US News

• Trump addresses the nation on the Iranian missile attack against Iraqi bases housing US soldiers. Trump says it appears Iran is standing down, and no Americans were injured or killed. [Link] In his address, Trump said he is placing powerful new sanctions on Iran. [Link] Rand Paul said the Trump invoking Congressional authority given in 2002 to assassinate Soleimani is absurd. [Link]
• Senator Mike Lee bashes the Trump admin’s briefing on the Soleimani assassination, saying, “probably the worst briefing at least on a military issues I’ve ever seen.” [Link]
• The House will vote on a War Powers Resolution this week that condemns Trump’s assassination of Soleimani and emphasizes that Congress has not given the president authority for war with Iran. The White House is dismissing the resolution as not constraining the president’s authority to start a war with Iran. [Link]
• Congressman Duncan Hunter announces he will resign his seat January 13th. [Link]

Ukrainian Plane Crash

• A plane crashed in Iran shortly after taking off. The plane was a Boeing 737-800 owned by a Ukrainian airline. The plane was scheduled to travel to Ukraine and was mostly carrying Iranian, Ukrainian, and Canadian passengers. [Link]

Israel 

• Israel’s Defense Minister says his country will work to raise the total number of settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to one million over the next decade. Israel has about 600,000 settlers living in those territories. [Link]

US/Iranian Tensions

• Iraq’s Prime Minister received a verbal notification from Iran that Iran was going to carry out a missile attack on two Iraqi bases before the bases were hit. He then informed the Americans of the coming attack. [Link]
• Some Iraqi leaders, with ties to Iran, respond to the missile attack by saying Iran had a right to respond. [Link]
• The Iraqi military say none of its forces were wounded or killed by the missile attack. [Link]
• Satellite photos show the damage done to two Iraqi bases hit with Iranian missiles. [Link]
• Trump responded to the missile strikes in a tweet that said, “all is well.” [Link]
• After the Iranian missile attack, the Iranian government put out several statements saying it will respond if the US strikes back. The Iranian statements were similar to statements made by the US government after the assassination of Soleimani. [Link]
• Influential Iraqi Shia Cleric Sadr calls on Shia militias to stand down while the US and Iran work towards de-escalation. [Link]
• The Philippines is evacuating 10,000s of its citizens from the Middle East. The Philippines has millions of citizens working abroad, many in the Middle East. [Link]

Africa

• Al-Shabaab kills three people in Mogadishu with a car bomb. [Link]
• Turkey and Russia issue a statement calling for a ceasefire in Libya starting January 12th. Turkey and Russia back opposite sides in the Libyan War. [Link]
• The US sanctioned South Sudan’s vice president. [Link]
• Militants dressed as soldiers entered a Nigerian town. Then killed all the soldiers and destroyed 750 homes. [Link]
• A rocket attack in Mali wounded Eighteen UN Peacekeepers. [Link]