Reuters World News - Tanker pursuit, 2026 immigration and UK asylum hotels

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

The U.S. Coast Guard is chasing down a third oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. U.S. President Donald Trump is preparing an even more aggressive immigration crackdown in 2026. And how combative, undercover videographers fired up Britain’s asylum hotel protests.  Listen to Morning Bid podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Find the Recommended Read here. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Kim Vinal in Wonganui, New Zealand. It's Monday, December 22nd. Today, the US is pursuing a third oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, how Trump plans to expand his immigration crackdown, and the combative videographers who have fired up the UK's asylum hotel protests. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. The U.S. Coast Guard is chasing down an oil tanker in international waters near Venezuela.

Officials say the vessel, the Bella One, is part of a sanctioned dark fleet, evading restrictions, flying a false flag, and is under a judicial seizure order. It's the third U.S. operation in less than two weeks. It's all part of Donald Trump's pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, aimed at choking off the oil revenues that fund his government. Experts say the moves are testing the limits of maritime law and just how far US jurisdiction can reach. Oil prices are up on that news with new uncertainty over supply,

and gold is also up, hitting an all-time high. For more, we've got Amanda Cooper from our sister Markets podcast Morning Bit. Morning Amanda. Hi, Jim, that's right. Gold looking seemingly unsurgency. stoppable yet again today and hitting another record high. And like you say, oil popping above $61 a barrel as the US chases down a third tanker off the coast of Venezuela. And this is the kind of thing that is keeping markets a little bit on edge at the moment, particularly as in this week,

volumes are thin and trading could be erratic. But it's worth remembering that Venezuela isn't quite the giant exporter that it once was a few years ago. At least for now, there's enough oil washing around the global system to insulate the world from some sort of massive energy shock. Thanks, Amanda. You can listen to MorningBid wherever you get your podcasts. President Donald Trump is preparing to ramp up his immigration crackdown in 26, despite growing backlash. His administration is planning to inject more than double the current funding for immigration enforcement and border patrol. That's despite recent polling suggesting voters are growing wary of aggressive immigration tactics ahead of next year's midterms.

As immigration reporter Ted Heson explains, Trump appears determined to hit his promised numbers. They've talked in official documents about the president wanting a million deportations a year, and they're on pace for something closer to 600,000 since he took office. So this massive amount of funding that's coming to ICE and Border Patrol over the next four years is really going to allow them to ramp up their enforcement. We're talking $170 billion over a little more than a four-year period. And just for perspective, the annual budgets of ICE and Border Patrol are $19 billion. So this is on top of that, and it's just a huge sum of money in comparison.

They'll be using that to hire thousands more ICE officers to expand detention and to really try and hit these benchmarks for the highest levels of deportation. on record. Ted says the administration plans to focus on workplace raids, despite the potential to hurt businesses and inflame political tensions. There are many industries in the U.S. that it's an open secret, that there are higher numbers of workers without legal status working there, including agriculture, meatpacking plants, hospitality, restaurants. And these are places where, while some of their workers may have been picked up in immigration sweeps across the U.S. this year, the businesses themselves have not been a focal point.

If they do go in that direction, there could obviously be economic repercussions and potentially pushback from the business community, which we haven't seen in a large way yet. Meanwhile, in the UK, confrontational videos filmed by mainly right-wing videographers have helped stir public anger over hotels used to house asylum seekers. Here's Adam. Security look up and just assume I'm a migrant and asylum seeker. So for me, I thought it'd be a unique opportunity just to film inside. He says he started working one of hundreds of hotels being used to house asylum seekers

because he wanted to help them settle in the country. What he saw began to anger him. Andrew McCaskill reported on the story. He said that some people complained about the size of their hotel rooms, even though it was being given for free, or that there was another case where he said that somebody was basically on the run in their home country because they had killed their wife. He talked also about that there were certain individuals who he said really were genuine asylum seekers who were not getting the type of help they deserved. He spoke about somebody from Syria who his family were killed by Islamic State, and yet he felt that his case was not being given enough support.

Adam sort of taps into by trying to expose, and along with other videographers who are trying to do this, what they say are the kind of injustices within the asylum system. This year, immigration is the number one issue in Britain to overtaken the economy. They are a kind of new form of media, and some of them have incredibly high subscriber numbers. Although some of these videographers claim they're citizen journalists, they don't behave the way that traditional journalists do. In some cases, some of them are really aggressive.

They'll get into scuffles with the security guards. They will abuse the asylum seekers. And as a result, this confrontational style makes them more interesting to watch the individuals who make them get more money on social media. The Home Office told Reuters it aimed to close asylum hotels by 2020. It didn't respond to questions about the videographers. In August, Adam was arrested in relation to a visit he made to a hotel. Adam says police informed him he was under arrest on suspicion of burglary for eating a plate of food at the hotel. He was released on bail and has not yet been charged.

He denies any wrongdoing. In Florida, the second day of Ukraine peace talks wrapped up with little sign of progress. Trump's envoys met Russia's. Keryl Demitriev in Miami after earlier talks with Ukrainian and European officials. But sources in Moscow say changes to US proposals haven't improved prospects for peace, leaving it unclear whether these meetings have moved the needle on ending Europe's deadliest war since World War II. A photo of Donald Trump removed from the cache of Jeffrey Epstein files has been restored.

The photo shows a desk with dozens of photo. on it, some of them framed. In the bottom of the shot is a photo of Donald Trump, surrounded by four women, one of them wearing a bikini. The Justice Department says the image was flagged to protect potential victims, but a review found none were depicted. The Department released thousands of Epstein-related documents on Friday during criticism over heavy redactions.

Trump denies any wrongdoing in relation to the case. As Prime Minister, I feel the weight of responsibility for an atrocity that happened whilst I'm Prime Minister and I'm sorry for what the Jewish community and our nation as a whole has experienced. Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese apologising to the Jewish community and the country over the mass shooting on Bondi Beach last week that left 15 people dead.

He was booed when arriving. at a vigil on Sunday for those killed, and again when the rabbi leading the service mentioned his name. Anthony Albanese. Critics say Albanese's centre-left government hasn't done enough to curb a surge in anti-Semitism since the start of the war in Gaza. New South Wales's state premier Chris Minns had this to say, as the state's parliament looks to tighten hate speech, protest and gun laws in the wake of the mass shooting.

I acknowledge that we don't have the same free speech. rules that they have in the United States, and I don't make any apologies for that. Australian police say homemade pipe and tennis ball bombs were thrown at a crowd in Monde Beach before the mass shooting, but they failed to detonate. And for today's recommended read, U.S. intelligence reports contradict Russian President Putin's denials that Moscow is a threat to Europe. Intel continues to warn he's not abandoned his aims of capturing all of Ukraine, and reclaiming parts of Europe that belonged to the Soviet Empire.

There's a link to that story in the description. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast player. If you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.