🇦🇴❌🛢 Angola Quits OPEC Amid Dispute Over Oil Production Quotas.

Angola announced it’s leaving OPEC following 16 years of membership amid a dispute over oil production quotas, while the cartel tries to buoy global prices.

Luanda had rejected a reduced output limit imposed by the leaders of the cartel to reflect the country’s dwindling capacity.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-21/angola-announces-exit-from-opec-jornal-de-angola-reports?srnd=premium-europe

🇨🇿🔫❗️ — Czech Police reports that the man who opened fire in Prague has been neutralized

Local medias shared a photo showing him on the top of the building of the university

💰Bitcoin HashRate hit a new All Time High just now

🇺🇸📈❗️ — M6.3 Earthquake reported 106 km SE of Adak, Alaska

The new markets just added to Polymarket have the potential the break the Internet! 😁

https://twitter.com/Goltra/status/1737866723213402385

🇦🇷❤️💰Minister Diana Mondino confirms that Argentina now allows contracts to be executed in Bitcoin.

This is the part that changed: "The debtor has to pay the owed amount in the set currency of the contract, independently of whether that currency is legal tender in Argentina or not."

https://twitter.com/BowTiedMara/status/1737881925639958662

🇷🇺🇨🇳❌🇺🇸🇬🇧🇪🇺 — 🏴 ZeroHedge | The Red Sea Crisis Has Created Winners And Losers: The US Is A Loser, The Winners Again Are China And Russia | December 21, 2023:

"(...)

A possible explanation for the selloff is the issue of the Houthi’s crippling the world’s third busiest (after the Strait of Malacca and the Singapore Strait) shipping lane. The Red Sea handles 12% of global maritime trade and 30% of containerised trade. Given the enormity of the impact of this disruption - and the signalling value of the thus far impotent response from the USA and allies - it would be logical to deduce that stocks are finally starting to price in some margin of safety for the huge geopolitical shock that has now moved from the realm of known risk to realized risk.

(...)

The main alternative shipping route for getting goods from Asia into Europe is to traverse the Bering Strait and the Northern Sea Route, which is shorter even than going through Suez (...). The only problem is that it is almost entirely Russia-adjacent!

China also benefits from European destabilization and higher energy costs for European manufacturers who are having their lunch eaten by Chinese competitors. Those competitors already enjoy greater scale, greater state support and greater access to cheap Russian energy supplies. Watching the United States divert further naval assets into the Red Sea to underwrite the business-as-usual trade (so far with limited success) must also bring a smile to the face of any PLAN Admiral focused on the goals of Taiwan reunification and Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea."

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🇨🇳🚫🪨🤝🌐 — 🇺🇸 Bloomberg | China Bans Exports of Some Rare-Earth Processing Technologies | December 21, 2023:

"China will halt the export of a range of rare-earths technologies, adding to emerging competition with the US and other Western nations for global supplies of strategic raw materials.

The country put technology for making rare-earth metals and rare-earth magnets on a list of items can’t be transfered overseas, according to a document from the Ministry of Commerce. The move by the world’s dominant supplier of the minerals comes amid a push by Beijing’s geopolitical rivals to cut reliance on materials produced in China.

Over the past 30 years, China has built a dominant role in mining and refining rare earths, a cluster of 17 elements used in everything from wind turbines to military hardware and electric vehicles. The new rules don’t affect shipments of rare-earth products themselves, but may be intended to frustrate efforts to develop the industry outside China."

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🇺🇸🤝🍃 — US President Joe Biden has announced he's issuing a federal pardon to every American who has used marijuana in the past, including those who were never arrested or prosecuted.