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It's Thursday, 19 December. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. And look at that. I'm back off the road after a few weeks in Europe and the Middle East. Here I am back in the compound, bringing you the PDB in full vista vision and surround sound stereo.

So let's get briefed.

We'll start the show with more fallout from the Assad regime's collapse in Syria, which has

reportedly upended the Middle East's most profitable drug empire, pulling back the curtain

on a massive trade that fueled war and social

crises across the region. Later in the show, U.S. officials sound the alarm over what they're

referring to as a ticking time bomb in Syria. Thousands of ISIS fighters, remember them, still held in makeshift prisons, a security nightmare waiting to unfold.

Plus, a violent gang crackdown in Colorado in the United States, police break up a kidnapping

...