USA - Globally, central banks added another net 42 tons of gold to their reserves in October. China continues to be the biggest gold purchaser. The People’s Bank of China added another 23 tons of gold to its hoard in October as it expanded its official reserves for the 12th straight month. Since the beginning of the year, the People’s Bank of China increased its reserves by 204 tons, and it has added 255 tons since it resumed official purchases in November 2022. As of the end of October, China officially held 2,215 tons of gold, making up 4% of its total reserves.

CHINA - In a sign of instability in Beijing’s top ranks, foreign policy and defense officials are vanishing as Xi roots out perceived enemies. While the world is distracted by war in the Middle East and Ukraine, a Stalin-like purge is sweeping through China’s ultra-secretive political system, with profound implications for the global economy and even the prospects for peace in the region. The signals emanating from Beijing are unmistakable, even as China’s security services have ramped up repression to totalitarian levels, making it almost impossible to know what is really happening inside the country.

NORTH KOREA - North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un cried as he called on women to have more children, saying that it was their duty to halt the country's declining birth rate in order to strengthen national power. In his seemingly highly choreographed emotional plea, the authoritarian leader was seen dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief while addressing thousands of women gathered at a National Mothers' Meeting in Pyongyang on Sunday. 'Preventing a decline in birth rates and good childcare are all of our housekeeping duties we need to handle while working with mothers,' Kim said at the event, while also urging them to instil the values of his communist party in their children. Many in the large audience wept along with their leader.

USA - Unlike so many people around the world, those of us that live in the United States were fortunate enough to grow up in a relatively civilized society. Unfortunately, we have turned our backs on the values that our forefathers handed down to us, and so now we are starting to find out what is beneath the thin veneer of civilization that we have all been taking for granted all these years.

USA - As world leaders gathered over the weekend for the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, they faced an uncomfortable reality check from the conference president Sultan Al Jaber, who stated, "there is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C," warning that their fossil-fuel policies would "take the world back into caves."

NORTH KOREA - North Korea has warned a “military confrontation” with its southern neighbor now appears inevitable after the fracturing of a military agreement intended to prevent an increase in hostilities between the two nations, which technically remain at war. Under the terms of the Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA) signed in Pyongyang in September 2018, North and South Korea agreed to “completely cease all hostile acts against each other.” This included ending military drills close to the border, banning live-fire exercises in some areas, and taking steps such as the removal of guard posts along the Demilitarized Zone.

USA - The House will vote the week of December 10 on formalizing the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden to strengthen subpoena power over the stonewalling Biden administration, House Speaker Mike Johnson (Republican for Louisiana) stated during a Tuesday press conference. “The House has no choice if it’s going to follow its constitutional responsibility to formally adopt an impeachment inquiry on the floor so that when the subpoenas are challenged in court, we will be at the apex of our constitutional authority,” Johnson said. Johnson said the Republican majority should hold strong to formalize the inquiry because it is a legal decision, not a political one.

VATICAN - The Dicastery for Evangelisation is continuing its cultural initiatives for the series "Jubilee is Culture" in preparation for the forthcoming Jubilee 2025. The upcoming third exhibit, entitled "100 Nativity Scenes in the Vatican," unites the works of various artists from around the world, each portraying different interpretations of the scene of Jesus' birth. This year’s edition intends to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Greccio Crib, the first depiction of the Nativity, which St Francis created at Christmas in the year 1223.

GERMANY - Germany's budget crisis has dealt another blow to an already battered economy, the president of the ZEW economic research institute said on Monday, and this is likely to be reflected in its upcoming monthly survey on investor morale. Achim Wambach's comments add to concerns over the state of Europe's largest economy following last month's ruling of the German constitutional court that tore a 60-billion-euro ($65 billion) hole into Berlin's finances. "In economic terms, this is yet another sting," Wambach told Reuters, pointing to uncertainty over how Germany's transformation into a green, low carbon economy could unfold. "The German economy is not doing well."

ISRAEL - A “war of liberation” surpassing the unprecedented October 7 terror attacks is coming soon, vowed a senior Hamas official who expressed no regrets over the US-designated terrorist group’s brutal massacre in Israel — the deadliest against Jewish people since the Nazi Holocaust — which saw the torture, rape, execution, immolation, and abduction of hundreds of Israelis of all ages, mostly civilians, and dozens of Americans. Hamas political bureau member Osama Hamdan made the remarks during a broadcast Wednesday on the Lebanese media outlet Bel Moubashar Online. Hamdan then said he could “promise that a war of liberation is coming, not just another October 7,” adding that he thinks such an event is not far off. In October, Hamas senior political official Ghazi Hamad declared that the terror group intends to repeat its October 7 terror attack until Israel is annihilated.

USA - The flailing Disney Corporation is still digging that woke hole to bury itself in and its latest Christmas movie aimed at teens is just another example of its continuing obsession to jam radical LGBT themes in every movie and TV show it makes for kids. If you thought you might be tuning in to see its newest holiday flick, “The Naughty Nine,” to see a fun Christmas romp, you’ll instead be confronted with a family headed by a pair of gay dads and another scene where two young boys are confiding in each other about who they think is a male “hottie.”

EUROPE - European voters under age 35 are increasingly supporting “far-right” political candidates, not out of xenophobia but because conservative populists seem to offer more solutions to the quality-of-life issues that concern them most, the UK’s Guardian newspaper has claimed. “Across the continent, the image of the radical-right voter – typically white, male, non-graduate and, above all, old – is changing, and studies suggest that in several countries, support for the far right is growing fastest among younger voters,” the Guardian said on Friday. Italian political scientist Catherine de Vries told the newspaper that while many young voters aren’t in ideological alignment with far-right candidates, they are swayed by those who pledge greater “livelihood security” as their lives become more precarious.

CHINA - China's economy is teetering once again as a series of shocks to the economy and long-term issues are hitting Beijing hard. China is facing a severe economic crisis as a record number of borrowers face defaults in echoes of the 2008 global financial crash. Defaults by Chinese borrowers have surged to an unprecedented level since the Covid pandemic as the country faces huge economic challenges.

IRAQ - After Iraq’s Oil Ministry approved Inpex, the big oil corporation of Japan, to sell its share of Iraq’s biggest oil discovery, ‘Block 10’, Russia is set to take control of it for 20 years. Iraq’s Eridu oil field is estimated to have reserves of seven to ten billion barrels based on preliminary estimations. Speaking exclusively to OilPrice.com last week, senior Russian oil sector insiders stated that the genuine figure might be as much as 50% higher than the higher figure of that bracket. Either way, Russia and its main geopolitical ally, China, seek to control the entirety of the largest oil discovery in Iraq in the previous 20 years, the Eridu field, which is located in the Block 10 exploration and development zone. According to an exclusive interview with OilPrice.com, Moscow, and Beijing want to “end [the] Western hegemony in the Middle East [that] will become the decisive chapter in the West’s final demise” and to keep Baghdad closer to the new Iran-Saudi axis. This is in line with their goal of keeping the West out of energy deals in Iraq.

USA - Multiple federal agencies are warning that Iran-linked hackers have been targeting US water systems and other industries that use programmable-logic controllers (PLC) made by Israeli firm Unitronics, as the Israel–Hamas war simmers in the background. Hackers affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have engaged in "malicious cyber activity" targeting PLC operational technology devices used in the US water and wastewater systems sector, and in other industries including energy, food, and beverage manufacturing, since at least November 22, the agencies said in a December 1 alert.