Situation Report – Headlines

• U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said defense ministers from France and five other countries have agreed to step up the military campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. • French President Francois Hollande said that French airstrikes against the Islamic State will accelerate in coming months and that 2016 must be a “year of transition for Syria.” • Germany will extend its border controls for an indefinite period, with the goal of drastically reducing the number of refugees coming into the country, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said. • Austria announced that it will grant asylum to half as many immigrants this year as it did in 2015. • In a televised speech, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani criticized the Guardian Council’s sweeping disqualification of reformist candidates for next month’s parliamentary election and appointed Vice President Eshagh Jahangiri to work with the Council toward allowing candidates to re-enter the race. • Chinese President Xi Jinping continued his Middle East tour in Egypt today, where he signed a series of economic agreements that include infrastructure support and $1.7 billion in loans to shore up the Egyptian banking sector. • Israel is “in the final stages” of appropriating a 380-acre tract of arable land in the West Bank, near Jericho, drawing criticism from Palestinian groups, the United States, and the United Nations. • Armed militants opened fire on a security checkpoint in the Egyptian city of El-Arish, in the Sinai Peninsula, killing five policemen and wounding three soldiers; the Egyptian government is responding with airstrikes and ground operations, BBC reports. • Intra-Syrian peace talks scheduled for Jan. 25 in Geneva may be pushed back “a day or two,” but do not face a fundamental delay, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said. • A Russian Deputy Foreign Minister canceled his Jan. 22 trip to Istanbul, which would have been the first high-level visit by a Russian official to Turkey since the downing of a Russian warplane on the Turkish border two months ago. • Japan is expected to lift its sanctions on Iran on Jan. 22. • Iraq's plan to increase oil production in 2016 this year will proceed as planned, despite Iran’s return to the market, Iraqi Oil Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said. • Suspected Islamic State militants once again attacked oil installations close to Libya's Ras Lanuf terminal, setting oil tanks on fire. • Assailants shot and killed five policemen and wounded three others in an attack on a security checkpoint in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. • The number of HIV-positive patients registered in Russia has reached one million, according to Vadim Pokrovsky, the head of the Moscow-based Federal Center for Fighting AIDS. • Hundreds of protesters, many of them supporters of pro-Russian parties, have stormed Moldova's Parliament after lawmakers voted to form a new government. • Niger Delta militants have forced the shutdown of two refineries in Gbaramatu after gunmen attacked Nigerian oil and natural gas pipelines.