I know today is Circle Back Day, but by 3 pm I decided I didn’t have the willpower to write more follow-up emails. Sorry. Europe has softened me. I’ll continue circling back Tuesday.

🕵️‍♀️ Something positive and exciting happening in 2026: The first four Nancy Drew books from 1930 have entered the public domain. 📸 I stopped by my hometown public library awhile ago to see if the shelf of Nancy Drews I read through as a middle schooler were still there. Yep, they were!

Not convinced Trump's move in Venezuela is some check on Chinese presence in Lat Am, as some analysts say. US management of its own economic relationship with China is a challenge and Chinese SOEs and companies will carry on doing biz in Venezuela like they do everywhere else.

Venezuela has massive oil reserves (estimated the largest, but also tough to extract), but this isn't just about VZ's oil. VZ threatened the entire region's oil, particularly Guyana, which also happens to be Exxon & Chevron's largest biggest newest easiest pot of oil in the world after TX Permian.

I think European leaders in failing to condemn the US invasion of Venezuela out of some fear of provoking Trump’s ire are missing the point that (a) Trump clearly doesn’t care what they think anyway, (b) Trump couldn’t hold them in more contempt anyway. /1

This is not sending a powerful message to China, which is what I’m seeing some hot takers think. The pattern here is Trump making hits on countries where US military superiority is clear (Venezuela, Iran, Nigeria). The PLA is America’s most formidable military challenger.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted that “rioters must be put in their place” after a week of protests that have shaken the Islamic Republic, likely giving security forces a green light to aggressively put down the demonstrations.

What is the mechanism to prevent Putin from taking out Zelenskyy or Xi Jinping from taking out Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te in the same way Trump has just done with Maduro? Moscow and Beijing saw Venezuela as an ally, but they’re also noting the silver lining for them here.

It’s old-fashioned to defend mainstream journalism these days but some of the most reliable reporting from people actually on the ground will be the AP and Reuters the next 24 hours. Your Substack journalist writing takes will be using frontline reporting from them.

Watching millennials on here panicking that Gen Z will have their own Iraq / Afghanistan.

Trump will be selling MAGA branded Venezuelan Peace War merch by Monday morning.

#BREAKING from me and Jennifer Jacobs - additional reporting on the strikes in Venezuela.

Government tech capacity is majorly injured. The remnant who haven't been fired are afraid to talk about real priorities like memory safety. The Trump admin is redirecting them into frivolous projects like putting LLM chat-bots into everything.

Just a reminder that our Twitter/X account has been inactive for the last year and we have zero intention of posting from it ever again for the obvious ethical reasons. It appears folk are still DM-ing us there though. E-mail us please, chums! We miss things from social media DMs so easily. Thanks!

💥 Kicking off 2026 by sharing* some music I listened to while working on YOU MUST TAKE PART IN REVOLUTION — may you find them energizing and inspirational! And I’m always looking for more music so let me know if you have recs. Fight fascism! 🔗 bit.ly/revolution-playlist

A hopeful, end-of-year and into 2026 read from @ruthbenghiat.bsky.social. On democracy and people power:

It was an amazing 2025. YOU MUST TAKE PART IN REVOLUTION by the numbers: 🌎 30 book events in 13 cities / 6 countries / 3 continents 📺 80+ media interviews, reviews, and coverage 📰 6 "best of" or recommended book lists ⭐️ 4.5 stars on Amazon, 3.8 on GoodReads 🗓️ 5 years working on this book paid off!

The geopolitical importance of the US siege of Venezuela happening in synchronicity with China’s “exercises” around Taiwan: we’re entering the era post international law, and the West is losing the war of narratives. China has a better (though false) story about Taiwan than the US about Venezuela.

“Russia makes sure that all of its friends get something nice and are well and merry.” The Russian Embassy in Kenya shared Sputnik’s AI video showing Putin dressed as Santa handing out gifts to dictators and strongmen—including a “special offer” gift from Gazprom to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

📸 You’ll find me more on Instagram these days: www.instagram.com/melissakchan

🇺🇦 Two Hong Kongers have died fighting for Ukraine, apparently around Zaporizhzhia. They are believed to be the first known Hong Kong deaths in combat in this conflict. As reported by 集誌社 / The Collective HK:

🎁 What a nice Christmas surprise to find we’ve made it to another year-end list! Thank you to @comicsjournal.bsky.social for including YOU MUST TAKE PART IN REVOLUTION! Also — in 2025 I learned to use Canva to book promo, though I def. shouldn't quit my day job. 😂

Love my whodunits during this time of year. ☃️🎄🔍 Merry Christmas Eve! 😸

I will watch this because it’s Christopher Nolan and I’m such a Homer nut I actually went to Ithaca and hiked the island on my own once. But meanwhile I suggest the understated but elegant Fiennes / Binoche version, THE RETURN. Odysseus was a king of a very modest island…

Semafor gives YOU MUST TAKE PART IN REVOLUTION an honorable mention among a list of hardcore non-fiction books for its inaugural “essential China reading list”! 💥 I love how far we’ve taken our graphic novel! Thank you!! 🔗 bit.ly/semafor-revolution

🎶🇫🇷🇩🇪 French conductor Raphaël Pichon makes his Berlin Phil debut with the stupendous Bach Mass in B Minor.

It will be hard for many European citizens not to wonder whether Belgium forced EU taxpayers to assume a multi-billion euro risk in order to protect Russian money — whatever the actual technical mechanisms of the arrangement.

LMAO Noam Chomsky doesn’t surprise me one bit. Integrity isn’t exactly a trait for someone who picks and chooses his genocides and genocide denialisms.

🎙️🪖🇺🇸 This is a totally fascinating conversation @marceldirsus.com has with @kschake.bsky.social about civil-military relations in the US. I learned a ton of new things — and it gave me a lot of hope. It's a great 40 minutes of your time, promise.

🇳🇱 It was great to go to The Hague and talk about free speech in Europe on a panel with journalists and political cartoonists! Congrats to all those recognized at the European Cartoon Awards!

🚈☀️ While talking public transport — the Los Angeles Metro is incredibly underrated and awesome. Beats driving in traffic. I use Line A a lot. It's the longest light rail line in the world (almost 100 km!), from Long Beach through Downtown LA and into the San Gabriel Valley.

🇩🇪👍 I'm all for the Berlin public transport announcements telling people to stop watching social media videos with their speakerphone on.

The United Kingdom is coming back to Erasmus+ 🇪🇺🇬🇧 We have concluded negotiations for the United Kingdom’s association to Erasmus+ in 2027, making further steps in our renewed EU-UK Strategic Partnership. More ↓ link.europa.eu/vf3vJk

The US partial blockade of oil tankers to/from Venezuela will have second-order effects globally. Trump just made it easier for China to ever launch a blockade on Taiwan since he's paved the way to do so — implicit permission. Xi: "If you can do it, we can, too."

Trump’s response to the Reiner tragedy is sick and cruel. If anyone suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome, it’s Trump.

🇳🇱 Had the chance to visit Nowhere Bookshop (飛地) at The Hague this weekend. It's on a cute shopping street. Chinese-language books + English-language books on Asia + small press zines + and art. China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and beyond. Barbara Demick's book spotted in the wild!

You won't arrive on time and may not even get a seat. Your booking might get lost. Things have gotten so dire that a foreigner has been brought in to shake things up. n.pr/48NZ9e5

I realize tons of orgs are asking for contributions — but please consider donating to @globalreportingcentre.org. The world is in crisis and yet at this important time, newsrooms are cutting international reporting budgets:

Donald Trump declared the press the “enemy of the people” years ago — and all journalists did was… report that. Because, integrity / don’t be part of the story, etc. Turns out we should’ve taken him seriously. This is existential. He wants us destroyed. We cannot be bystanders.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE "would not take board seats if Paramount is successful in its bid, a maneuver clearly intended to dodge regulatory scrutiny. But no one forks over $24 billion in exchange for nothing." From @oliverdarcy.bsky.social / @status.news:

The old catchphrase "run the government like a business" has never made sense, definitionally. Most government services are things no business would ever do, because not all human needs can be contorted into a profit-generating activity.

🎸 "Noel and Liam came out holding their joined hands in the air. Whether this was progress, closure, or just the jubilant acceptance that money conquers all, nobody cared." A great @nybooks.com piece on Oasis from Andrew O’Hagan:

🎙️ NPR Weekend Edition recommends our graphic novel YOU MUST TAKE PART IN REVOLUTION! Gosh, if you haven't grabbed your copy yet by this point — after all the media and my social media hustle 😆 — I hope you consider it now! 🎁 Gift it to a smart teen or adult!

It was so amazing to meet Palestinian author Adania Shibli a few weeks ago, whose work MINOR DETAIL was longlisted for the International Booker Prize, and which I highly recommend. It is unlike anything I've read. I am so grateful she signed my copy. 💛

Pantone’s color of the year might be politically / geo-politically tone-deaf but it mostly reminds me of the color that milk turns into after you’ve had Frosted Flakes or Lucky Charms cereal.

In 2010, I was in Beijing to witness the inaugural "Confucius Peace Prize" set up in response to the Nobel awarded to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. The Confucius Prize was a hilarious farce of a thin-skinned authoritarian regime.

As a European I’d love to see America return to its civilizational values.

Just listened to the first episode of @marceldirsus.com's new podcast and it is excellent. I learned a ton about Iraq I didn't know. There is a lot of foreign policy content out there, but this is worth following: youtu.be/l5gnmitRUl0?...

🇨🇦 OMG this is so cool — thank you to the shop at the Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver for carrying YOU MUST TAKE PART IN REVOLUTION! Check out all of their super cool books and gifts they have on sale: 1889tradingco.ca

🎁 Awesome to be included in Consortium Books's Holiday Gift Guide!