Politics
In Iran, no internet and surging protests urged on by an exiled prince – National TenX News
People in Iran’s capital shouted from their homes and rallied in the street Thursday night after a call by the country’s exiled crown prince for a mass demonstration, witnesses said, a new escalation in the protests that have spread nationwide across the Islamic Republic.
Internet access and telephone lines in Iran cut out immediately after the protests began.
The protest represented the first test of whether the Iranian public could be swayed by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose fatally ill father fled Iran just before the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Demonstrations have included cries in support of the shah, something that could bring a death sentence in the past but now underlines the anger fueling the protests that began over Iran’s ailing economy.
Thursday saw a continuation of the demonstrations that popped up in cities and rural towns across Iran on Wednesday. More markets and bazaars shut down in support of the protesters. So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 39 people while more than 2,260 others have been detained, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
The growth of the protests increases the pressure on Iran’s civilian government and its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. CloudFlare, an internet firm, and the advocacy group NetBlocks reported the internet outage, both attributing it to Iranian government interference. Attempts to dial landlines and mobile phones from Dubai to Iran could not be connected. Such outages have in the past been followed by intense government crackdowns.
Meanwhile, the protests themselves have remained broadly leaderless. It remains unclear how Pahlavi’s call will affect the demonstrations moving forward.
“The lack of a viable alternative has undermined past protests in Iran,” wrote Nate Swanson of the Washington-based Atlantic Council, who studies Iran.
“There may be a thousand Iranian dissident activists who, given a chance, could emerge as respected statesmen, as labor leader Lech Wałęsa did in Poland at the end of the Cold War. But so far, the Iranian security apparatus has arrested, persecuted and exiled all of the country’s potential transformational leaders.”
Thursday’s demonstration rallies
Pahlavi had called for demonstrations at 8 p.m. local (1630 GMT) on Thursday and Friday. When the clock struck, neighborhoods across Tehran erupted in chanting, witnesses said. The chants included “Death to the dictator!” and “Death to the Islamic Republic!” Others praised the shah, shouting: “This is the last battle! Pahlavi will return!” Thousands could be seen on the streets.
“Great nation of Iran, the eyes of the world are upon you. Take to the streets and, as a united front, shout your demands,” Pahlavi said in a statement. “I warn the Islamic Republic, its leader and the (Revolutionary Guard) that the world and (President Donald Trump) are closely watching you. Suppression of the people will not go unanswered.”
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Pahlavi had said he would offer further plans depending on the response to his call. His support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war Israel waged on Iran in June. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some demonstrations, but it isn’t clear whether that’s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iranian officials appeared to be taking the planned protests seriously. The hard-line Kayhan newspaper published a video online claiming security forces would use drones to identify those taking part.
Iranian officials have offered no acknowledgment of the scale of the overall protests, which raged across many locations Thursday even before the 8 p.m. demonstration. However, there has been reporting regarding security officials being hurt or killed.
The judiciary’s Mizan news agency report a police colonel suffered fatal stab wounds in a town outside of Tehran, while the semiofficial Fars news agency said gunmen killed two security force members and wounded 30 others in a shooting in the city of Lordegan in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province.
A deputy governor in Iran’s Khorasan Razavi province told Iranian state television that an attack at a police station killed five people Wednesday night in Chenaran, some 700 kilometers (430 miles) northeast of Tehran.
It remains unclear why Iranian officials have yet to crack down harder on the demonstrators. Trump warned last week that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters,” America “will come to their rescue.”
Trump’s comments drew a new rebuke from Iran’s Foreign Ministry.
“Recalling the long history of criminal interventions by successive U.S. administrations in Iran’s internal affairs, the Foreign Ministry considers claims of concern for the great Iranian nation to be hypocritical, aimed at deceiving public opinion and covering up the numerous crimes committed against Iranians,” it said.
But those comments haven’t stopped the U.S. State Department on the social platform X from highlighting online footage purporting to show demonstrators putting up stickers naming roads after Trump or throwing away government-subsidized rice.
“When prices are set so high that neither consumers can afford to buy nor farmers can afford to sell, everyone loses,” the State Department said in one message. “It makes no difference if this rice is thrown away.”
Meanwhile, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi remains imprisoned by authorities after her arrest in December.
“Since Dec. 28, 2025, the people of Iran have taken to the streets, just as they did in 2009, 2019,” her son Ali Rahmani said. “Each time, the same demands came up: an end to the Islamic Republic, an end to this patriarchal, dictatorial and religious regime, the end of the clerics, the end of the mullahs’ regime.”
Biggest protests since Mahsa Amini’s death
Iran has faced rounds of nationwide protests in recent years. As sanctions tightened and Iran struggled after the 12-day war, its rial currency collapsed in December, reaching 1.4 million to $1. Protests began soon after, with demonstrators chanting against Iran’s theocracy.
Prior to Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, the rial was broadly stable, trading at around 70 to $1. At the time of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, $1 traded for 32,000 rials. Shops in markets across the country have shut down as part of the protests.
Politics
Sick astronaut returns to Earth with crew in NASA’s 1st medical evacuation – National TenX News
An ailing astronaut returned to Earth with three others on Thursday, ending their space station mission more than a month early in NASA’s first medical evacuation.
SpaceX guided the capsule to a middle-of-the-night splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego, less than 11 hours after the astronauts exited the International Space Station. Their first stop was a hospital for an overnight stay.
“Obviously, we took this action (early return) because it was a serious medical condition,” NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman said following splashdown. “The astronaut in question is fine right now, in good spirits and going through the proper medical checks.”
It was an unexpected finish to a mission that began in August and left the orbiting lab with only one American and two Russians on board. NASA and SpaceX said they would try to move up the launch of a fresh crew of four; liftoff is currently targeted for mid-February.
NASA’s Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke were joined on the return by Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov. Officials have refused to identify the astronaut who developed the health problem last week or explain what happened, citing medical privacy.
Support teams onboard the SpaceX recovery ship SHANNON work around the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft shortly after it landed off the coast of Long Beach, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026.
NASA via AP
While the astronaut was stable in orbit, NASA wanted them back on Earth as soon as possible to receive proper care and diagnostic testing. The entry and splashdown required no special changes or accommodations, officials said, and the recovery ship had its usual allotment of medical experts on board.
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The astronauts emerged from the capsule, one by one, within an hour of splashdown. They were helped onto reclining cots and then whisked away for standard medical checks, waving to the cameras. Isaacman monitored the action from Mission Control in Houston, along with the crew’s families.
NASA decided a few days ago to take the entire crew straight to a San Diego-area hospital following splashdown and even practiced helicopter runs there from the recovery ship. The astronaut in question will receive in-depth medical checks before flying with the rest of the crew back to Houston on Friday, assuming everyone is well enough. Platonov’s return to Moscow was unclear.
NASA stressed repeatedly over the past week that this was not an emergency. The astronaut fell sick or was injured on Jan. 7, prompting NASA to call off the next day’s spacewalk by Cardman and Fincke, and ultimately resulting in the early return. It was the first time NASA cut short a spaceflight for medical reasons. The Russians had done so decades ago.
Spacewalk preparations did not lead to the medical situation, Isaacman noted, but for anything else, “it would be very premature to draw any conclusions or close any doors at this point.” It’s unknown whether the same thing could have happened on Earth, he added.
The space station has gotten by with three astronauts before, sometimes even with just two. NASA said it will be unable to perform a spacewalk, even for an emergency, until the arrival of the next crew, which has two Americans, one French and one Russian astronaut.
This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows NASA astronaut Mike Fincke getting helped out of the SpaceX Crew-11 capsule.
NASA via AP
Isaacman said it’s too soon to know whether the launch of station reinforcements will take priority over the agency’s first moonshot with astronauts in more than a half-century. The moon rocket moves to the pad this weekend at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, with a fueling test to be conducted by early next month. Until all that is completed, a launch date cannot be confirmed; the earliest the moon flyaround could take off is Feb. 6.
For now, NASA is working in parallel on both missions, with limited overlap of personnel, according to Isaacman.
“If it comes down to a point in time to where we have to deconflict between two human spaceflight missions, that is a very good problem to have at NASA,” he told reporters.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
Troops from several European countries, including France, Germany, the UK, Norway and Sweden, are arriving in Greenland in a show of support for Denmark as talks between representatives of Denmark, Greenland and the U.S. on Wednesday highlighted “fundamental disagreement” between the Trump administration and European allies on the future of the Arctic island.
Denmark announced it would increase its military presence in Greenland on Wednesday and several European partners started sending symbolic numbers of troops on that day, just as the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers were preparing to meet with White House representatives in Washington.
The troop movements were intended to portray unity among Europeans and send a signal to U.S. President Donald Trump that an American takeover of Greenland is not necessary as NATO together can safeguard the security of the Arctic region amid rising Russian and Chinese interest.
“The first French military elements are already en route” and “others will follow,” French President Emmanuel Macron announced Wednesday, as French authorities said about 15 soldiers from the mountain infantry unit were already in Nuuk for a military exercise.
Germany will deploy a reconnaissance team of 13 personnel to Greenland on Thursday, its Defence Ministry said.
On Thursday, Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said the intention was “to establish a more permanent military presence with a larger Danish contribution,” according to Danish broadcaster DR. He said soldiers from several NATO countries will be in Greenland on a rotation system.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, flanked by his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt, said Wednesday that a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains with Trump after they held highly anticipated talks at the White House with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Rasmussen added that it remains “clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland” but that dialogue with the U.S. would continue at a high level over the following weeks.
Inhabitants of Greenland and Denmark reacted with anxiety but also some relief that negotiations with the U.S. would go on and European support was becoming visible.
In Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, local residents told The Associated Press they were glad the first meeting between Greenlandic, Danish and American officials had taken place but suggested it left more questions than answers.
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Several people said they viewed Denmark’s decision to send more troops, and promises of support from other NATO allies, as protection against possible U.S. military action. But European military officials have not suggested the goal is to deter a U.S. move against the island.
Maya Martinsen, 21, agreed and said it was “comforting to know that the Nordic countries are sending reinforcements” because Greenland is a part of Denmark and NATO.
The dispute, she said, is not about “national security” but rather about “the oils and minerals that we have that are untouched.”
On Wednesday, Poulsen had announced a stepped-up military presence in the Arctic “in close cooperation with our allies,” calling it a necessity in a security environment in which “no one can predict what will happen tomorrow.”
“This means that from today and in the coming time there will be an increased military presence in and around Greenland of aircraft, ships and soldiers, including from other NATO allies,” Poulsen said.
Asked whether the European troop movements were coordinated with NATO or what role the U.S.-led military alliance might play in the exercises, NATO referred all questions to the Danish authorities. However, NATO is currently studying ways to bolster security in the Arctic.
Rasmussen, the Danish foreign minister, announced the creation of a working group with the Americans to discuss ways to work through differences.
“The group, in our view, should focus on how to address the American security concerns, while at the same time respecting the red lines of the Kingdom of Denmark,” he said.
Commenting on the outcome of the Washington meeting on Thursday, Poulsen said the working group was “better than no working group” and “a step in the right direction.” He added nevertheless that the dialogue with the U.S. did not mean “the danger has passed.”
“We are really happy that action is being taken to make sure that this discussion is not just ended with that meeting alone,” Greenlandic MP Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam said on Thursday during a news conference in Copenhagen.
She said Greenlandic people understood they were a “pivotal point” in a broader transformation of the international rules-based order and that they felt responsible not just for themselves but also for the whole world to get it right.
Høegh-Dam said the military operations should not happen “right next to our schools and right next to our kindergartens.”
Line McGee, a 38-year-old from Copenhagen, told AP that she was glad to see some diplomatic progress. “I don’t think the threat has gone away,” she said. “But I feel slightly better than I did yesterday.”
Speaking to FOX News Channel’s Special Report on Wednesday after the White House talks, Rasmussen rejected both a military takeover and the potential purchase of the island by the U.S. Asked whether he thinks the U.S. will invade, he replied: “No, at least I do not hope so, because, I mean, that would be the end of NATO.”
Rasmussen said Greenlanders were unlikely to vote for U.S. rule even if financial incentives were offered, “because I think there’s no way that U.S. will pay for a Scandinavian welfare system in Greenland, honestly speaking.”
“You haven’t introduced a Scandinavian welfare system in your own country,” he added.
Trump, in his Oval Office meeting with reporters, said: “We’ll see how it all works out. I think something will work out.”
© 2026 The Canadian Press
Politics
A Canadian citizen has died in Iran, Ottawa says as protests intensify – National TenX News
A Canadian citizen has died in Iran, Global Affairs Canada told Global News as the protests against the Iranian regime have intensified over the last few days.
“Global Affairs Canada is aware of a Canadian citizen who died in Iran. We express our condolences to the family and loved ones during this difficult time,” a spokesperson for GAC said.
As of Wednesday, there were 3,054 Canadian citizens and permanent residents registered in Iran, the spokesperson said.
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However, they added that since registration with GAC is voluntary, the actual number may be outdated.
Canada does not have diplomatic relations with Iran.
More to come
Sick astronaut returns to Earth with crew in NASA’s 1st medical evacuation – National TenX News
European troops arrive in Greenland after ‘disagreement’ with U.S. – National TenX News
A Canadian citizen has died in Iran, Ottawa says as protests intensify – National TenX News
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