USA - Trump wrote: “Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal (where we lost 38,000 people in its building 110 years ago), always making certain that the United States puts in Billions of Dollars in 'repair' money, but will have absolutely nothing to say about 'anything.' Also, to Governor Justin Trudeau of Canada, whose Citizens’ Taxes are far too high, but if Canada was to become our 51st State, their Taxes would be cut by more than 60%, their businesses would immediately double in size, and they would be militarily protected like no other Country anywhere in the World.

USA - Most people including myself are focused on the economy and how it is doing. But the more concerning thing is actually the state of our society and it’s associated cultures. It is pretty clear to me that it is collapsing and may already be collapsed. The structure of our society has always been marriage, family, homes, community, stable work, and social organizations like churches. This was a successful model. One can criticize the model or aspects of this model but it worked.

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”. This marks the third time the Houthis launched ballistic missiles at Israel in the past week. Hezam al-Asad, a senior Houthi official, issued a statement shortly after saying the missile attacks on Israel will continue until the war in Gaza stops. “Netanyahu will learn that his dreams of a new Middle East are nothing but a punishment for him and his imported entity,” Mr Asad tweeted.

SYRIA - Islamic State is ready to rise again from the Syrian desert as it seeks to exploit the fall of Assad with a new wave of attacks, according to the leader of the country’s western-backed troops. The warning from General Mazloum Abdi, head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), comes amid fears that the jihadists could capitalise on the chaos and the growing spectre of a second civil war in the country’s east. The SDF helped bring to an end Isis’s so-called caliphate in 2019, but Abdi said remnants of the group were now looking to benefit from a security vacuum after Bashar Al-Assad was toppled this month. The SDF, supported by the United States, Britain and other western countries, is in a confrontation with Turkey, which backs Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the rebel group that has seized Damascus and most of Syria.

UK - UK Armed Forces warning as over 10,000 members deemed 'medically undeployable'. Deployable is defined as personnel who are able to deploy on operations. Some personnel may be limited for medical reasons, restricting the type or location of operation they can be sent to. In total, 99,560 are medically fully deployable, 14,350 have limited deployability and 13,522 are medically not deployable. Britain's Armed Forces were 5,440 personnel (1%) below target, despite recent efforts to fill the ranks.

UK - Britain has failed to match the remilitarisation of Russia, Iran and China over a decade of under-investment in defence, Sir Keir Starmer has been warned. Moscow, Tehran and Beijing have increased defence spending by 34 per cent, 57 per cent and 60 per cent respectively over the past ten years. During the same period, Britain’s defence budget grew by 14 per cent in 2022 cash terms, research from the House of Commons library has shown. Starmer is under pressure to announce a timetable for his pledge to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP. Donald Trump will demand that European countries rearm more urgently when he enters the White House next month and the president-elect could insist that Nato increases its defence spending target to as much as 5 per cent of GDP, according to reports.

GERMANY - Germany could be set for cultural collapse after the nation’s capital, Berlin, made huge ranging cuts to the city’s arts budget. This week Berlin city government approved cuts of up to £108 million from its cultural budget for 2025 despite weeks of protest against the proposed measures. The plans have received vocal opposition from artists, museum leaders, and cultural organisations who fear that the sector could be set for venue closures and a hit to the city’s cultural standing. The cuts represent a 12% cut on the previous year and has sparked fears that the city could lose its status as one of Europe’s foremost cultural capitals. Emma Enderby, the director of the non-profit KW Institute for Contemporary Art, told The Art Newspaper: “Culture and clubs bring people to Berlin. They don’t come here for the food, they come here for the history and the culture."

RUSSIA - Nine countries will officially join BRICS as partner states in January, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov has said, adding that the economic group is open to like-minded partners. Speaking at a press briefing on Monday, Ushakov emphasized the importance of the 'partner state status' approval, saying that Belarus, Bolivia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Cuba, Uganda, Malaysia, and Uzbekistan will officially become BRICS partners from January 1. Confirmation is expected in the near future from four more countries, which were also invited to become partner states. BRICS initially comprised Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and was expanded earlier this year to include Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia has paused its process of joining BRICS because the necessary “internal procedures” for becoming a full member have not yet been completed, according to Ushakov, citing representatives from Riyadh.

USA - Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong is back with a new round of predictions, and they are not going to make life easy for President Elect Trump. Armstrong says, “Our computer has been projecting that we are going into a depression in some areas and a recession in other areas. A depression most likely in Europe and a recession in the United States up until 2028. At my November conference, everybody was celebrating after Trump won. I stood up and told my clients, ‘I’m sorry, Trump is not going to have a blissful administration, and he’s not going to prevent the economic decline.’

IRELAND - Just days after an attack on a Christmas market in Germany, pro-terrorist protesters stormed a Catholic Church in Ireland to disrupt mass. The anti-Catholic thugs were using Gaza as an excuse for their 'protest', however given that a Cardinal was in Gaza today distributing presents, this excuse is not credible. The media has been woefully silent on attacks against Christianity in Europe. How would the international media cover a group of Christian protestors storming a Mosque to push a political agenda? The most recent protest comes despite the fact that the Irish government, since the Hamas terrorist attacks on civilians on October 7, 2023, has displayed a consistently anti-Israel, pro-terrorist posture. The Gateway Pundit reported that Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Sa’ar, announced that Israel’s embassy in Ireland will close due to the “extreme anti-Israel policy of the Irish government.”

USA - Artificial intelligence could become smarter than any single human by the end of next year, according to tech billionaire Elon Musk. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO made the prediction shortly after his AI company, xAI, officially launched its first image generation model, Aurora, earlier this month. Aurora, an updated version of the first image generation model that xAI introduced in October, allows users to create photorealistic visuals.

USA - Ukrainian officials are “starting to believe” that the conflict with Russia will be resolved next year, a senior member of Vladimir Zelensky’s government has reportedly told the Washington Post. The shift in attitude is a direct result of US President-elect Donald Trump’s public talk of a settlement, the official added. “I wouldn’t believe we’re anywhere close to negotiations” were it not for Trump’s repeated comments on peace talks, the official continued, adding: “I just don’t think it’s possible to come to any agreement with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”

GERMANY - Germany's far-right AfD party on Monday held what it called a "memorial" rally for victims of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market that has newly inflamed debate on migrant and security policy. Meanwhile, an anti-extremist initiative called "Don't Give Hate a Chance" was gathering nearby in the eastern city of Magdeburg, which was mourning five dead and more than 200 injured in Friday's carnage. "Terror has arrived in our city," said the AfD's leader in Saxony-Anhalt state, Jan Wenzel Schmidt, condemning what he labelled the "monstrous political failure" that led up to the attack, over which a Saudi man was arrested. "We must close the borders," he told hundreds of supporters of the anti-immigration party. "We can no longer take in madmen from all over the world." The party's co-leader Alice Weidel demanded "change so we can finally live in security again", as people in the crowd chanted: "Deport, deport, deport!"

GERMANY - The leader of the German radical right has called for a “time of reckoning” as her party sought to capitalise on the Magdeburg Christmas market attack with a mass rally outside the city’s cathedral. Last Friday evening a man identified by the authorities as Taleb Jawad al-Abdulmohsen, 50, a psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia, drove a rented BMW X5 4×4 into a crowd largely made up of young families.

GERMANY - The German authorities are under pressure to explain why a doctor ­accused of murdering a child and four women with a car at a Christmas market was not stopped despite being well known to police. Taleb al-Abdulmohsen’s criminal record, including a 2013 conviction for threatening acts of violence, recent ­online threats and an outburst in court, have prompted calls for an inquiry. It has also emerged that the route used to attack the market in Magdeburg, left free of static concrete barriers to allow access for emergency services, should have been blocked by a police van but was not. Nancy Faeser, the interior minister, whose Social Democrat party (SPD) is facing probable defeat in national elections early next year, promised that Abdulmohsen’s calls for violence on social media would be scrutinised.