Conflict flare-ups, U.S. military activity and strategic trade shifts

Off Leash update 10 Dec

VENEZUELA •Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado was expected to accept her award in person in Norway yesterday, but she never showed up. •A Nobel official told media that Machado was "unfortunately not in Norway." That would seem to suggest she's still in Venezuela, since the hardest part of her trip would've been escaping the authoritarian regime that has banned her from traveling abroad for the past 10 years. •Separately, two U.S. F/A-18 fighter jets circled the Gulf of Venezuela for about 40 minutes yesterday, marking the closest that U.S. military aircraft have come to Venezuelan airspace since Operation Southern Sentinel began in September. •A U.S. military official said the flights were not intended to be provocative, but Nicolas Maduro's government will surely feel threatened by the proximity of U.S. jets to Venezuela's richest oil regions.

DRC •Rwanda-backed (and Rwanda-armed) M23 rebels advanced toward Uvira, which is the last major city in eastern DRC that's still under Kinshasa's control. •Around 200,000 civilians have already fled the latest round of fighting - most of which has taken place after DRC and Rwanda signed a U.S.-brokered ceasefire at the White House. •DRC's Pres. Tshisekedi explicitly blamed his Rwandan counterpart, Pres. Kagame, for the ongoing conflict: "This is a proxy war aimed at challenging our sovereignty over a highly strategic area, rich in critical minerals and economic potential that is crucial to the future of our nation." •Rwanda counter-accused DRC and Burundi of violating the truce, too, but DRC and Burundi are not sending troops SAM systems, laser guided anti tank weapons, EW jamming systems and armed drones into Rwanda like Rwanda is into DRC. •Separately, Glencore became the first company to export cobalt from DRC under the country's new quota framework. •Glencore has only exported a small test batch of cobalt and is still sitting on a massive stockpile of cobalt that it mined as a byproduct of copper extraction during the export ban and as it deciphered the new, post-ban rules. •Its cautious small test shipment - and the fact that other miners continue to stockpile instead of even testing exporting - suggests the new rules remain opaque and hard to comply with.

THAILAND AND CAMBODIA •Thai and Cambodian troops continued to clash along their shared border, sending hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing to shelters they hadn't bothered to deconstruct after the last bout of skirmishes subsided in July (which perhaps offers some insight into the low confidence the local population placed in that truce's staying power). •Both sides continue to blame the other and insist they're only acting in self defense against the other's aggressions. •So far, the casualty count has remained fairly low compared to the escalating rhetoric: Cambodia says intruding Thai soldiers have killed just six civilians this week. •Pres. Trump - who was present when Thailand and Cambodia formalized their truce in October - said he'd "have to make a phone call" today to try to revive the ceasefire.

CHINA •Pres. Trump said he would allow semiconductor giant Nvidia to export its H200 chips to "approved customers" in China who will use them to develop artificial intelligence models. •The H200 is a generation behind Nvidia's latest chips, which is probably part of why Trump felt comfortable sharing it with China. (China hawks have successfully lobbied to bar Chinese companies from using the latest U.S. chip tech.) •Another factor behind Trump's decision could be the 25% royalty the U.S. government will reportedly collect on H200 sales to Chinese customers.

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