Plotting Syrian uprisings… from Russia

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2025-12-06 13:01

Weekend Briefing

From Reuters Daily Briefing

By Robert MacMillan, Reuters.com Weekend Editor

Welcome to the Weekend Briefing. Homeowners at the Hong Kong complex destroyed in a deadly fire were told – wrongly – that the contractor blamed for the blaze had a clean safety record. The U.S. had a dream World Cup draw as Mark Carney, Claudia Sheinbaum and Donald Trump met to talk trade. Brazil’s robusta coffee growers want you arabica snobs to take a second look at their beans. City Memo takes us to the heart of Manhattan. And our Culture Current interview of the week opens up the topic of open marriage.

Plotting Syrian uprisings… from Russia

Propaganda page for former Syria spy chief Kamal Hassan. Via REUTERS

Special Report: Bashar al-Assad may be largely resigned to exile in Moscow, but former loyalists who fled Syria after the dictator’s fall are spending millions of dollars on competing efforts to stir uprisings against the new government.
Middle East: The head of an armed Palestinian faction opposing Hamas died of a gunshot wound as he mediated a family dispute. It is a setback for Israel’s goals in Gaza. Israel’s military said its forces killed 40 Hamas militants who were trapped in tunnels below Rafah in the southern part of the strip.

India tries to avoid slipping on Russian oil

Caution: Vladimir Putin offered India an uninterrupted supply of Russian oil on his trip to New Delhi. Narendra Modi must balance that with India’s talks with the U.S. on trade. It wants to free itself of the tariffs that Trump imposed over those Russian oil imports, which Washington sees as Moscow’s way of funding the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine and Europe: ICC arrest warrants for Putin will remain in place even if a blanket amnesty is approved during U.S.-led peace talks, prosecutors said. Europe faces “civilizational erasure” and the EU is anti-democratic, the Trump administration said. Europeans compared it to the rhetoric of the Kremlin. Drone damage has left the Chornobyl nuclear plant’s radiation shield unable to perform its main function, the IAEA said.

Video of U.S. strike on Venezuela boat stirs concern

‘Boom, boom, boom’: Footage of the attack ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shows the final confused moments of two survivors before the U.S. military obliterated them. Did the U.S. commit a war crime? And who is responsible? “Elements within the Cuban regime” want to know what a world without Nicolas Maduro would look like, sources say.
And in the U.S.: Vaccine advisers scrapped a long-standing recommendation that all children receive the hepatitis B shot at birth. It’s a win for Robert F. Kennedy and a source of major worry for disease experts who say this will reverse decades of public-health gains.

Congo, Rwanda sign Trump-backed peace deal, keep fighting

One step, two steps: Fierce fighting continued in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo with Rwandan-backed AFC/M23 rebels, who are not bound by the agreement. Violence in northern Mozambique has displaced more than 107,000 people in the past two weeks, the U.N. said. Cameroonian opposition leader Anicet Ekane died in detention after he was arrested in October.
Insecurity: The Taliban told their neighbor Tajikistan that they were ready to tighten border security after attacks that Dushanbe said were launched from Afghan territory killed five Chinese nationals. Observers said Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentary election was efficiently run but stifled by a restrictive campaign environment. A court jailed an Azerbaijani opposition figure over an alleged coup plot.

Netflix-Warner Brothers deal will face antitrust resistance

All but guaranteed: Netflix’s $72 billion offer for Warner Bros Discovery raised criticism among Republicans who warned that the absorption of HBO Max and multiple content rights would reduce consumer choice and give Netflix too much control of the streaming market. Hollywood unions smell job cuts. Here’s how Netflix won Hollywood’s biggest prize.
Sales, suits and slashes: Newell Brands, maker of the Sharpie marker, is cutting 900 jobs. Unilever is selling its Graze snack brand to the owner of Candy Kittens. Nestlé may sell its Blue Bottle Coffee chain. San Francisco sued Kraft and Oreo-maker Mondelez over ultra-processed foods. The FCC approved AT&T’s deal to buy wireless spectrum licenses from UScellular after AT&T committed to end its DEI programs.

Before I forget…

The death toll from floods and landslides on Sumatra rose to more than 900 people.
‘We’re not trash’: Somali immigrants in Minneapolis responded to Trump’s blanket judgment of an entire people.
The director of a London airline-parts company pleaded guilty to fraudulent trading two years after safety fears linked to his company grounded airplanes worldwide.
A man who sent hundreds of abusive messages to a Jewish lawmaker in Britain was jailed for eight weeks. A Lithuanian court found the leader of a junior party in the ruling coalition government guilty of hatred against Jews.
Don’t IndiGo there. The mass cancellation of flights by India’s largest airline stranded thousands of people, and it struck at peak wedding season.
It took only a few hours for a Brazilian coach who came out of retirement to save a soccer team from relegation to apologize for homophobic comments referring to the team’s pink training shirts.
Some people think lawyers are jerks. Can 'civility oaths' help? California’s going to try them out.

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