— 🇺🇸/🇮🇱 BREAKING: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has announced a multinational coalition to secure Red Sea shipping from Iran-backed Houthi attacks

According to the Pentagon, the naval coalition will consist of the following nations: United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, and Spain.

@Middle_East_Spectator

📢 🇺🇸 ⚓️ Statement from Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III on Ensuring Freedom of Navigation in the Red Sea

🔶️ The recent escalation in reckless Houthi attacks originating from Yemen threatens the free flow of commerce, endangers innocent mariners, and violates international law. The Red Sea is a critical waterway that has been essential to freedom of navigation and a major commercial corridor that facilitates international trade. Countries that seek to uphold the foundational principle of freedom of navigation must come together to tackle the challenge posed by this non-state actor launching ballistic missiles and uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) at merchant vessels from many nations lawfully transiting international waters.

🔶️ This is an international challenge that demands collective action. Therefore, today I am announcing the establishment of Operation Prosperity Guardian, an important new multinational security initiative under the umbrella of the Combined Maritime Forces and the leadership of its Task Force 153, which focuses on security in the Red Sea.

🔶️ Operation Prosperity Guardian is bringing together multiple countries to include the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain, to jointly address security challenges in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, with the goal of ensuring freedom of navigation for all countries and bolstering regional security and prosperity.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3621110/statement-from-secretary-of-defense-lloyd-j-austin-iii-on-ensuring-freedom-of-n/

🇩🇪 Germany: Far-right AfD wins first city mayoral election

Tim Lochner saw off the CDU candidate to become the far-right Alternative for Germany's first city mayor. Under the German mayoral system, some large towns have city mayors.

Initial results showed that Lochner had won 38.5% of the vote, the city stated on its website.

The far-right candidate beat out Kathrin Dollinger-Knuth (CDU), who came second with 31.4% of the vote, and Ralf Thiele, from the small Free Voters party, who got 30.1%.

🔗 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-far-right-afd-wins-first-city-mayoral-election/a-67750487

🇪🇺💉🦠 EU countries destroy €4B worth of COVID vaccines

At least 215 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines purchased by EU countries at the height of the pandemic have since been thrown away at an estimated cost to the taxpayer of €4 billion, an analysis by POLITICO reveals. And that's almost certainly an underestimate.

Since the first coronavirus vaccines were approved in late 2020, EU countries have collectively taken delivery of 1.5 billion doses (more than three for every person in Europe). Many of these now lie in landfills across the Continent.

🔗 https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-bonfire-covid-vaccines-coronavirus-waste-europe-analysis/

🇪🇺🇭🇺⚡️EU members are considering the possibility of depriving Hungary of its voting rights in order to conclude an agreement on the allocation of funds to Ukraine - FT with reference to European diplomats

🇪🇺❌🗣 European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, on X:

Today we open formal infringement proceedings against @X
:

⚠️ Suspected breach of obligations to counter #IllegalContent and #Disinformation

⚠️ Suspected breach of #Transparency obligations

⚠️ Suspected #DeceptiveDesign of user interface

#DSA

🔗 Thierry Breton

🇪🇺❌🗣 Press service of the European Commission:

The European Commission has opened formal proceedings to assess whether X may have breached the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas linked to risk management, content moderation, dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers.

On the basis of the preliminary investigation conducted so far, including on the basis of an analysis of the risk assessment report submitted by X in September, X's Transparency report published on 3 November, and X's replies to a formal request for information, which, among others, concerned the dissemination of illegal content in the context of Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel, the Commission has decided to open formal infringement proceedings against X under the Digital Services Act.

The proceedings will focus on the following areas:

🔸 The compliance with the DSA obligations related to countering the dissemination of illegal content in the EU, notably in relation to the risk assessment and mitigation measures adopted by X to counter the dissemination of illegal content in the EU, as well as the functioning of the notice and action mechanism for illegal content in the EU mandated by the DSA, including in light of X's content moderation resources.

🔸 The effectiveness of measures taken to combat information manipulation on the platform, notably the effectiveness of X's so-called ‘Community Notes' system in the EU and the effectiveness of related policies mitigating risks to civic discourse and electoral processes.

🔸 The measures taken by X to increase the transparency of its platform. The investigation concerns suspected shortcomings in giving researchers access to X's publicly accessible data as mandated by Article 40 of the DSA, as well as shortcomings in X's ads repository.

🔸 A suspected deceptive design of the user interface, notably in relation to checkmarks linked to certain subscription products, the so-called Blue checks.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_23_6709

🌡 🌍 🚢 Here is a heat map of the recent maritime incidents in The Red Sea near the Bab-el-Mandeb strait.

🔶️ Sources:
Heat map: UK MTO 2023-12-18
Mapzen terrain layer
World Bank Country outlines

📎 Radio & Nukes

📢 🇺🇸 🇮🇱 Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III Joint Press Conference With Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in Tel Aviv, Israel

🔶️ Q: And if I may, with regard to the north, Israel says, and Minister Gallant has just repeated that it will attack Lebanon if there won't be an acceptable solution that will include Hezbollah withdrawal north to the Litani River. Jake Sullivan was here last week and he was quite confident that such a solution can be achieved.

🔶️ MIN. GALLANT: I would like to reiterate what I said. I said that diplomacy is the preferred way. We are not looking for wars but we have 70,000 Israeli refugees and Hezbollah is shooting us every day since October 8, the day after Hamas launched the war against Israel.

🔶️ Therefore, in one hand, we are patient and we are looking for a diplomacy solution that will make sure that Hezbollah is not threatened Israeli civilians on the northern communities directly. On the other hand, we are preparing ourself to any situation that is needed, and if something like that happened, we will know what to do and we will prevail.

🔶️ Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III Joint Press Conference With Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in Tel Aviv, Israel

https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3621107/secretary-of-defense-lloyd-j-austin-iii-joint-press-conference-with-israeli-def/

🚢 🇾🇪 🌍 CENTCOM Statement on Red Sea Attacks

🔶️ On December 18, at approximately 9:00 (Sanaa time), there were two Houthi militant attacks against commercial shipping in the Southern Red Sea.

🔶️ The chemical/oil tanker motor vessel SWAN ATLANTIC was attacked by a one-way attack drone and an anti-ship ballistic missile launched from a Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen. The Cayman Islands flagged SWAN ATLANTIC reported impact on the vessel and requested assistance, the USS CARNEY (CCG 64), the closest U.S. warship, responded to assess damage.

🔶️ At approximately the same time, the bulk cargo ship M/V CLARA reported an explosion in the water near their location. This attack is separate from the attack on the M/V SWAN ATLANTIC. There was no request for support or report of damage.

🔶️ There were no injuries reported during either incident.

📎 CENTCOM

🚢 🇾🇪 🌍 Are the Houthis A Sea Power? | How a Not-State Actor Changed the Course of Global Shipping - Sal Mercogliano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQuec8PyZcE?feature=shared

🌋 🇮🇸 First aerial footage captured just minutes ago of the newly opened volcanic fissure near Grindavík, Iceland.

🔶️ It is estimated to be about 3 km long

📎 Nahel Belgherze

— 🇮🇷/🇾🇪 Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Muhammad Baqeri: 'We are providing advisory and intellectual assistance to the Yemeni Army (Ansarullah), and we will stand with the Yemeni people till the end'

@Middle_East_Spectator

Japan’s demographic crisis is hitting its plans to build a stronger military. The Japanese army, navy & air force have failed to reach recruitment targets for years, and the number of active personnel (~247,000) is nearly 10% lower than it was in 1990. https://t.co/Tbzaro09Wh