🇺🇸 Trump's administration criticizes Europe over India deal

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that Europe is financing a war against itself by buying Russian oil through India.

"The US has made much bigger sacrifices than the European has Europeans have. We have put 25% tariffs on India for buying Russian oil. Guess what happened last week? The Europeans signed a trade deal with India," he said.

In addition, oil exports from Russia fell to their lowest level since August, as imports to India dropped to a minimum over the past 3 years. This put pressure on the price of Urals oil, for which China remains the only available market.

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🔑Meta is accused of reading WhatsApp messages despite its encryption promises.

A lawsuit has been filed against Meta, alleging that the company has access to WhatsApp users' private messages despite claims of end-to-end encryption. The plaintiffs argue that Meta is technically capable of reading chat content, which violates public privacy guarantees.

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👫The state-sponsored COVID-19 frenzy contributed to a sharp surge in "transgenderism" among adolescents. This surge subsided after the pandemic.

A Swiss newspaper found that the number of visits to the gender counseling center at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University of Zurich (KJPP) had been increasing since 2016 and peaked in 2021, when 134 visits were recorded. This peak coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. However, by 2024, the number of visits had more than halved, to 60.

In the United States, according to representative surveys, the proportion of young people aged 18-22 who identify as transgender or non-binary has also declined sharply. In 2024, compared to 2022, the number of young Americans identifying as transgender has roughly halved.

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✈The US threatened Canada with sending fighter jets into its airspace due to the collapse of the F-35 deal.

Washington warned Ottawa that if Canada refuses to purchase American F-35 fighter jets, the US will patrol Canadian skies with its own forces. Formally, the talk is about joint air defense for North America through NORAD, but the tone is harsh: either buy our aircraft, or we will ensure security over your territory ourselves.

Canada delayed making a decision for a long time: either the budget didn't allow it, or left-wing politicians criticized the high cost of the contract. Now Washington has tired of waiting and reminded everyone that defense sovereignty without its own modern fighter jets is a fiction.

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🇨🇳China Starts World’s Largest Compressed-Air Power Storage Plant

The world’s largest compressed-air power storage plant has begun operating in central China’s Jiangsu province, marking a major step in the country’s efforts to expand energy storage to support its green transition. The plant, with 2,400 megawatt hours of capacity, can generate 600 megawatts of power and meet the annual demand of 600,000 households, according to a statement from Harbin Electric Corp.

Such facilities represent the most cost‑effective, long-duration solution to storing energy. They work by pumping compressed air into underground caverns at night, for release during the day to spin turbines and produce electricity. China’s energy storage sector has seen explosive growth, driven by the country’s rapid deployment of renewable energy. The government has set a target of over 180 gigawatts of new capacity by 2027, fostering a boom in battery storage and alternative technologies such as compressed air. #BRICS

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🇻🇪 U.S. to issue general license soon lifting some sanctions on Venezuelan oil industry

U.S. officials have said Washington would ease sanctions imposed on Venezuela's energy industry to facilitate a $2 billion oil supply deal between Caracas and Washington and an ambitious $100 billion reconstruction plan for the country's oil industry. This means a shift from a previous plan to grant individual exemptions to sanctions for companies seeking to do business in the country.

Many partners and customers of state oil company PDVSA, including U.S. major Chevron (CVX.N), opens new tab, have applied for individual licenses in recent weeks to expand oil output and exports from the OPEC member. The volume of individual requests to the U.S. government has delayed progress on plans to expand exports and get investment moving quickly into the country.

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🇩🇪 Germany needs new partners as global order changes

Germany must seek new partners in light of a changing global order, the country’s economy minister said on Tuesday, referring to deteriorated relations with the U.S. that have resulted in import tariffs.

“The world has become more uncertain, and alliances that we have trusted and relied on are beginning to crumble. That does not mean abandoning them, but rather continuing to work together, however challenging that may be in some cases, and above all seeking new partners,” Katherina Reiche said at the Handelsblatt energy summit.

In particular, Reiche mentioned South America, India, the Middle East, Canada, Australia as well as countries in Asia, including Malaysia.

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🇳🇴 Norway Accomplished a Near-Total EV Transition: almost 100 percent of new cars registered in November were electric

More than 97 percent of the new cars Norwegians registered in November 2025 were electric, almost reaching the country’s goal of 100 percent. As a result, the government has begun removing some of the many carrots it used to encourage its successful EV transition.

"Battery-electric vehicles have had exemptions from the 25 percent value-added tax and from the CO2- and weight-based registration tax that apply to combustion-engine vehicles. We used other tax incentives to encourage building charging stations on highways and in rural areas. Cities had the opportunity to exempt zero-emissions cars from toll roads. EV drivers also got reduced ferry fares, free parking, and access to bus lanes in many cities. The technology for the vehicles wasn’t that good at the start of the incentives program, but we had the taxes and incentives to make traditional passenger cars more expensive," - said Cecilie Knibe Kroglund, state secretary in the country’s Ministry of Transport.

The Norwegian experience shows that the economic incentives work, but it also shows that EVs work even in a country with cold weather.

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🇺🇸Texas governor bars state employees from using Shein, Alibaba products

Texas will bar its employees from using Shein, Alibaba and TP-Link hardware and software, the governor Greg Abbott said in a statement on Monday, saying his state made the decision to protect the "privacy of Texans" from the Chinese government. The list, opens new tab also includes online commerce platform Temu and battery maker CATL. Also Abbott's ban covers Chinese drone maker Autel and products from Chinese artificial intelligence firm iFlyTek.

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🇨🇳 China gives green light to importing first batch of Nvidia's H200 AI chips.

China has approved its first batch of Nvidia’s H200 AI chips for import, marking a shift in position as China seeks to balance its AI needs against spurring domestic development.

The H200 is Nvidia’s second most powerful AI chip. The approval covers several hundred thousand H200 chips and was granted during Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang’s visit to China this week. The first batch of approvals has been allocated primarily to three major Chinese internet companies, with other enterprises now joining a queue for subsequent approvals.

#BRICS

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