Rapid Travel Chai

On my mind: a great Reach for the Miles meetup last night in Manhattan kicked off my holiday season.

Events:

• Maldives to quit Commonwealth over human rights row.
• Chinese expertise ends Africa logjam.
• Gibraltar rebuffs Spanish proposal for joint sovereignty to save EU status (from October, I missed this earlier). So many thorny issues for Brexit to happen.

Ideas:

• Warren Buffett on President-elect Trump: ‘He deserves everybody’s respect.’
• President Duterte’s crazy drug war is just the beginning.
• The other side of copyright infringement violation.

Travels:

• Why you should take your glasses off before your next passport photo.
• In laid-back Anguilla, Caribbean travelers find the right mix of bistro and beach.
• Beneath the surface — caving and diving — Belize is breathtaking.

Hacks:

• Cracking the bulk fare code! How to tell when a flight is a bulk fare.
• Citi locked login checking accounts: why you shouldn’t link accounts.
• Race to the bottom with United’s new basic economy. United no longer just copies, it also exceeds.