NEW - China iPhone ban: Many Chinese agencies and government-backed firms across the country have ordered staff to stop bringing iPhones - Bloomberg

NEW - Elon Musk in Italy: "Please don't import the woke mind virus" from America: "It divides people."

@disclosetv

JUST IN: VanEck CEO expects Bitcoin to hit new all-time highs in the next 12 months.

@WatcherGuru

While there is a surge in federated social media sites, like Bluesky and Mastodon, some technologists are hoping to take things further than this model of decentralization with fully peer-to-peer applications. Two leading projects, Spritely and Veilid, hint at what this could look like.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/meet-spritely-and-veilid

Order from chaos
https://youtube.com/shorts/GOSezO0CHss?si=W7U5p8aoeCi-SsOj

🇻🇦 Former Vatican official Angelo Becciu jailed for five-and-a-half years over corruption scandal

The charges focused on the purchasing of a showroom in London's Sloane Square formally used by Harrods, which was bought for €140m more than its market value - defrauding the Vatican.

The pope's former deputy secretary of state and nine others have been found guilty in the Vatican's biggest financial corruption scandal.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu, Vatican employees and two outside Italian brokers were among 10 defendants described by Vatican prosecutors as "actors in a rotten predatory and lucrative system".

https://news.sky.com/story/former-vatican-official-angelo-becciu-jailed-for-five-and-a-half-years-over-corruption-scandal-13031146

🇺🇸 US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION POLL

TRUMP: 48%
BIDEN: 38%

(RASMUSSEN REPORTS) ...

The Countries Pledging the Most Military Aid to Ukraine

Ukraine President Zelensky was in Washington D.C. yesterday, in an attempt to save the military aid lifeline his country's ally has continually provided since Russia's February 2022 invasion. Last week, an emergency spending bill to send more than $50 billion in new assistance to Ukraine, as well as $14 billion for Israel, was blocked by Senate Republicans.

Democrat and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned after the result that the risks of Ukraine failing to win the war were great, saying the vote was a "serious moment that will have lasting consequences for the 21st century," and that "If Ukraine falls, Putin will not stop there". Schumer added: "Western democracy will begin to enter an age of decline if we aren’t willing to defend it."

While Republicans are yet to show willingness to budge on the issue, Zelensky didn't end his trip empty handed. In a press conference last night, U.S. President Biden told reporters that he had signed "another $200m drawdown from the department of defense for Ukraine”.

As this infographic using data from the Ukraine Support Tracker by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy shows, the United States has been by far Ukraine's most important military aid partner since the war began. Looking at pledges of military aid to Ukraine between January 24, 2022 and October 31, 2023, the U.S. government committed a total of €43.9 billion.

Source: Statista

BREAKING: ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER SAYS 'WE ARE READY TO ACT AGAINST THE HOUTHIS, BUT WE ARE GIVING THE WORLD A CHANCE FIRST'. ...

🚢 🇾🇪 🌍 Amidst the maritime chaos unfolding in the Red Sea, here is a simple graphic detailing recent incidents in Bab-el-Mandeb region, this visual encapsulates current challenges faced by one of the globe's busiest shipping routes

📎 Damien Symon

🇰🇷 World’s first electromagnetic power generator that uses no fuel debuts

🔶️ One such establishment, South Korea's SEMP Research Institute, has developed cutting-edge technology – an AI Smart Electromagnetic Generator (AISEG) in collaboration with Global Solutions for Project Management.

🔶️ According to the company, AISEG is a non-rotational power generation system operating on fundamental electromagnetic principles and laws such as Biot-Savart's and Faraday's laws.

🔶️ The technology aims to revolutionize energy generation by providing constant output frequency without the need for fuel.

🔶️ The company stated: "This innovation is scalable and can be used in power plants, a house off-grid, electric vehicles with no need for recharging or refueling, ships, planes, and mobile phones. The sky is the limit."

https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/first-ai-nonrotational-power-cop28

🚢 🇺🇸 🇾🇪 Now, 4 major container lines - 1️⃣ Maersk, 2️⃣ CMA CGA Group, 3️⃣ MSC Cargo and 4️⃣ Hapag-Lloyd AG - are all avoiding the Red Sea.

🔶️ Three of these four have Dept of Defense contracts (Maritime Security Program with DOTMARAD & US_TRANSCOM) to move cargo on US flagged ships.

https://maritime-executive.com/article/msc-and-cma-cgm-suspend-red-sea-transits-as-us-and-uk-down-multiple-drones

📎 Sal Mercogliano

BREAKING - North Korea fires ballistic missile toward East Sea, South Korean military says

NORTH KOREAN MISSILE LANDS OUTSIDE JAPAN'S EEZ - NTV ...

🚢 🇾🇪 🌍 A new Suez crisis threatens the world economy

🔶️ Bab al-Mandab is a narrow strait between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula through which an estimated 12% of global trade by volume normally flows, and perhaps 30% of global container traffic. It has become a no-go zone as the Houthis, based in Yemen, attack shipping, ostensibly in support of the Palestinians in Gaza.

🔶️ The crisis has two big implications; one for the world economy and the other regarding the risks of military escalation in the Middle East as Western countries try to re-establish order. Start with the economy. Revenue from the Suez canal is a major source of income for Egypt, which is already in the midst of a financial crisis. Israel will be less affected, with only about 5% of its trade passing through Eilat, its Red Sea port. For the world economy a prolonged closure of the Suez route would raise the costs of trade as shipping is rerouted around Africa, taking more time, and insurance premiums soar. Short-term supply-chain snarls could also result from wide-scale rerouting of trade: in 2021 the Ever Given, a Taiwanese-operated ship, ran aground and blocked the canal for six days, amplifying a global supply-chain crunch. If the Red Sea security crisis is perceived to threaten shipping in the nearby Arabian Sea, through which perhaps one-third of global seaborn oil supply passes, the economic costs would be dramatically higher.

🔶️ Nonetheless, a bigger military response to the Houthi threat is now likely. A multinational task force, currently led by America’s navy, is already operating off the Yemeni coast in order to try to deter the Houthis from forcibly boarding ships—a raid was disrupted in November—or firing missiles. It includes both Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In recent weeks American, British and French warships have all intercepted Houthi drones and missiles, and America has asked Australia to send a warship, too.

🔶️ But this defensive armada has struggled to keep the crisis under control. The Houthis have demonstrated that a few drones and missiles are always likely to get through. One potential next step involves armed escorts for merchant shipping, which America used during the so-called tanker war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s. But these are resource intensive, requiring a very large number of warships, according to naval sources involved in the debate.

🔶️ The main alternative is to strike the Houthis and their arsenal directly. America and Israel have both developed plans to attack Houthi depots and launchers. America will be loth to broaden its involvement in the Middle East: the Biden administration had been focused on expanding the Red Sea task force and putting diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran. Israel does not want a new conflict: it is already facing pressure from America to wind down this phase of the Gaza war, and is concerned about Hizbullah, the Lebanese militant group, which has been firing missiles at Israel almost daily. Yet if Iran and its Houthi proxies continue attacks that keep one of the world’s major trade routes closed, escalation may be inevitable.■

https://www.economist.com/international/2023/12/16/a-new-suez-crisis-threatens-the-world-economy

https://archive.ph/70DZE