GERMANY - In power so long she has been dubbed Germany's "eternal chancellor", Angela Merkel marks 15 years at the helm of Europe's top economic power Sunday with her popularity and public trust scaling new heights as her remaining time in office ticks down. With the coronavirus raging around the world, the pandemic has played to her strengths as a crisis manager with a head for science-based solutions. Merkel, 66, has said she will step down as chancellor when her current mandate runs out in 2021, and leave politics altogether. Assuming she finishes out her fourth term, she will tie Helmut Kohl's longevity record for a post-war leader, with an entire generation of young Germans never knowing another person at the top.

HUNGARY - Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán lambasted billionaire plutocrat George Soros as “one of the most corrupt people in the world” after he called on the European Union to make Hungary and Poland submit to “open society” values. “George Soros is threatening Hungary and Poland,” Prime Minister Orbán told Kossuth Rádió on Friday, referencing the 90-year-old arch-activist’s public lobbying of the EU deprive the conservative-led central European countries of funding. “George Soros is one of the most corrupt people in the world; he has plenty of politicians in his pocket who now want to blackmail Hungary and Poland for access to EU funds,” the Hungarian leader continued, accusing the billionaire of spreading “absurd, beyond-the-red-line statements” about his country.

USA - Pfizer, famous for its Viagra and other drugs, has partnered with a small Mainz, Germany company, BioNTech, which has developed the radical mRNA technique used to produce the new corona vaccine. BioNTech was only founded in 2008. BioNTech signed an agreement with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in September, 2019, just before announcement in Wuhan China of the Novel Coronavirus and just before BioNTech made its stock market debut. The agreement involved cooperation on developing new mRNA techniques to treat cancer and HIV. BioNTech also has an agreement with one of the largest drug producers in China, Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Co Ltd (“Fosun Pharma”) to develop a version of its mRNA vaccine for novel coronavirus for the Chinese market. This means that the same German biotech company is behind the covid vaccines being rushed out in China as well as the USA and EU. The vaccine is being rushed through to eventual approval in an alarmingly short time.

UK - A British MP faced backlash Monday after suggesting that employees in the UK should not be allowed to go to work unless they can prove that they have been vaccinated against COVID-19, when the shot becomes available. “If vaccination works and if we’re confident it’s safe, and all indications so far are good, then I can certainly see the day when businesses say: ‘Look, you’ve got to return to the office and if you’re not vaccinated you’re not coming in,’” said Tom Tugendhat. “And I can certainly see social venues asking for vaccination certificates,” Tugendhat added. Far from being some extreme leftist politician, Tugendhat is a Conservative MP, he chairs the foreign affairs committee under Prime Minster Boris Johnson’s government.

GERMANY - The Turkish Navy operating in the Eastern Mediterranean has been upgraded with warships and equipment from Germany worth almost ten billion euros over the past decade and a half. This is confirmed by the Federal Ministry of Economics. Ankara can use German frigates for its operations right off the Greek islands as well as to escort research vessels that are illegally exploring Cypriot sea areas for possible oil and gas deposits. In the conflict with Greece and Cyprus, Turkey also has German speedboats and submarines at its disposal - a fact that is explosive not least because Greece and Cyprus, as EU members, can also demand protection from Germany. In fact, Ankara was one of the earliest customers of German warship builders; German submarines are still produced under license in Turkey today. If the federal government has long considered supplying the navy to be legitimate ("anything that swims, goes"), this has been taking revenge since Ankara began to see itself as a sea power.

IRAN - Escalation: Iran Is going out of their way to get Trump to order a bombing raid on them. Iran has fired up advanced uranium centrifuges installed at its underground Natanz site a day after it appeared President Trump asked for choices on striking the facility. Tehran is fueling the high-tech IR-2m machines at Natanz, in violation of an international agreement to only use first-generation IR-1 machines. Trump had an Oval Office conference last week where he was 'talked out of' launching strikes on Iran after a former UN report revealed a massive rise in nuclear stockpiles in breach of the Obama-era pact which Trump abandoned in 2018. Defense sources explained that Trump asked for options on an attack - possibly to have targeted Iran's foremost nuclear facility, Natanz.

USA - Scientists have made monkeys brains bigger by splicing them with human genes in an experiment reminiscent of The Planet of the Apes. Experts took the gene known as ARHGAP11B – which directs stem cells in the human brain – and placed it into the brains of common marmosets. The experiment ended up with the monkey fetuses having larger, more advanced, and more-human like brains, according to the study published in Science. Scientists however opted to abort the fetus due to possible “unforeseen consequences”. It echoes the plot of the Planet of the Apes movies series, in which a new race of genetically modified intelligent primates takeover the Earth.

USA - Graham told host Laura Ingraham he saw the country as being in “moral freefall” but vowed not to back down. “I think we are in a moral freefall in this country,” he said. “And the only hope for our country, I believe, is God. And for that to happen is we’ve got to come to Him in repentance, turning from our sins, and putting our faith and trust in His Son, Jesus Christ. And I think if we do that, then God will hear our prayers, and He will heal this country.” “People have asked me, what’s it going to take to bring this country together?” Franklin Graham continued. “I don’t think our country will ever come together. I think we’re so divided now, and it’s only going to get worse. And the hatred that we see from many in the public square toward Christians is incredible.”

UK - LGBT activist Jayne Ozanne has compared biblical Christians to “rapists” and “Holocaust deniers” for failing to preach the morality of homosexual sex. In a recent article for Pink News, Ozanne, director of the UK-based Ozanne Foundation and General Synod member, blasted the Church of England for upholding Christian teaching on marriage and sexuality in its recent publication of a set of resources titled Living in Love and Faith. Supposedly a British evangelical Anglican, Ozanne works with religious organisations around the world in an effort to persuade them to update their moral teachings to accommodate LGBT sexual lifestyles. Unlike the soldiers who crucified Jesus, church leaders know they are “wounding and hurting” LGBT people by propagating biblical sexual morality, Ozanne writes, and thus Jesus’ prayer — “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” — does not apply to them. “Personally, I believe that it is completely different,” she states. “Indeed, I think it is immoral, inexcusable, and cowardly.”

USA - European security officials are worried that outgoing president Donald Trump will trigger a military conflict with Iran in order to tie President-Elect Joe Biden's hands, sources tell Insider. They also fear that Israel and Saudi Arabia may see the departure of Trump as a ticking clock they need to beat. "Both countries are run by immature leaders who have been screaming about the need for war with Iran for so long it's possible they really believe that a Biden administration will be followed by an Iranian nuclear attack," one source told Insider. Trump has elevated hardliners on Iran inside the Pentagon.


UK - Public sector debt has reached a new record high of £2.08 billion as Government borrowing soars in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Borrowing is estimated to have been a whopping £22.3 billion in October, the sixth-highest borrowing in any month since records began in 1993. In addition, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said borrowing for the first seven months of the financial year is now estimated at £214.9 billion - the highest in any April to October period. It means that the UK's overall debt has reached around 100.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), a level not seen for many decades. This takes net public sector debt to £2.076 trillion by the end of October. The scaling public debt comes as the Government has invested billions of pounds in supporting the economy through the coronavirus pandemic.

UK - Britain has announced an extra £24.1 billion ($31.8 billion) in military spending, as part of the country’s biggest investment in defence since the cold war that ended 30 years ago in 1991. The spending will be over the next four years, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the House of Commons on Thursday. This is £16.5 billion ($21.7 billion) more than was pledged in the government’s 2019 manifesto, exceeding the amount of the country’s NATO pledge and raising defence spending, Johnson said, to at least 2.2 percent of GDP. Of Britain’s NATO allies the overall £190 billion ($251 billion) investment is second only to that of the United States, Johnson said.

USA - It is put up or shut up time. More than two weeks have passed since November 3rd, and the Trump legal team only has a very limited amount of time left to stop Joe Biden from being elected president. The Electoral College votes on December 14th, but the real deadline is December 8th because the selection of electors must be completed by that date. Of course it is possible that the US Supreme Court could push back that deadline, but it has never happened before in all of US history.

USA - We are about to witness the most high stakes court battle in the history of the United States. Yes, the outcome will determine whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden wins the presidency, but even more importantly the integrity of America’s elections is about to be put on trial. If fraud can be proven, extremely expensive voting machines will have to be destroyed all over the nation and the way that we run our elections will need to be completely reconfigured. But if fraud is not proven, our elections will continue to be run the same way and nobody will ever dare challenge them again. Literally, this is the moment when we determine if there will be fair elections in the United States for the foreseeable future. So to say that the stakes are very high is actually quite an understatement. In the end, we will see what can be proven in court and what can’t be proven. Apparently some big legal moves are about to be made, and I wouldn’t bet against Sidney Powell. If Powell can pull this off, it will be the most shocking legal victory in the history of US politics, and it will turn our country completely upside down.

UK - Do you feel lucky? The number 21 is connected with luck, risk, taking chances and rolling the dice. It’s the number of spots on a standard die, and the number of shillings in a guinea, the currency of wagers and horse-racing. It’s the minimum age at which you can enter a casino in America, and the name of a family of card games, including blackjack, that are popular with gamblers. All of which seems strangely appropriate for a year of unusual uncertainty. The great prize on offer is the chance of bringing the coronavirus pandemic under control. But in the meantime risks abound, to health, economic vitality and social stability. As 2021 approaches, here are ten trends to watch in the year ahead.