Your Monday Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/23/briefing/russia-poland-christmas.html

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Good morning.

We’re covering North Korea’s latest provocation, Russia’s shadow war against the West, and the storms that battered parts of Europe over the weekend.

North Korea has promised a “Christmas gift” to the United States if no progress is made on lifting sanctions. That may be shorthand for a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile — and it could produce a particularly dire cycle of crisis.

If the launch happens, it could signal that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, does not expect Washington to lift the crushing sanctions it has imposed on his impoverished nation anytime soon. Estimates suggest that the North has been increasing its missile arsenal since Mr. Kim met President Trump for the first time 18 months ago.

Calculus: The United States would probably respond to a launch by reverting to its old strategy of lobbying the United Nations Security Council to tighten sanctions. But Mr. Kim could coax China and Russia, which are both eager to reassert a leadership role on the North Korea issue, into loosening them instead. He may also calculate that impeachment has weakened Mr. Trump.

For years, members of a secret team of assassins, Unit 29155, operated in Europe unbeknown to Western security officials. Among other operations, it is said to have carried out an assassination attempt in Britain last year against Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy.

But the 2015 poisoning of Emilian Gebrev, an arms manufacturer in Bulgaria, helped expose the unit to Western intelligence agencies — and shed light on a campaign by the Kremlin and its operatives to eliminate Russia’s enemies abroad and to destabilize the West.

Context: As President Vladimir Putin of Russia enters his third decade in power, he is pushing to re-establish his country as a world power through an asymmetric shadow war that includes not only hacking and election interference, but also mercenary operations in Syria, Libya and Ukraine.

On a borderless internet exploding with imagery of child sexual abuse, anyone who campaigns to remove apps and websites with illicit material fights an uphill battle. That’s partly because tech companies in the United States and Europe have policies that can be used to shield criminal behavior.

One Canadian nonprofit successfully used a computer program to force images on three sites offline — but the campaign took years, partly because the sites found safe harbor in Novogara, a hosting company in the Netherlands. (The company says it complied with Dutch law.)

Go deeper: Our reporter looked at the software that child protection hotlines are using to crawl the web in search of illegal imagery.

Outbursts of racism have long disfigured soccer games in Europe, but their frequency has increased this season. To explore this alarming trend, we profiled Romelu Lukaku, a star Belgian striker who speaks out against it.

When Lukaku, whose parents were born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, played in the English Premier League, he was troubled by claims that he was not an “intelligent” player. He recently moved to Italy, where the country’s top league is plagued by racism scandals, and dealt with racist abuse on the field in his second game with his new team.

“You build a type of shell,” Lukaku told our chief soccer correspondent, Rory Smith. “I take my anger out on the field.”

Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, has become markedly more politically progressive since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. But it’s still steeped in a socially conservative culture that often relegates women to hidden or subjugated roles.

One sign of the times: Kabul’s swimming pools. Since 2011, nearly two dozen pools have opened in the city. But just two, including the one above, allow women.

Britain: Parliament voted by a wide margin on Friday to advance Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan for the country to leave the European Union next month. The details of a trade agreement with Brussels still need to be hashed out.

Energy politics: A Switzerland-based company said on Saturday that it would stop work on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, a day after President Trump signed a bill — over Berlin’s objections — that would penalize people or companies involved in the contentious Baltic Sea project.

Storms in Europe: At least nine people were killed after days of severe flooding and powerful winds swept across Spain, Portugal and southern France. Several areas remain on alert.

Spain: The European Court of Justice cleared the way on Friday for Carles Puigdemont, the former leader of Catalonia’s separatist movement, to take his seat in the European Parliament next month. The court ruled a day earlier that Spain should have released from prison Catalonia’s former deputy leader, Oriol Junqueras, so that he could take a seat in the European Parliament he won this year.

Poland: The country’s right-wing government is defying widespread protests to press ahead with sweeping new legislation to tighten controls over judges, even as the Supreme Court warns that the legislation could pave the way for the country’s exit from the European Union.

France: In a landmark ruling, a Paris court on Friday sentenced the former chief executive of France Télécom and two subordinates to four months in prison for their roles in the suicides of 35 employees in the mid-2000s.

Trump’s impeachment: Newly released emails show that the White House budget office ordered the Pentagon to suspend military aid to Ukraine about 90 minutes after President Trump had a controversial July telephone call with the country’s president. That call played a central role in the House’s decision to impeach him last week. But as Mr. Trump prepares to face trial in the Senate, he commands wide support from Republican politicians and activists, as well as many Christian conservatives.

Afghanistan: Long-delayed results from the country’s disputed September election suggest that President Ashraf Ghani is on course to win a second five-year term.

ToTok: An Emirati messaging app that has been downloaded to millions of phones in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and North America is actually a government spying tool.

Snapshot: Above, a Christmas market in Romania. While German markets are traveler favorites, this one has helped shine a light on the Transylvanian city of Sibiu, where a small German-speaking community has been around since the Middle Ages.

Ice skating in France: Some cities have canceled their outdoor skating rinks, citing concerns about the size of the carbon footprint needed to maintain them.

In memoriam: Claudine Auger, 78, the first French actress to play James Bond’s love interest. She went on to make more than 50 feature films.

What we’re listening to: The Fairfield Four’s 1992 a cappella rendition of “Last Month of the Year,” which was mentioned in an episode of CBC radio’s “The Sunday Edition” on the Christmas music of black America. “I could listen to this song all day,” tweeted our climate reporter Christopher Flavelle.

Cook: Upgrade your holiday dessert game with a delightfully fluffy golden ginger cake.

Watch: Here are the biggest breakout stars of stage and screen this year.

Smarter Living: Here are three steps you can take to protect your phone.

Journalists at The Times have long used digital security measures — encrypted communications and storage — when handling sensitive information.

But for several years, we’ve had a set of tools for readers to anonymously submit information that might be of journalistic interest to The Times.

The tools — WhatsApp, Signal, SecureDrop and encrypted email — are listed on our centralized tips page, which outlines each method’s strengths and vulnerabilities. From there, users can download the appropriate software and use it to transmit their tips to The Times. Each is rigorously vetted.

What makes a good tip? This is our guidance:

“Documentation or evidence is essential. Speculating or having a hunch does not rise to the level of a tip. A good news tip should articulate a clear and understandable issue or problem with real-world consequences. Be specific. Finally, a news tip should be newsworthy. While we agree it is unfair that your neighbor is stealing cable, we would not write a story about it.”

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Mike

Thank youTo Mark Josephson and Raillan Brooks for the break from the news. Today’s Back Story is drawn from an article by Stephen Hiltner in our “Understanding The Times” series. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S.• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is about the legislative career of former Vice President Joe Biden. • Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Langston Hughes or Maya Angelou (four letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • Noah Weiland, the writer of our Impeachment Briefing newsletter, shared how he approaches one of the biggest stories in recent memory: “Think of each day’s news narrowly, like an episode of television in a monthslong series.”