EUROPE - The European Union purchased a blender for a school without electricity and funded a “conflict prevention” radio station which only played music as part of a €5 billion (£4.1 billion) trust fund for Africa. A report by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) highlighted dozens of similar projects that were deemed to be a waste of taxpayers’ money, including from Britain. Its 66-page report also raised fears that criminal gangs and people smugglers had benefited from billions of euros being spent by Brussels on the African continent in the hope of curbing illegal migration to the bloc.

CHINA - China’s massive dam-building plans in Tibet, already facing opposition within the country, are threatening to reignite a row with India. Indian experts have joined their Chinese and Tibetan counterparts in warning that one dam approved in December, on the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra River in the Himalayas, could have devastating consequences. The dam, to be built at Metok in Tibet at an estimated cost of $137 billion, could be the most expensive infrastructure project in the world.

USA - Joe Biden’s decline has, on one of America’s longest-running current affairs shows, been labelled the most underreported story of 2024. The designation was made on CBS’s Face The Nation by Jan Crawford, the network’s chief legal correspondent, after the show’s moderator, Major Garrett, asked reporters in a panel discussion to identify the most uncovered issues in a review of the year’s events. “Undercovered and underreported. That would be, to me, Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline that became undeniable in the televised debate,” Crawford said in Sunday’s broadcast. She was referring to the June presidential debate between Biden and Donald Trump in Atlanta, where the president’s confused display triggered deep concern among Democrats about his ability to win the election. Biden’s debate performance ultimately led to him withdrawing as the party’s nominee in favour of Kamala Harris. Crawford castigated fellow journalists for not shedding light much earlier on the effect of ageing on the now 82-year-old Biden’s prowess.

USA - National Weather Service says severe storm system is moving east through Alabama and into Georgia. At least two people were killed and six more injured as several tornadoes touched down in Texas and Mississippi on Saturday, damaging homes and flipping vehicles as the storm system moved east across Alabama early on Sunday. The US National Weather Service (NWS)’s severe storm tracker indicated the system was moving east through Alabama into Georgia shortly before 4am. The agency issued severe thunderstorm warnings with the possibility of tornadoes in western Georgia and the north-western tip of Florida directly above the Gulf of Mexico.

USA - Scientists have warned that an underwater volcano off the coast of the northwestern US is likely to blow sometime in 2025. The volcano, called Axial Seamount, is more than 3,600-feet-tall and sits half a mile underwater just 300 miles off the coast of Oregon. Experts made the prediction on December 10 after detecting seafloor swelling around Axial that mimicked a level seen immediately before an eruption in 2015. Seismic activity has also increased, with hundreds of earthquakes generated around the volcano per day and earthquake swarms greater than 500 per day.

GERMANY - In Germany, public dissatisfaction with the political establishment has reached fever pitch. As Europe’s largest economy grapples with inflation, high energy costs, and a general sense that “liberal elites” have grown out of touch, more radical parties on both the right and left are seizing the moment. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is gaining ground almost daily, wooing voters who feel abandoned by the mainstream, while Sahra Wagenknecht, a controversial leftist, is forming a new party that could siphon off working-class support from traditional parties. With these developments, Germany – once the epitome of stability – now stands on the verge of a political earthquake whose tremors may be felt throughout the European Union.

CHINA - In the waning days of the Biden administration, the constriction of Chinese access to semiconductors continues. On December 2, the US Department of Commerce announced another round of rules aimed at inhibiting the flow of semiconductors to China. Within days of the semiconductor ban, China retaliated by banning the export of some key rare earth metals (REMs) used in chip production. According to the MIT Technology Review, China ceased the export of three critical REMs: gallium, germanium, and antimony. In addition, the export of superhard materials used in manufacturing was banned.

USA - US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the federal government will hit its debt limit as early as January 14 unless Congress takes action or the Treasury implements “extraordinary measures” to avoid default. Under a 2023 budget deal, Congress suspended the debt ceiling – a cap set on how much money the US government can borrow – until January 1, 2025. Without further action, the Treasury will be unable to meet all its obligations. In a letter to lawmakers on Friday, Yellen wrote that the department currently expects to reach the new limit between January 14 and January 23, at which point the special accounting maneuvers would be needed.

USA - President Donald Trump’s MAGA supporters and his Silicon Valley donors are suddenly fighting online about investors’ policy of importing a huge number of foreign graduates for career-starting professional jobs in Fortune 500 companies. On December 27, Vivek Ramaswamy super-charged the dispute by arguing that Americans must adopt a more aggressive and competitive culture: Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG. This can be our Sputnik moment. We’ve awaken from slumber before & we can do it again. Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.

JAPAN - The Japanese government has approved a record draft budget for the next fiscal year, including increased spending on defense. The 115.5 trillion yen ($730 billion) budget plan released by the Finance Ministry on Friday marks a 2.6% rise on the current year. Defense expenditures account for 7.5% of the total budget, or roughly $55 billion. The figure marks the 13th consecutive year of increases, according to Kyodo news agency, and a 0.5% increase from the current fiscal year. The budget includes funds for mass production of long-range missiles with standoff defense capabilities, the agency noted. In a statement on Friday, the Defense Ministry said Japan and its ally the US are facing an “increasingly challenging strategic and nuclear threat environment.”

USA - The US saw a dramatic rise in homelessness at the start of 2024, counting 18% more unhoused people during its annual tally in January than the year before, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (Hud) reported on Friday. Cities reported counting a total of 771,480 unhoused people in January, a number that is larger than the population of Seattle. Representing 23 out of every 10,000 Americans, the number is the highest ever recorded during the tally. Still, experts consider the number an undercount, since it reflects one point in time and misses many people staying with friends or family. Hud found homelessness at record highs among nearly all demographic groups, but the largest increase was documented among families with children. Nearly 150,000 children were counted during the tally. The report comes as cities across the US have stepped up anti-encampment policies, following a June supreme court ruling that allows local authorities to prohibit camping in public even if no shelter beds are available. Since then, more than 100 cities have banned encampments.

UK - Water, or the lack of it, is likely to decide the outcome of future wars involving the UK's Armed Forces, a new report suggests. Ministry of Defence climate change and industry experts have begun to plan how to provide military personnel in dry, resource-scarce areas with enough water to ensure they achieve mission success. The latest thinking was outlined in the official journal of the MoD’s Defence, Equipment & Support (DE&S) Agency. Today, more than a quarter - 26 per cent - of the world’s population lacks access to safe drinking water, while almost half - 46 per cent - lack access to basic sanitation. "By 2050, 3.2 billion people are expected to live in areas with extreme water scarcity," says the DE&S team in the Agency's in-house magazine, Desider.

UK - Trump in. Reform rising. And humiliation for Macron, Scholz and Trudeau. Why 2025 will see the collapse of the Left... and nowhere more than Britain. There are, alas, precious few signs that 2025 will be a great year for any of us, which is a pity given 2024 was hardly one to write home about. But there are unmistakable indications it will be an especially miserable year for the Left everywhere, nowhere more so than here in dear old Blighty. Our benighted Labour government, barely half a year old, already has a well-established and well-deserved reputation for making everything it touches worse (and much of what it inherited from the Tories wasn't in great shape in the first place). Expect more of the same in 2025.

UK - The new year is almost upon us. For the Royal Navy it will be, first and foremost, the year of Carrier Strike Group deployment 2025 (CSG25). This will be the second Indo-Pacific deployment by one of our new carriers, and the first in which a combat-worthy British air group will be aboard the ship. This will offer a series of foreign policy opportunities for the new government. The first active combat theatre will be the eastern Mediterranean. Depending on the situation at the time, there may be opportunities to affect matters ashore in Syria, or to offer some useful assistance to our Israeli allies.

GERMANY - Recently deposed Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat (SPD) leader, still thinks he has a shot at regaining his perch, but the chances of that are as slim as they were for him surviving the no-confidence vote that cost him the job in the first place. The candidate the Christian Democrats (CDU) have up as their choice for chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is polling in a stronger position than Scholz and is already looking at who he'd form a government with. Strangely, no one wants to talk about the most popular candidate in the country, who would be Alice Weidel, head of the pesky popular and populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.