It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, January 31, 2026
London: Tower Hamlets faith communities stop UKIP again UKIP’s planned “Walk with Jesus parade” in Whitechapel misrepresents Christianity to target Muslims and migrants in East London
January 30, 2026
Tower Hamlets faith communities stop UKIP agai
More than 150 members of faith communities and organisations have today, 30 January, issued a press statement denouncing a planned march by the far-right anti-Muslim UK Independence Party. The following is the full text of the statement:
Once again, the borough of Tower Hamlets was being threatened by racist outsiders. The discredited rump of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) party have been planning to march through Whitechapel on 31st January. They tried to do the same on 25th October 2025, but were stopped by thousands of local people who attended the Tower Hamlets Unity Demo, supported by 60 organisations, as well as the elected Mayor, Lutfur Rahman.
This time, UKIP announced to come to one of the most culturally-diverse communities in the country and “Walk with Jesus” parade. On this occasion, UKIP tried to use Christianity as a false flag for sowing division. In response, many churches have joined the United East End coalition, representing all faiths and none, to say UKIP are not welcome here. Thankfully, the Met Police have now blocked the UKIP march from taking place in Tower Hamlets as it could lead to “serious disorder”.
We warmly welcome this and it is a recognition of our community’s determination to stand together and insist that Tower Hamlets is No Place for Hate. From the Battle of Cable Street 90 years ago, to the defeat of the racist groups such as the National Front, British National Party and English Defence League, we will always oppose racism and prejudice.
We reiterate, UKIP has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity and is an insult to people, including many residents of east London, who genuinely follow the Christian faith. What UKIP really wants to do is sow hatred and fear by targeting the Muslim community and migrants.
The Tower Hamlets Unity Demo and the Victory Parade last October was publicly supported by Christian leaders from the borough, alongside other members of the Inter-Faith Forum. One of the co-founders of United East End, formed in 2010 to oppose the racist-EDL, was the Reverend Alan Green.
Recent research found that 91 per cent of Tower Hamlets residents think people from different backgrounds get along well together. We are not an “island of strangers” as the Prime Minister has said, and we don’t need Nick Tenconi of UKIP or Nigel Farage of Reform UK telling us how we should live, pray, or who our neighbours should be.
This year is the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street. Ever since, the people of the East End have stood shoulder-to-shoulder against those who seek to divide us.
United East End www.unitedeastend.org.uk Signotaries 1 Dr Glyn Robbins United East End 2 Lutfur Rahman Mayor of Tower Hamlets 3 Mthr Bernadette Hegarty St Paul’s Church Bow Common 4 Alan Murray All Faiths and None 5 David Rosenberg Jewish Socialists’ Group 6 Dr Abdullah Faliq European Network on Religion & Belief 7 Father Frank Gelli Anglican Church 8 Mark Francis Traf Rd Baptist Church 9 Christine Frost Neighbours in Poplar 10 Rabbi Herschel Gluck OBE Shomrim in Stamford Hill 11 Rachael Bee Refugee Welcome Homes 12 Rajiv Sinha Hindus for Human Rights UK 13 Oliver Mcternan Forward Thinking 14 Anna Livingstone Barts Health UNITE 15 Alison Morgan Quaker 16 Ajahn Santamano Theravada Buddhist monk 17 Beverley Milton-Edwards St Paul’s Bow Common Church 18 Catherine Fish Church of England 19 Rev James Olanipekun CIHM Christ Apostolic Church 20 Rev Thomas Fortune Pyke The Parish of the Isle of Dogs 21 Rev. Alan Green United East End 22 Rev. Dr Al Barrett Church of England – Birmingham 23 Robert Scott Asha Tower Hamlets 24 Holly Petersen Christians for a Welcoming Britain 25 Enrique Tessieri Migrant Tales (Finland) 26 Cllr. Talha Abu Chowdhury Tower Hamlets Council 27 Dave Mitchell Church of England 28 Catriona Robertson Peace and Interfaith campaigner 29 Cara Milton-Edwards St Paul’s Bow Common Church 30 Kane Newman Communist Party of Britain 31 Gabrielle McGarvey Church of England 32 Faisal Ahmed Tower Hamlets Solidarity 33 Georgina Stride Shoreditch Tab Church 34 Karen Weech Majority 35 Gill Millman Human 36 Mohammed Kozbar Finsbury Park Mosque 37 Musaddiq Ahmad Muslim Community Association 38 Maria Balinska Centre for Democratic Resilience, Oxford University. 39 Mark Ereira-Guyer Civil Society Together CIC 40 Mark Francis Traf Rd Baptist Church 41 Michael Squires Unite 42 N. Ahmed East London Mosque 43 Natalie Hendry East End Church 44 Nathan Jones Oasis Church Waterloo 45 Nicola Grove CAMPAIN 46 Sabby Dhalu Stand Up To Racism 47 Safia Jama MBE Women’s Inclusive Team 48 Weyman Bennett Stand Up To Racism 49 Cllr Maium Talukdar Island Against Division 50 Mark Bishop House of Prayer for East London 51 Sahra Mire Ashaadibi Central 52 Shabbir Lakha Stop the War Coalition 53 Shawn Moye The Salvation Army 54 Sufia Alam TH Interfaith Forum 55 Abbas Ali Masta Beatz 56 Abul Khayar Ali Bricklane Community Forum 57 Abul Mahmud 58 Adrian Dunne Baptist Church 59 Aishah Uddin 60 Andy Strouthous Stand Up To Racism 61 Ann Marie Lloyd-Jones St Anne’s RC Church, Liverpool 62 Anne Blair-Vincent 63 Arif Ahmed Tower Hamlets Council of Mosques 64 Asrar Mohammed 65 Caroline McLeish Dawson 66 Carrie Bishop 67 Catherine Midgley Catholic 68 Christine Chettle CCA 69 Clare Cooper Christian 70 David Bagott TSSF 71 David Blakeway 72 Deborah Mitchell Quaker 73 Diana Neslen 74 Dilwar Hussain Shahporan Madrasah 75 Dr Anna Livingstone Unite Barts Health 76 Elizabeth Chart 77 Erin Hughes 78 Esther Mufti Justice and Peace 79 Farooq Ahmed 80 Fergus Burnett-Skelding Christians Against Christian Nationalism 81 Gawain Little 82 Gillian Davis 83 Graham McNeill St Paul’s Bow Common church 84 Hana Khalaf-Horack 85 Hasan Mueenuddin Da’watul Islam UK & Eire 86 Hayley Thomas 87 Hendrika Santer Bream 88 Hilal Sala 89 Hsiao-Hung Pai Journalist & author 90 Isa Haque 91 Jaabir al hassan 92 Jackie Applebee BMA personal capacity 93 Jahangir Sufi 94 James Finegan 95 James Grote Baptist Minister 96 James King Tower Hamlets Councillor- Limehouse 97 Jamie Lashmar Church member 98 Jane west 99 Jayne Holland 100 John Davey Member of PSCmm 101 Jonathan Lilly Resident 102 Joseph Taylor 103 Judith Russenberger Christian 104 Julian Bond 105 Julian Wood Forward Thinking 106 Kate Taylor 107 Kathryn Bond 108 Leila Jones 109 Linda Kossi Christ Church 110 Magda Pittaro Christian 111 Margaret Roberts Church of England 112 Martin Jarvis 113 Mary Sample 114 Maryam Mohsin 115 Michele Presacane 116 Mohammad Salih 117 Mohammed Malik Muslim Community Association 118 Moira Potier de la Morandiere RC Church 119 Murat Bingol Askon London (Turkish community) 120 Nabil Ferdous 121 Nadi Altay Stand Up To Racism 122 Patrick Wiley Indivisible London 123 Peter Ashan Newham SUTR 124 Peter Skerratt 125 Prof Ahmet Koroglu Istanbul University 126 Raouf Ghali Shoreditch Tab Church 127 Rebecca del Tufo Rebecca del Tufo 128 Ruth Jarman 129 Ruth Mills Sheffield Manor Parish 130 Ruth Urbanowicz Church of England 131 Ruth Urbanowicz 132 Safwan Choudhury 133 Saiful Islam Chowdhury Carehouse Youth Club 134 Sami Walbury 135 Sarah R MacDonald Exploring Spirit 136 Serena Mondesir NIP 137 Shahina bibi 138 Shamima rahman 139 Shaqui Sid 140 Sheba Ahmed 141 Sheila Akao-Okeng Bethnal Green Meeting House 142 Sheila Cunnington Quaker 143 Sheila McGregor Tower Hamlets Stand Up to Racism 144 Sigrid Werner 145 Simon Herbert St Paul’s Bow Common 146 Susan Ward Christian Climate Action 147 Susan Ward Roman Catholic parishioner 148 Susanne Levin 149 Sybil cock Tower Hamlets PSC 150 Tammy Wong 151 Tamsin Hunkin Hope Sings Eternal 152 Tariq Fredericks 153 Terry Phillips St Anne’s Church, Liverpool 154 Thalia Carr TSSF 155 Thomas Sharpe Better Story 156 Tim Cole Asha 157 Tony Conway Communist Party of Britain 158 Viola Langley 159 Wren Sidhe Quaker 160 Yvonne Francklow 161 Yvonne Osman 162 Zaaki Ibn-Maswood Ahmed Muslim Council of Britain (MCB)
Iran plans to hold joint naval drills with China, Russia in northern Indian Ocean region: Report
January 31, 2026
Middle East Monitor
Republic of Iran Navy naval drill “Force-99” at Sea of Oman on January 14, 2021 [IRANIAN ARMY/Anadolu Agency]
Iran plans to hold joint naval exercises with China and Russia in the northern Indian Ocean region in mid-February, Iranian media reported on Saturday amid elevated tensions with the US, Anadolu reports.
The semi-official Tasnim News Agency said the eighth edition of the joint drills, known as the “Maritime Security Belt,” will bring together naval units from the three countries.
The exercise will involve units from Iran’s regular navy and the naval forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), alongside naval forces from China and Russia, the report added.
The mid-February drills will be held in the northern Indian Ocean.
The “Maritime Security Belt” exercises were launched in 2019 at the initiative of Iran’s navy, Tasnim said. Seven previous editions of the joint drills have been held since then.
The drills come as tensions have escalated between Tehran and Washington in recent weeks, following US President Donald Trump’s statements that a “massive armada” was moving toward Iran, alongside his call for Tehran to “come to the table” for negotiations.
Iranian officials have warned that any US attack would draw a “swift and comprehensive” response while reiterating that Tehran remains open to talks only under what it describes as “fair, balanced, and noncoercive terms.”
Opinion
Washington’s bipartisan war on Iran did not begin with Gaza. Gaza exposed it
January 31, 2026
Middle East Monitor. A woman walks past an anti-American murals following a possible US intervention against Iran on January 28, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. [Fatemeh Bahrami – Anadolu Agency]
For decades, Washington has insisted that its hostility toward Iran is a response to Iranian “aggression,” “terrorism,” or the Islamic Republic’s supposed refusal to “behave like a normal state.” Yet the synchronized threats issued by both Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the aftermath of Gaza’s annihilation reveal a more uncomfortable truth. American policy toward Iran has little to do with Iranian actions and everything to do with preserving an Israeli‑centered regional order at any cost.
To understand this moment, one must begin with an inconvenient historical fact that the United States foreign policy establishment prefers to forget. The United States was not always Iran’s enemy and Iran was not always the problem.
Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran was one of Washington’s most reliable pillars in the Middle East. The Shah’s regime, installed and protected after the CIA‑backed overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, served American strategic interests faithfully. It purchased billions of dollars in American weapons, stabilized oil markets and acted as a regional gendarme against Arab nationalism and leftist movements. Repression, torture and political imprisonment were not obstacles to partnership. They were, in fact, quietly subsidized. A 1955 treaty of amity formalized this relationship of cooperation and mutual interest between Washington and Tehran.
Iran became an enemy not because it threatened the region, but because it defied American ownership. The Islamic Revolution shattered a core assumption of United States Middle East policy, namely that regional states exist to be managed, disciplined and aligned with American power. Iran’s crime was not extremism but autonomy. Its refusal to subordinate itself to Washington and later to normalize relations with Israel without conditions marked it for permanent punishment. By the end of 1979, diplomatic ties were severed and sustained sanctions were imposed.
From that point onward, United States policy toward Iran became doctrinal rather than strategic. Iran was transformed into an abstract villain, immune to evidence, negotiation or context. Even when Tehran cooperated, whether against the Taliban after the attacks of September 11, 2001, or through painstaking compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, Washington responded with betrayal and recrimination.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, concluded between Iran and the P5+1 in 2015, constrained Iran’s nuclear program and opened it to strict inspections. Contrary to claims that Iran violated the deal, international tracking of its nuclear material showed Tehran compliant with the agreement’s terms. Yet in 2018 the United States withdrew unilaterally under President Trump and reimposed sanctions, rejecting the verification mechanisms that had worked and destabilizing the diplomatic architecture that had taken years to construct. The withdrawal was welcomed by Israeli hardliners who saw any détente with Tehran as an existential threat to their regional strategy.
Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign since then has inflicted devastating economic pain on ordinary Iranian citizens while providing little leverage toward genuine diplomacy. It has strengthened hardliners and eroded incentives for moderation. Sanctions that were supposed to bring Tehran to heel have instead reinforced narratives of resistance and emboldened regional actors that Washington designates as proxies.
This is where Gaza matters. The devastation of Gaza did not cause Washington’s renewed threats against Iran. It exposed their logic. As Israel flattened an entire population under the language of self‑defense, Iran became the necessary external villain, the shadowy puppeteer blamed for regional resistance movements that are, in reality, rooted in local histories of occupation, dispossession and authoritarian governance.
By framing Iran as the master controller of Hamas, Hezbollah and every act of resistance in the region, Washington absolves Israel of political responsibility and transforms colonial violence into a defensive necessity. Palestinian resistance is stripped of agency, history and political meaning, recast instead as an Iranian export product. This narrative is not merely dishonest. It is strategically convenient.
It also performs a second function. It locks the United States into Israel’s wars, whether Americans want them or not. The influence of pro‑Israel lobbying groups in Washington is not a conspiracy. It is a documented reality. Their power lies not in secret control, but in ideological discipline. United States politicians are permitted to debate tactics, but seldom the premise. They may question Netanyahu’s tone, but never the assumption that Israel’s security overrides all other considerations, including American interests, regional stability or international law.
This discipline explains the eerie bipartisan consensus that emerged even as Gaza descended into mass death. President Trump threatens Iran as a campaign prop while positioning a “massive armada” toward the region in the name of nuclear diplomacy and deterrence. President Biden, on the other hand, maintains a posture of “ironclad” commitment to Israel while condemning some Iranian actions but continuing to supply Israel with sophisticated weaponry even as human rights organizations and international observers increasingly describe Gaza as suffering genocidal violence. Yet the conclusion is identical. Iran must be deterred so Israel can act without restraint.
The result is a policy framework that is both morally bankrupt and strategically incoherent. Iran is more regionally entrenched than ever, precisely because United States pressure has eliminated incentives for moderation. Sanctions have empowered hardliners, not weakened them. Israel, meanwhile, is more diplomatically isolated than at any point since its founding, while American credibility as a defender of international law has collapsed in full view of the Global South. Arab leaders themselves are increasingly public in rejecting the notion that Iran is the principal source of instability in the region. Oman’s foreign minister, for example, declared that Israel, not Tehran, is the chief source of insecurity, a striking departure from decades of Washington‑aligned regional narratives.
And yet Washington persists. The greatest irony is this. The United States claims to fear a regional war with Iran while relentlessly pursuing the policies that make such a war more likely. Sanctions without diplomacy, threats without off ramps, and unconditional support for Israeli violence ensure perpetual escalation. What is presented as deterrence functions in practice as provocation. Iran has publicly warned that any attack on its territory or forces will be treated as an act of war, reflecting the very dynamic Washington claims to want to avoid.
Gaza did not radicalize Iran. Gaza revealed Washington. It revealed a foreign policy establishment incapable of distinguishing between alliance and subservience, between security and impunity. Until the United States confronts the reality that its Iran policy is driven less by strategic calculation than by ideological loyalty to Israel, it will continue sacrificing regional peace and potentially American lives to preserve a collapsing narrative.
And Iran, whatever one thinks of its political system, will remain the enemy not because it is uniquely dangerous, but because it refuses to kneel. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
Opinion Gulf allies urge restraint as Washington weighs escalation
Newspapers in Iran’s capital Tehran prominently featured statements by US President Donald Trump suggesting that military options against Iran could be considered following interventions in protests across the country on January 28, 2026. [Fatemeh Bahrami – Anadolu Agency]
Middle East Monitor At a moment when the Middle East stands on the edge of escalation, the decisive voices have already been heard — not from Washington, but from Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Doha and other GCC nations. In the last 48 hours, the Gulf has moved from anxious diplomacy to the edge of a direct military crisis as Washington and Tehran traded threats even while back-channel talks and regional mediation intensified. Calmly and deliberately, Gulf states have reaffirmed a simple truth: their land, airspace and bases will not be used to fuel another war on Iran.
This is not an exceptional stance, but a consistent one — born of long memory, strategic clarity and a deep, collective determination to keep the region from sliding once more into avoidable conflict.
The numbers alone explain the fear. Around 20 per cent of global oil still flows through the Strait of Hormuz, roughly 20 million barrels per day transit the Strait of Hormuz — about one-fifth of global oil flows — while the IMF’s January 2026 World Economic Outlook flags regional instability as a material growth risk. Even a brief disruption would send shockwaves through energy markets already stretched by wars in Ukraine and Gaza, inflationary pressures, and fragile post-pandemic recovery. The International Monetary Fund has repeatedly warned that a major Gulf conflict could shave multiple percentage points off global growth.
For states whose own economic diversification plans depend on stability — Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, the UAE’s non-oil GDP now exceeding 70 per cent, Qatar’s gas-driven sovereign wealth — war is not an abstraction. It is an existential threat to development trajectories painstakingly built over decades.
Yet the Gulf position is not only economic. It is deeply historical. The region remembers what external intervention looks like once the slogans fade. Iraq after 2003 experienced deep institutional disruption, leading to extensive societal costs and enabling the rise of non-state armed actors. Libya’s 2011 intervention fractured a state and destabilised North Africa. Afghanistan, after twenty years and more than US$2 trillion spent, returned to where it began.
These are not distant case studies. They are life lessons. Therefore, they come to the same answer, which is why the Gulf reaction to recent threats against Iran has been so swift and unambiguous.
Saudi Arabia has formally conveyed to Tehran that its territory and airspace will not be used for any attack. The UAE has publicly stated it will not permit hostile military actions from its soil. Qatar and Kuwait have reportedly delivered the same message in private channels. Turkey, a NATO member, has gone further, warning that foreign intervention would only deepen crises and offering mediation instead. This is not hedging. It is collective risk aversion born of experience.
Critics in Western capitals sometimes misread this stance as weakness or duplicity. It is neither. It is realism of the most classical kind.
The Gulf states understand that geography cannot be wished away. Iranian retaliation would not land in Washington or Brussels; it would land in Dhahran, Dubai or Doha. Missile ranges, drone capabilities and proxy networks make the Gulf uniquely vulnerable. When Iranian officials warn that any facilitation of attacks would make regional states complicit, that is not bluster. It is deterrence by proximity.
There is also a deeper normative shift underway. Over the past decade, Gulf diplomacy has moved decisively towards de-escalation. Saudi-Iranian diplomatic normalisation brokered by China in 2023 was not a love story; it was a strategic ceasefire. The UAE has restored full ties with Tehran. Oman and Qatar have long played mediating roles. The Gulf Cooperation Council’s most recent summit statement emphasised dialogue, peaceful dispute resolution and collective security. This language is not accidental. It reflects an emerging consensus that regional problems require regional solutions, not imported wars.
From an international relations perspective, this moment is striking. This is a textbook security-dilemma dynamic — actions taken as defensive by one actor are interpreted as offensive by another, which helps explain why measures meant to reassure often have the opposite effect. Realism explains the refusal to host attacks. Liberalism explains the insistence on dialogue and international law. Constructivism explains the shared trauma that now shapes Gulf identity: a region exhausted by being a theatre for other people’s battles.
A post-colonial lens adds another layer — a quiet rejection of being treated as strategic real estate rather than sovereign actors. The Gulf is not rejecting alliances; it is redefining the terms of engagement.
What is often missed is that this stance is not pro-Iranian. Gulf leaders harbour no illusions about Tehran’s policies, from its nuclear ambitions to its network of armed non-state actors.
But there is a clear-eyed recognition that bombing Iran will not deliver reform, moderation or democracy. On the contrary, history suggests it would consolidate hardliners, legitimise repression under the banner of national defence, and radicalise a population that has repeatedly shown internal appetite for change. As scholars have noted, there is no credible case where external military intervention produced a smooth democratic transition.
Muscat’s quiet back-channel work during the talks that led to the 2015 nuclear deal offers a practical template: discreet, third-party maritime deconfliction and a simple missile-notification channel reduced near-misses without public fanfare. Oman’s discreet mediation and Muscat’s role in facilitating US-Iran backchannels during the JCPOA years show modest, quiet diplomacy can avert catastrophe — keep that model in view.
There is also the risk of escalation by design rather than accident. Only months ago, a limited Israel–Iran confrontation saw missiles strike a major US base in Qatar. That exchange lasted days. A broader conflict would not. Analysts assessed that a narrowly scoped strike could nonetheless generate spillover effects across the region, including reactions from aligned non-state actors and cyber operations against strategic assets. The price would be paid not by decision-makers, but by civilians and economies.
Comparisons matter here. During the Cold War, small and medium powers from Austria to Indonesia refused to become launchpads for superpower conflict. Neutrality was not moral indifference; it was national survival. The Gulf today is exercising a similar logic, adapted to a multipolar world where China, Russia and the United States all compete for influence. Sovereignty, not alignment, is the organising principle.
There is an opportunity hidden in this restraint. If taken seriously, the Gulf position could form the backbone of a new regional security architecture. Confidence-building measures in the Strait of Hormuz, missile notification mechanisms, expanded nuclear inspections, and structured dialogue that includes Iran rather than isolating it — these ideas are not utopian. Variations have worked elsewhere. Economic incentives, humanitarian channels, and gradual sanctions relief tied to verifiable commitments could shift calculations on all sides.
For middle powers watching from afar, the lesson is no longer regional — it is profoundly global, and it speaks most directly to the United States. The most responsible voices in the Middle East today are not demanding regime change, not rehearsing the language of shock-and-awe, and not confusing military dominance with strategic wisdom. They are calling, with urgency and restraint, for patience, diplomacy and an uncompromising respect for sovereignty. In a world where trust has been eroded by broken promises and unfinished wars, that call deserves to be heard far beyond the region.
For Washington, then, restraint should be reframed as a strategic asset — preserving regional order while buying political space for diplomacy at home. Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya still cast long shadows over American credibility, not because intentions were questioned, but because outcomes were devastating. Each intervention promised order and delivered fragmentation.
Each spoke of liberation and left behind instability. The Gulf’s message is shaped by those memories — and by the understanding that another war with Iran would not be contained, not quick, and not redeeming. This is not a break with Washington’s leadership, but a call for a better version of it — one built on listening, coalition, and restraint, as Gulf allies signal that partnership does not mean obedience when disaster approaches.
The implications are equally profound. These states have long understood that global stability depends not on who can strike first, but on who can prevent collapse. Their influence lies in amplifying restraint, defending international law, and reminding great powers that the world pays the price when wars of choice replace politics of patience. In moments like this, silence is not neutrality; it is abdication.
What is emerging from the Middle East is a quiet but powerful moral argument: that sovereignty still matters, that human life is not collateral, and that the future cannot be bombed into existence. At a time when global politics feels increasingly brittle, this stance offers something rare — a chance to step back from the edge. Whether the United States and its partners choose to heed that warning will define not only the fate of Iran and the region, but the credibility of global leadership in an age that can no longer afford another unnecessary war.
The Gulf states are not asking the world to like Iran’s government. They are asking the world to remember the cost of war, to listen to those who would bear it first, and to recognise that stability is a prerequisite for reform, not its enemy. In saying ‘not from our soil’, the Gulf is not closing doors. It is opening a narrow but vital corridor away from disaster.
Whether global powers choose to walk through it will shape not only Iran’s future, but the credibility of the international order itself. Restraint is not hesitation — it is the last line between order and collapse. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
SPACE/COSMOS
New map of the Milky Way’s magnetism offers insights into cosmic evolution
UBCO-led DRAGONS project charts radio wave twists across the northern sky
The DRAO 15m telescope at work scanning the sky for the DRAGONS survey. The data collected by this survey is a new generation of radio surveys that allow scientists to continue mapping the Milky Way and its three-dimensional magnetic field structure.
A UBC Okanagan-led research project has given a group of international scientists their clearest view yet of the Milky Way’s magnetic field, revealing that it is far more complex than previously believed.
Dr. Alex Hill, Assistant Professor in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science at UBCO, specializes in radio astronomy. Working at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO), near Penticton, his team used data from the DRAO 15-metre telescope to complete the first broadband map of Faraday rotation, a phenomenon that scientists use to track magnetic fields across the northern sky.
The dataset, known as Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory GMIMS of the northern sky (DRAGONS) and led by former UBCO postdoctoral researcher Dr. Anna Ordog, captures polarized radio emissions across a wide range of frequencies, allowing astronomers to see magnetic structures that were previously invisible. This research is part of a larger initiative called the Global Magneto-Ionic Medium Survey (GMIMS), initiated by Dr. Tom Landecker, an astronomer at DRAO and adjunct professor at both UBCO and the University of Calgary.
“With our new dataset, we can look at the polarized emissions from within the galaxy itself, and we see that the magnetic field has a lot of structure to it,” Dr. Ordog explains. “DRAGONS is the first to show this level of complexity on such large spatial scales and across the entire northern sky.”
The work builds on a theoretical insight first proposed in 1966, which showed that polarized radio waves observed at many frequencies enable measurements of the three-dimensional structure of the Milky Way’s magnetic field. At the time, the technology needed to observe this effect across wide frequency ranges did not exist. Modern broadband telescopes, including the DRAO 15m telescope, have made this research possible.
The project was the first scientific use of the 15m telescope, which DRAO originally built as a prototype antenna for the SKA—a large radio telescope currently under construction in Southern Africa and Western Australia. Dr. Ordog led the setup for the DRAGONS project, supported by five students from UBCO and the University of Calgary, along with the expertise of DRAO engineers and technologists.
“The 15m is the ideal instrument for this all-sky survey of large-scale magnetized structures—it can scan rapidly, effectively ‘painting’ a map of the polarized sky in just six months,” she says. “Having the 15m so close to UBCO allowed students to contribute to hands-on testing in preparation for the survey.”
UBCO students analyzed “first light” signals from the instrument, developed algorithms to identify human-made radio interference and assessed the survey data quality.
The study, recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, tracks how polarized radio waves twist as they travel through the galaxy, revealing the strength, structure and direction of magnetic fields along the line of sight. This survey shows that more than half the sky contains complex magnetic structures rather than simple, uniform fields.
Dr. Landecker says the biggest surprise for the researchers was just how much of the sky is what is known as “Faraday complex”.
“With our new dataset, we can look at the polarized emission from within the galaxy itself, and we can see that the magnetic field has much more structure to it than we could detect with earlier observation methods,” says Dr. Landecker, who is also the leader of a larger effort to map magnetic fields in three dimensions and an astronomer emeritus at DRAO.
“DRAGONS is like a compass, telling us how matter and magnetic fields in the galaxy are organized and how the magnetic field interacts with bubbles created by supernova explosions, spiral arms and other parts of the galaxy in ways that have never been possible before.”
Magnetic fields shape how stars are formed and how galaxies evolve, explains Dr. Hill.
“For decades, we could only measure the Milky Way’s magnetic field in a very averaged, simplified way,” says Dr. Hill. “But its magnetic field is an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding how the universe and everything in it operates and came into being.”
Already, the DRAGONS data have been used in a study of the mysterious large-scale reversal in the galactic magnetic field. This latest study was led by University of Calgary doctoral student Rebecca Booth and published in an accompanying paper in The Astrophysical Journal this week. This is a good example of how the dataset will provide opportunities for continued research in this field, says Dr. Ordog.
“DRAGONS is part of a new generation of radio surveys that allow scientists to map the Milky Way’s three-dimensional magnetic field structure in the space between the stars,” she adds. “It is an important Canadian contribution to the global astronomical community.”
For centuries, astronomers have been observing celestial bodies and trying to understand the mysteries of the night sky. Dr. Jo-Anne Brown, PhD, wants to map an invisible force of the Milky Way galaxy: its magnetic field.
“Without a magnetic field, the galaxy would collapse in on itself due to gravity,” says Brown, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Calgary.
“We need to know what the magnetic field of the galaxy looks like now, so we can create accurate models that predict how it will evolve.”
This month, Brown and a team of researchers have published two papers in The Astrophysical Journal and The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. Their discoveries include a complete dataset, which will be used by astronomers globally, and a new model that will inform theories for how the magnetic field of the Milky Way evolved.
The group used a new telescope at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in B.C., a National Research Council Canada facility, to map the northern sky across different radio frequencies.
“The broad coverage really lets you get at the details about the magnetic field structure,” says Dr. Anna Ordog, PhD, and lead author of the first of the two studies.
The result is a comprehensive, high-quality dataset, captured as part of the Global Magneto-Ionic Medium Survey (GMIMS) project that maps the magnetic field of the Milky Way galaxy.
The data that was collected involved tracking an effect known as Faraday rotation.
“You can think of it like refraction. A straw in a glass of water looks bent because of how light interacts with matter,” says Rebecca Booth, a PhD candidate working with Brown and lead author of the second study. “Faraday rotation is a similar concept, but it’s electrons and magnetic fields in space interacting with radio waves.”
Booth’s work in the second study looked at a unique feature in the Milky Way galaxy — the Sagittarius Arm, which has a reversed magnetic field.
“If you could look at the galaxy from above, the overall magnetic field is going clockwise,” says Brown. “But, in the Sagittarius Arm, it’s going counterclockwise. We didn’t understand how the transition occurred. Then one day, Anna brought in some data, and I went, 'O.M.G., the reversal's diagonal!'"
Booth followed up on Ordog's discovery using the dataset.
“My work presents a new three-dimensional model for the magnetic field reversal. From Earth, this would appear as the diagonal that we observe in the data,” Booth explains.
Of the more than 4,500 stars known to have planets, one puzzling statistic stands out. Even though nearly all stars are expected to have planets and most stars form in pairs, planets that orbit both stars in a pair are rare.
Of the more than 6,000 extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, confirmed to date — most of them found by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) — only 14 are observed to orbit binary stars. There should be hundreds. Where are all the planets with two suns, like Tatooine in Star Wars?
Astrophysicists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the American University of Beirut have now proposed a reason for this dearth of circumbinary exoplanets — and Einstein’s general theory of relativity is to blame.
In most binary star systems, the stars have similar but not identical masses and orbit one another in an egg-shaped or elliptical orbit. If a planet is orbiting the pair of stars, the gravitational tugs from the stars make the planet’s orbit precess, meaning the orbital axis rotates similar to the way the axis of a spinning top rotates or precesses in Earth’s gravity.
The orbit of the binary stars also precesses, but mainly because of general relativity. Over time, tidal interactions between the binary pair shrink the orbit, which has two effects: The precession rate of the stars increases, but the precession rate of the planet slows. When the two precession rates match, or resonate, the planet’s orbit becomes wildly elongated, taking it farther from the star but also nearer at its closest approach.
“Two things can happen: Either the planet gets very, very close to the binary, suffering tidal disruption or being engulfed by one of the stars, or its orbit gets significantly perturbed by the binary to be eventually ejected from the system,” said Mohammad Farhat, a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley and first author of the paper. “In both cases, you get rid of the planet.”
That doesn’t mean that binary stars don’t have planets, he cautioned. But the only ones that survive this process are too far from the stars for us to detect with transit techniques used by Kepler and TESS.
“There are surely planets out there. It’s just that they are difficult to detect with current instruments,” said co-author Jihad Touma, a physics professor at the American University of Beirut.
Both the Kepler and TESS missions searched for exoplanets by looking for a slight dimming of a star as a planet crossed in front of it. But Kepler also found about 3,000 eclipsing binary stars, as one of the pair of stars passed in front of the other. Since about 10% of single sun-like stars were found to have massive planets, astronomers expected to see large planets around about 10% of binaries also — or some 300 stars. Instead, only 47 candidate planets around binary stars were found, and only 14 have been confirmed as transiting circumbinary planets.
None of these 14 exoplanets occur around tight binaries orbiting one another in less than about seven days.
“You have a scarcity of circumbinary planets in general and you have an absolute desert around binaries with orbital periods of seven days or less,” Farhat said. “The overwhelming majority of eclipsing binaries are tight binaries and are precisely the systems around which we most expect to find transiting circumbinary planets.”
Farhat points out that binaries have an instability zone around them in which no planet can survive. Within that zone, the three-body interactions between the two stars and the planet either expel the planet from the system or pull it close enough to merge with or be shredded by the stars. Peculiarly, 12 of the 14 known transiting exoplanets around tight binaries are just beyond the edge of the instability zone, where they apparently migrated from farther away, since planets would have a hard time forming there.
“Planets form from the bottom up, by sticking small-scale planetesimals together. But forming a planet at the edge of the instability zone would be like trying to stick snowflakes together in a hurricane,” he said.
Farhat had previously collaborated with Touma on the formation and evolution of planetary orbits in various star systems, including our own. But Touma also had an interest in the orbits of binary black holes and binary stars. He realized 10 years ago that general relativity should change how planets move around double-star systems, but he didn’t know if the effect was strong enough to matter. After digging deeper into exoplanets, however, he suggested that the subtle pushes and pulls from relativity—combined with the stars slowly spiraling closer together—might explain the mystery of the missing planets around tight binaries.
Using mathematical and computer models, Farhat and Touma found that general relativity had a dramatic effect on the fates of circumbinary planets, effectively clearing out any close-in planets. Based on their calculations, general relativistic effects would disrupt eight of every 10 exoplanets around tight binaries, and of those, 75% would be destroyed in the process.
The precession of Mercury’s orbit
Proposed by Albert Einstein in 1915, the general theory of relativity interprets gravity as a warping of the fabric of spacetime by a mass, analogous to how a person on a trampoline warps the surface and makes other objects on the trampoline fall inward. Mercury’s orbit happens to be closest to the gravitational warp of the sun and, as a result, experiences an orbital precession slightly higher than predicted by the earlier theory of gravity laid out by Isaac Newton. The general relativistic explanation for the additional precession of Mercury’s orbit more than a century ago was the first confirmation of Einstein’s theory.
The same effect comes into play when any two objects get close to one another, such as tight-knit binary stars. Binary stars likely begin their lives far apart, but as they interact with surrounding gas during the formation of their star system, it’s predicted that many pairs will move closer together over tens of millions of years. When they do, they generate tides in one another that slowly, over billions of years, shrink the orbit even more. Eventually, as they tighten to periods of around a week or less, general-relativistic precession becomes increasingly important. This makes the orbit precess, which means that the point of closest approach, or periastron, also rotates. As the stars get closer and closer, the rate of precession increases.
A circumbinary exoplanet also sees its elliptical axis precess, in this case because of the gravitational tug of the two stars — a strictly Newtonian process. However, as the binaries move closer to one another, their perturbation of the planet gradually weakens and the precession slows down.
As the orbital precession of the binary stars increases and that of the exoplanet decreases, at some point they match and enter a state of resonance. At this point, calculations show, the exoplanet’s orbit starts to elongate, taking it farther from the binary at the extreme point of its orbit but closer at periastron. When periastron enters the zone of instability, the exoplanet is either exiled to the far reaches of the system or approaches too close to the binary and is engulfed. Because this disruption occurs quickly, taking a few tens of millions of years within the multibillion-year lifetime of a star, exoplanets around tight binaries end up being very rare.
“A planet caught in resonance finds its orbit deformed to higher and higher eccentricities, precessing faster and faster while staying in tune with the orbit of the binary, which is shrinking,” Touma said. “And on the route, it encounters that instability zone around binaries, where three-body effects kick into place and gravitationally clear out the zone.”
“Just the natural way you form these tight binaries, these sub-seven-day binaries, you get rid of the planet naturally, without invoking additional disruption from a nearby star or other mechanisms,” Farhat said.
According to Touma, the same processes are likely to sweep multiple planets out of binary systems — especially those detectable by Kepler or TESS.
The researchers are employing their models to determine how general relativistic effects impact clusters of stars around pairs of supermassive black holes, and whether, in a more speculative vein, general relativity can partially explain the dearth of planets around binary pulsars — two spinning neutron stars in orbit around one another and emitting precisely timed radio pulses. This work illustrates the major role played by Einstein’s revolutionary theory of gravity even in simple systems where Newton’s gravitational laws were thought to explain everything.
“Interestingly enough, nearly a century following Einstein’s calculations, computer simulations showed how relativistic effects may have saved Mercury from chaotic diffusion out of the solar system. Here we see related effects at work disrupting planetary systems,” Touma said. “General relativity is stabilizing systems in some ways and disturbing them in other ways.”
Farhat is supported by the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science at UC Berkeley.
This artist’s concept depicts the boundary of the sun’s atmosphere that marks the point of no return for material that escapes the sun’s magnetic grasp. Deep dives through this area using NASA’s Parker Solar Probe combined with solar wind measurements from other spacecraft have allowed scientists to track the evolution of this structure throughout the solar cycle and produce a map of this previously uncharted boundary.
Using data collected by NASA's Parker Solar Probe during its closest approach to the sun, a University of Arizona-led research team has measured the dynamics and ever-changing "shell" of hot gas from where the solar wind originates.
Published in Geophysical Research Letters, the findings not only help scientists answer fundamental questions about energy and matter moving through the heliosphere – the volume of space controlled by the sun's activity – which affects not just the Earth and moon, but all planets in the solar system, reaching far into interstellar space. These effects include significant space weather events.
"One of the things that we care about as a technologically advancing society is how we are impacted by the sun, the star that we live with," saidKristopher Klein, associate professor in the U of A Lunar and Planetary Laboratory who led the research study.
For example, during a coronal mass ejection, the sun flings chunks of its atmosphere – highly energetic, charged particles – out into the solar system, where they interact with Earth's magnetic field, with varying impacts on satellites, radio communications and even the radiation airplane passengers are exposed to when they fly over the poles, Klein explained.
"If we can better understand the sun's atmosphere through which these energetic particles are moving, it improves our ability to forecast how these eruptions from the sun will actually propagate through the solar system and eventually hit and possibly impact the Earth," he said.
While the idea of the sun having an atmosphere may seem difficult to imagine, since our star is essentially a roiling ball of plasma – hot, ionized hydrogen gas – with no appreciable surface, a century of studying its properties has led to a more nuanced picture. The core, where hydrogen undergoes nuclear fusion into helium, is the furnace driving the sun's activity, causing it to constantly radiate energy out into space.
Several layers wrap around the core, with the outermost ones forming the sun's atmosphere. The photosphere, where sunspots are located, is surrounded by a thin "peel" known as the chromosphere, from which flares may sprout and that forms the blotchy "surface" one may see when looking at the sun through a telescope equipped with special filters to allow for safe viewing. The sun's outermost atmospheric layer, the corona, is a fuzzy halo of plasma hidden from view at all times by the star's intense brilliance except for brief moments during a total solar eclipse.
Launched in 2018, Parker Solar Probe has approached the sun closer than any spacecraft mission before. Orbiting the sun in a complex orbit, involving seven passes by Venus, the probe reached its first closest approach on Christmas Eve 2024, and these close approaches have allowed the science team to map the sun's "outer boundary" in a way not possible until now.
In a counterintuitive twist, as the plasma bubbles up from the sun's core, it cools from 27 million degrees to about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit in the visible photosphere, but as it fans out into the corona, it heats up again, to temperatures in excess of 2 million degrees.
The processes driving these strange dynamics involve complex interactions of the sun's charged particles with powerful magnetic fields that bend, twist and even snap back on themselves – with poorly understood details that have vexed heliophysicists to this day.
"We know there's this constant heat that's being input into the solar wind, and we want to understand what mechanisms are actually leading to that heating," Klein said. "We have made simplified models, we've run computer simulations, but by launching Parker Solar Probe, and by doing these detailed calculations of the structure of the velocity distribution of the particles, we can improve those models and calculate actually how the heating occurs at these at these extremely close distances where we have never measured before."
Before sending a robotic spacecraft capable of "kissing the sun," as the Parker team has referred to the probe's closest flyby, taking it to within 3.8 million miles above the sun's surface, researchers could only describe this heating using simple models for the charged particle distributions.
"One of the pressing questions we seek to answer is how the solar wind is heated as it is accelerated from the sun's surface," he said. "With these new measurements and calculations, we're rewriting our understanding of how energy moves through the sun's outer atmosphere."
A numerical code developed by Klein's team, dubbed Arbitrary Linear Plasma Solver, or ALPS, allowed the researchers to analyze the actual measured distribution rather than using a simplified model to determine how waves move through the plasma Parker is measuring, and – importantly – how the heating changes as the particles hurtle away from the sun. At the point of no return, where the solar wind is born, they begin to cool, but much more slowly than would be expected for a gas that is simply expanding, Klein explained – a process known as damping and yet another mystery waiting to be fully understood.
With ALPS and Parker's observations, the team can measure in detail how much energy is imparted onto the different species of charged particles in the solar wind, said Klein, explaining that this ability changes researchers' understanding of that process not just for the sun, but for all astrophysical objects involving heated plasma and magnetic fields.
"If we can understand the damping in the solar wind, we can then apply that knowledge of energy dissipation to things like interstellar gas, accretion disks around black holes, neutron stars and other astrophysical objects."
When taking the measurements for this study, the Parker Solar Probe, pictured here in an artist's impression, traveled at more than 427,000 miles per hour, making it the fastest human-made object in history.
NASA is preparing to conduct key tests before its Moon rocket can blast off from Florida - Copyright AFP Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo
NASA on Friday pushed back the earliest date that astronauts could fly to the Moon, due to forecasts of freezing temperatures at the Florida launch site.
The earliest window for the moonshot will now be February 8, two days later than originally scheduled.
NASA was preparing to conduct a key fueling test over the weekend of the 322-foot (98-meter) rocket that is on the Cape Canaveral launch pad in Florida.
But large parts of the United States are grappling with severe winter weather, with Arctic air surging across the country following a deadly winter storm.
Florida is not immune: the normally sunny state could experience its lowest temperatures in decades that are forecast to hover around freezing.
“The expected weather this weekend would violate launch conditions,” NASA said in a statement.
Weather permitting, NASA crews now are aiming to conduct their final tests Monday, after which a launch date will be determined.
The change narrows the possibility that NASA can launch their Artemis 2 team of four astronauts on their Moon flyby in February — just three days of potential windows remain in that month.
The team remains in quarantine in Houston, NASA said.
Heaters are atop the Orion capsule to ensure it stays warm, the US space agency said, and purging systems are in place and configured for the colder weather to maintain proper conditions.
NASA officials are also preparing to launch a crew to the International Space Station, a mission that is being closely coordinated as it is currently planned to happen within days of a potential Artemis 2 launch.
The next NASA crew rotation to the ISS could happen as soon as February 11, but depending on the Artemis plans, it could get delayed.
“Our teams have worked very carefully to see how we can keep moving towards launch for both missions, while at the same time making sure we avoid any major conflicts,” said Ken Bowersox, an administrator at NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, during a briefing Friday.
There’s a possibility that Crew-12 could get some overlapping space time with the Moon team, a prospect that ISS astronauts said Friday they’d enjoy.
“If we do launch before Artemis, we’ll be on board the International Space Station, and part of their flight plan actually involves a call to the ISS,” said Jessica Meir, the crew’s commander who said they’d be “excited” to have some intra-space conversation with their colleagues.
“We are all thrilled about the launch of Artemis. We are very excited to see how this will all play out.”
The Crew-12 team to ISS also includes Sophie Adenot, who will be the second Frenchwoman to fly to space.
In another noteworthy tidbit, the new February 8 window for a potential launch to the Moon falls on the same day as the highly watched Super Bowl, the National Football League championship.
That launch window would open at 11:20 pm in Florida (0420 GMT on February 9) — soon after the game would likely wrap.
