US News

• The charges against journalist Max Blumenthal have been dropped. He was accused of simple assault while trying to deliver food to the Venezuelan embassy in DC. No evidence was produced of the assault, and what evidence that may have existed appears to have been deleted. Five months after delivering food to the embassy, Max was arrested and held for two days at the end of October. [Link]
• Jeff Bezos is pushing other tech companies to work with the Pentagon saying, “we are the good guys.” [Link]
• CBP reverses a plan that would have required all US citizens to be photographed leaving and entering the US. [Link]
• Many advocates for the Space Force stand to benefit from its creation. [Link]
• A Saudi air force officer training in the US shot and killed three people in a US base. A post by the Saudi suggests he carried out the attack in response to US foreign policy. [Link]

Mexico

• Trump says he will not designate Mexican cartels as terror groups. [Link]

France

• 100,000s of workers went on strike in France to protest proposed pension reforms. The French government says it will move ahead with the reforms anyway. [Link]

North Korea

• North Korea says it carried out a test at a long-range missile facility. The facility was partially deconstructed when the US and North Korea were making diplomatic progress. [Link] In response to the missile test Trump says North Korea risks losing everything and calls on Kim Jong-un to denuclearize. Trump also warned North Korea against interfering in the 2020 elections. [Link]
• A North Korean official says denuclearization is off the table in talks with the US. [Link]

Middle East

• Qatar confirms that it is in talks with Saudi Arabia to resolve the GCC dispute. [Link]
• The US and Iran exchanged prisoners. The US released an Iranian scientist who was held for violating sanctions. Iran released and American-Chinese student who was accused of espionage with little evidence. [Link]
• Masked armed men in Iraq killed at least 23 protesters. The home of influential cleric Sadr was targeted by a mortar fired from a drone. [Link]
• A US official says Iran may have been behind an attack that hit an Iraqi airbase that houses US soldiers. He did not provide evidence and admitted he was still waiting for evidence to come in. [Link]
• The Sudanese leader says his country only has 5,000 troops in Yemen, down from 15,000. [Link]

Africa 

• AFRICOM says it is concerned about Russia’s growing influence in Libya. It claims Russian air defenses downed an unarmed US down over Tripoli. The US does not believe Russia knew it was a US drown when it was downed, but does blame Russia for not returning the drone wreckage to the US. [Link]
• Al-Shabaab claims responsibility for an attack on a bus in Kenya that killed ten. [Link]