A classified Israeli Foreign Ministry report — circulated in mid-December among top Israeli government national security and foreign policy officials — determined that Saudi Arabia will not support the Trump administration's Middle East peace plan and won't normalize relations with Israel unless the Israeli government makes a substantive concession to the Palestinians, officials who have read the report told me.
Why it matters: The report contradicts the public line from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also Israel's foreign minister. Over the past year, Netanyahu has claimed that Israel can normalize relations with Gulf nations, including Saudi Arabia, despite the Palestinian issue.
The U.K. government canceled an $18 million contract on Saturday to ship additional goods from Europe in the event of a no-deal Brexit with Seaborne Freight, a company with no ships and no experience running a ferry business, reports the BBC.
"A shift is underway among the world’s richest young entrepreneurs. ... [The Asia-Pacific region] is home to a rise in new self-made billionaires," Bloomberg's Andrew Heathcote writes.
By the numbers: "Six of the world's 10 wealthiest self-made billionaires age 40 and under are from the Asia-Pacific region, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. ... Four are Chinese and two are Australian. ... Just three are from the U.S., which used to dominate the list."
The FBI's former deputy director Andrew McCabe writes in a new book that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein claimed he was directed to write the infamous Comey memo by President Trump, The Guardian reports.
Why it matters: The memo was used by Trump to justify his firing of former FBI Director James Comey, which subsequently triggered the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller and an investigation into potential obstruction of justice. McCabe, who was fired after the Justice Department's inspector general determined he lied under oath, also compares Trump's demands for loyalty to a mobster's: "The president and his men were trying to work me the way a criminal brigade would operate."
In a new court filing, special counsel Robert Mueller said he supports a gag order on longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone to prevent him from speaking publicly about the case, claiming there's "a substantial likelihood that extrajudicial comments by trial participants will undermine a fair trial."
Why it matters: Stone, who filed a response opposing the gag order, is a notoriously brash and theatrical political operative who frequently posts on social media about his view that the Mueller investigation is a partisan "witch hunt." Stone has pleaded not guilty on charges of lying and witness tampering, and has asked for a new judge to be assigned to his case after Judge Amy Berman Jackson warned him about inappropriately using the case as a "public relations campaign."
France today recalled its ambassador to Italy after the populist government in Rome publicly aligned itself with the protesters attempting to topple President Emmanuel Macron.
