UK - Children in the Islamic community should be taught to identify themselves primarily as Muslim rather than British, the frontrunner to lead the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has said. Wajid Akhter, who is standing to be general secretary of the MCB, warned in an article that teaching children to identify primarily with their nationality or ethnicity could make them shallow, whereas choosing their faith as their primary identity provided a solid foundation to approach life. He also called being a Muslim an “act of revolutionary defiance… at odds with the prevailing culture” and condemned new year celebrations as “pagan”, “mixed-gender” and “the first step on a slippery slope”, according to analysis of his speeches and writings by think tank Policy Exchange.

GERMANY - German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has announced a reassessment of the protection status for Syrian refugees, citing improved conditions in the country following the overthrow of Bashar Assad. In an interview for the Funke media group on Sunday, Faeser suggested that some Syrians who have sought refuge in Germany may have to return to their country. The recommendations come almost a month after the fall of Assad, who left the country after militant groups led by Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham (HTS) jihadists launched a surprise offensive against government forces. The attack resulted in the collapse of the Syrian military in a matter of days and the downfall of the government.

USA - Schools closed, flights grounded as more than 60 million people are under winter weather warnings. Some 60 million people are under winter weather warnings as a storm brings snow, ice and freezing temperatures to more than a dozen US states. The storm was moving toward the mid-Atlantic, with people in Washington DC bracing for heavy snow and bitter cold on Monday. Hundreds of schools announced in advance that they would not open, as officials warned residents not to travel while up to 30cm of snow could fall in some areas. The back end of the storm system, meanwhile, was producing severe thunderstorms capable of spinning off tornadoes in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

ISRAEL - Israel promised to “behead” the leaders of Houthi rebels as the terror organisation launched its latest ballistic missile at the country on Monday. Rocket sirens went off in parts of the Negev desert and central Israel at 1.45 am, forcing millions of Israelis to take cover in bomb shelters. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the missile was intercepted by the air-defence system “prior to crossing into Israeli territory”.

EUROPE - The Continent could find itself being hit from all sides as the threat of serious disruption looms. While most people were relaxing in the break between Christmas and the New Year, energy market traders found themselves working overtime, glued to their screens. At the start of the week natural gas futures experienced the largest spike since the beginning of the Ukraine war, peaking at 18 per cent higher than the previous day before falling slightly. Some of this was because of cold weather in the United States, with a cold snap expected in the coming weeks. But some is due to the expiration of a deal between the European Union, Ukraine and Russia to maintain Russian gas flows via Ukrainian pipelines so that Europe could have its energy needs met.

UNITED NATIONS - Germany and Japan will never become permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, has said. January will welcome in a new season for talks on reforming the Security Council, but some of the initiatives are “quite naive and impractical,” Nebenzia said in an interview with Russia 24 TV on Friday. “There are countries that are vying for a seat on the Security Council that they will never get, we have already said this directly,” he said. “In particular, Germany and Japan. They will not see a permanent seat on the Security Council.” London has previously stated that it wishes to see permanent seats for Germany, Japan, India, Brazil, and similar representation for Africa.

CHINA - China is making significant strides toward achieving its long-held goal of reunification with its self-governed region of Taiwan, according to Zhang Hanhui, Beijing’s ambassador to Russia. It follows a recent statement made by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who described reunification as inevitable. In an opinion piece for RIA Novosti published on Friday, Zhang denounced Washington’s involvement in the affairs of the island, which Beijing insists is its sovereign territory. “China is closer than ever in its history to achieving the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” he added. Beijing is “full of confidence and possesses the strength to achieve... the complete reunification of the country,” the ambassador said.

IRAN - Iran is sending more weapons to the Houthis following the collapse of its other proxy groups across the Middle East, a spokesman for Yemen’s army has said. The Islamic Republic has given the Yemeni militia group enough supplies to keep up its strikes on Israel and attacks on global shipping for “years to come”, Abdul Basit Al-Baher, the spokesman for Yemen’s military in the governorate of Taiz, told The Telegraph. The Houthis have launched a barrage of attacks against Israel and global shipping in the past fortnight. The escalation is “clear evidence that Iran is increasing its support for the Houthis after the weakening of Hamas and Hezbollah and the fall of the Assad regime in the region”, Mr Al-Baher said. He added that the Houthis had “high-level missiles and aircraft, then they have workshops for assembling and manufacturing drones and developing missiles with Iranian expertise”.

ISRAEL - At least 16 people were injured in a missile strike on Tel Aviv, the economic centre of Israel, in the early hours of Saturday. Thousands of people in central Israel woke to alarms and scrambled to find shelter shortly before 3.45 am. The country’s protective Iron Dome failed to intercept what the IDF said was a “projectile” that had been fired from Yemen. One missile fell near homes close to Tel Aviv, starting a fire in a playground next to apartment towers. The Iran-backed group Houthis in Yemen have repeatedly fired drones and missiles towards Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

SYRIA - Fourteen members of the Syrian police have been killed in an “ambush” by forces loyal to the ousted regime of Bashar al-Assad. The officers died in the Tartus countryside in the west of the country, the transitional administration said early on Thursday, in the first major retaliation against the new rulers. Mohammed Abdel Rahman, Syria’s new interior minister, said on Telegram that 10 police officers were also wounded by what he called “remnants” of the Assad government in Tartus, vowing to crack down on “anyone who dares to undermine Syria’s security or endanger the lives of its citizens”. Reports have said police were attempting to arrest a former Assad official who was accused of issuing execution orders against prisoners.

USA - ISIS, those inch-perfect evil-doers straight out of a James Bond movie, have just gifted Donald Trump the most perfect New Year present he could have wished for. The horrible, cowardly, attack in New Orleans on New Year's Eve, which killed 15 and injured 35, has wittingly or unwittingly given the incoming President a moral mandate to add to the people’s mandate he already has in the bag.

MIDDLE EAST - As we enter the New Year all eyes are once again drawn to the Middle East, where there has been no peace in this Season of Goodwill. Having comprehensively defeated Hezbollah in Lebanon and emasculated Hamas in Gaza, Israel now faces a shift in its strategic focus. With the defeat of these two major adversaries, Israel's attention will inevitably turn to the threat posed by the Houthis in Yemen. The Houthis, an Iran-backed militia, have grown increasingly influential and aggressive, and their connection to Tehran amplifies their significance within the broader regional dynamics.

UK - As chants of “globalise the intifada” continually reverberate through the streets of Western cities, a Saudi-born psychiatrist ploughed his car through a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, and an American-born ISIS terrorist charged a pickup truck through a crowd in New Orleans, killing 15. Many who gleefully shout that brazen, much misunderstood demand do not grasp its full implications, but its meaning has been written in blood for decades.

MIDDLE EAST - Al Jazeera’s West Bank operations will be suspended by the Palestinian Authority following coverage of its clashes with terror groups. Wafa, the official news agency of the authority, accused the Qatari-sponsored news network of “inciting content and reports characterised by misinformation, incitement, sedition and interference in Palestinian internal affairs”. “The decision also includes temporarily freezing the work of all journalists, employees, crews and affiliated channels until their legal status is rectified due to Al Jazeera’s violations of the laws and regulations in force in Palestine,” the statement continued. The move comes after the Palestinian Authority has cracked down on Hamas and Islamic Jihad members in Jenin since early December, leading to several killed on both sides, including a journalist.

MIDDLE EAST - After taking heavy losses from Israeli forces, Hamas is now picking fights with the Palestinian Authority (PA) as its manpower continues to dwindle, according to The Wall Street Journal. Gaza-based Islamic terrorist organization Hamas and the PA, which governs much of the West Bank, have been ramping up fighting over the course of December, according to the WSJ Wednesday. The renewed fighting between Hamas and the PA comes during a period of high losses and bloodshed, with Israeli authorities claiming to have killed over half of the terrorist group’s total fighters since the start of the war, along with pressures to negotiate peace by an incoming Trump administration.