Iran's Government Offers Dialogue As Protests Spread To Universities

Political

Summary:

Protests over Iran's soaring cost of living spread to several universities on Tuesday, with students joining shopkeepers and bazaar merchants, semi-official media reported, as the government offered dialogue with demonstrators.

● Leadership acknowledges protests stem from economic pressure, promises monetary reforms

● Iranian rial hits record low under Western sanctions impact

● Previous protests drew violent crackdowns, widespread arrests

Iran's rial currency has lost nearly half its value against the dollar in 2025, with inflation reaching 42.5% in December in a country where unrest has repeatedly flared in recent years and which is facing U.S. sanctions and threats of Israeli strikes.

President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a social media post late on Monday that he had asked the interior minister to listen to "legitimate demands" of protesters. Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said a dialogue mechanism would be set up and include talks with protest leaders.

"We officially recognise the protests ... We hear their voices and we know that this originates from natural pressure arising from the pressure on people's livelihoods," she said on Tuesday in comments carried by state media.

PROTESTERS MARCH STREETS IN TEHRAN

Video of protests, verified by Reuters as taking place in Tehran, showed scores of people marching along a street chanting "Rest in peace Reza Shah", a reference to the founder of the royal dynasty ousted in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Footage aired on Iranian state television on Monday showed people gathered in central Tehran chanting slogans.

The semi-official Fars News Agency reported that hundreds of students held protests on Tuesday at four universities in Tehran.

On social media, some Iranians voiced support for the protests with one, Soroosh Dadkhah, saying high prices and corruption had led people "to the point of explosion" and another, Masoud Ghasemi, warning of protests spreading across the country.

Iranian authorities have quashed previous bouts of unrest that have flared over issues ranging from the economy to drought, women's rights and political freedoms, with violent security actions and widespread arrests.

The government has not said what form dialogue will take with the leaders of this week's demonstrations, the first major protests since Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran in June, which prompted widespread expressions of patriotic solidarity.

SANCTIONS HAMMER ECONOMY

Iran's economy has been in deep trouble for years after U.S. sanctions were reimposed in 2018 when U.S. President Donald Trump ended an international deal over the country's nuclear programme during his first term in office.

United Nations sanctions on the country were reimposed in September and Reuters reported in October that several high-level meetings had been held on how to avert economic collapse, circumvent sanctions and manage public anger.

Economic disparities between ordinary Iranians and the clerical and security elite, along with economic mismanagement and state corruption - reported even by state media - have fanned discontent at a time when inflation is pushing many prices beyond the means of most people.

The currency slid to 1.4 million rials to the U.S. dollar on Tuesday according to private exchange platforms, a record low after starting the year at 817,500 rials to the dollar.

Monthly annualised inflation figures have not dropped below 36.4% since the Iranian new year started in late March according to official figures.

On Monday the central bank chief resigned with Iranian media saying the government's recent economic liberalisation policies had put pressure on the open-rate rial market, where ordinary Iranians buy foreign currency. Most businesses use official currency exchanges where the rial price is supported.

In 2022, Iran was buffeted by protests across the country over price hikes, including for bread, a major staple.

Over the same period and into 2023, the country's clerical rulers faced the boldest unrest in years touched off by the death of a young Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of the morality police, who enforce strict dress codes.

Iran remains under intense international pressure, with Trump saying on Monday that he might back another round of Israeli airstrikes if Tehran resumed work on ballistic missiles or any nuclear weapons programme.

The U.S. and Israel carried out 12 days of airstrikes on Iran's military and its nuclear installations in June aimed at stopping what they believe were efforts to develop the means to build an atomic weapon.

Iran says its nuclear energy programme is entirely peaceful and that it has not tried to build a nuclear bomb.

Source: Reuters

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Adam

Commodity

Copper is on track for its biggest annual price rise in more than a decade, driven by supply disruptions, a weakening U.S. dollar, improving expectations for Chinese economic growth — and blockbuster spending on artificial intelligence.

Analysts say the red metal's rally could continue next year, particularly amid supply fears and a rapidly expanding global data center footprint.

Three-month copper prices on the London Metal Exchange (LME) traded up 1.5% at $12,405 per metric ton on Tuesday, paring recent gains after notching a record high of $12,960 in the previous session.

The benchmark contract, which is up around 41% this year, is on pace for its best year since 2009, when it gained over 140% as countries emerged from the global financial crisis.

In New York, copper prices have soared more than 40% since the start of 2025, also putting it on track for its biggest annual jump since 2009, when the contract rose 137.3%.

Demand for copper is widely considered a proxy for economic health. The base metal is critically important to the energy transition ecosystem and is integral to the manufacturing of electric vehicles, power grids, and wind turbines.

Indeed, electrification, grid expansion, and data-center buildouts all require large amounts of copper for wiring, power transmission, and cooling infrastructure.

Ian Roper, commodity strategist at Astris Advisory Japan KK, singled out a global boom in AI demand as the latest driver for copper prices, with "very tight" markets likely to mean the red metal could rally even further next year.

"The story for copper of the last few years has been green energy, right? Even though China has had a huge property downturn [and] that's hit things like steel demand, iron ore prices, it's not really affected copper so much," Roper told CNBC's Dan Murphy on Dec. 23.

"Copper has been a big beneficiary of the buildout of renewable energy, EVs, and now, of course, data centers is the big growth story," he added.

AI and defense

Analysts at JPMorgan said in a research note published in late November that LME copper prices could have further room to run next year, predicting an average of $12,500 per metric ton in the second quarter.

The Wall Street bank said it expects copper to average $12,075 through 2026, citing data center demand growth as an "extremely topical" upside risk.

"All in all, we think these unique dynamics of disjointed inventory and acute supply disruptions tightening the copper market add up to a bullish set up for copper, and are enough to push prices above $12,000/mt in the first half of 2026," Gregory Shearer, head of base and precious metals strategy at JPMorgan, said in the note.

Not everyone is as bullish on the copper price outlook, however.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs Research expect copper prices to decline from their recent record highs, even as growing demand for the metal gradually pushes up prices in the longer term.

In a research note published on Dec. 11, analysts at Goldman Sachs Research said LME copper prices were poised to remain in a range of $10,000 to $11,000 as robust global demand growth from the grid and power infrastructure sector, "backed by investment in strategic sectors such as AI and defence," keeps prices from dipping below $10,000.

The analysts said they expect LME copper prices to average $10,710 in the first half of 2026. Looking much further ahead, they projected LME copper prices to climb to $15,000 in 2035, noting that this is above the consensus of industry analysts.

Source: cnbc

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Adam

Economic

When 2025 began, the average US tariff rate stood near 2.5%. That same rate now stands north of 15% after just less than a year of President Trump's second term in office.

And as the calendar flips to 2026, analysts see only limited opportunities for deescalation in the year ahead.

Trump's last major tariff move of the year came in November, when he removed tariffs on goods like coffee and cocoa, but elsewhere the president seems as intent as ever on keeping rates at current levels.

The latest calculations from the Tax Foundation find that the average applied US tariff rate is 15.8%; the Yale Budget Lab calculates an overall average effective tariff rate for consumers of 16.8%.

Both outlets note these levels mark the highest rates in at least 80 years.

Meanwhile, a Yahoo Finance review of tariff projections for 2026 saw 15% crop up again and again as a general rule of thumb when planning for tariffs in the coming year.

In other words: not a major change.

As Bloomberg Economics put it in a recent note, the global economy will now have to learn to live with American protectionism.

'You can see the end point'

In an interview that aired during the last weekend of the year on CBS News' Face the Nation, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said his team had concluded that on tariffs, things are "starting to deescalate" and that overall rates for companies that "drive more towards America ... will come down to 15%."

He quickly added that there could be major exceptions, but for many around the globe, "You can sort of see the end point here."

That 15% number was echoed in other analyses and is seen as likely to hold even with the Supreme Court currently weighing the legality of many of Trump's tariffs.

A negative ruling for Trump from the high court could be far-reaching and even require tariff refunds, but few expect it to permanently knock the White House away from its tariff focus.

As JPMorgan noted in an analysis in early December, even an adverse ruling in the Supreme Court could result in rates holding near current levels, with the administration possibly opting to "invoke Section 122 to maintain 15% tariffs for 150 days, using that period of time to work out more lasting alternatives."

Economists at Bloomberg Economics added that the Supreme Court is likely to strike down some of Trump's tariff authority, but "our base case is that these tariffs will be swiftly replaced," they wrote in a research note, adding that it is likely that tariff rates "will largely hold where they are now."

Other factors are fueling some predictions for moderate downward pressure on tariff rates in 2026, mostly around a coming election year in the US, which is expected to see Trump and Republicans under continued pressure around Americans' affordability concerns.

Yet Trump himself is signaling little appetite for major changes in his plans, posting to Truth Social Saturday that "Tariffs are creating GREAT WEALTH, and unprecedented National Security for the USA."

And as Trade Representative Jamieson Greer put it in an op-ed this past week, "2025 will be remembered as the year of the tariff." From his view, "the plan is working."

As of November, the total revenue collected for 2025 from tariffs is $236.16 billion, with revenue dipping slightly in November after the White House released its executive order that excluded items such as coffee, tea, beef, bananas, tropical fruit, and cocoa from tariffs.

2026 as the 'year of the tariff consequences'

What likely won't be available to businesses in 2026, however, will be opportunities get ahead of tariffs, either by stockpiling imports or shifting the location of some production to avoid a one-time price shock for customers.

In a recent report, Deloitte US suggested tariff rates will move "to 15% by the first quarter of 2026," but also added that "importers who built up their inventories ahead of tariffs will ultimately need to replenish those goods at tariffed rates, as domestic production has not fundamentally changed."

As longtime shipping observer John McCown, a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for Maritime Strategy, added in a LinkedIn post, "I believe 2026 will be the year of the tariff consequences."

Indeed, even with moderate deescalation possible on some goods in 2026, no notable year-end analysis foresees any sort of massive shift in Trump's tariff program.

As Terry Haines, the founder of Pangaea Policy, noted, "tariffs are here to stay."

Haines added that for investors, this might end up being a good thing because of the clarity for markets that this tactic will be the "main tool of Trump geopolitics [and] economic policy" in the coming three years.

"It increases economic policy certainty," Haines wrote, with consequences that can be managed later.

Source: finance.yahoo

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Adam

Commodity

Silver’s exceptional volatility in recent days has captured the zeitgeist — with even the likes of Elon Musk drawing attention to the metal’s ferocious rally to all-time highs.

The metal rose to a record above $84 an ounce early Monday, before promptly crashing close to $70 in thin, post-holiday trading. It was one of silver’s largest price reversals ever.

Prices remain up more than 150% this year. Now the big question is: where does silver go from here?

Here are key charts to watch in the silver market to evaluate what happens next.

Chinese Buying

Surging investor interest in China has been a key driver of silver prices in recent days. Speculators piled into the precious metal, mirroring a similar dynamic playing out in platinum. Elevated buying in the Shanghai Gold Exchange’s silver contract in December has pushed premiums to a record high, dragging other international benchmarks along.

Here’s What to Watch for Silver’s Next Move After Wild Ride Past $80_1

The blistering rally provoked the country’s only pure-play silver fund to turn away new customers last week, after repeated risk warnings went unheeded. The fund’s manager announced the unusual step Friday after multiple actions — from tighter trading rules to cautionary advice about “unsustainable” gains — failed to quell an eruption of interest fueled by social media.

ETF Inflows

Holdings in physical-backed silver exchange-traded funds have surged this year, rising by more than 150 million ounces. The total amount of metal held by the funds is still below a peak set during a Reddit-driven retail investment surge in 2021, but the inflows have been instrumental in eroding available supplies in an already tight market. Holdings in the funds have risen every month but one this year, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Here’s What to Watch for Silver’s Next Move After Wild Ride Past $80_2

Technical Indicators, Margins

Silver prices jumped more than 25% in December alone, on track for the biggest monthly increase since 2020. The speed of the gains meant some technical indicators were signaling that prices had run too far, too quickly. The metal’s relative strength index — a gauge of buying and selling momentum — has stayed above 70 for most of the past few weeks. A reading higher than 70 usually indicates that too many investors bought silver in a short period.

Here’s What to Watch for Silver’s Next Move After Wild Ride Past $80_3

Some exchanges are moving to rein in risk amid heightened volatility. The margins for some Comex silver futures contracts will be raised from Monday, according to a statement from CME Group Inc. That’s adding to headwinds since traders will need to put up more cash to keep their positions open. Some speculators won’t want to do that and will be forced to shrink or close their trades instead.

Explainer: Why Silver Has Been Surging Even More Than Gold

Options Frenzy

One indication of speculative fervor has been the level of buying for call options, both on silver futures and related ETFs. Call options, which give the buyer the ability to buy a security at a pre-determined price level, are typically seen as a cheap way to bet on market upside.

For iShares Silver Trust (SLV), the largest silver ETF, total call volume hit the highest since 2021 last week. The cost of buying calls on silver futures relative to the cost of buying equivalent puts, which protect against price declines, also jumped to historical highs in December.

Here’s What to Watch for Silver’s Next Move After Wild Ride Past $80_4

Borrowing Costs

Thanks to a tariff-related trade, much of the world’s available silver still remains in New York warehouses. Meanwhile, the market is awaiting the outcome of a US Section 232 probe into critical minerals, which could lead to levies or other trade restrictions on the metal.

The surge of metal into the US pushed the London market into a full blown squeeze in October, and borrowing costs there still remain well above their normals levels of close to zero. That helped set the stage for increased volatility and frequent price spikes.

Here’s What to Watch for Silver’s Next Move After Wild Ride Past $80_5

Catching Up With Gold

Precious metals generally have seen a surge in investment demand this year, supported by a sagging US dollar, President Donald Trump’s aggressive moves to remake global trade and threats to the Federal Reserve’s independence.

Gold was the first to rally, benefiting additionally from strong buying by global central banks. Some market watchers hold as a rule of thumb that when gold makes a decisive move, silver will eventually move twice as far in the same direction — this year, of course, they would have been right.

Many investors also track the ratio between the two commodities. After gold’s initial surge in the early months of this year, that ratio stretched above 100 to 1, signaling to some that it was time to buy the white metal. But in recent weeks, the ratio has rapidly shifted lower.

Here’s What to Watch for Silver’s Next Move After Wild Ride Past $80_6

Source: Bloomberg

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Justin

Economic

A for sale sign is shown for a residential home in Encinitas, California, U.S. July 25, 2025. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

Dec 30 (Reuters) - U.S. home prices rose in October at the slowest annual rate in more than 13 years, government data showed on Tuesday, in a sign of improving affordability in the long-struggling housing market.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency said home prices rose 1.7% from a year earlier in October after climbing by an upwardly revised 1.8% in September. That marked the smallest annual price increase since March 2012, when prices first started rising after a five-year slump triggered by the global financial crisis.

On a regional basis, annual price changes ranged from a drop of 0.7% in the lower Midwest to an increase of 5.3% in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Home price increases are now a fraction of what they were during and immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic, when widespread work-from-home policies sent the real estate market into a frenzy and sent prices spiraling higher at annual rates approaching 20%.

On a monthly basis, U.S. home prices rose 0.4% in October following a downwardly revised decline of 0.1% in September.

Source: Reuters

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Samantha Luan

Political

Economic

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

For three days, after the latest Russian air attacks on Ukraine, Olena Pazhydaieva has had no power or heat in her apartment in Vyshhorod, a satellite town 20 km (12 miles) north of Kyiv.

With night-time temperatures dipping to -3 C (27 Fahrenheit), she now spends much of the day with her six-year-old son in a shelter the size of a small shack, but with heating and power to connect the devices she needs to work.

About 20 people crowd into the building - dubbed "islet of warmth and power" on the sign outside - with mobile phones and laptops charging in order to keep working and connected.

"After the last attack, we haven't had electricity for the third day, power hasn't appeared at all, and now we're forced to work here in a shelter, where we can charge our stations, charge our laptops," Pazhydaieva said.

"It's good that there's internet. We can work. I'm not the only person here, there are many people."

Russian drone and missile attacks have long targeted energy facilities throughout Ukraine, triggering blackouts.

The latest massive attack knocked out power to 19,000 customers in Kyiv region surrounding the capital, according to Ukraine's Energy Ministry.

The shack is one of a large network of "resilience points" set up by authorities to keep people warm and able to function.

But family life without power can be complicated.

"We go to an after-school group and they usually take the kids in on holidays, too," Pazhydaieva said. "But when we went there today, we went inside, it was super cold and all the kids were wearing jackets...At least it's warm here."

Each family finds new ways to cope.

For Pazhydaieva, that means spending time at the "islet" to recharge devices and then trying to connect the water heater at home to a portable power station to keep everyone warm.

She has little faith in the U.S.-backed talks on resolving the conflict, particularly U.S. President Donald Trump's remark at a meeting on Sunday in Florida that Russian President Vladimir Putin "wants Ukraine to succeed".

"When Trump says that Putin wants prosperity for Ukraine as missiles are flying at us, somehow these two statements don't really match up," she said.

"Right now we're just observing and not much depends on us. We're doing the best we can here where we are now."

Source: Reuters

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James Whitman

Political

● UAE says it is disappointed by Saudi statement

● Saudi-backed head of Yemen's presidential council asks UAE to leave

● Saudi-led coalition pitted against UAE-backed southern separatists

● Coalition says two ships originated in UAE's Fujairah

The United Arab Emirates said on Tuesday said it was pulling out its remaining forces in Yemen after Saudi Arabia backed a call for UAE forces to leave the country within 24 hours.

The move followed a Saudi-led coalition airstrike on the southern Yemeni port of Mukalla.

The attack on what Riyadh said was a UAE-linked weapons shipment marked the most significant escalation between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to date in a widening rift between the two Gulf powers.

Once the twin pillars of regional security, the two Gulf heavyweights have seen their interests diverge on everything from oil quotas to geopolitical influence.

Declaring its national security a red line, Saudi Arabia earlier on Tuesday alleged the UAE had pressured Yemen's southern separatists to conduct military operations that had reached the kingdom's borders.

It was Riyadh's strongest language yet against the UAE in the falling-out between the neighbours, who once cooperated in a coalition against Yemen's Iran‑aligned Houthis but whose interests in Yemen have steadily grown apart in recent years.

Frictions grew inside the coalition as Abu Dhabi backed southern separatists seeking self-rule, while Riyadh kept supporting Yemen's internationally recognised government, eventually creating an open rift between the Gulf allies.

On Tuesday the coalition struck what it said was a dock used to provide foreign military support to the UAE-backed separatists. The head of Yemen's Saudi-backed presidential council gave Emirati forces an ultimatum of 24 hours to leave.

The UAE said in a statement that it had been surprised by the airstrike, and that the shipment that had been attacked did not contain weapons and was destined for Emirati forces.

Yemen's presidential council head, Rashad al-Alimi, cancelled a defence pact with the UAE, the Yemeni state news agency said, and accused the UAE in a televised speech of fuelling strife in Yemen with its support for the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC).

"Unfortunately, it has been definitively confirmed that the United Arab Emirates pressured and directed the STC to undermine and rebel against the authority of the state through military escalation," he said.

The UAE earlier stressed that "dealing with recent developments must be done responsibly and in a way that prevents escalation, based on reliable facts and existing coordination between the concerned parties."

Major stock indexes in the Gulf fell.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are both major players in the OPEC oil exporters' group, and any disagreements between the two could hamper consensus on oil output decisions.

They and six other OPEC+ members are meeting online on Sunday, and OPEC+ delegates say they will continue their current policy for no change in first-quarter production.