No Ukraine Deal, Gaza Entry Opens, South Asia Floods

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🗞️ FRONT PAGE​​

“What’s up with you?,” asks Bogotá-based daily El Espectador, reporting on tensions between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro, which have reached “a critical point.” This comes after Trump issued a warning during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday at the White House, saying that any country trafficking drugs into the U.S. could be attacked, and singling out Colombia for “making cocaine” and selling it to the U.S. Petro responded swiftly on social media, inviting the U.S. president to Colombia to participate in the destruction of cocaine laboratories, pointing out that his government had destroyed 18,400 such facilities “without missiles.”

🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• No deal in U.S.-Russia talks as NATO warns about Moscow’s long-term intentions. Marathon negotiations in Moscow on Tuesday between high-level representatives of Russia and U.S. produced no breakthrough to end the war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, on Wednesday at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, the organization’s chief Mark Rutte accused Russia of “reckless and dangerous” actions, concluding the Kremlin is “preparing for long-term confrontation.” Earlier, EU officials reached an overnight accord aimed at breaking Europe’s dependency on Russian energy supplies. 

• Israel to open key Gaza border crossing, says hostage remains don’t match. Israel on Wednesday said it will start letting Palestinians leave Gaza through a reopened border crossing, complying with a U.S.-backed ceasefire deal. This came after Israeli officials said that remains returned by militants did not match the hostages still in Gaza.

• Former EU foreign policy chief Mogherini accused of corruption. The EU’s former top diplomat Federica Mogherini and former foreign service chief Stefano Sannino are suspected of fraud and corruption in an alleged rigged procurement process, the EU’s public prosecutor said Wednesday. 

• Malaysia will resume search for MH370 more than 11 years after flight vanished. The search for the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will resume on December 30, Malaysia’s transport ministry said. The focus will be on an area in the Indian Ocean “assessed to have the highest probability of locating the aircraft.” The Boeing 777 with 239 people on board went missing in March 2014.

 • Trump calls Somalis “garbage.” U.S. President Donald Trump unleashed a xenophobic tirade Tuesday against Somali immigrants, calling them “garbage” and saying “we don’t want them in our country.” It is not the first time Trump has singled out immigrants from Africa.

 • New study finds top AI companies are failing on safety. Major artificial intelligence companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI and Meta, are falling “far short of emerging global standards” on safety. A new edition of Future of Life Institute’s AI safety index released on Wednesday found that as the race for superintelligence was accelerating, no major company had a robust strategy for controlling such advanced systems. 

• News Quiz! A New Zealand man has been charged for theft after he allegedly stole a $19,300 Fabergé egg locket in a rather unusual way at a jewelry store in Auckland. What did he do?

A. He hid it in a chocolate egg
B. He walked out wearing it
C. He slipped it in his coffee
D. He swallowed it
[Answer below]

#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS

+17%

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has found in a new survey that opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar increased by 17% compared with the previous year — hitting a 10-year peak with 53,100 hectares (about 131,200 acres) of land growing the illicit crop. The growth reaffirms the war-scarred country’s role “as the world’s known main source of illicit opium, following the continued decline of cultivation in Afghanistan,” said the UNODC in a statement on Wednesday. The report highlights that the key factor in the surge is the growing price of opium, which has reached $329 for 1kg in Myanmar — more than doubling since 2019.

📰 IN OTHER NEWS

🇺🇸 A string of political defeats, legal setbacks and economic backlash is eroding Trump’s grip on power, raising cautious hopes that America’s democratic resilience is finally reasserting itself.
— DIE ZEIT

🇻🇪 Donald Trump and Nicolas Maduro spoke on the phone, but the U.S. president gave him an ultimatum to resign and leave the country. The alternative is likely to involve military action, which would disregard international law.
— FRANCE INTER

🎙️ Alia Ibrahim is one of the Arab world’s most respected journalists and co-founder of the independent media platform Daraj. In our latest Paris Calling episode, she reflects on truth, freedom, and the resilience of Beirut — a city she calls her chosen home.
— WORLDCRUNCH