NEWS SUMMARY-INTELLIGENCE REPORT TUESDAY 12/25/2018 CHRISTMAS NEWSDUMP EDITION

(THIS SUMMARY WAS PREPARED BEFORE MIDNIGHT CHRISTMAS EVE AND COULD BE UPDATED ON CHRISTMAS MORNING)


President Trump and the First Lady taking phone calls from children as part of the "Santa Tracker" program of NORAD on Christmas Eve as Santa made his way to the USA to deliver presents.

Early elections have been called in Israel.    April 9th is the date.   Elections could have been delayed until November of next year, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the call saying its difficult to pass laws.  Netanyahu also cited recent destruction of Hezbollah tunnels at the Lebanese border as clearing the way for the new elections.

His coalition has only 61 seats in the 120 seat parliament (Knesset) after the recent departure of former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beteinu  faction.

There are plenty of factions, Right to Left, Religious to Secular in Israel, with a proportional system of representation in the parliament after a 4 percent thresh hold of votes for any political party.

An expected new entry in the upcoming election is a faction led by former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz.

More on the Israel election call here....LINK TO BREAKING NEWS POST

Turbulence on Wall Street in the shortened Christmas Eve session.   Sunday night it was revealed that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had talked to the CEO's of the top six banks getting reassurances about their liquidity after the large stock market losses last week.

The Treasury Department released word at around Noon Monday saying Mnuchin wasn't asking the banks about their liquidity when he spoke to them.

Regarding the economy President Trump tweeted Monday in part:

"The only problem our economy has is the Fed, they don't have a feel for the Market..."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average down Christmas Eve some 653 points or 2.91 percent of value as well as NASDAQ down some 140 points or 2.21 percent of value and the price of oil continued its slide finishing at 42.68 a barrel.

That should lower gas prices at the pump once we get past Christmas when prices were kept steady this year instead of being hiked (at least that was the picture here in Central PA).

A federal judge ruled Monday that North Korea should be paying over 501 million dollars to the family of student Otto Warmbier, who died after suffering a severe brain injury while detained there.

District Judge Beryl A. Howell in the District of Columbia held North Korea liable for the "torture, hostage taking and extrajudicial killing of Warmbier.   He was returned to the United States in a vegetative state in June 2017 and died later that month.

President Trump sent out a tweet Monday afternoon with a picture of him working with his team on North Korea.   Trump tweeted that he looks forward to another summit meeting with Kim Jong-un.

Actor Kevin Spacey has been charged with sexual assault in Massachusetts.  He's  accused of assaulting an 18 year old male. Spacey will appear in court for arraignment January 7th.   The incident is alleged to have occurred on Nantucket Island at a bar-restaurant in July 2016.

Spacey posted an "in character" video of himself as Frank Underwood from "House of Cards" Monday saying among other things:

"You wouldn't rush to judgements without facts"

Other men have made accusations against Spacey but none have led to criminal charges.

Pictures of an Arab princess reported missing earlier this year have been released by the government of the United Arab Emirates.

Sheikha Latifa, the daughter of Dubai's ruler, was reported to have fled the oil kingdom in March but then was snatched from a yacht off the coast of India and forcibly returned to her country.

The pictures show Sheikha Latifa alongside Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and President of Ireland.   The UAE says they were taken on December 15th.   The government statement says that Robinson was assured that the princess was "receiving the necessary care and support she requires".

A suicide bomber followed by three gunmen launched an assault on a government building in Afghanistan's capital Kabul Monday.  Latest word is that 43 were killed and 10 wounded in the attack.

The Russian reconciliation center in Syria reports that militants launched shelling attacks from the Idlib deconfliction zone in northern Syria Monday against many villages in the region and that one member of the Syrian military was wounded in the shelling.

The Russian center also reports humanitarian and reconstruction efforts underway in war-torn Syria with restoration of nearly 31,000 homes, 713 educational and 121 medical facilities in the country as of Sunday.    209 513 people are reported to have returned to Syria.

Turkey's presidential spokesman says Turkey wants to send its forces into northeastern Syria as soon as possible and will coordinate its actions with Russia.  Meanwhile, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he intends to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin soon.

The spokesman for Turkey's President Erdogan says any purchase of US Patriot missiles will not affect the country's purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system.  Ibrahim Kalin told a new conference Monday:

"The deal on the S-400 is closed.   The first systems will be supplied in October 2019."

The Russian military fired anti-ship missiles during drills in Crimea.    Various military weapons were used during the drills.  Crimea was annexed to Russia after a coup overthrew the democratically elected pro-Russian government in Ukraine in 2014.

Western nations are demanding that Crimea be returned to Ukraine.

The government in Italy is rushing through its budget after reaching a deal with the European Union on the size of the country's deficit.   The Senate approved the budget over the weekend and the House is expected to take the bill Friday going into the last weekend of the year. 

The deficit is 2.04 percent next year, instead of the 2.4 percent originally proposed.

It funds a "citizenship wage" basic income for people entering the work force as envisioned by the Five Star Movement, one of the governing parties. 

Retired government employees with large pensions will not receive increases they would normally get, a priority of The League, the other governing party.

Leader of The League, Matteo Salvini, hopes for change in the EU in the coming year.  He is in coalition with other groups including Marine Le Pen of France's National Rally for the European Parliament elections in May.

"We would ask that the press please respect our privacy and leave us to try and get through Christmas as best we can"

That's the statement from the British couple arrested and suspected, then released in connection with the drone sightings at London's Gatwick Airport.

Paul Gait and Elaine Kirk, released without charge, said "The way we were initially perceived was disgusting".

Authorities have taken security measures spending five million pounds on the effort obtaining the technology from an Israeli company.

Peter Hitchens wrote about the matter in his "Mail On Sunday" column in part:

"But all these organizations and "security" personnel can't find a way to deal with what is, in effect, a large remote-controlled toy helicopter buzzing about near the runway.....It is rather lucky that we don't actually have any serious enemies at the moment, isn't it?"

And the political establishment in the UK got a Christmas Eve message on Facebook from activist Tommy Robinson, noting his popularity on Facebook in relation to the Labor and Conservative parties:

"Merry Christmas to the establishment

This is what the traitors are really scared of!

10 or 11 times more engagement than the Tory party or Labour, and they know it.  People have had enough and I predict a political revolution is coming....2019 #UKIP #PeoplePower"

Robinson was arrested May 25th for live streaming outside a child sex abuse trial involving Muslim defendants in Leeds, England.  He was imprisoned for more than two months until he was released on appeal.  His case is being delayed by the court system as the UK goes through the Brexit turmoil that will last into April.

And tonight as Christmas arrives we remember those in prison in our own country, the men imprisoned in connection with the Bunkerville Standoff near Bundy Ranch in Nevada back in April 2014.

This was posted Christmas Eve on the "Support Greg Burleson" Facebook page:

"I cant stop thinking about our 3 guys still in prison.  Greg, Todd Engel and Jerry Delemus.  My heart breaks for them and their families.  Especially on my heart of course is Greg.  I have no idea what he is going through.  Have had no word since the middle of the month.  It breaks my heart to think what is going through his mind as he sits in his dark world.  I pray that the Lord will send him some light as He sent the light of the world in His son Jesus Christ.  Please remember Greg in your prayers"

By the way Burleson who's gone blind since his 2016 arrest is being punished by being denied visitors among other things at the Allenwood Federal Prison in Pennsylvania because he won't return to a cellblock where inmates were being raped and assaulted and he felt threatened.

Greg Burleson, Jerry Delemus and Todd Engel.    May they be set free. ….

And that's the way it really is as we enter Christmas Day December 25th, 2018.   Merry Christmas.