Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Iran’s response to domestic protests, the Trump administration’s pressure campaign on the U.S. Federal Reserve, and allegations of genocide against Myanmar.

After two weeks of mass anti-government protests, Iran’s authoritarian regime is seeking to toe the line between escalating its bloody crackdown against the opposition and averting possible U.S. military intervention.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Iran’s response to domestic protests, the Trump administration’s pressure campaign on the U.S. Federal Reserve, and allegations of genocide against Myanmar.

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After two weeks of mass anti-government protests, Iran’s authoritarian regime is seeking to toe the line between escalating its bloody crackdown against the opposition and averting possible U.S. military intervention.

“We are not looking for war, but we are prepared for war—even more prepared than the previous war,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Monday, seemingly referring to Tehran’s 12-day conflict with Israel last June that also saw the United States launch military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Protests first ignited on Dec. 28 over Iran’s high inflation rate and plummeting currency, which trades at more than 1.4 million rial to $1. Fighting with Israel last summer drained the country’s limited financial resources, further compounding the economic hardships from years of U.S. and European sanctions.

But the start of 2026 saw the demonstrations spiral into a larger movement aimed at the Iranian regime, led by 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The government response has been brutal. In just 15 days, Iranian forces have killed nearly 600 people and detained around 10,600 others, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Although internet blackouts and cut phone lines have made exact estimates of the protests’ size and geographical spread difficult, experts suggest that the protests are the most serious domestic threat the regime has faced since mass demonstrations broke out in 2022 over the Iranian morality police’s alleged killing of 22-year-old

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