EUROPE - There is a change of guard at the top of the European Union. The five-year term of top posts draws to a close this weekend as the continent adapts to a political landscape that has been transformed beyond recognition since 2019. The bloc faces an isolationist America under Donald Trump, who has threatened to hit Europe’s stalling economies with tariffs and ram through a peace deal with Russia. Over the past five years the EU has swung sharply to the right. Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, is the new “queen of Europe”, not Angela Merkel, whose autobiography last week was defensive about her discredited centrist past.

UKRAINE - The war in Ukraine could spark direct confrontation between Russia and NATO after the UK and US allowed Kyiv to strike Russian territory with Western missiles. World War 3 has already started as tensions between the West and its enemies continue to ramp up. The war in Ukraine could spark direct confrontation between Russia and NATO after the UK and US allowed Kyiv to strike Russian territory with British and American missiles. Vladimir's Putin's war also comes at a time when the Middle East is the setting of multiple conflicts involving Israel and Iran's proxies. Meanwhile, China continues to threaten military action against Taiwan. A number of experts have warned that World War 3 is already underway.

FRANCE - Marine Le Pen has the fate of Emmanuel Macron's prime minister in her hands - and could plunge France into economic and political crisis. The French government may be about to collapse, after Prime Minister Michel Barnier forced through the first part of his budget without a vote in the National Assembly. Mr Barnier, the EU's former chief Brexit negotiator, had to employ Article 49.3 of the French constitution, to get his controversial plan for spending cuts and tax hikes through. In response to being sidelined by the PM, under the French system lawmakers are able to pursue "censure" - otherwise known as a vote of no confidence - against him. The 73-year-old could be out of his post within 48 hours, with the radical left New Popular Front effectively teaming up with hard right National Rally, the party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, to oust him.

USA - Joe Biden has pardoned his son Hunter despite repeatedly denying he would do so before leaving office in the broadest clemency agreement since Richard Nixon. The US president’s son, 54, was due to be sentenced on firearms charges in early December. In a statement, Mr Biden said he was making the decision because his son had been unfairly prosecuted. As recently as November 7, the White House insisted Mr Biden had no plans to pardon Hunter. But in a statement on Sunday night, the US president said: “Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.”

RUSSIA - Ukraine isn’t World War Three. But it is a truly global struggle. The Russo-Ukrainian war seems to be spreading. Along with the 10,000-12,000 North Koreans reportedly ready to engage with the Ukrainians, Moscow is now said to have recruited hundreds of Yemenis with the promise of generous salaries and citizenship. Meanwhile, South Korea is considering sending intelligence officers or special forces to observe Pyongyang’s men and perhaps help interrogate any prisoners or defectors. This confluence of international troops on frozen Ukrainian soil has led some — such as General Valery Zaluzhny, formerly Ukraine’s commander-in-chief and now its ambassador to the UK — to suggest it is on the verge of becoming a world war.

FRANCE - On Thursday night, France’s foreign minister left Chad confident about its ongoing military relationship with its last strategic partner in the Sahel. Yet shortly after Jean-Noël Barrot took off for Paris from the capital N’Djamena, a Facebook message flashed up announcing Chad’s “decision to end the accord in the field of defence”. Chad’s shock announcement to end its military ties with its former colonial power will likely result in the exit of some 1,000 French troops currently stationed in the country to help in its fight against jihadists and various rebel groups. Compounding the humiliation, the move came just hours after Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Senegal’s president, announced that France should close its military bases in the West African country as part of its drive to regain full “sovereignty”.

BAHRAIN - At least they protect their borders and get things done. “Democracy,” Winston Churchill famously said, “is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” And I’ve no doubt that is true. But sometimes, one wonders. I have just returned from Bahrain – a country where the monarch appoints the prime minister and his ministers, commands the army and controls the judiciary – and the contrast with our supposedly “superior” nation was stark.

UK - How Britain will collapse in two terrifying days if Russia cuts our undersea cables: Your bank account gone. Power out. Emergency services paralysed. Then the anarchy really starts… Until last week, when two fibre-optic cables were severed in the Baltic Sea, few people realised how vulnerable the UK is to internet sabotage. Suspicion over the most recent incident has fallen on a Chinese ship, the Yi Peng 3, which sailed over both cables – linking Finland to Germany and Sweden to Lithuania – around the time they were cut.

ISRAEL - Israel and Hezbollah accused each other of breaking the ceasefire that took effect only a day prior. The Israel Defense Forces announced on Thursday that several “suspicious incidents” had been identified in southern Lebanon in violation of the ceasefire. The IDF and Israeli Air Force had responded with strikes. “Earlier today, IDF soldiers identified two terrorists arriving at a known terrorist infrastructure site, that had been used to fire dozens of projectiles into Israel over the past month. The IAF struck the terrorists,” a statement from the IDF read. “Additionally, over the past hours, IDF soldiers operated to prevent the advancing of additional terrorists in southern Lebanon,” it added. According to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency, two Lebanese were wounded in an alluded-to artillery strike near the border. Meanwhile, Hezbollah accused Israel of violating it.

GERMANY - Germany will promote the inherent value of its “dominant culture” and make migrants assimilate, an MP from the country’s government-in-waiting has said. In a clear shift from the Angela Merkel era, the centre-right Christian Democrats Union (CDU) has made the concept of “Leitkultur” a key pillar of its manifesto ahead of snap elections in February. In an interview with The Telegraph, Alexander Throm, the CDU interior affairs spokesman, said Leitkultur was fundamentally the principle that foreigners should adopt German cultural values and not vice versa. “It is the way that we live in Germany as a cultural nation,” he said. “It concerns not only our languages and customs, but also our cultural and historical foundations. It ultimately means that people, no matter why they come to Germany, orient themselves towards this cultural basis, not the other way around.”

SYRIA - Multiple sources report that a military coup may be underway in Damascus. The Republican Guard is reportedly engaged in combat with a division of the Syrian Army. Ordinarily, the Republican Guard is the regime protection force, but the situation is so confused in Syria that it is hard to tell. Speculation has identified the coup leader as a member of Assad's inner circle.

GERMANY - The Alternative for Germany party also reportedly wants to ditch the euro and return to trading with Russia. Alternative for Germany (AfD) – the third largest opposition party in the country’s parliament – intends to take the country out of the EU if it wins the upcoming election, several media outlets reported on Friday, citing the party’s newly drafted election manifesto.

RUSSIA - Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has said that apocalyptic fear-mongering and speculation about nuclear war are not good for people of faith from a spiritual point of view. The church leader made the remarks at the World Russian People’s Council session in Moscow on Thursday. “There is no need to play along with all this. Christians are not afraid of the so-called end of the world,” the Patriarch said. “We are waiting for the Lord Jesus, who will come to great glory, destroy evil, and judge all nations.” This, however, does not mean that people should sit idle, Kirill said, because “the enemy of the human race” is trying to sow confusion and anxiety, depriving everyone of courage and will. "A person deprived of spiritual peace is easier to manipulate,” he said. Russia’s goal is to “resist evil,” according to the Orthodox Church leader, who called on his fellow citizens to “defend high moral ideals.”

UK - MPs should not allow their religion to inform how they vote on assisted dying, a Home Office minister has said. Seema Malhotra said it was “important” that decisions in the Commons are made on a “secular basis”, as “that’s the way our Parliament is designed”. Sir Keir Starmer has granted MPs a free vote on the Bill to legalise assisted dying, set to be debated in the Commons on Friday. It means they are free to vote with their conscience, rather than having to side with their party.

UK - The British Ministry of Defence is taking the ‘threat seriously’ after a number of unidentified drones were spotted over three US airbases in Britain. “Small unmanned aerial systems” were spotted over RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall, in Suffolk, and RAF Feltwell, in Norfolk between November 20 and 22. A spokesperson for the British Ministry of Defence said: “We take threats seriously and maintain robust measures at defence sites. This includes counter drone security capabilities. We won’t comment further on security procedures.”