🇲🇽🤝🇻🇪🇻🇪 — Mexico will send diplomatic representatives to Nicolás Maduro's inauguration. Although Claudia Sheinbaum stated she would not attend personally, the decision to participate has sparked strong criticism, highlighting implicit support for the Venezuelan regime. The move has drawn attention to Mexico's stance amid widespread concerns over the legitimacy of Maduro's government.

🇸🇾💰🏦 — 🌟 Reuters | Exclusive: Syria retains 26 tons of gold reserves after Assad's fall - sources | December 16, 2024:

"DAMASCUS, Dec 16 (Reuters) - The vault of Syria's central bank holds nearly 26 tons of gold, the same amount it had at the start of its bloody civil war in 2011, even after the chaotic fall of Bashar al-Assad's despotic regime, four people familiar with the situation told Reuters.

But the country has only a small amount of foreign currency reserves in cash, the same people said.

Syria's gold reserves stood at 25.8 tons in June 2011, according to the World Gold Council, which cites the Central Bank of Syria as its data source. That is worth $2.2 billion at current market prices, according to Reuters calculations."

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⛽️🤝🇧🇬🤝🗺 — 🇪🇺 Euroactiv | Russia continues to ship oil directly to the EU despite sanctions, investigation finds | December 17, 2024:

"An investigation by Ukrainska Pravda (UP) has found that Russian oil continues to flow into the EU despite sanctions, with shipments under the flags of Liberia and Panama reaching the ports of Romania and Bulgaria, both EU and NATO members.

Nearly three years on from Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Western sanctions designed to weaken the Russian economy have failed to halt its oil exports.

Despite sanctions on Russian oil, the EU paid approximately €140 billion for oil and gas in 2022, including €80 billion for oil, according to the Financial Times. This financial support has enabled Russia to continue funding its military aggression against Ukraine."

#Sanctions

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🇨🇳🪨⚔️🌎 — 🇺🇸 The Epoch Times | China Weaponizes Rare Earth Metals | With the incoming Trump administration, the United States appears poised to rebuild its rare earths supply chain and hold the Chinese regime accountable | December 21, 2024:

"(...)

While China is vulnerable in energy and food production, REMs provide a significant advantage. China controls 60–70 percent of the world’s extraction of REMs and 90 percent of its refining capacity. Since the 1980s, China has viewed REMs as a strategic asset.

“Recognizing the strategic importance of these metals, China began heavily subsidizing its rare earth mining and processing industries. This allowed Chinese producers to undercut international competitors, driving many mining operations in the U.S., Australia, and elsewhere out of business,” reports Zimtu Capital Corporation of Canada.

Western countries, by contrast, regarded the extraction and processing of REMs as dirty, labor-intensive, and best left to other nations. Meanwhile, China prioritized this sector. “Lax environmental regulations and low labor costs gave China a cost advantage that other nations struggled to match,” Zimtu noted. While these practices drew criticism, they enabled China to dominate the market."

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🌎📊 — 🏴 ZeroHedge | Visualizing The $115 Trillion World Economy In One Chart | December 23, 2024:

"There’s nothing quite like a big chart to really get into the data. In this edition, Visual Capitalist's Pallavi Rao takes a look at the massive $115 trillion world economy in 2025, along with how it breaks down per country."

#Geoeconomics

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🇨🇳 China places massive order for kamikaze drones

A Chinese drone manufacturer has disclosed a massive government order for almost a million lightweight kamikaze drones, to be delivered by 2026.

📝 Carolina Lion: "The Chinese military just placed an order 1,000,000 -that is not a typo, one million- kamikaze drones to be delivered within a year. Coupled with China's already formidable missile arsenal that spells trouble for Taiwan."

📎 Carolina Lion

🇷🇺🇺🇦 The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is sending air defense operators to the front lines.

According to The Guardian, citing multiple sources, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (MoD) is reallocating soldiers who operate anti-air defenses to the front lines.

The troop shortage in Ukraine has reached an unprecedented level, with the average age of soldiers in the trenches being around 46 to 47 years old.

The Ukrainian MoD is likely redirecting personnel from Patriot missile batteries, which require a large number of soldiers to operate. For instance, a Patriot battery requires about 90 to 100 personnel, while an IRIS-T system can be managed with roughly half that number, and a SAMP/T system can operate with just 20 to 25 personnel.

While it is possible to reduce the number of soldiers assigned to these missile batteries, this still amounts to fewer than 500 men in total who lack combat experience and won’t be deployed to the front lines.

This situation underscores a broader political issue in Ukraine, where about 10% of police officers are fighting on the front lines, but 40,000 others men are assigned to territorial command centers, away from the fighting.

🔗 https://fxtwitter.com/pati_marins64/status/1870582501632315634

🇶🇦❌🇪🇺 Qatar vows to stop EU gas sales if fined under due diligence law

Qatar will stop shipping gas to the EU if member states strictly enforce a new law cracking down on forced labour and environmental damage, Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi told the Financial Times in an interview published on Sunday.

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, approved this year, requires larger companies operating in the European Union to check whether their supply chains use forced labour or cause environmental damage and to take action if they do. Penalties include fines of up to 5% of global turnover.

"If the case is that I lose 5% of my generated revenue by going to Europe, I will not go to Europe. I’m not bluffing, Kaabi told the newspaper, adding that "5% of generated revenue of QatarEnergy means 5% of generated revenue of the Qatar state. This is the people's money,  so I cannot lose that kind of money - and nobody would accept losing that kind of money."

Kaabi, the chief executive of state-owned QatarEnergy, has said the EU should thoroughly review the due diligence law. He has also said that his Gulf country has no concerns about U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's promise to lift a cap on liquefied natural gas exports.

Qatar, among the world's top LNG exporters, is seeking to play a larger role in Asia and Europe as competition from top supplier the United Sates increases. It plans to expand its liquefaction capacity to 142 million tons per year by 2027 from 77 million.

🔗 https://archive.ph/tkAmQ

Nissan and Honda discuss merger plans to create world’s no. 3 automaker

Japan's two giant will need to combine forces to stave off the EV competition from China

📎 Prof. Michael Tanchum

🇷🇺 Russia's naval deployment in the Mediterranean on the morning of Dec-21 as reported by OSINT.

Task force remains near Tartus, covering the Russian withdrawal as five vessels could be heading to Tartus for a seaborn evacuation.

https://russianfleetanalysis.blogspot.com/2024/12/russian-forces-in-mediterranean-wk512024.html

🇵🇰💣❗️🇺🇸 — 🇺🇸 The Wall Street Journal | White House Says Pakistan Is Developing Long-Range Missile Capable of Hitting the U.S. | U.S. revealed intelligence after Islamabad rebuffed confidential discussions about its missile program | December 23, 2024:

"WASHINGTON—Weeks before it leaves office, the Biden administration said that Pakistan is developing a long-range ballistic missile that could eventually provide nuclear-armed Islamabad with a weapon capable of striking the U.S.

The administration disclosed the intelligence about Pakistan’s secret missile activities and imposed sanctions against a state-owned entity involved in the work after repeated efforts to press its concerns in confidential channels fell short, U.S. officials said.

“The list of countries that possess both nuclear weapons and the missile capability to directly reach the U.S. homeland is very small, and they tend to be adversarial,” deputy national security adviser Jon Finer said Thursday. “So candidly, it is hard for us to see Pakistan’s actions as anything other than an emerging threat to the United States.”

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🇷🇺🛢🤝🇸🇦 — 🌟 Reuters | Saudi Arabia was top buyer of Russian fuel oil and VGO in November, LSEG data shows | December 23, 2024:

"MOSCOW, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia was the top destination for Russian sea-borne fuel oil and vacuum gasoil (VGO) exports in November, according to traders and LSEG data.

Total fuel oil and VGO exports from Russian ports last month rose by 6% from October to about 4.26 million metric tons, according to Reuters calculations based on LSEG data.

Since the European Union's full embargo on Russian oil products went into effect in February 2023, Asian countries became the main destination for Russia's fuel oil and VGO supplies."

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