🇫🇮 🧱 🇷🇺 "Yesterday the Finnish government again extended the closed border regime with Russia for a month. So far the deadline has been moved to February 11, but with a high probability it will not end there, given the course of the Finnish authorities."

📎 Rybar Force

Taiwanese politics are becoming much more entrenched in a position which is perceived as antagonistic by Beijing.

The United States needs to move much more swiftly to reshore semiconductor and other critical technologies. There are currently semiconductor related projects under construction in: Arizona, Texas, Idaho, Florida, New York and Ohio with more plants in the works.

This domestic boom (which is bringing much needed manufacturing jobs) is a major step in the right direction, largely enabled by the CHIPs act, but it is far from enough.

Many chip manufacturers are saying the United States will need at least another decade to reshore a secure manufacturing base, and the education programs currently being built are still in the nascent stages.

The United States must decouple from Taiwan, and the only way to do this is to become more assetive in the realm of domestic industrial policy.

Policymakers must look into local content requirements, direct financing of new semiconductor projects, and even more CHIPs style funding.

American security and prosperity cannot be put at risk by remaining in the middle of an internal ethnic conflict of the Chinese nation.

🗳 🇹🇼 🇨🇳 Lai Ching-te is the winner after being supported by 29% of all registered voters.

🔹️"5.6 million out of 19.5 million."

🔹"He got 40% of the vote"

🔹"Voter turnout was 75%"

🔹"So, he was backed by 30% of all voters — 40% of 75% = 30%"

🔹"In other words, 70% of Taiwanese adults did NOT want him!"

📎 S.L. Kanthan

🇵🇸 ❌️ 🇮🇱 Scenes of Al-Qassam Mujahideen clashing with Israeli soldiers and vehicles on the outskirts of the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.

📢 🇮🇱 🇵🇸 Netanyahu:
"No one can stop us - not The Hague and not anyone else."

https://www.barrons.com/news/israel-s-netanyahu-says-no-one-will-stop-us-in-gaza-7fa8af73

⚓️ 🇺🇸 🇸🇴 Two Navy Seals are missing in the Gulf of Aden during a nighttime boarding operation according to two U.S. officials. search and rescue operations are continuing.

👤 Luis Martinez is an ABC News Senior Pentagon Reporter

📝 🇾🇪 🌍 The Houthis shifted attacks to the Gulf of Aden at the same time the Iranian Base ship Behshad shifted from its position in the Bab el Mandeb to one between Djibouti and Yemen

🏴‍☠️ 🚢 🌍 Given the current situation in the Red Sea, here is an updated graphic of events in the Bab-el-Mandeb region, visual lists vessels along with type of incidents reported by maritime security organizations in the region

🟢 more recent incidents highlighted green

📎 Damien Symon

It's a popular trend for leftist academics to deconstruct nationalism by pointing to its recency. They point to examples of empires past to show that multiculturalism has been the norm for most of history. Rome is especially popular in this regard.

But what does Rome actually tell us about race, ethnicity and politics? Was there a "Roman nationalism" modern academics have overlooked? This question is the topic of my latest Substack:

https://keithwoodspub.substack.com/p/ethnopolitics-in-the-roman-empire

⚓️ 🇺🇸 🇸🇴 Two Navy SEALs are missing after a night mission off the coast of Somalia

🔶️ The SEALs were on an interdiction mission, climbing up a vessel when one got knocked off by high waves. Under their protocol, when one SEAL is overtaken the next jumps in after them.

🔶️ Both SEALs are still missing. A search and rescue mission is underway and the waters in the Gulf of Aden, where they were operating, are warm, two of the U.S. officials said.

🔶️ The U.S. Navy has conducted regular interdiction missions, where they have intercepted weapons on ships that were bound for Houthi-controlled Yemen.

🔶️ The mission was not related to Operation Prosperity Guardian, the ongoing U.S. and international mission to provide protection to commercial vessels in the Red Sea, or the retaliatory strikes that the United States and the United Kingdom have conducted in Yemen over the past two days, the official said Saturday. It was also not related to the seizure of the oil tanker St. Nikolas by Iran, a third U.S. official said.

🔶️ Besides the defense of ships from launched drones and missiles shot from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, the U.S. military has also come to the aid of commercial ships that have been the targets of piracy.

https://apnews.com/article/navy-seals-missing-somalia-coast-boarding-mission-41a5cf55805f8aa0ff2c4d5626690529

🇺🇸 🇾🇪 🇮🇷 Biden Pushed Operation Prosperity Guardian Despite Strong Objections

🔶️ A constant throughout the discussions: The difficulty in finding an off-ramp once hostilities began.

🔶️ The meeting set in motion twelve days of diplomacy and military planning that culminated in the airstrikes on 70 Houthi targets — all while trying to avert a wider Mideast war. The pre-dawn strikes Friday followed by a follow-up strike on a radar installation a day later, were by far the most wide-ranging military action undertaken by the US since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel ignited its operation to eliminate militants in Gaza. Biden said the military action sent a “clear message.”

🔶️ In the hours that followed, the president’s national security team received no back-channel messages from Iran or the Houthis indicating a desire to deescalate. But within hours, protesters holding Palestinian and Yemeni flags had gathered in Sanaa to denounce the US and Israel. A Houthi commander said retaliation was “imminent.”

🔶️ About 24 hours later, the US followed with another strike, described as a follow-up action, against a radar installation that hadn’t been fully destroyed the night before, US officials said. It signaled Biden would not stop hitting the Houthis to degrade their capabilities even without retaliation.

https://gcaptain.com/biden-pushed-operation-prosperity-guardian-despite-objections/

👮‍♂️ 🇮🇱 🇵🇸 ‘It is a time of witch hunts in Israel’: teacher held in solitary confinement for posting concern about Gaza deaths

🔶️ Inside Israel, veteran journalists, intellectuals and rights activists say, there is little public space for dissent about the war in Gaza, even three months into an offensive that has killed 23,000 Palestinians and has no end in sight. “Make no mistake: Baruchin was used as a political tool to send a political message. The motive for his arrest was deterrence – silencing any criticism or any hint of protest against Israeli policy,” the long-established Haaretz newspaper said in an editorial.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/13/it-is-a-time-of-witch-hunts-in-israel-teacher-held-in-solitary-confinement-for-posting-concern-about-gaza-deaths

📢 🇺🇸 🇮🇳 Donald Trump on Truth Social:

🔶️ "Vivek started his campaign as a great supporter, “the best President in generations,” etc. Unfortunately, now all he does is disguise his support in the form of deceitful campaign tricks. Very sly, but a vote for Vivek is a vote for the “other side” — don’t get duped by this. Vote for “TRUMP,” don’t waste your vote! Vivek is not MAGA. The Biden Indictments against his Political Opponent will never be allowed in this Country, they are already beginning to fall! MAGA!!!"

https://archive.ph/OVaCU

📎 Donald J. Trump

🇪🇺 EU’s energy security drive may have gone too far

Europe may have overplayed its energy security strategy. President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 attack on Ukraine exposed the European Union’s heavy dependence on cheap gas imported from Russia, chiefly via pipelines. To address the imbalance, the bloc rushed to add facilities to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) by sea from friendlier nations. But with renewable power set to depress fossil fuel demand, some of the newly built infrastructure risks becoming redundant.

Drastically cutting reliance on Moscow’s fuel, as EU nations agreed to do in March 2022, called for a Plan B. After identifying LNG as a key part of the energy mix, Europe rushed to upscale its capacity to turn billions of cubic metres of LNG imports, chiefly from the United States, back into a usable gaseous form.

By and large, this has been a success. Putin’s gamble that the EU would crack and collapse under the costly challenge of keeping its population warm and its factories open did not work. Between the start of the war and August 2023, the 27-nation bloc added six LNG terminals to its pre-existing network of around 20 regasification facilities and expanded one French site, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis’ (IEEFA) LNG tracker. That has added 36.5 bcm of regasification capacity. The rush to secure sufficient gas means the EU may end up with 19 more LNG terminals in 2030 than in 2022.

Even so, something in Europe’s energy security strategy is starting to look out of place. If all projects under construction are finalised, the EU’s LNG import capacity could balloon to nearly 350 bcm by the end of the decade, from just 160 bcm in 2021, according to forecasts from research firm Rystad Energy. Yet the bloc’s total gas demand is set to fall to 340 bcm by then, down 19% from 2021. That means Europe’s projected 2030 LNG capacity would be higher than all the gas the bloc may need.

All this is despite the fact that the region is likely to continue to rely on pipeline imports from Norway, North Africa and Azerbaijan for the bulk of its gas requirements, and also on some local production. The gap between local European production and pipeline imports versus estimated demand is forecast to be around 190 bcm by 2030, data published in the Shell LNG Outlook 2023 that also include Britain show. That is likely to be filled with LNG imports, but is only half the region’s projected regasification capacity.

🔗 https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/eus-energy-security-drive-may-have-gone-too-far-2024-01-11/

🏴‍☠️ 🇪🇷 🚢 UKMTO has received a report of an approach, involving 2 small boats, 23NM North West of Assab, Eritrea. The two small boats approached and hailed a merchant vessel attempting to get them to change course. Merchant vessel maintained course, post reassurance from authorities. The two small boats have now left the vicinity. Vessel and crew are safe.

📎 UKMTO

The Texas national guard has taken the border at Eagle Pass and has been using riot shields to try to block invaders. It's a step in the right direction, but it isn't nearly enough.

@TheWesternChauvinist7