USA - The SolarWinds breach could be the most significant cyber incident in American history. Russian intelligence — likely the SVR, the foreign-intelligence branch — infiltrated and sat undetected on US government networks for nearly 10 months. It was a sophisticated, smart and savvy attack that should alarm the public and private sectors.

GERMANY - The 2021 federal budget passed last week makes clear the priorities of the ruling class: not the health and lives of working people, but the interests of German imperialism at home and abroad. While the budgets for health, education and social affairs have been massively cut compared to this year, spending on the military and the security apparatus continues to rise. Next year, for example, the defence budget will be increased by a further €1.3 billion to €46.93 billion. It has thus increased by almost €15 billion since 2014. The additional billions for the security forces and the military are just the start of a massive arms offensive. The economic stimulus package adopted by the grand coalition of the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats in early May already included €10 billion for “new armaments projects with a high proportion of German value-added.”

GERMANY - As German Chancellor Angela Merkel prepares to leave office after nearly two decades in power, approval of Germany's leadership has never been higher in many countries. Across the 29 countries and areas that Gallup has surveyed so far in 2020, a median 62% approves of Germany's leadership, up slightly from a median of 59% for this same group in 2019. Approval ratings are at, or top, previous record highs in 18 of the 29 countries.

VATICAN - The year 2020 was marked by the global coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis said Thursday, but also saw a worrisome surge in “nationalism, racism, and xenophobia.” “Sad to say,” alongside all testimonies of love and solidarity during the coronavirus pandemic, “we have also seen a surge in various forms of nationalism, racism and xenophobia, and wars and conflicts that bring only death and destruction in their wake,” he said in his message for the 2021 World Day of Peace, released Thursday. In recent months, the pope has returned time and again to the topic of nationalism, tying it to the human person’s lowest instincts.

USA - With the first doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine now being administered in the US, the federal government is giving employers around the country the green light to require immunization for most workers. In general, companies have the legal right to mandate that employees get a COVID-19 shot, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) said Wednesday. More specifically, employers are entitled — and required — to ensure a safe workplace in which "an individual shall not pose a direct threat to the health or safety of individuals in the workplace." That can mean a company requiring its workforce to be vaccinated. The Americans with Disabilities Act limits an employer's ability to require workers to get a medical examination. But the EEOC's latest guidance clarifies that getting vaccinated does not constitute a medical exam. As a result, ordering employees to get a COVID-19 shot would not violate the ADA.

EUROPE - European Jewish Association Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin warned that soon “there will be no kosher meat available in Europe,” following the EU Court of Justice’s Thursday decision that approved a ban on Kosher slaughtering. The Jewish Chronicle quoted Bini Guttmann, president of the European Union of Jewish Students, who suggested the ruling would “make Jewish life in Europe as we know it impossible."

EUROPE - The European Union's top court has deemed kosher and halal slaughter incompatible with animal welfare. This is a grim day for religious freedom in Europe, writes Christoph Strack. In Europe, leaders often laud the continent's Judaeo-Christian heritage. Not only that, 75 years after the industrial mass murder of European Jews in the Shoa, German and European leaders celebrate the return of flourishing Jewish life on the continent. They welcome the fact that liberal, conservative and orthodox Jews are once more part of Europe's social fabric. But for how much longer, given the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling that upheld a ban on kosher and halal slaughter in Belgium? The practice is only banned in two or three Belgian regions.

SINGAPORE - Commercial cultured meat has made its global market debut after climate-conscious teens got served premium-priced nuggets made from vat-grown chicken meat at a luxurious Singapore restaurant. On Saturday evening, the 1880 restaurant in Robertson Quay, a posh entertainment district in Singapore, began serving a special kind of dish. The diners were served what are basically chicken nuggets, but not a single chick died for them. The meat was cultured from chicken muscle cells in a lab and, according to the supplying company, previews a titanic change in the global food industry. With traditionally produced meats likely to be taxed based on their carbon footprint, poorer people who still want their protein intake to come from animals may be left with the third option – insects. Advocates say bugs can make for more efficient farming and their diseases are less likely to affect humans, so crickets or larvae, not slaughter-free nuggets, may be the mass food of the future.

EUROPE - Brussels plans to drop rules preventing some countries from serving up insects and worms for human consumption. I know that getting a food delivery is tough at the moment, but are we really desperate to swap crisps for crickets? Probably best not to read this while you’re eating but, with the news being wall-to-wall Covid-19 at the moment, a little story may have passed you by. While most of the world is consumed by the fight against the pandemic, the European Union is quietly set to authorise the sale of insects for human consumption. At some point over the next few weeks, its Food Safety Authority is expected to allow mealworms, locusts, and adult crickets onto our plates. Companies won’t just be doling out bags of freshly fried crickets, either: burgers, granola and even pasta have all been made out of such creepy crawlies. This is presumably because they think it will be easier for us to wolf down worms provided that they look more like normal food. And not wriggly things that just came out of the earth.

USA - Anti-Christian vitriol is rising out of the radical Democrat left and is more clearly framing a coming religious war in America that blames Christians for impeding the “progress” of a dark agenda. The Scientism that underpins Technocracy and Transhumanism only recognizes scientific truth while specifically excluding Biblical truth as mythical, unfounded and dangerous.

USA - Donald Trump has lashed out at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who congratulated President-elect Joe Biden, saying it was “too soon to give up.” McConnell’s move has already angered the president’s most loyal supporters. “Republican Party must finally learn to fight. People are angry!” he wrote. The remark came in response to a statement made by McConnell on Tuesday in which he acknowledged Biden’s win after the electoral college vote, congratulating him and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. “The Electoral College has spoken,” McConnell said, noting that “as of this morning, our country has a president-elect and a vice president-elect” even though “many millions of us had hoped the presidential election would yield a different result.” Apart from publicly acknowledging Biden’s victory, McConnell has reportedly privately warned fellow Republican senators against challenging the election results, urging them to not dispute the Electoral College decision during the upcoming joint session of Congress to confirm the results. The session is scheduled to take place on January 6.

USA - Twitter has declared that it will remove all posts that suggest there are any “adverse impacts or effects of receiving vaccinations,” despite reports already emerging of health workers getting sick from taking Pfizer’s coronavirus shot. Twitter announced that beginning next week it will memory-hole any posts that “invoke a deliberate conspiracy” or “advance harmful, false, or misleading narratives” about vaccines. “Using a combination of technology and human review, we will begin enforcing this updated policy on December 21, and expanding our actions during the following weeks,” the company proclaimed. Twitter added that it will be monitoring posts about vaccinations “in close consultation with local, national, and global public health authorities around the world.”

USA - A few months ago, a company called Capella Space launched a satellite capable of taking clear radar images of anywhere in the world, with incredible resolution — even through the walls of some buildings. And unlike most of the huge array of surveillance and observational satellites orbiting the Earth, its satellite Capella 2 can snap a clear picture during night or day, rain or shine.

USA - The Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the US nuclear weapons stockpile, have evidence that hackers accessed their networks as part of an extensive espionage operation that has affected at least half a dozen federal agencies, officials directly familiar with the matter said. On Thursday, DOE and NNSA officials began coordinating notifications about the breach to their congressional oversight bodies after being briefed by Rocky Campione, the chief information officer at DOE. They found suspicious activity in networks belonging to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories in New Mexico and Washington, the Office of Secure Transportation at NNSA, and the Richland Field Office of the DOE. The hackers have been able to do more damage at FERC than the other agencies, and officials there have evidence of highly malicious activity, the officials said, but did not elaborate.

USA - Abortion rights activists known as The Satanic Temple (TST) announced Wednesday they have posted billboards in Texas and Florida to promote what they call their “religious abortion ritual.” The Satanic Temple claims its members may undergo “first-trimester abortions upon demand in states that have enacted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).”