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🇺🇸❌🇻🇪 — The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced sanctions on seven family members and associates linked to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

🇸🇾🇺🇸⚡️ — Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in a statement after Caesar Act sanctions on Syria were lifted:

Great Syrian people, peace be upon you and God’s mercy and blessings. From Mount Qasioun, I congratulate you on the lifting of sanctions on Syria. Today marks the first day of a Syria free from sanctions, thanks to God and to your patience and sacrifices over 14 years. Deep gratitude to all who endured hardship, displacement, and loss, and to the martyrs whose sacrifices led us to this moment. This victory is crowned by the complete removal of restrictions on Syria. I extend sincere thanks to President Donald Trump, members of the U.S. Congress, and to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Prince Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and all Arab, Islamic, and European countries that supported the Syrian people. Great Syrian people, today is your day. The time of pain has ended, and the time of rebuilding has begun. Together, we will build Syria.

🎭 🇻🇪 🇺🇸 Venezuela: "Maduro is making demands that indicate he does not take U.S. threats seriously. I told politico that U.S. resolve must increase against Nicolas Maduro if we want him to search for the exits. Maduro “thinks Trump is bluffing and will eventually pull back” I said." https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2025/12/18/hawks-step-up-push-for-ground-strikes-in-venezuela-00698393 📎 Ryan Berg

🇨🇳 Arnaud Bertrand on the gentrification of China's Hainan: "This is largely being ignored but it's easily one of the biggest China news of the year. What China is doing with Hainan - a huge island (50 times the size of Singapore!) - is pretty extraordinary: they're basically making it into a completely different jurisdiction from the rest of the country, and an extremely attractive entry gate for the Chinese market. You can now import most products in the world (74% of all goods) entirely duty free into Hainan. And, if you transform the product and add 30% value locally, you can then send it to the rest of mainland China completely tariff-free. So for instance: import Australian beef into Hainan tax free. Slice it and package it for hotpot in Hainan: it can enter all mainland supermarkets duty-free. They also have insanely low corporate tax rates: 15%, lower than Hong Kong (16.5%) and Singapore (17%) or the rest of the mainland (25%). That's not all, Hainan now has different rules from the rest of China in dozens of areas: HEALTH: Basically the rule is that if a medicine or medical device is approved by regulatory agencies anywhere in the world, it can be used in Hainan - even if banned on the mainland. Which undoubtedly makes it THE place in the world with the widest range of medical treatments available. NO FIREWALL: Companies registered in Hainan can apply for unrestricted global internet access OPEN EDUCATION: Foreign universities can open campuses without a Chinese partner VISA-FREE: 86 countries get visa-free entry, probably one of the most open places in the world CAPITAL: Special accounts let money flow freely to and from overseas - normal mainland forex restrictions don't apply So they're running a pretty extraordinary "radical openness" experiment there. They're basically building a "greatest hits" of global free zones: Singapore's tax regime, Switzerland's medical access, Dubai's visa policy - all in one giant tropical island attached to the 1.4 billion people Chinese consumer market." 📎 Arnaud Bertrand

🇺🇸 🇨🇳 "My two best graduate students at Harvard, both white males, could not get jobs in the U.S. One left for Germany bad idea), the other is now in Hong Kong and is one of the leading historians of his generation. In 2020 I had a brilliant undergraduate in a tutorial who was literally the best student in his graduating class at Harvard (he won the prize 'for the student with the best academic record') who could not get into the graduate program of his choice." >#1 student at Harvard >Cannot get into grad school because he is a white man >Moves to China and is massively successful Before elite colleges get to make the argument about needing the world's smartest people when angling for student visas, first check if they're acting like they desperately need the United States' smartest people (they are not, not even close). Also obviously China hawks who are not livid about Affirmative Action kneecapping intelligent Americans and getting them poached by China are not to be taken seriously. 📎 arctotherium42

🔋🇺🇸 🇨🇳 China is dominating the worldwide race for power: China now has a record 3.75 terawatts of power generation capacity. That capacity has doubled over the last 8 years. This is nearly 3 TIMES more than the US, which has ~1.30 terawatts of capacity. Furthermore, China has 34 nuclear reactors under construction, more than the next 9 countries combined. Nearly 200 other reactors are planned or proposed. At the same time, there are currently no large commercial nuclear reactors under construction in the US. The US must act now to keep up with China. 📝 Elon Musk: "Major competitive disadvantage" 📎 KobeissiLetter

🗳 🇦🇹 📈 The cuckservatives in Austria kept saying the Freedom Party will lose with Kickl. His clear stance on re-migration and his refusal to distance himself from generational identity would "scare moderate voters away". Even some liberals within the Freedom Party kept saying this to the liberal media. Now he is at 44%. With remigration & without distancing himself. 📎 Martin Sellner

🇺🇸 🚷 Adjusted for inflation, each illegal crossing the border is $1,000,000 that whites pay for. Can’t have kids? Good news! You do and they are brown. 📎 Banana Ventures

🇺🇸 🇲🇽 The average fiscal impact of a Mexican immigrant drastically underperforms that of a White American. During the most productive period for workers, Mexicans are half as productive for the American economy as Whites. 📎 AF Post

🇺🇸 Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) ceased production of the Legend-Class National Security Cutter (NSC) for the U.S. Coast Guard earlier this year, after producing ten ships of the class, with the first ship of the new class of frigates based on the NSC likely to not be completed until 2030 or even later, due to massive ongoing delays and a backlog of ships at HII. 📎 OSINTdefender

🇸🇩 South Kordofan: ◉ The Rapid Support Forces militia has taken control of the Brno area following intense clashes with the Sudanese Armed Forces. ◉ Over the past several days, the Sudanese Air Force has carried out sustained airstrikes targeting militia positions in the Lagowa area, located near Brno. ◉ Brno is considered a key defensive line along the road connecting Kadugli and Dilling, with both cities remaining encircled as a single geographic block to date. ◉ It is highly likely that the Rapid Support Forces will attempt to advance toward the town of Al-Kuweik, north of Kadugli, in an effort to cut the road linking the two cities. The town features natural obstacles, particularly mountainous terrain, which is expected to play a significant role in any potential confrontation. 📎 VISTA

🇸🇩 Sudan: the RSF is steadily advancing towards it's next targets: the cities of Kadugli and Dilling in South Kordofan. Today the genocidaires took control of the village of Barnu. Soon they'll be within range to cut the road between the two cities. 📎 Thomas van Linge

🇦🇪🤝🇮🇱— UAE strikes $2.3 billion deal with Tel Aviv for defense systems provided by Elbit Systems This is an 8 year deal in which Elbit will provide advanced defense systems to the UAE, and speeding up normalisation while they do it.

🇸🇦 🇦🇪 Saudi Arabia is intensifying efforts to contain the UAE and its partners in the Horn of Africa, including Ethiopia and the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan. The UAE has increased arms shipments to the region throughout 2025, including to Ethiopia since November. Saudi-Emirati competition in the Horn increases the risk of horizontal escalation on both sides of the Red Sea, including Yemen. 📎 Critical Threats

☢️ 🇺🇸 New docs show the US defended plans to resume nuclear testing at a Nov. 10 CTBT meeting in Vienna, citing concerns Russia and China violated zero-yield moratoria and noting North Korea’s six nuclear tests. US says testing would begin “immediately” and transparently. https://apnews.com/article/nuclear-testing-russia-china-ctbt-north-korea-2a579544cadd0e70d8eff1c4ea285756 📎 FaytuksNetwork

🇺🇸 New Frigate will be Based on National Security Cutter, First FF(X) to be Built at Ingalls — USNI News https://news.usni.org/2025/12/19/secnav-new-frigate-will-be-based-on-national-security-cutter-first-ffx-to-be-built-at-ingalls

🇾🇪 🇸🇦 🇦🇪 As many as 20,000 Saudi-backed forces are gathering on the border of Yemen as the separatist Southern Transitional Council comes under pressure to withdraw from the huge territorial gains it has made in the last month in the vast, oil-rich governorate on Hadramaut in eastern Yemen. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, predicted a full-scale resumption of fighting in Yemen could have consequences across the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa. He urged all parties in Yemen, including external actors that “unilateral actions will not clear a path to peace, but only deepen divisions, raise the risk of wider escalation and cause further fragmentation”. The STC, in talks in the stronghold of Aden last Friday, said it would not obey a Saudi demand to withdraw its forces, which first entered Hadramaut a fortnight ago and then moved into the neighbouring governorate of al-Mahra, bordering Oman. It has also tightened its grip by sending troops into a third governorate, Abyan. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/18/saudi-backed-forces-yemen-border-separatists-stc

📢 🇺🇸 🇻🇪 Trump not ruling out war with Venezuela "I don’t rule it out, no," he told NBC News in a phone interview. But when he was pressed, he confirmed it was a possibility and said there will be additional seizures of oil tankers. Asked for a timeline, Trump replied: "It depends. If they’re foolish enough to be sailing along, they’ll be sailing along back into one of our harbors." https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-not-ruling-war-venezuela-rcna250012

🇹🇷🇷🇺⚡- BREAKING: For the second time this week a Russian drone entered Turkish airspace. A Russian Orlan-10 crashed near Izmit in the Kocaeli Province, just south of Istanbul.

🇷🇺🇺🇦⚡- BREAKING: Ukraine has struck yet another Russian shadow tanker, QENDIL, but this time in the Mediterranean. The ship has suffered critical damage – no coast guard has yet responded to provide assistance.