The Economist.

Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist.

I'm Rosie Bloor.

And I'm Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Tension. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Tensions between China and its near neighbors are a perennial concern.

As part of our World Ahead series, our correspondent explains what we might expect to see in the country's behavior this year, towards Taiwan, Japan and beyond.

And Nino Loredu spent a career studying plasma, that mysterious fourth phase of matter, hoping to harness it for clean fusion energy.

Our obituaries editor recounts how that effort was cut short by a long ago classmate.

First up, though.

The unrest in Iran started on December 28th when electronics vendors in Tehran went on strike,

protest a currency that was in free fall.

And last night, those protests grew in size significantly.

Greg Carlstrom is a Middle East correspondent for the economist.

Despite a countrywide internet shutdown, videos have emerged of huge crowds on the streets,

not only in Tehran, but in cities across the country.

Protesters chanted things like death to the Ayatollah and long-lived the Shah,

referring to the deposed monarch of Iran.

There were videos of protesters setting fires in city centers,

attempting to break into government buildings in provincial cities.

These are not the biggest protests we've seen in Iran, but they do seem like the largest ones since 2022.

And they come at a moment when the Iranian regime looks more fragile than ever.

...