self-harm. And deepfake cyberbullying is a growing problem in schools.

Political extremists are using AI voice cloning to produce propaganda, including supporters of neo-Nazi and Islamic State ideology.

Italy’s antitrust authority directed Meta to suspend contractual terms that could close other AI chatbots out of WhatsApp.

New York Times reporter John Carreyrou along with 5 other writers has filed a lawsuit against xAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and Perplexity on copyright claims.

After time horizons estimates from METR show Claude Opus 4.5 being above the trend of a 7 months doubling time, forecasters estimate an 83% (75% to 90%) to model results continuing at or above the 7 month doubling time trend for 2026, per METR’s own future estimates.

The chief scientist at Redwood Research, Ryan Greenblatt, estimates that Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5 has a no-chain-of-thought 50% reliability time horizon of 3.5 minutes and that this time horizon has been doubling every 9 months. Greenblatt says that the ability to solve mathematics problems without any chain of thought (in a single forward pass) could be a proxy for opaque reasoning ability, which could be used by AI models engaging in scheming.

Economy

Silver prices reached all-time highs but have fallen approximately 12% since. New margin requirements have been imposed.

Biorisk

A new study describes how Candida auris, which has developed some resistance to multiple therapies, uses carbon dioxide to survive on the skin and become resistant to therapies.

Geopolitics: The EU opted not to use Russian assets either directly or as collateral to fund Ukraine’s defence. The US seized an oil tanker in international waters off the coast of Venezuela and pursued another; one of them was Chinese-owned. The US Congress renewed its military commitments to Ukraine, Taiwan and other allies in Europe and Asia.

• They believe there’s a 14% (8% to 25%) chance that there will be a military conflict or incident between Russia and an EU country that results in more than 10 fatalities by the end of 2026.

• They think there’s a 60% (55% to 69%) probability that the US will attack Venezuelan territory in Q1 2026.

• They think there’s a 64% (40% to 79%) probability that the Democrats will win control of the US House of Representatives after the 2026 midterms.

Tech and AI: METR found that Claude Opus 4.5 has the highest measured time horizon on their suite of multi-step software and reasoning tasks, at around 4 hours and 49 minutes. A former DeepMind Director of Engineering thought, very likely incorrectly, that he had solved a Millennium Prize problem with AI assistance, potentially in an example of AI psychosis/AI-catalyzed hubris.

• Forecasters think there’s a 5.7% (3% to 15%) chance that the US unemployment rate will rise above 10% at any point in 2026.

• They think there’s a 44% (39% to 50%) probability that a major AI lab will hold an IPO.

Biorisk: Forecasters estimate there’s a 5.1% (3% to 7%) chance that the World Health Organization will declare a new pandemic in 2026.

Geopolitics

Europe

The EU agreed to loan €90bn to Ukraine, but opted not to use frozen Russian assets either directly or as collateral; their loan will instead be secured against EU borrowing. As a result, the UK also refrained from using Russian assets in that way. We gave this outcome a 77% chance, in aggregate, last week.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called European leaders “pigs” and said that Russia would “liberate its historic lands” through military force if necessary. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that US intelligence agencies continue to assess that Putin hopes to occupy all of Ukraine – and also to seize former Soviet territory in Europe.

Ukrainian drones hit a tanker in Russia’s “shadow fleet” in neutral waters in the Mediterranean.

Swedish authorities boarded a sanctioned Russian vessel off their coast.

Estonian authorities say that Russian border guards crossed into Estonia for unclear reasons.

The Americas

Latin America

The US struck six more alleged drug-trafficking boats last week. At least 104 people total have been killed in US strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats.

US President Trump declared a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers sailing to or from Venezuela. He justified the partial blockade in part with the claim that Venezuela had taken US oil company assets, and demanded that Venezuela should “return to the United States of America all the Oil, Land and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”

The US seized a second, Panama-flagged, Chinese-owned tanker carrying 1.8M gallons of Venezuelan oil to China in international waters near Venezuela; the tanker was not sanctioned by the US. The US Coast Guard pursued a third, US-sanctioned tanker on Sunday as well. Last week, we gave the seizure of a second tanker related to Venezuela a 38% chance of happening before the end of January 2026.

After the US seized a first tanker last week, several tankers headed for Venezuela turned around, and buyers of Venezuelan oil wanted discounts and contract changes. Nonetheless, TankerTrackers.com reports that Venezuelan crude oil exports were largely unchanged through Friday, because 60% of “Dark Fleet” tankers are not under US sanctions and are readily available to ship Venezuelan oil. However, the seizure of a tanker that is not sanctioned by the US could start to cause Venezuelan oil shipments to fall.

Satellite imagery and tracking data show that the US continues to build up its air presence around the Caribbean and South America, with naval and air bases in Puerto Rico officially reopening after two decades of closure. Last week, twelve F-35A fighter jets from the Vermont National Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing arrived in Puerto Rico; 20 F-35 fighter jets have now been seen on a tarmac in Puerto Rico. In addition, a USAF EC-130H Compass Call plane, which is used for electronic warfare, appears to have arrived in Puerto Rico. More KC-135 Stratotanker air refueling tankers have deployed to the Caribbean, the number of KC-135s at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida has doubled, to 28, and cargo flights into the area are ongoing. US military flights near Venezuela continue daily.

Overall, forecasters believe there’s a 60% (55% to 69%) chance that the US attacks Venezuelan territory in the first quarter of 2026; we are still above 50% but less sure now because attacks haven’t happened yet. Maduro is unlikely to step down in the absence of a full invasion force, but the Trump administration doesn’t currently appear to have any intention of conducting a full military invasion of Venezuela, so tensions continue without a clear endpoint in sight.

United States

The US Congress passed the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which, among other things, commits to minimum troop numbers inEurope and in South Korea, as well as continued assistance to Ukraine.

Disruption to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and its data collection processes following the government shutdown and the firing of its previous head may have contributed to what many consider to be a bizarre CPI read for November 2025. It appears to assume no inflation in housing or shelter costs, for example. Forecasters are worried that the statistics used to drive government and fiscal policy choices are becoming unanchored.

More Epstein files were released by the Department of Justice following the success of a discharge petition in Congress, but they were criticised for being heavily redacted. They feature photographs and other materials related to Donald Trump, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Bill Clinton and others.

Trump signed an executive order designating fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction. This was likely done to give the administration legal cover to order military strikes against drug-trafficking targets. Most fentanyl in the US comes from Mexico; however, because Trump has claimed that fentanyl comes from Venezuela, it is possible that the Trump administration may try to use the declaration to provide a legal basis for the US military to strike targets in Venezuela. The administration could also consider using this declaration as a basis for striking targets elsewhere.

The Washington Post reports that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth plans to carry out the most major reorganization of the largest US military commands in decades. The plan would place Central Command, European Command and Africa Command under the control of a new International Command, and it would place Southern Command and Northern Command under a new Americas Command, or “Americom.”

Trump signed an executive order that aims to ensure that America has “space superiority”.

Looking forward to the midterms next year, forecasters think there’s a 64% (40% to 79%) probability that the Democrats will win control of the US House of Representatives in the 2026 midterms. They emphasize that power changes in the midterms are common, but also note that the Trump administration could implement fiscal or governance measures to reduce the Democrats’ chances.

Middle East

The Israeli government approved 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich saying that the aim is to prevent the Palestinians from developing a viable state. Saudi Arabia, which Trump hopes will normalize relations with Israel, condemned the move.

Israel is reportedly consulting with the United States about the prospect of fresh attacks on Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also refused to rule out targeting Ayatollah Khamenei.

Israel launched new strikes on Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah operatives.

The US conducted over 70 strikes on ISIS targets in Syria, in retaliation for an ISIS attack in Syria that killed two US soldiers and one civilian interpreter.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a UN-backed hunger monitor, says that Gaza is no longer in famine because of improved access to humanitarian aid.

Asia

China told the US to stop arming Taiwan, following US Congressional approval of an $11B weapons sale.

Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister said that “unusual, abrupt variations” in water flow were recently detected in the Chenab River, and linked this to India’s withdrawal from the Indus Waters Treaty back in April, accusing India of “weaponizing water”.

Technology and artificial intelligence

Model Evaluation & Threat Research (METR) evaluated Claude Opus 4.5 on multi-step software and reasoning tasks. The organization found that the model has a 50%-time-horizon point estimate of around 4 hours and 49 minutes, their highest estimate to date for a model. However, forecasters debate the degree to which this will translate into real-world outcomes, including in the economic and catastrophic risk domains.

Forecasters estimate that there’s a 5.7% (3% to 15%) chance that US unemployment will rise above 10% at any point in 2026, which might be considered a moderate proxy for the impact of AI on the labor market. The higher end of that range is also driven by the cyclical nature of the US financial system and unemployment numbers, as well as by the tricky position the US Federal Reserve finds itself in after years of US government borrowing.

China reportedly built a prototype of an extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machine using a team of former engineers from the Dutch company ASML, the world leader in such technology. Advanced lithography is a crucial step in making the most advanced semiconductor chips such as those produced by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). There is a spectrum between a Frankenstein monster machine produced with stolen parts and a de novo effort that can be scaled up, and forecasters are uncertain about where in that spectrum this prototype lies—but this deeply matters for how long it will be until China has access to more advanced AI chips at scale.

New York governor Kathy Hochul signed New York’s RAISE Act into law, which would require AI companies to create and follow safety plans and transparency rules.

A former Director of Engineering at DeepMind was publicly exhibiting signs of very erratic behavior, thinking he had solved the notoriously difficult Navier-Stokes problem, potentially in an example of what is now called “AI pychosis”, or perhaps “AI-catalyzed hubris”.

Senator Bernie Sanders announced he’ll be pushing for a moratorium on the construction of new AI datacenters, which are “powering the unregulated sprint to develop & deploy AI”. He also expressed concerns about growing anti-AI regulation lobbying efforts, with two super PACs having been established in recent months.

And: GPT-5 can help experts do novel wet lab work. A report claims AI-generated code contains 1.7x more bugs than human code. An autonomous code analyzer reportedly beat all human teams in an open-source software zero-day competition. OpenAI and Anthropic are rolling out new methods to detect underage users. A UK report says a third of UK citizens have used AI for emotional support or social interaction.

Biorisk

A group of Indian scientists attempted to predict how bird flu could spread to humans. Their simulations show a very narrow window for containment: quarantining households when only about two cases are detected could almost certainly contain spread, but by the time roughly 10 detected cases exist, the infection would be likely to have moved beyond primary and secondary contacts and would be much harder to control without severe measures.

Looking at 2026, forecasters estimate that there is a 5.1% (3% to 7%) chance that the WHO will declare any new pandemic in 2026, not deviating very far from the historical baserate.

Top items and forecasts for this week:

Geopolitics: The EU indefinitely froze €210 billion of Russian assets. The US and Iran seized oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela and in the Gulf of Oman, respectively. Ukraine wants to join the EU before 2027.

• Forecasters estimate a 38% (25% to 55%) chance that the US will seize another oil tanker related to Venezuela by the end of January 2026, and a 70% (60% to 80%) probability that they will carry out a strike on Venezuelan land in the next three months.

• They believe there’s a 32% (15% to 50%) probability that Ukraine will join the EU before 2030. Back in February, they gave this a 10% (5% to 25%) chance.

• They also think there’s a 23% (15% to 30%) chance that the EU will use frozen Russian assets (either directly or as collateral) to fund Ukraine’s defence by the end of January 2026.

Tech and AI: Trump signed an executive order aiming to restrict the ability of US states to regulate artificial intelligence. OpenAI launched GPT-5.2.

• And they estimate a 60% (35% to 75%) probability that the US will have federal or state regulation in force on December 31, 2026 that requires at least some frontier AI developers to publish and follow plans for mitigating the risk that their AIs might cause catastrophic damages. Our understanding is that the US does still have some such state laws that are in force (e.g., California’s SB 53), despite the passage of the executive order.

Economy: The Trump administration will allow Nvidia to export its H200 chips to select customers in China if the US gets a 25% cut. But China might reject some or all of those chips in order to support its domestic chip industry.

Thanks for reading our newsletter this year. Hopefully this has given you better situational awareness to protect those you care about and improve the quality of the decisions you and your institutions would make in the event of a catastrophe. We’d appreciate your feedback here, or if you have any assets you want to donate this year, you can reach out to rai@sentinel-team.org.

Geopolitics

Europe

The EU indefinitely froze 210 billion Euros of Russian assets that are held in the bloc, taking the bloc a step closer to using them to raise a loan to assist Ukraine’s defence. Some Western countries have already used the interest on frozen Russian assets to provide funding to Ukraine, but the assets themselves haven’t yet been used directly or as collateral. Belgium and Italy are among the countries who oppose using the assets, arguing that it could set a precedent that harms the financial system and fearing the prospect of legal action. Bankers in the UK have similarly warned the government that they would want to be indemnified against retaliation from Moscow. Russia has already filed a lawsuit against Euroclear, a Brussels-based organisation holding most of the assets. Forecasters think there’s a 23% (15% to 30%) chance that the EU will use some of these frozen assets (directly or as collateral, but not just the interest on them) to fund Ukraine’s defence by the end of January 2026. They place considerable weight on Belgium not agreeing and point out that the EU is generally slow in making decisions and still has until April before Ukraine faces a funding crunch.

Ukraine and its European allies put forward another draft peace proposal. Among other things, it envisages Ukraine joining the EU before 2027, which would require a marked acceleration in the bloc’s accession process. Ukraine’s allies note that it would be difficult for the EU to oppose fast-track entry for Ukraine if it scuppers a peace deal, and that Trump could pressure Hungary’s leader Viktor Orban to agree to the plan if it gets a peace deal over the line, assuming he is still in power. Forecasters now think there’s a 32% (15% to 50%) that Ukraine will join the EU before 2030. Back in February, they gave this a 10% chance (range: 5% to 25%). They highlight that the process is usually long and requires unanimity, but their forecasts are moved up by the US proposing it as part of its peace plan. Accession to the EU without definitely agreed borders also seems like a no-no, but a North/South Korea-like indefinite standoff seems more likely.

Ukraine’s President Zelensky visited the town of Kupiansk to showcase the Ukrainian military’s apparent success in retaking parts of it from Russia.

Russian drones struck a Turkish ship at port in the Black Sea in retaliation for recent Ukrainian drone strikes against Russia-linked oil tankers. Today, Ukraine claims to have struck a submarine in Novorossiysk using underwater drones for the first time, putting the submarine out of action.

The UK’s Royal Navy shadowed a Russian submarine as it was passing through the English Channel.

Bulgaria’s Prime Minister and the rest of his government resigned following mass protests against corruption.

NATO chief Mark Rutte called on NATO countries to increase defense spending and preparations to prevent Russia from starting a larger war in Europe that could be “on the scale of war our grandparents and great-grandparents endured”.

Asia

Japan says that Chinese fighter jets locked radars on Japanese aircraft.

Fighting between Thailand and Cambodia continues.

An arm of the Chinese government, the Office for Safeguarding National Security (OSNS), summoned foreign journalists and warned against reporting “distorted facts” about a Nov. 26 high-rise fire in Hong Kong, saying journalists could face repercussions under Hong Kong’s 2020 national security law.

The Americas

The US seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. The tanker had loaded about 1.8M barrels of crude oil in Venezuela and transferred about 200k barrels of that to a ship bound for Cuba before being seized; the ship was headed to Asia, where Cuba often sells Venezuelan oil to obtain foreign currency. The seizure had been planned for months.

Over the coming weeks, the Trump administration reportedly plans to seize “additional ships carrying Venezuelan oil that may also have transported oil from other countries targeted by U.S. sanctions, such as Iran” and has assembled a target list of several sanctioned tankers. Many shipowners and operators are now wary of sailing to or from Venezuela. US forces are reportedly monitoring tankers near Venezuela and are waiting for targeted ships to move into international waters, and for a destination port to be arranged, before seizure. Further tanker seizures would be expected to squeeze the Maduro regime by reducing its main source of revenue.

Trump again threatened strikes on Venezuela, saying, “it’s going to be starting on land pretty soon”. On Thursday, Putin called Maduro in a gesture of support, and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko met with the Venezuelan ambassador to Moscow for the second time in three weeks. However, neither Russia nor China have offered Maduro substantial military aid.

The US military buildup in the Caribbean continued this week with the arrival of HC-130J Combat King II combat search and rescue (CSAR) planes, HH-60W Jolly Green Giant II CSAR helicopters, and six EA-18G Growler electronic warfare jets in Puerto Rico; these new additions indicate a new level of preparedness for inland airstrikes and other flight missions. Six KC-135 Stratotanker refueling tankers are now forward deployed in the Dominican Republic. In addition, F-35 Joint Strike Fighters from the Vermont Air National Guard‘s 158th Fighter Wing were ordered to deploy to the Caribbean; at least six cargo flights have flown from Vermont to Puerto Rico in support of this deployment, suggesting that up to half of the wing’s 20 F-35s may soon fly to Puerto Rico. One OSINT observer reports that several F-35s have already flown from Vermont to Key West and departed onwards, but another vehemently disagrees. The US military buildup in the region in preparation for potential airstrikes may well be complete, or nearly so.

A US Air Force air to air refueling tanker had a near miss with a Jet Blue flight in the Caribbean. The tanker had its transponder off and was not visible on air traffic control’s radar. The Jet Blue pilot told an air traffic controller: “They don’t have their transponder turned on, it’s outrageous… We almost had a midair collision up here.”

On Friday December 12, Lt. Gen. Alvin Pettus assumed command of US SOUTHCOM forces as Adm. Alvin Holsey retired. Lt. Gen. Pettus had previously been SOUTHCOM Military Deputy Commander.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado snuck out of Venezuela, with the help of a private, US veteran-led rescue organization, to travel to Norway to attempt to receive her Nobel Peace Prize in person. She missed the Nobel ceremony, but she got to address supporters in public.

If the US continues to seize ships transporting Venezuelan oil, or if the Maduro regime collapses, losing Venezuelan oil shipments could also push the Cuban government to the breaking point. Venezuelan oil shipments have fallen sharply over more than a year because of sanctions on Venezuela, and emergency shipments from Mexico and Russia haven’t made up enough of the difference. Cuba has been facing an energy crisis because of both oil shortages and decades of neglect of its energy infrastructure. Life has become harder in Cuba for many reasons, to the point that nearly 20% of the population has left Cuba in the past four years.

Overall, forecasters believe there’s a 38% (25% to 55%) chance that the US will seize another oil tanker related to Venezuela by the end of January 2026. They highlight that there are 30+ sanctioned tankers currently operating near Venezuela, but also that tanker operators will not want to risk their ships and that the US might want to cycle through types of attacks rather than repeat the same thing. US forces planned the recent attack for months, and finding a port to receive a ship is also logistically nontrivial, since a lot of these shadow fleet tankers have unclear ownership, unclear insurance status, and they’re often “ancient rust buckets” that might leak.

They also estimate that there is a 70% (60% to 80%) chance that US forces will carry out a strike on Venezuelan land within the next three months. They agree that tensions are high and rising, but some also point out that there isn’t anything in particular forcing the Trump administration to act now rather than later. There is bipartisan resistance in Congress against starting a war in Venezuela.

On Sunday, Chile elected a right-wing president, Jose Antonio Kast, who has vowed to fight crime and deport illegal immigrants. His election reflects the sharpest right turn in Chile since the end of its military dictatorship in 1990.

Brazil, oddly, did not ratify the treaty for the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, which it had initially accepted back in 2017.

United States

A grand jury declined to re-indict Letitia James, the former attorney general of New York state, after the Trump administration’s previous case against her was thrown out by a judge. Estimates for the percentage of indictments that grand juries reject range from 0.001% to 5%. Despite this low base rate, the grand jury’s action in the Letitia James case raises the prospect that the administration will face hurdles if they wish to re-indict and convict former FBI Director James Comey.

South Carolina is facing a measles outbreak, the third major regional outbreak in the US in 2025.

Most state Republican legislators in Indiana joined Democrats to block a Trump-backed move to redistrict Congressional seats to produce more favourable outcomes for national Republicans.

The Department of Homeland Security announced that 600k unauthorized immigrants have been deported from the interior of the country this year, and that an additional 1.9M have self-deported.

Middle East

Iran seized a foreign oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman, alleging that it was carrying smuggled fuel. The crew members were mainly from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Africa

The Ivory Coast is pushing to get US spy planes to tackle al Qaeda-linked jihadists in the Sahel.

A Rwanda-backed M23 offensive in the Congo’s South Kivu region killed over 400 civilians.

Technology and artificial intelligence

OpenAI launched its newest and most capable series of AIs, GPT-5.2. On the ARC-AGI-1 evaluation, GPT-5.2 Pro is ~390X more cost efficient than their o3 (High) model tested just one year ago. GPT-5.2 thinking makes significant advances on the frontier on a series of benchmarks, including on ARC-AGI-2 (Verified). OpenAI warned its upcoming AIs could pose a “high” cybersecurity risk.

An OpenAI employee quit, alleging the company’s economic research is drifting into AI advocacy, claiming OpenAI has been hesitating to publish research on negative impacts of AI.

Trump signed an executive order that aims to restrict the ability of US states to enforce their own AI regulations. Some groups claim the order is unlawful, and it has been criticised by Democrats such as Gavin Newsom and Republicans such as Ron DeSantis and Steve Bannon. Forecasters’ understanding is that state AI regulations such as California’s SB 53 are still in force, and forecasters think there’s a 60% (35% to 75%) chance that there will still be at least one federal or state regulation in force on December 31, 2026 that requires at least some frontier AI developers to publish and follow plans for mitigating the risk that their AIs cause catastrophic damages.

The operationalization of that question was a bit messy, given the four players involved in proposing, blocking or enabling such a regulation: Congress, the executive, states and the multiple levels of the judiciary. The forecasters’ consensus was that by the end of the year, there will be no federal law, an executive order aiming to restrict state regulations, and at least some state regulations. The executive order and state regulations will likely be embroiled in legal fights, but it’s unclear who will win it and on what merits. One forecaster noted that the Trump administration has not been skillful at wielding the Department of Justice to accomplish its goals, and suggests, with low confidence, that the federal administration will not get a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction on state regulations. We think that this is an area where future forecasting efforts could be fruitful.

A group of more than 150 parents sent a letter to governor Kathy Hochul, asking her to sign New York’s RAISE Act, which would require AI companies to create and follow safety plans and transparency rules.

Over 100 UK parliamentarians joined ControlAI’s campaign for binding regulation on the most powerful AI systems, including the UK’s first AI minister and former defence secretary. It’s the largest such grouping of politicians to recognize the extinction risk posed by advanced AI systems.

Meta acquired an AI device startup, Limitless. Limitless’ announcement said it shares Meta’s vision to “bring personal superintelligence to everyone”.

A bipartisan group of 42 state attorneys general warned big tech companies about their AIs encouraging users’ delusions and causing AI psychosis and suicides.

Poetiq AI reportedly achieved state-of-the-art performance on ARC-AGI-2 by deploying a meta-system that uses existing frontier models.

Zoom reportedly achieved state-of-the-art performance on “Humanity’s Last Exam”. One forecaster suggests that this is because of scaffolding overhang, another because the benchmark had been ignored by labs since this April.

In China, a jet-powered drone capable of carrying drone swarm payloads was flown for the first time.

Economy

The Trump administration will allow Nvidia to export its H200 chips to select customers in China – if the US gets a 25% cut. However, China may limit companies’ access to the chips, or block their import completely, in order to support its domestic chip industry and achieve self-sufficiency in chip production.

Climate and Nature

A study studying a possible collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which functions as a key heat and moisture conveyor belt in the Atlantic Ocean, arrived at the conclusion it could cause at least a millenium of extreme drought in Europe.

Nearly 700 sinkholes have appeared since 2000 in Turkey’s main wheat-growing region, as a result of drought and groundwater depletion. Dozens of new sinkholes are now appearing each year.

Top items:

• Geopolitics: US-Russia and US-Ukraine talks did not produce an immediate resolution to the ongoing war in Ukraine. The Trump administration wants Europe to take over most of NATO’s conventional military responsibilities by 2027.

• Tech and AI: OpenAI launched its alignment blog, and confirmed that they are researching how to safely develop and deploy models capable of recursive self-improvement.

• Economy: Rumours swirl that Kevin Hassett will be announced as the next chair of the Federal Reserve, with Trump singling him out as the potential pick.

Forecasts:

• Considering the flurry of recent model releases from the likes of Google, Anthropic and DeepSeek, forecasters updated their estimates on which company they think will be ‘in the lead’ over the next year or so. They estimated the following relatively casual probabilities over who will top Epoch’s Capabilities Index on December 31, 2026: Google: 42% (20% to 55%); OpenAI 35% (25% to 45%); Anthropic: 8% (5% to 30%); Others: 13% (8% to 25%).

• Meanwhile, they think there’s a 21% (10% to 35%) probability that a humanoid robot will be reported to have been used in combat by the end of 2026.

• And they think there’s a 58% (50% to 70%) chance that Germany will fire on at least one unidentified drone over its airspace by the end of 2026.

Thanks for reading our newsletter this year. Hopefully this has given you better situational awareness to protect those you care about and improve the quality of the decisions you and your institutions would make in the event of a catastrophe. We’d appreciate your feedback here, or if you have any assets you want to donate this year, you can reach out to rai@sentinel-team.org.

Geopolitics

Europe

Talks between US and Ukrainian negotiators continued in Florida, while Russia’s President Vladimir Putin continued to resist moves toward a ceasefire or a peace deal during talks between US and Russian officials in Moscow.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned that there’s a risk that the US will force Ukraine to cede territory to Russia without providing security guarantees in return. Donald Trump Jr, who is not a member of the US administration, suggested that the US could even withdraw support for Ukraine.

A German army chief, Lieutenant General Christian Freuding, says that contact with the US military has been cut off by the Pentagon. Among other difficulties, this lack of communication had left Germany’s forces in the dark about Ukrainian arms shipments that haven’t been delivered.

The Trump administration wants Europe to take on most of NATO’s regular military responsibilities by 2027 and is threatening to “stop participating in some NATO defense coordination mechanisms” if the deadline isn’t met. Meanwhile, a US NATO commander said that Europe will manage with fewer US troops on the continent. There are currently around 85,000 US troops stationed in Europe, and 800 were withdrawn from Romania last month.

French soldiers fired on five unidentified drones that were flying over a nuclear submarine facility. In contrast, Germany has not yet fired on any suspected Russian drones because changes to its legal framework are needed first, but they did form a new anti-drone unit. Forecasters think there’s a 58% chance (range: 50% to 70%) that Germany will fire on at least one unidentified drone over its airspace by the end of 2026.

The Swedish navy’s head of operations says that Russian submarines are encountered in the Baltic Sea on an almost weekly basis and that the number of sightings has increased in the past few years.

The EU agreed to stop importing Russian gas by late 2027. Germany signed an 8-year deal for LNG from an Argentinian company, Southern Energy.

Bulgaria experienced its largest protests in decades. The ruling party’s budget proposal included increases to individual contributions towards pensions and social programs while raising the pensions of government workers. These increases sparked the protests, but more broadly, the protests were the result of resentment over government corruption and economic incompetence.

Asia

Taiwan banned Xiaohongshu, one of China’s most prominent social media apps, on the grounds that the app helps to promote scams and lacks a legal presence in Taiwan. However, the move may have been driven in part by Taiwanese officials’ concerns about Chinese influence campaigns online. It also sparked debate in Taiwan, which was recently ranked 1st in Asia and 7th in the world for internet freedom.

Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister expressed a desire to create a new bloc focused on South Asia that cuts India out and adds China in. The existing South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has been hampered by tensions between India and Pakistan, while tensions between India and Bangladesh have also risen since Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India, which has so far not granted a Bangladeshi extradition request.

India rejected Pakistan’s claim that New Delhi denied overflight clearance to Pakistani aircraft carrying humanitarian assistance to Sri Lanka.

The Chinese and Russian foreign ministers jointly agreed to “safeguard” the outcomes of the Second World War. Putin also signed a visa-free order for Chinese citizens.

For the past decade, China has been building and expanding over a dozen military airfields on the Tibetan plateau, north of its border with India, Nepal and Bhutan. A video circulated on X that purported to show a humanoid combat or spy robot deployed by China, but its authenticity has not been verified. Forecasters estimated a 21% (10% to 35%) probability that a humanoid robot will be reported to have been used in combat by the end of 2026.

Thailand launched airstrikes against Cambodia as the border dispute between the two countries resumed, despite a Trump-backed peace initiative earlier this year.

Middle East

UAE-backed separatists have seized territory from the internationally recognized government in southern Yemen, which is supported by Saudi-backed military forces.

The US deployed one-way attack drones, clones of Iranian-designed Shahed-136 drones, to the Middle East.

The Americas

Canada signed a deal to join a major EU defense fund, signaling a shift away from the US.

In a phone call between Trump and Maduro, Trump reportedly refused Maduro’s request for amnesty and the lifting of sanctions. Trump’s deadline for Maduro to leave Venezuela was reportedly Friday, November 28.

A large US military presence continues in the Caribbean. The US sank another boat alleged to be running drugs. US military cargo flights to the Dominican Republic have reportedly started, following an agreement between the Dominican Republic and the US to allow the US military to conduct limited activities within the country.

US Senate hearings began to consider the second strike on a boat in the Caribbean after it had already been attacked and two survivors were staying afloat by holding on to flotsam. Lawmakers split on party lines as to whether the attack was a war crime. Calls to release the video footage are growing.

Trump pardoned a former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted in 2024 of drug trafficking. He was serving a 45-year sentence for being a key figure in a scheme that shipped 400 tons of cocaine to the US.

United States

The US released a new National Security Strategy, which is relatively readable, at 33 pages. It declares Europe at risk of the “stark prospect of civilisational erasure”, promotes “patriotic European parties” and advocates for a new Monroe doctrine, in which the Western Hemisphere is considered the US’ sphere of influence.

Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered law enforcement to prioritize investigations of the antifa movement and potentially extremist domestic organizations.

The United States Institute of Peace was renamed after Donald J. Trump. FIFA president Gianni Infantino named Trump the first recipient of the “FIFA Peace Prize.” The national parks have dropped Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, both federal holidays, as free entrance days and added Flag Day, which is Trump’s birthday and is not a federal holiday. In isolation these may seem like insignificant acts, but they represent a shift from norms and are consequently deeply troubling. Pushback from Republicans in Congress appears to be non-existent.

Trump called Somali immigrants “garbage”. He went on to state that, “Ilhan Omar is garbage. Her friends are garbage.”

Trump’s approval rating dropped to 36%, the lowest for his second term.

Africa

Trump hosted the signing of a peace deal between the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

A report from the Gates Foundation suggests that 200,000 more children under the age of five will die in 2025 compared to 2024, the first time this century that child mortality numbers may have increased year-on-year. The report partly attributes this to recent cuts to overseas aid by countries such as the US and the UK; the Gates Foundation CEO stated that, “By far, the largest single cause of death is the cuts in international aid”. Sub-Saharan Africa will be disproportionately affected.

The US and EU are considering cutting funding to Tanzania because of concerns about post-election violence in October.

A coup attempt in Benin has failed.

Technology and artificial intelligence

This week saw critical vulnerabilities in some versions of React and the Next.js framework built atop it – uberpopular technologies for building interactive frontends – as well as large-scale outages on Cloudflare again on Friday.

Trump posted on social media that he will issue an executive order to prohibit state regulation of AI.

Anthropic co-founder and chief scientist Jared Kaplan said in an interview with the Guardian that recursively self-improving AI would be the “ultimate risk”, and he urged governments and society to engage in this “biggest decision” of whether to allow such systems, saying that the decision could come between 2027 and 2030.

In a new blog post, OpenAI wrote that it is researching “how we can safely develop and deploy increasingly capable AI, and in particular AI capable of recursive self-improvement (RSI)”, later adding a sentence to a previous blogpost to say that, “Obviously, no one should deploy superintelligent systems without being able to robustly align and control them, and this requires more technical work.”

Senator Bernie Sanders wrote an article in the Guardian arguing that AI poses unprecedented threats, and that Congress needs to act now. Among other AI risks, he highlighted the risk of losing control of artificial superintelligence.

The Future of Life Institute published an update to their AI safety index, where they score AI companies by their safety practices, finding that they fall “far short of emerging global standards”.

OpenAI’s Sora 2 video-generation AI is able to generate videos of school shootings.

Robert Hart writes in The Verge about the race to “AGI-pill” Pope Leo.

OpenAI trained a variant of their GPT-5 Thinking model to ‘confess’ when it engages in undesirable behavior, which they’ve found “significantly improves the visibility of model misbehavior”.

Epoch AI developed a unified model capability benchmark, which could potentially be useful for tracking AI progress and designing governance interventions.

Anthropic may go public as early as 2026, with potentially one of the biggest IPOs ever, at a valuation of over $300B.

Economy

Trump suggested that Kevin Hassett will be the next chair of the Federal Reserve System; a formal announcement is expected “early” next year. The FT reported that bond investors are worried that if Hassett becomes the next Fed chair, he would cut interest rates to please Trump. When the Fed cuts interest rates, it stimulates the economy, generally lowers unemployment and increases inflation, by making borrowing cheaper, encouraging businesses to expand and hire, and consumers to spend more.

Natural gas prices are climbing in the US, as LNG exports reach record levels. The EIA expects this price increase to push electricity prices up by 8.6% in 2026 in the US, where gas is the greatest source of energy for electricity generation.

Biorisk

The USDA reported that H5N1 has been confirmed in another dairy cattle herd in California, the first in months.

Climate and Nature

A new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) discusses the independent and compound risks to agriculture from extreme heat and potential mitigations and adaptations to those risks. The report states that extreme heat “acts as a powerful risk multiplier, amplifying drought and triggering wildfires…. Building resilience is imperative, but ultimately there are profound limits to adaptation.”

Top items:

• Geopolitics: Trump announced that the airspace above Venezuela has been closed, but the US has not struck Venezuelan territory. Iran’s President repeated his warning that the country’s capital may need to be relocated because of water shortages. And talks about bringing the Russia-Ukraine conflict to an end continue.

• Tech and AI: Anthropic released its latest model, Claude Opus 4.5, and says it’s getting harder to rule out that its models are crossing some dangerous thresholds. DeepSeek released a model that reached gold level in the International Mathematics Olympiad.

Forecasts:

• Forecasters believe there’s a 6.4% (5.0% to 10%) probability that at least 500K people will be evacuated from Iran’s capital Tehran by the end of January 2026.

• They think there’s a 69% (40% to 81%) chance that the US military will attack Venezuelan territory by the end of 2025.

• And they assign a 45% (29% to 70%) chance to Venezuelan President Maduro being out of power by the end of March 2026.

Geopolitics

Europe

Talks about a potential peace deal between Russia and Ukraine continue, with US officials in discussions with both sides. US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll met with Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Abu Dhabi, while US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, met with a Ukrainian delegation in the US state of Florida.

Ukraine hit Russian oil tankers in the Black Sea.

Authorities in France arrested four people, including two Russians, on suspicions that they were spying. One of the suspects was arrested for seeking information on French economic interests.

Dutch troops opened fire on unidentified drones over an airbase in the Netherlands.

Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Zelensky’s chief of staff, resigned from his position following a corruption scandal.

The Americas

Latin America

Trump posted on social media, “To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.” Trump reportedly spoke with Maduro the week before, and the possibility of a future meeting between the two was discussed.

The US military buildup in the Caribbean continued last week, with the installation of a radar in Trinidad and Tobago and at least two C-5M Super Galaxy heavy-lift transport flights likely bringing in something very large; the C-5M is the largest US Air Force aircraft. Coordinated US military flights near the coast of Venezuela occurred on Monday November 24, providing practice, surveillance and reconnaissance, and pressure on the Maduro regime.

US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, visited Trinidad and Tobago on Tuesday, November 25.

Overall, forecasters think there’s a 69% (40% to 81%) chance that the US military will attack Venezuelan territory by the end of 2025, and a 45% (29% to 70%) chance that Maduro will no longer be in power in Venezuela by the end of March 2026.

United States

Two members of the West Virginia National Guard deployed to Washington, DC were shot the day before Thanksgiving; one has died. The shooter was an Afghan immigrant who had previously worked with the CIA.

Following these shootings, the Trump administration has stopped issuing visas from “Third World countries”, rumoured to include Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan and Venezuela, and has announced that all visa holders from these countries will undergo renewed scrutiny as part of an immigration crackdown. In social media posts on Thanksgiving night, Trump announced these changes and outlined a broader vision of preserving “Western Civilization” in the US by “reverse migration,” i.e., removing immigrants.

Following a NY Times article on signs that Trump is aging, forecasters discussed signs of his cognitive decline, potentially due to age-related slides towards one or more neurodegenerative diseases, including perhaps even a remote possibility of cerebellar ataxia, or a possible stroke. They pointed to his speech being more slurred and less coherent compared to 2016, and also to his wider gait as evidence of problems balancing, perhaps related to sarcopenia, but some pushed back on speculating about public figures’ medical conditions from a distance. Per the 25th Amendment, the vice-president together with a majority of the cabinet could declare the president unfit but would need the approval of two thirds of both houses of Congress if Trump were to object. However, most forecasters believe that it is extremely unlikely that the 25th Amendment would be invoked.

Middle East

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian again warned that Iran’s capital may need to be relocated away from Tehran because of water shortages. Earlier in November, he suggested that Tehran may even need to be evacuated as early as late December if rain doesn’t fall, though these remarks prompted widespread criticism from Iranian media and a government spokesperson later rolled back the statement. At the time of writing, Tehran has only seen one day of rain in approximately two months. Forecasters believe there’s a 6.4% (5% to 10%) chance that at least 500,000 people will be evacuated from the capital by the end of January 2026.

Here is a timelapse of satellite imagery for a two dams that supplies Tehran, to give a sense:

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Israel’s President Isaac Herzog for a pardon that would give him immunity from prosecution in the ongoing corruption case against him.

The Trump administration moved to designate “certain” Muslim Brotherhood chapters as foreign terrorist organizations.

Asia

Japan intercepted a suspected Chinese drone that was spotted flying near Yonaguni Island, which lies 70 miles away from Taiwan and is one of the Japanese islands that’s furthest from Tokyo. The US Marine Corps are also transporting supplies and equipment to the island, while Japan confirmed that it will station surface-to-air missiles there. China condemned the latter move, as tensions between Japan and China continue to simmer following remarks by the new Japanese Prime Minister that her country could intervene if China moves against Taiwan.

Donald Trump is set to visit China in April and will invite President Xi of China for a state visit later in 2026.

Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was sentenced to 21 years in prison after being found guilty on corruption charges, not long after she was sentenced to death for ordering a crackdown on student protesters. Bangladesh’s current government has written to India, where Sheikh Hasina currently lives in exile, demanding that she be extradited.

Africa

In the Sudan Civil War, the Sudanese government rejected a ceasefire proposal from the so-called Quad (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the United States), arguing that it was tilted in favour of the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The government also criticised the inclusion of the UAE in negotiations, alleging that Abu Dhabi has been supporting the RSF.

The RSF, in turn, seemingly proposed a unilateral three-month ceasefire, but this did not appear to materialise as they continued to attack the Kordofan region in the centre of the country in a push for more territory.

The president of Guinea-Bissau was ousted in a military coup.

Technology and artificial intelligence

Open source Chinese AI models are catching up fast to their closed-source Western counterparts. DeepSeek released a model that attained gold medalist level on the International Mathematics Olympiad. Google and OpenAI achieved this back in July, giving open-source AI a 5-6 month delay.

Anthropic released their latest model, Claude Opus 4.5, which they say is the best model in the world for coding, basing this claim partly on its performance on SWE-bench, a benchmark tracking software engineering abilities.

Anthropic also said that it’s getting harder to rule out that their models may be crossing their AI R&D-4 and CBRN-4 thresholds, where their AI R&D-4 threshold reflects the ability to fully automate an entry-level remote-only Anthropic Researcher and their CBRN-4 threshold represents the ability to substantially uplift CBRN development capabilities of moderately resourced state programs. They also report that their latest models seem to be aware that they’re being evaluated increasingly frequently, which is a concern because AIs may behave better when they think they’re being tested.

Trump signed an executive order establishing the “Genesis Mission”, which aims to boost US innovation by using data from the country’s Department of Energy national laboratories “to train scientific foundation models and create AI agents to test new hypotheses, automate research workflows, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs.”

Major insurers are asking US regulators to exclude AI related liabilities from corporate policies, saying they’re too risky to insure.

Amidst debate about whether AI models will replace humans totally or have a “jagged frontier” such that they are very good in some domains but very limited in others, some forecasters agreed with this tweet pithily expressing that AI can have a jagged frontier and yet eventually be better than humans at everything.

Subscriptions to a large language model explicitly designed to enable people to commit crimes cost $50 a month, raising concerns about the misuse of AI.

Biorisk

Ethiopia’s Marburg outbreak continues to spread.

Climate and Nature

A geoengineering startup has raised $60 million to dim the sun.

An Airbus plane suddenly dropped in altitude, injuring 15 people as a result of a malfunction caused by a solar flare. You can see our past estimates of the likelihood of a very intense solar storm here.

We’re a group of top forecasters who parse millions of news pieces a week to identify and discuss the most important warning signs of global catastrophic risks for you. Here are our top items and forecasts for this week

• Geopolitics: The US proposes a peace plan favorable to Russia, and Ukraine and the EU push back. US military activities around Venezuela continue.

  • Forecasters believe there’s a 25% chance (20% to 30%) that face-to-face negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian officials will happen before February 2026, and a 26% chance (15% to 40%) that both Russia and Ukraine will announce that they have agreed to a ceasefire of any duration, covering all of Ukrainian and Russian territory, by the end of March 2026.

  • They estimate that there’s a 71% chance (42% to 85%) that the US military carries out an attack on Venezuelan territory before 2026, and a 51% chance (20% to 70%) that Maduro will still be in power in Venezuela at the end of March 2026.

• Tech and AI: The Trump administration wants to restrict the ability of individual US states to regulate AI. Gemini 3 was released. We updated our estimates of an AI cyberattack leading to ≥1B in damages.

  • They think there’s a 38% chance (30% to 55%) that Trump will sign an executive order that disincentivises or bans individual US states from passing certain laws that regulate the development of artificial intelligence before March 2026.

  • In light of increasing AI capabilities and last week’s Anthropic warning about AI-orchestrated cyber espionage, forecasters believe there’s a 51% chance (45% to 60%) chance that there will be an AI-assisted cyberattack causing at least $1 billion in damages over the next three months, slightly up from a 44% chance (37% to 50%) in week 35 of this year.

• Economy: The US Federal Reserve is easing its oversight of banks and other lenders.

Geopolitics

Europe

The Trump administration said that it wanted Ukraine to quickly agree to a peace proposal developed by US and Russian negotiators that involved imposing limitations on Ukraine’s armed forces. Ukraine’s President Zelensky said that his country might have to choose between its “dignity” and retaining the support of the US, and the EU drafted its own counterproposal. US officials, including Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steve Witkoff, later held talks with Ukrainian officials in Geneva and worked on an updated peace framework. The possibility that Putin will breach any settlement is likely Trump’s primary concern with forcing a peace deal on Ukraine.

Keith Kellogg, currently the US Special Envoy for Ukraine, is likely to step down from his post in January, in part because he would have to be confirmed by the Senate to stay in his post for more than 360 days. One forecaster suggests that Senate support would be relatively easy to secure, so there could be additional reasons for his planned departure, including frustration with Witkoff, who helped to draft the latest peace proposal. Kellogg was widely viewed as sympathetic to Ukraine, so his departure will be a loss for Zelensky.

Overall, forecasters believe there’s a 25% (20% to 30%) chance that face-to-face negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian officials will happen before February 2026, and a 26% (15% to 40%) chance that both Russia and Ukraine will announce that they have agreed to a ceasefire of any duration, covering all of Ukrainian and Russian territory, by the end of March 2026.

Meanwhile, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned that Russia could be ready to attack NATO as early as 2028 or 2029, a sentiment echoed by Swedish Chief of Defense Gen. Michael Claesson.

Poland charged three Ukrainians suspected of collaborating with Russian secret services with “acts of sabotage of a terrorist nature” for an explosion that damaged a rail line used to deliver goods to Ukraine. At least two of the suspects fled across the border to Belarus, a Russian ally. Western media have not appeared to report whether those goods include military aid.

A Russian spy ship, the Yantar, pointed lasers at Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots who were tracking the vessel as it was moving in waters north of Scotland.

A former regional leader of the UK’s Reform Party was sentenced to 10-and-a-half years in prison after he pleaded guilty to taking bribes to make pro-Russia statements in the European Parliament and the media.

The Americas

Latin America

The US State Department’s official designation of Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization goes into effect on November 24. US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that the designation provides the US with “new options” to use against the alleged drug cartel and its alleged head, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump has said that he might be willing to pursue talks with Maduro. However, as the Trump administration floated the idea of dropping leaflets exerting pressure on Maduro to step down, it looks most likely that Maduro has not made such an offer.

Last Thursday, the US flew a large number of military planes off the coast of Venezuela, in a show of force and perhaps as a dress rehearsal for future action. The flights exert pressure on the Maduro regime and collect data on Venezuelan military preparations for potential US military strikes.

The US issued a series of flight advisories for airspace in the areas of Puerto Rico, Venezuela and the Gulf of America. The notice for Venezuela advises of the potential for “heightened military activity” at any altitude. The advisory for the Gulf of America is for Tuesday 1400-1700 UTC and would be consistent with tanker refueling operations for US bombers during that time. One forecaster mentions that the advisory for Venezuela would be an act of war if announced for the US, or for Taiwan by China.

We’ve seen a few flights from Caracas to Panama (commercial) and back, and to Cuba, São Paulo (linked to the regime?), a few local flights, but the airspace has mostly emptied out, and airlines have generally cancelled flights. We think that diplomats mostly aren’t leaving. It also appears that the US is also sending more B-52 flights today.

Overall, forecasters estimate that there’s a 71% (42% to 85%) chance that the US military carries out an attack on Venezuelan territory before 2026, and a 51% (20% to 70%) chance that Maduro will still be in power in Venezuela at the end of March 2026.

A forecaster writes:

> All of the forces necessary are in place and the terror designation is now in effect. Reasons that I am not higher is that opening moves may be covert and Maduro may be able to engage in negotiations that stall a rush to a kinetic attack. There are splits within the Trump administration and the MAGA camp as to whether an against Venezuela deviates too far from an American isolationist policy. The NOTAM [air advisory] is a major escalation which increases my forecast that an attack is imminent.

United States

US President Donald Trump called the behavior of Democratic lawmakers seditious, and mentioned seditious behavior was punishable by death after they encouraged military and intelligence officials to disobey any unlawful orders they received from the administration. The White House later claimed that Trump does not want to see them put to death.

Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) are using license plate readers to track vehicle travel patterns within the US, to identify and stop drivers whose travel they deem “suspicious”.

China invested over $200M in over 2,500 critical infrastructure and technology projects in the US from 2000 to 2023.

Middle East

The Trump administration agreed to sell the US’s most advanced fighter jet, the F-35, to Saudi Arabia. This is despite concerns that the technology could fall into China’s hands and fears among some Republicans, in particular, that the sale could erode Israel’s military advantage in the Middle East, as Israel is currently the only country in the region that operates the jet.

Iranian nuclear experts held at least two covert meetings last year with Russian scientists and companies, to acquire technology and items related to nuclear weapons development. On one visit, Iranian scientists and engineers visited a company called Laser Systems, and in February 2025, a Laser Systems researcher visited Tehran. It is speculated that Iran may be attempting to acquire laser technology and expertise to validate their nuclear weapon designs without having to conduct explosive tests.

There was another breach of the ceasefire in Gaza, with Israeli strikes reportedly killing more than two dozen Palestinians after Israel alleged that Hamas fired on its soldiers in Khan Younis.

Asia

Pakistan’s armed forces killed 23 militants during raids near its border with Afghanistan.

Technology and artificial intelligence

In the US, Donald Trump is backing a proposal to disincentivise or ban individual US states from passing certain laws that regulate the development of artificial intelligence, with the White House in the process of drafting an executive order that may establish an AI taskforce to launch lawsuits against states that enact AI regulations and threaten federal funding for those states. Forecasters think there’s a 38% (30% to 55%) chance that Trump will sign such an executive order before March 2026. Forecasters point out that the time horizon is reasonably large, and that Congress is relatively ineffective and so an executive order might be the sole means for effective action from the administration on this topic.

Google released Gemini 3 Pro. It achieves state-of-the-art performance on multiple benchmarks, including Humanity’s Last Exam, where it scores 37.5% without tools, and 45.8% with search and code execution. Claude Sonnet 4.5 scores 13.7% without tools, while GPT-5.1 scores 26.5%. Google also released Nano Banana Pro, which can generate even more realistic visual images, or diagrams with text such as this one:

Forecasters estimated a 51% (45% to 60%) chance that an AI-assisted cyberattack would cause $1B or more in damages in the next three months, up from an earlier estimate of 44% for a three month period earlier this year. Some forecasters were moved by Anthropic’s announcement last week, others just by rising AI capabilities.

METR evaluated OpenAI’s GPT-5.1-Codex-Max and found it to have a 50% time horizon of around 2 hours and 40 minutes, which they describe as an “on-trend improvement from GPT-5’s 2h17m”.

Robotics company Figure AI is being sued by a whistleblower who says he was unlawfully fired after warning executives about product safety, saying that the company’s robots could “fracture a human skull”.

The super PAC backed by VC firm Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI’s President Greg Brockman has chosen NY Assembly member Alex Bores as its first target. The Leading the Future Super PAC has more than $100 million lined up to lobby against AI regulation. Alex Bores was one of the coauthors of New York’s RAISE Act, which requires developers of the most capable AIs to write, implement, and publish redacted versions of safety plans for their AI development, and to report critical safety incidents.

Nvidia’s Q3 2025 revenues beat market expectations, which initially eased concerns about an “AI bubble” and propelled the company’s stock price higher.

And: Anthropic is expanding its use of Google Cloud TPUs and Services, planning for up to 1 million TPUs. Microsoft and Nvidia announced new strategic partnerships with Anthropic, with Microsoft investing $5B, and Nvidia investing up to $10B. Microsoft’s “Agent 365” product will reportedly let businesses manage AI agents like people. Oracle may be underwater on its $300 billion OpenAI deal.

Economy

The US Federal Reserve is easing its oversight of banks and other lenders, and reducing the number of staff devoted to doing so. Some argue that this increases the risk of another financial crisis.

Japanese bond prices again reached new heights, as investors expect the new Japanese government to increase spending.

An analysis by Max Roser of Our World in Data suggests that progress against extreme poverty may end in the 2030s unless the poorest economies grow (or grow faster), at least when considering absolute numbers.

Bitcoin’s rout continued last week. Bitcoin’s price has fallen approximately 30% since its peak in October.

Big tech companies are expected to spend almost $3T from 2025 to 2028 to finance data centers. The companies are expected to issue approximately $200B in corporate bonds during this time, a dramatic increase over previous years.

Biorisks

An analysis by ProPublica suggests that bird flu may be able to spread between poultry farms by air.

A newly emerged subclade K strain of ordinary seasonal H3N2 influenza is spreading in several countries and raising concerns that this year’s flu season could be more severe than usual. Early data indicate that the subclade K strain carries multiple mutations that may make it more capable of evading prior immunity and somewhat less well matched to this year’s vaccine than usual. However, UK HSA data suggest that the current vaccine still offers reasonable levels of protection against infection across age groups and will likely offer reasonable levels of protection against severe disease as well.

You can listen to an informal discussion about that H3N2 strain on Twitter here.

A patient in Washington state in the US who had the first known human H5N5 infection, likely contracted from a backyard poultry flock, has died. The virus may pose an inherent risk to humans similar to that from H5N1 bird flu but is likely far less widespread.

We’re a group of top forecasters who parse millions of news pieces a week to identify and discuss the most important warning signs of global catastrophic risks for you. Here are our top items:

• Geopolitics: The Japanese PM said that any Chinese invasion of Taiwan could potentially prompt a Japanese intervention. Pakistan accused India and then Afghan nationals of being behind a terror attack. Iran seized a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, while the Houthis signalled an end to their attacks on vessels in the Red Sea.

• Tech and AI: Anthropic said that it disrupted an AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign.

• Economy: The President of the New York Federal Reserve convened an emergency meeting with top Wall Street dealers to discuss signs of stress in money markets.

and here our forecasts for this week:

• Forecasters estimate that there’s a 61% (45% to 75%) chance that the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan will resume peace talks by the end of March 2026.

• They think there’s a 70% (50% to 90%) chance that the Houthis will refrain from attacking ships in the Red Sea through the end of March 2026.

• They believe there’s a 73% (50% to 90%) chance that the US will carry out an attack on Venezuelan territory before the end of 2025, and a 47% (20% to 70%) chance that Nicolás Maduro will still be the President of Venezuela at the end of March 2026.

Geopolitics

Asia

China advised its citizens not to travel to Japan, following the new Japanese Prime Minister’s comment that any Chinese aggression against Taiwan could result in Japanese military intervention. One forecaster believes that the prospect of Japanese involvement in any China-Taiwan conflict could deter China from attempting an invasion or blockade of the island nation, as it would make an already difficult operation even more complex and its outcome more uncertain.

A car bombing in New Delhi killed at least 8 people and injured more than 20, in what Indian authorities are describing as a terror attack. Meanwhile, a suicide bombing outside a district court in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, killed at least 12 people and injured at least 27. Some fear that these incidents could escalate into another India-Pakistan conflict, but the Indian government has so far refrained from accusing Pakistan of involvement in the attack. On the other hand, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif made the unsubstantiated assertion that Indian “terrorist proxies” were behind the Islamabad attack, but authorities later said that Afghan nationals were behind that attack and one other last week. One forecaster assigns a 1% chance to there being a conflict between India and Pakistan that results in the death of at least 10 military personnel by the end of 2025.

Despite the apparent involvement of Afghan nationals in the attack in Islamabad, Sharif initially offered to resume talks with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, after negotiations between the two sides collapsed in Turkey earlier this month, with Pakistan accusing Afghanistan of not doing enough to rein in the Pakistani Taliban.

However, tensions remain high. Pakistan’s closure of its border with Afghanistan remains in place, prompting the Taliban government to warn Afghan exporters against maintaining any trading relationship with Pakistan, while encouraging them to pivot to Central Asia and to make use of trade routes that run through Iran. However, almost half of Afghan exports were to Pakistan in 2024, so such an abrupt pivot will be economically risky, especially as these alternate trade routes involve higher transit costs and longer distances. Lowering trade barriers between Afghanistan and Central Asian countries may also require the Taliban, which relies heavily on customs revenue, to lower its tariffs.

Overall, forecasters estimate that there’s a 61% (45% to 75%) chance that the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan will resume face-to-face peace talks by the end of March 2026.

Meanwhile, Thailand suspended its Trump-backed peace deal with Cambodia after its soldiers were injured in a landmine explosion.

Middle East

Iran seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, accusing it of carrying an unspecified “illegal consignment”. It was en route to Singapore.

In contrast, the Iran-backed Houthis suggested that they will no longer attack ships in the Red Sea, so long as Israel does not resume military operations in Gaza. Forecasters think there’s a 70% (50% to 90%) chance that the Houthis will adhere to this promise through the end of March 2026.

An extreme drought continues to affect Tehran, although some rain has fallen in parts of western and northwestern Iran, and some snow has fallen north of Tehran. Iran’s president previously said that the city would need to be evacuated if sufficient rain didn’t arrive by late December into January. Cloud-seeding operations in northwestern Iran began on Saturday. Trace rain is forecast for Tehran on Monday, but no further rain is forecast for the coming week.

Capital flight out of Iran is accelerating. Capital flight for the 2024 fiscal year, which ran from March 21, 2024 to March 20, 2025, was $20.7B. In the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year, while both oil and non-oil export revenues fell, Iran still ran a $6B trade surplus, but $9B left the country, erasing the surplus on paper. In comparison, Iran’s GDP was $437B in 2024, so it is possible that capital flight for the 2025 fiscal year could approach 10% of GDP. Because much of the capital flight is likely related to foreign trade, and Iran’s economy minister has said that the private sector is responsible for only 15% of Iran’s foreign trade, it appears that the data “points to individuals with government links or ties to quasi-state institutions, including the Revolutionary Guards, as key drivers of tens of billions of dollars leaving the country.”

The Americas

Latin America

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced ‘Operation Southern Spear’, which appeared to formalize the attacks by the US military on alleged drug boats in recent months. In his post on X announcing the operation, Hegseth stated that, “this mission defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people.” On Sunday, the US conducted another strike against an alleged drug-trafficking boat; at least 83 people have been killed in at least 21 strikes targeting boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier entered the Caribbean on Sunday. Amid the ongoing US military buildup in the Caribbean, Trump held meetings with advisors last week to discuss options for military action against Venezuela and said that he had “sort of made up my mind” about whether to take military action in Venezuela. However, Trump said that the US may open negotiations with the Venezuelan regime. On Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the State Department intends to designate the Cartel de los Soles, which the US considers Maduro to be the head of, as a terrorist organization on November 24, which would lay legal groundwork for US strikes against Venezuela.

Forecasters believe there’s a 73% (50% to 90%) chancce that the US will carry out an attack on Venezuelan territory before the end of 2025, and a 47% (20% to 70%) chance that Nicolás Maduro will still be the President of Venezuela at the end of March 2026. Forecasters expressed uncertainty on whether it is necessary for the US to carry out strikes, as opposed to merely threatening to do so, and forecasters broadly agree that putting boots on the ground would be too costly for the US.

If there is a regime change in Venezuela, investing in the country as it becomes integrated into the Western capitalist system might be an amazing investment opportunity.

In Mexico, protesters broke down a barricade around the Presidential Palace, amid nationwide protests following the murder of the anti-crime mayor of Uruapan in the state of Michoacan. Generation Z Mexico, a self-styled non-partisan group against violence, corruption and abuse of power, had called for the protests against President Sheinbaum’s government.

United States

Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva was sworn in seven weeks after winning a special election in Arizona. She provided the final signature needed on a discharge petition that aims to force the release of the so-called Epstein files. There was a concerted effort by Trump and other White House officials to get Republicans who had signed the petition to withdraw their support, but this effort did not succeed. As a result, Trump took to Truth Social to express anger at Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a prominent supporter of the president. Greene, in turn, said that, “threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world”.

The longest US government shutdown in history has ended with a victory for Republicans, and without Democratic lawmakers achieving their goal of extending government subsidies for health insurance.

The military is sending troops to three-week training courses in the jungle in Panama, for the first time in over two decades.

Africa

The Democratic Republic of the Congo and the M23 rebel group signed a framework for a peace agreement in Qatar.

Europe

Germany filed arrest warrants for two Ukrainian men the government alleges were involved in explosions that damaged two NordStream gas pipelines in September 2022.

A railway line which helped to transport aid from Poland to Ukraine was damaged in an explosion. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk called it an “unprecedented act of sabotage”, hinting at Russian involvement.

Technology and artificial intelligence

Anthropic said it disrupted the “first reported AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign”, which involved a Chinese state-sponsored group directing Claude Code to (largely) autonomously attempt to infiltrate more than two dozen targets. The group reportedly succeeded in a small number of cases. Some expressed skepticism about the form and content of the announcement.

Google DeepMind announced SIMA 2, an agent powered by Gemini models that can operate and self-improve in simulated 3D worlds.

OpenAI announced GPT-5.1 Instant and Thinking and publicly deployed them in ChatGPT. OpenAI says that these models are smarter and more conversational than their predecessors. Very little information about these models has been released by OpenAI. Information about their benchmark performances is limited, and their system card is short.

Anthropic researchers found that Claude could automate much of the work of programming a robot and getting it to do tasks:

“We have the suspicion that the next step for AI models is to start reaching out into the world and affecting the world more broadly,” Logan Graham, a member of Anthropic’s red team, which studies models for potential risks, tells WIRED.

At a Tesla shareholder meeting on November 6, Elon Musk floated the idea of using Tesla Optimus robots to prevent future crimes. Convicted criminals would “now get a free Optimus, and it’s just going to follow you around and stop you from doing crime. … You don’t have to put people in prisons and stuff.” One forecaster wouldn’t be surprised if that proposal becomes reality at some point in the next 50 years.

Tech companies and UK child safety agencies will test AI models’ abilities to create child abuse images, with the goal of ensuring that these models have safeguards to prevent them from creating such images.

Yann LeCun, the Chief Scientist at Meta, will reportedly leave the company to build his own AI lab.

SoftBank sold its entire $5.8 billion stake in Nvidia in order to finance its investment in OpenAI.

OpenAI backed a startup which aims to prevent AI-enabled bioweapons risks by using AI itself.

Economy

In the US, the president of the New York Federal Reserve convened an emergency meeting with Wall Street dealers because of concerns about signs of stress in money markets. The meeting was held to discuss use of the Fed’s standing repo facility (SRF), which is valued by central bank officials as a pressure valve that helps them to keep short-term borrowing costs within a target range. After three years of quantitative tightening (QT), banks’ liquidity is being strained; the Fed’s recent promise to take its foot off the QT gas pedal has eased the situation somewhat, but quantitative easing (QE) may be needed to limit upward pressures on money market rates.

Bitcoin has lost about 25% of its value since the high it reached in October. Other cryptocurrencies have fallen from their peaks as well.

Biorisks

A human infection with an H5N5 flu A virus was reported in Washington state in the US. The case highlights the ability of H5 flu viruses to reassort with other flu viruses. The strain is not considered to be likely to pose any additional risk.

At least 9 people have been infected in a Marburg virus outbreak in Ethiopia. Public health officials have responded swiftly to contain the outbreak.

Climate

The UN COP30 meeting on climate change is in progress. The US did not send a delegation. Countries and other parties remain far apart on the creation of a roadmap away from fossil fuels.