Important Takeaways:
- As the insurgents swept across Syria in just 10 days to bring an end to the Assad family’s 50-year rule, they broke into prisons and security facilities to free political prisoners and many of the tens of thousands of people who disappeared since the conflict began back in 2011.
- Videos shared widely across social media showed dozens of prisoners running in celebration after the insurgents released them, some barefoot and others wearing little clothing. One of them screams in celebration after he finds out that the government has fallen.
- Syria’s prisons have been infamous for their harsh conditions. Torture is systematic, say human rights groups, whistleblowers, and former detainees. Secret executions have been reported at more than two dozen facilities run by Syrian intelligence, as well as at other sites.
- Syria’s feared security apparatus and prisons did not only serve to isolate Assad’s opponents, but also to instill fear among his own people said Lina Khatib, Associate Fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program at the London think tank Chatham House.
- Over the past 10 days, insurgents freed prisoners in cities including Aleppo, Homs, Hama as well as Damascus.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken credit for the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria from a speech delivered from the Golan Heights—where Israeli forces have seized territory formerly occupied by the Syrian Arab Army. “This collapse is the direct result of our forceful action,” Netanyahu declared.
- Calling the takeover of Damascus by Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a rebrand of former al-Qaeda branch al-Nusra, an “historic day for the Middle East,” Netanyahu said: “The collapse of the Assad regime, the tyranny in Damascus, offers great opportunity but also is fraught with significant dangers… [It] means that we have to take action against possible threats.”
- Chief among these is the Separation of Forces Agreement from 1974 between Israel and Syria, he said, which “collapsed” when Assad’s army “abandoned its positions.”
- “We gave the Israeli army the order to take over these positions to ensure that no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel. This is a temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found,” he claimed.
- “If we can establish neighborly relations and peaceful relations with the new forces emerging in Syria, that’s our desire. But if we do not, we will do whatever it takes to defend the State of Israel and the border of Israel,” he added.
- Israeli forces have launched a series of strikes described as “very intensive” by Israeli press sources since Assad’s ouster, devastating the country’s air defenses and supposed “strategic weapons sites.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Mike Huckabee, President-Elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be the United States’ Ambassador to Israel, stated that the chemical weapons inside of Syria cannot fall into the hands of the rebels that have now taken power and the weapons must “be destroyed, and if Israel doesn’t do it, then the rest of the world should come in and do it as well.”
- Huckabee began by saying that “we certainly have a critical national interest” in what happens in Syria, “but what we don’t have is a reason to get in the middle of two warring [factions], neither of which are good guys.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Pope Francis is preparing to unbrick and open five ‘sacred portals’ symbolizing the doorway to salvation.
- The doors are only opened once every 25 years, so may well be a little rusty.
- This year, for the first time, one of the doors will be opened in a prison, as a ‘sign inviting prisoners to look to the future with hope’, the Pope said in his bull of indiction announcing this year’s ceremony.
- The tradition dates back to 1300, and the door openings themselves follow a ritual first carried out in 1423.
- They mark ‘Jubilee’ years, a concept dating back to the Old Testament when sinners could see their sins forgiven.
- The doors in the basilicas have been bricked up from the inside. The walls will be taken down before the Pope walks through them to symbolize the beginning of the Holy Year.
- They will remain open all year for pilgrims to pass through until the Jubilee finishes on January 6, 2026.
- The pope will then be the last person to walk back through before closing them, and they will be sealed up once again.
- In Rebibbia Prison, the process will be different as it is the main door of the prison which will be used as a symbol for all prisons in the world.
- They were last opened in 2016, during an ‘extraordinary’ extra Jubilee called the Year of Mercy, having previously stayed closed since the turn of the Millennium.
- And they won’t be opened again until we go into 2050.
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Important Takeaways:
- The outgoing Biden-Harris administration gave Iran $10 billion in sanctions relief just days after Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, despite Iran’s ongoing attacks against Israel and support for terrorist organizations.
- The Washington Free Beacon reported:
- Secretary of State Antony Blinken determined on November 8 that “it is in the national security interest of the United States” to waive mandatory economic sanctions that bar Iraq from transferring upward of $10 billion to Iran in electricity import payments.
- Though the first Trump administration did green-light the same waiver—causing tension with some congressional Republicans—it narrowly tailored the waiver to restrict Iranian access to the cash. The Biden State Department tweaked the waiver last year to allow Tehran to convert the funds from Iraqi dinars to euros, then hold those euros in bank accounts based in Oman. Access to a widely traded currency like the euro enables Iran to more easily spend the cash in international markets. Under the first Trump administration, Iran had to keep the cash in an escrow account in Baghdad, making it more difficult to access.
- The Biden State Department maintains that Iran is only permitted to use the funds for humanitarian needs, including medicines and other supplies. Republican critics argue that money is fungible, meaning that Tehran will have an easier time diverting its dwindling cash reserves to its regional terror proxies, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, should it have access to the sanctioned cash for other purposes.
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Important Takeaways:
- A Chinese national has been arrested on suspicion of flying a drone to take photographs over a US Space Force base.
- Federal police arrested Yinpiao Zhou on Monday after he was allegedly caught flying a drone over the Vandenberg Space Force Base, in California.
- In a criminal complaint, the US Attorney’s Office said Mr. Zhou flew a drone over the base and took photographs on Nov 30 – the same day it launched a rocket on behalf of the National Reconnaissance Office.
- He has been accused of violating national defense aerospace, and of failing to register an aircraft as required under US law.
- The incident was the latest in a series of unauthorized drone sightings above US air bases, including two in the UK last month.
- The complaint against Mr. Zhou, filed in California, says he admitted to installing software on his drone to evade both limits on the height the device could fly at and a virtual fence around the Vandenberg base.
- The drone was allegedly in the air for 59 minutes and took photographs of SpaceX rocket pads and other sensitive areas.
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Important Takeaways:
- Russian and US diplomats say the relationship is worse than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis…
- “In the context of the increasing confrontation in Russian-American relations, which are teetering on the verge of rupture due to the fault of Washington, trips to the United States of America privately or out of official necessity are fraught with serious risks,” Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, told a news briefing.
- “We urge you to continue to refrain from trips to the United States of America and its allied satellite states, including, first of all, Canada and, with a few exceptions, European Union countries, during these holidays,” she said.
- Both Moscow and Washington say their citizens have been wrongfully imprisoned and their diplomats harassed increasingly as relations soured, though they both defend convictions by their own justice systems.
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Important Takeaways:
- A powerful two-pronged winter storm spanning nearly 2,000 miles has brought stark contrasts across the nation this week. While parts of the Northeast brace for icy conditions, the South faces the threat of torrential downpours and flash flooding.
- Travelers should anticipate significant disruptions, while residents should prepare for potential floods, severe thunderstorms, strong winds and heavy snowfall.
- Multiple rounds of heavy rain will drench the Deep South, particularly in parts of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia, according to the FOX Forecast Center. Rain totals will range from 2-3 inches, with locally higher amounts of more than 5 inches possible.
- Rounds of beneficial rain will soak the Northeast and the Interstate 95 corridor likely through the early hours of Thursday, according to the FOX Forecast Center. Areas along I-95 could receive 3-5 inches of rain.
- Wednesday is shaping up to be a washout, with an elevated risk of flash flooding along the I-95 corridor, according to the FOX Forecast Center. This rain will arrive well ahead of the advancing cold front, driven by tropical-like moisture streaming out of the Southeast.
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Important Takeaways:
- Red Flag fire warnings are expected to remain for the Malibu area along the Southern California coast into Wednesday afternoon after the Franklin Fire forced evacuation orders or warnings for 18,000 residents, including some celebrities, and more than 8,000 homes and businesses.
- Tens of thousands have lost power, and schools have had to cancel classes.
- At its peak, the wildfire that ignited Monday expanded at an alarming rate, consuming an area larger than five football fields per minute and destroying at least seven structures
- Weather conditions: Gusty winds are expected to drop below 30 mph by Wednesday afternoon. Dry conditions persist, with relative humidity below 10%, prompting the weather service to issue Red Flag warnings until 2 p.m. Wednesday. A Red Flag warning means warm temperatures, very low humidities, and stronger winds are expected to combine to produce an increased risk of fire. The Storm Prediction Center has also rated the fire risk for Southern California at level 1 of 3 for Wednesday.
- Power outages: Nearly 60,000 customers across California experienced power outages, primarily concentrated in San Diego County, where utilities implemented preventative shutdowns. Pepperdine University’s Malibu campus lost power, with some buildings relying on generator power.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Biden administration might be in its final days but that doesn’t mean the flow of lethal U.S. weaponry to Ukraine shows any sign of slowing. Far from it.
- That was confirmed Monday when an additional $725 million in military assistance, including counter-drone systems and munitions for its High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), was announced by the White House.
- AP reports it is unclear whether the munitions for the HIMARS are the coveted ATACMS — the Army Tactical Missile System — but Ukraine has been pressing for more of the longer-range missiles to strike additional targets inside Russia.
- The package also includes more of the anti-personnel land mines Ukraine seeks to slow Russian and North Korean ground forces in Russia’s Kursk region and comes on the back of the billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer funds already used to support Kiev in its fight against Russia.
- President Joe Biden has pledged to spend all of the military assistance funds Congress approved this year for Ukraine before the end of his administration on Jan. 20, which before Monday’s announcement included about $7.1 billion in weapons that would be drawn from the Pentagon’s stockpiles.
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