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🎯 China Sinochem buys rare Venezuelan oil cargo after U.S. suspends sanctions. In October, Washington suspended sanctions on Venezuela's oil and gas exports, prompting a flurry of spot trades of crude through Trafigura and Vitol. Reuters
Top Stories
🌎 Putin is trying to solve a 'trilemma' in Russia's fragile wartime economy. Behind the scenes, Vladimir Putin is trying to solve a tricky "trilemma" as the country's economy heads into 2024. Insider
🌎 Claudine Gay’s DEI Empire. Harvard’s embattled president quietly built “diversity” ideology into every facet of campus life. City Journal
🌎 Elite Clients of Busted High End Brothel Network Could Be Unmasked. Prosecutors said the Massachusetts and Virginia brothel network’s little black book read like a who’s who of the professional classes. Daily Beast
🌎 U.S. court approves settlement against Binance, firm to pay $2.7B to CFTC. Former Binance CEO CZ Zhao has been ordered to pay $150M, too. Cointelegraph
🌎 FBI posts takedown notice on AlphV ransomware group’s website. The darknet website of the AlphV/Blackcat ransomware gang was replaced by a splashpage on Tuesday announcing it had been seized by the FBI. Record
🌎 Chinese Traders and Moroccan Ports: How Russia Flouts Global Tech Bans. Using specialized e-commerce sites, secretive shipping workarounds and a constellation of middlemen, Russia has obtained the tech components it needs. NYT
🌎 A Secluded Runway, a Turkish Spymaster and No Guns: the New World of Hostage Exchanges. Washington turns to Middle East power brokers to bring prisoners home; a former U.S. Marine for a Russian drug smuggler. WSJ
🌎 Give Russia’s Frozen Assets to Ukraine Now. At the very beginning of the conflict, the U.S., the EU, the United Kingdom, and other democratic governments jointly froze more than $300B in Russian sovereign assets. Atlantic
🌎 The $10B charity no one has heard of. Eye-popping growth, fueled by the meteoric rise of cryptocurrencies and digital art assets, has prompted questions from philanthropy and tax experts. AP
🌎 Vietnam Property Tycoon Faces Trial Over $12.5B Fraud. Lan was arrested in last year along with three others, including the group’s CEO, on suspicion of appropriating trillions of dong from investors and other entities. Bloomberg
🌎 Russian banker who is under sanctions sold £15m of shares in Philip Hammond crypto firm Copper. Transaction involving Mikhail Klyukin could have attracted scrutiny from U.S. sanctions enforcer Guardian
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