FP’s Situation Report: Air Force runs short on drone pilots; Boko Haram transforms northern Nigeria into a living hell; U.S. economy shines among cloudy economic skies; and more news from around the world.

By David Francis with Sabine Muscat

Help Wanted: Even drones need pilots, and the Air Force is running short of them. A cornerstone of the Obama administration’s fight against the Islamic State is drone surveillance and strikes in Iraq and Syria. For years, the military has had difficulties keeping up with the vast amounts of intelligence captured by the aircraft. The Air Force has a new problem: not enough pilots to operate those drones.

FP’s Kate Brannen: “Drone pilots work 14-hour days for six days in a row…. Given the grueling workdays and widespread belief that drone operators don’t get promoted as rapidly as pilots of manned aircraft, a large number may head for the door.” More here.

More on the Islamic State below.

Boko Haram has transformed swaths of northern Nigeria into a living hell. Recent raids in the northeastern state of Borno resulted in the slaughter of 2,000 Nigerians. But President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration insists only 150 people were killed by the Islamic insurgents trying to create a caliphate in West Africa — and they’re urging the world to look away. Amnesty International used satellite technology to prove the extent of the group’s savagery.

FP’s Siobhán O’Grady: “Amnesty labeled it the most destructive attack they have documented since the group launched its violent offensive against the Nigerian government in 2009.” More here.

More on Nigeria below.

The strong U.S. dollar is expected to shine against an otherwise gloomy economic forecast at Davos. U.S. officials will arrive at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland next week with a strong dollar, a growing economy, and deficits at the lowest levels since 2007. The rest of the world? That’s another story. And the rising American tide and its all-powerful currency is making things worse.

FP’s Jamila Trindle: “Foreign businesses that borrowed in dollars … (and) sold bonds on U.S. and European markets and must now pay back bondholders in either dollars or euros — even though their own currencies are far weaker by comparison. That means it takes more Indonesian rupiahs, South African rands, and Brazilian reals to satisfy dollar payments.” More here.

More on the global economy below.

Welcome to Friday’s edition of the Situation Report, where we’ll be keeping an eye on the world during the long MLK weekend so you don’t have to.

Email me at david.francis@foreignpolicy.com to subscribe to the Situation Report and get the global security news you need to start your day. Like what you see? Tell a friend. Don’t like what you see? Tell me. And send me tips, reports, or anything else the world needs to know and I’ll try to include it. Follow me: @davidcfrancis.

Who’s Where When Today

11:45 a.m. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel speaks at the U.S. Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Summit on Joint Base Andrews. 12:20 p.m. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron hold a news conference. 1:00 p.m. Senator Mark Warner speaks at the Atlantic Council on “U.S.-India: Enhancing Ties.”

Secretary of State John Kerry, in Paris, meets French President Francois Hollande and Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.

What’s Moving Markets

The Wall Street Journal’s Neil MacLucas and Brian Blackstone on market turmoil after Switzerland’s decision to decouple its franc from the euro: “The Swiss National Bank became the first of what is expected to be a series of central banks to act in light of the European Central Bank’s anticipated launch of a new bond-buying program to boost the currency area’s sagging economic prospects.” More here.

CNBC’s Katy Barnato on the World Economic Forum warning of regional conflicts as the biggest threat to global stability: “Following Russia’s incursion into Ukraine’s Crimea region last year, and the subsequent rounds of global sanctions and counter-sanctions, experts interviewed by the Switzerland-based body voted international conflict the biggest — and most likely — danger for the next 10 years.” More here.

Bloomberg’s Grant Smith on a monthly OPEC report: “The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said it expects weaker demand for its crude this year and predicted that slumping prices will curb growth in U.S. supply.” More here.

Top Press Pack Story: Belgium

Fox News: “Dozens of terror suspects were arrested in Belgium, France, and Germany early Friday, a day after Belgian authorities said that they halted a plot to attack police officers by mere hours.” More here.

The Wall Street Journal’s Matthew Dalton on the counterterror raids: “Belgian police killed two people in a firefight on Thursday evening, disrupting what authorities called an imminent terrorist plot just a week after Islamist extremists set Europe on edge with massacres in Paris.” More here.

A European counterterrorism official tells CNN’s Jethro Mullen that the Islamic State “may have started directing European adherents in Syria and Iraq to launch attacks back in their home countries.” More here.

Paris Attacks

The New York Times’ Doreen Carvajal and Alan Cowell on France’s limits on free speech: “The French authorities are moving aggressively to rein in speech supporting terrorism, employing a new law to mete out tough prison sentences in a crackdown that is stoking a free-speech debate after last week’s attacks in Paris.” More here.

The Wall Street Journal’s Matthew Karnitschnig, Anton Troianovski, and Jenny Gross on the political ripples of the attack: “Europe’s fragile political equilibrium was shaken by the attacks perpetrated last week by France’s homegrown Islamic terrorists, which exposed a gaping divide between the continent’s native populations and immigrant communities.” More here.

The Guardian’s Kim Willsher and Ashifa Kassam on possible links to a Spanish terror cell: “One of the three Islamic fundamentalists involved in the bloody rampage, Amedy Coulibaly, was reported to have spent three days in Madrid over the new year.” More here.

Islamic State

Defense One’s Gordon Lubold reports on more personnel heading to the Middle East: “The Pentagon will deploy more than 400 U.S. military trainers and hundreds more supporting personnel to four training sites in three countries as early as March as part of a long-awaited plan to help rebel forces to stabilize Syria.” More here.

Voice of America’s Lisa Schlein on a new push for peace: “The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan De Mistura is proposing a freeze on fighting in the Syrian city of Aleppo as a first step toward re-igniting the failed Syrian peace process.” More here.

Bloomberg’s Eli Lake and Josh Rogin on the Islamic State’s psychological war on U.S. troops: “This week, Pentagon officials began calling up retired generals to let them know that their home addresses, private e-mails and other personal information had appeared in a document that was publicized globally by a group claiming to support Islamic State.” More here.

Nigeria

AFP’s Bukar Hussain on Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to the massacre site: “Jonathan spent three hours in Maiduguri, capital of Borno State, meeting with survivors of what is thought to be the worst attack in Boko Haram’s six-year insurgency.” More here.

Cuba

FP’s David Francis on loosened travel and purchasing regulations: “[T]he relaxed rules mark the latest in a slew of changes to normalize relations with Cuba that began last month with the release of former U.S. Agency for International Development contractor Alan Gross, who had been held in a Cuban prison for more than five years.” More here.

Lebanon

Writing for Foreign Policy, Susannah George on changes for Hezbollah: “The organization has become much larger, and its fighters have received the training that only involvement in a long conflict can provide.” More here.

Russia

Reuters’s Natalia Zinets on conflict in eastern Ukraine: “Fighting intensified around the international airport in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk on Thursday as pro-Russian separatists stepped up efforts to dislodge government forces.” More here.

The International Business Times’ Mark Hanrahan on the G7: “Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be invited to attend the next meeting of G7 nations, according to comments made by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will host the 2015 summit in Bavaria this June.” More here.

Iran

The Wall Street Journal’s Laurence Norman on a potential breakthrough: “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said it was possible a fresh meeting could take place between him and his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, in Paris on Friday as the two seek to inject momentum into talks on Iran’s nuclear program.” More here.

Afghanistan and Pakistan

The Express Tribune’s Zahid Gishkori on Pakistan’s anti-terror fight: “Pakistan has decided to ban the Haqqani Network, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and 10 more organisations in a move described by security analysts as a ‘paradigm shift’ in the country’s security policy.” More here.

Stars and Stripes’ Jennifer Hlad on a U.S.-built training center falling apart: “A dry fire range at the Afghan Special Police Training Center in Wardak province is disintegrating because of shoddy construction materials, the builder’s failure to meet contract requirements and insufficient oversight by U.S. officials, according to a report released Thursday by the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.” More here.

The BBC reports on clashes between protesters and police in Pakistan over Charlie Hebdo cartoons. More here.

North Korea

The Washington Post’s Ellen Nakashima on the Obama administration’s unprecedented response to the Sony hack: “‘It differed from the response to any of the numerous, significant cyber-intrusions that had occurred previously in the United States, many of them originating abroad and some of them believed to be directed by foreign powers.” More here.

In an interview with Reuters’s Stephanie Nebehay, North Korea’s envoy to the U.N. in Geneva warns that U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises could trigger a “second Korean war.” More here.

The Guardian’s Tania Branigan reports from North Korea on a mini-boom in Pyongyang: “Pyongyang is enjoying a building and consumption boom and the leadership is trying out new economic policies.” More here.

China

The Washington Times’ Miles Yu on China’s anti-corruption fight reaching the military: “China on Thursday took the rare step of publishing a list of 16 senior People’s Liberation Army officials who were purged on mostly unspecified corruption charges since the beginning of 2014.” More here.

Surveillance

The National Journal’s Justin Volz: “The Obama administration is planning to issue a series of progress updates about its efforts over the past year to reform the National Security Agency’s mass-surveillance authority, National Journal has learned.” More here.

The Huffington Post’s Ali Watkins: “Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan consulted the White House before directing agency personnel to sift through a walled-off computer drive being used by the Senate Intelligence Committee to construct its investigation of the agency’s torture program, according to a recently released report by the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General.” More here.

DoD’s Night at the Movies

From a tipster: Ret. General Wesley Clark attended a screening of The Imitation Game, a film about Alan Turing, the brilliant British cryptologist who cracks Germany’s Enigma Code, in New York City last night. He was joined by more 150 retired and active duty military members. “This movie is an important piece of history because it shows war is not only won by the soldiers, it’s also won by the smart guys who are out there thinking about it,” Clark said. “The man who this story is about, Alan Turing, was one of those guys. He had brains, he had moral courage and he had integrity.”

U.S. News and World Report’s Paul D. Shinkman on American Sniper: “SEALs have a time-honored tradition of seeking attention for their high-risk missions, despite their creed to be ‘silent professionals.’… But a growing number do not, and it may have serious repercussions among the nation’s most elite forces.” More here.

Navy

The Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock on a guilty plea by a Malaysian defense contractor: Leonard Glenn Francis “pleaded guilty Thursday to a corruption scandal of epic proportions, admitting that he bribed ‘scores’ of U.S. Navy officials with $500,000 in cash, six-figure sums for sex from prostitutes, lavish hotel stays, spa treatments, Cuban cigars, Kobe beef, Spanish suckling pigs and an array of other luxury goods.” More here.

Revolving Door

The Project On Government Oversight with new details about ties between Ashton Carter, President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, and investors: Carter “received $20,000 last year from one of the top consulting firms offering political intelligence to investors. And his wife’s investments in the defense industry may at times require him to stay on the sidelines while he serves at the Pentagon.” More here.

And finally, FP’s Elias Groll on the curious case of a second submarine in Swedish waters: “Until [Swedish daily] Dagens Nyheter revealed the operation this week, the Swedish military had kept the operation and the sighting secret.” More here.