Briefer News

U.S. seizes $1.2 billion stolen by North Korea.

Today's events

• North Korea crypto.

  The Justice Department seized and froze more than $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency stolen from the exchange Binance, plus the infrastructure behind a deepfake scheme that has taken $400 million.¹Nov 12 · DOJ
• U.S.–Japan seabed pact.

  Washington and Tokyo issued a joint statement on deep-sea mining, pledging to secure mineral processing capacity among trusted partners, after a working group met in Toyama on November 11 and 12.²Nov 12 · State
• Dark-web drug sweep.

  Operation TorNado, run with Europol across the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, produced 354 arrests, $234 million in seizures and 5.7 metric tons of drugs.³Nov 12 · DOJ
• Grid software flaws.

  Cyber officials published five Siemens advisories covering two critical remote-code bugs — one in the Node.js Brotli decoder, one in the PHP runtime — in grid-control and building-automation products deployed worldwide.⁴Nov 12 · CISA
• Minerals forecast.

  The Geological Survey projected world capacity to 2030 for eight minerals the U.S. mostly imports: graphite capacity grows 20%, while China still holds over 70% of graphite, silicon and tungsten supply.⁵Nov 12 · USGS
• Mexico tariff threat.

  Trump said tariffs on Mexico will be “IMMEDIATELY DOUBLED” if it does not stop the migrant caravans forming days after the midterm elections.⁶Nov 12 · WH
• Peru nuclear pact.

  State signed a civil nuclear cooperation memorandum with Peru and gave $1 million for small-reactor training, alongside $20 million to build Peru's F-16 aerial refueling capability.⁷Nov 12 · State
• Alaska crude.

  Federal forecasters put Alaskan output up 13% in 2027, at 505,000 barrels a day — the most since 2014, and the largest annual gains since the 1980s.⁸Nov 12 · EIA
• Bank capital gap.

  New York Fed researchers put the capital shortfall under a repeat of the 2008 crisis at $16.9 billion, up from $1.9 billion a year earlier, as capital ratios slipped.⁹Nov 12 · NY Fed

Allied Governments

• Russian oil blacklist.

  The UK sanctioned Slavneft, becoming the first country to hit all ten of Russia's major oil producers, along with shadow-fleet vessels, coal companies and Rosneft's Arctic Vostok Oil project.^aNov 12 · UK No.10
• Houthi arms embargo.

  The UN Security Council adopted by consensus a resolution tightening Yemen's arms embargo; a list of dual-use items feeding Houthi weapons manufacturing is still to be agreed.^bNov 12 · UK FCDO
• Mine-hunting ships.

  The Royal Navy will buy three motherships for uncrewed mine-hunters under Norway's vessel programme, a £90 million order London tied to Iran's mining of the Strait of Hormuz.^cNov 12 · UK MoD

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