BRAZIL - Rio de Janeiro headquarters of the Brazilian comedy group Porta Dos Fundos has been attacked with Molotov cocktails. The incident comes weeks after it released a controversial movie, depicting Jesus as gay. “In the early morning of December 24, on Christmas Eve, the headquarters of Porta dos Fundos was the victim of an attack. Molotov cocktails were thrown at our building,” the comedy group confirmed. The fire was promptly contained by a security guard and no one was injured, yet the incident endangered “several innocent lives in the office and in the street,” it said.

GERMANY - The attack on a synagogue and the murder of a politician by right-wing extremists in 2019 sent shock waves through Germany. But the vast majority of Germans favor an open, tolerant society, writes Jens Thurau. To mark the beginning of Hanukkah, German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday sent a message of support to the country's Jewish community. She said it was a miracle that, after the Shoah, there is once again Jewish life in Germany. This miracle, she added, was something for which Germany can be "deeply thankful."

GERMANY - Mrs Angela Merkel has encouraged Donald Trump on many occasions in the recent past not to disparage the transatlantic alliance and the liberal international order. Yet, her ability to lead the liberal world seems quite low because she is now a lame-duck chancellor and the forces arrayed against the liberal order are also on the rise in Germany. Merkel's message that the time has finally arrived for Europeans to strengthen the EU integration process by endowing the EU with strong institutional capabilities in the fields of common economic, foreign, security and defense policy is also supported by French President Emmanuel Macron.

RUSSIA - The global economy is facing a threat of a spiraling protectionist measures that can lead to a devastating crisis, Vladimir Putin warned. Nations must find a way to prevent this and establish rules on how the economy should work. The Russian president spoke out against the growing trend of using unilateral restrictions to achieve economic advantage, as he addressed guests of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Friday. “The system of multilateral cooperation, which took years to build, is no longer allowed to evolve. It is being broken in a very crude way. Breaking the rules is becoming the new rule,” he said. “We don’t need trade wars today or even temporary trade ceasefires. We need a comprehensive trade peace,” the president stressed.

USA - President Donald Trump continued his campaign against windmills on Saturday, issuing one of the most detailed takedowns to date of one of the environmentalist’s favorite forms of energy. In a speech to Turning Point USA activists in Palm Beach Florida, the president mocked the idea of a windmill-driven economy proposed by Democrats promoting the “Green New Deal” in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail. “You know, I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody I know,” Trump said. “It’s very expensive.” The president noted that windmill production actually created a tremendous amount of pollution, despite being branded as a “green” source of energy. Trump noted the windmills were typically produced in China and Germany — sending pollution into the air and hurting the planet. “Whether it’s in China, Germany, it’s going into the air,” he said. “It’s our air, their air, everything right?”

USA - Among the records the US set in 2019 was a sad and disturbing one. It was the year with the most incidents of mass killing since media and scholars started keeping track, according to a new study. There were 211 victims in 41 mass killings this year, according to the database maintained by the Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University in Boston. By their definition, a mass murder is any incident in which four or more people die, excluding the perpetrator. It is the largest number of mass killings since the two news organizations and the university started tracking them in 2006, when they recorded 38 incidents. They say “other research” going back to the 1970s shows no other year that can compare, either. “This seems to be the age of mass shootings,” James Densley, a criminologist and professor at Metropolitan State University in Minnesota, told AP.

UK - 2019 will be memorable for many reasons: Boris Johnson got elected, Green Book won best picture Oscar, Trump got impeached and Global Language Monitor announced 'Woke' as Word of the Year. According to Paul JJ Payack, president and chief word analyst at the Global Language Monitor, the word 'Woke' and society's new identitarian outlook on life has been gathering steam for a decade and "sins of the past are now viewed in the context of the present as subjects to be rectified, awakened to the call of social justice."

EUROPE - The next few months are set to be rocky for the EU alliance, as member countries agree on the terms of a trade deal with the UK. The EU27 need to agree a draft mandate by February 1 in order for trade talks to commence in March, but it’s not looking an easy task as some countries will need to make concessions in order for an agreement to be reached. One EU diplomat told Politico: “At a certain point there are going to be trade-offs necessary.”

SPAIN - There is mounting pressure in Spain for right-wing parties to back a Brexit-style departure from the EU, following widespread fury across the country at a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Spain has joined Poland in becoming the second country this week to claim it could ditch the EU, amid growing fury at the power that Brussels holds over member-states. Spain’s third biggest party Vox is under huge pressure to back the Spanish version of the Brexit referendum, following growing fury at an ECJ ruling this week. Vox’s own party president lambasted the EU, claiming when the ECJ overruled Spanish courts, it had humiliated the country and its sovereignty. According to The Daily Telegraph, the far-right party is coming under pressure from its grassroots to campaign for a referendum to leave the EU.

USA - One thing that you can count on in life is that things are going to change. And these days the pace of change in America is absolutely breathtaking. Our culture is in the process of being radically transformed, and the direction of that change has not altered very much at all no matter which political party has been in power in Washington. Many of the values that are now embraced by a solid majority of the population run directly counter to the values that once dominated our society, but only a small minority of Americans seem alarmed by that fact. It appears to be exceedingly unlikely that there will be any deviating from the path that our nation has chosen, because at this point the American people seem quite satisfied with the dramatic “progress” that is taking place.

USA - A petition against the Netflix Christmas special featuring a gay Jesus and pot-smoking Virgin Mary has now passed 2.3 million signatures, as Christians vent their outrage against the film. Launched just three weeks ago, the change.org online petition to “ban the Christmas movie” titled The First Temptation of Christ has steadily accumulated support, largely in Brazil, where the film was created. Similar petitions have been launched in other languages. The 46-minute Christmas special portrays a thirty-something Jesus bringing home his boyfriend home to meet Mary and Joseph. The Portuguese-language film, which debuted worldwide on Netflix earlier this month, comes from the Brazilian comedy group Porta dos Fundos (literally, “Back Door”). The online petition asks that the show be removed from the Netflix catalog and for Porta dos Fundos to be held responsible for ridiculing the Christian faith.

USA - A prophet who defies a resurgent Islamic State in Syria. A shooting on Jerusalem's sacred Temple Mount. And - just possibly - the coming of the Messiah. Netflix could scarcely have picked a more controversial plot for its latest thriller, about a mysterious religious leader who emerges in the Middle East and is pursued across the globe by the CIA. "Yes it's provocative - the show is provocative," creator Michael Petroni told AFP. "But provocative isn't offensive." "Messiah," out January 1, imagines how modern society would react if such a figure appeared, spreading his message rapidly via social media in a world grappling with "fake news" and breathless 24-hour bulletins. The question of whether the character - played by Belgian actor Mehdi Dehbi - is the genuine Messiah, a nefarious political agent or simply a trickster is at the heart of the show's premise.

USA - No matter how divided Congress pretends to be they always agree to spend more money… The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a $1.4 trillion spending package that includes a provision prohibiting the sale of cigarettes, e-cigarettes, cigars and other tobacco products to people under the age of 21. US lawmakers on Monday negotiated a deal to add the provision, as well as other changes to health-care law, to the spending bill that funds the federal government through the fiscal year ending September 30. The legislation now heads to the Senate, where it’s expected to pass later this week. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said President Donald Trump intends to sign it into law.

RUSSIA - NATO’s ramping up of large-scale war games in the Baltics, Poland and the Black Sea region show that it is gearing up for a major confrontation, Gerasimov said on Thursday, briefing foreign military attaches in Moscow. Gerasimov pointed out that in addition to flexing its military muscles around Russian borders, the US continues to deploy its anti-ballistic missile systems to Europe, which Moscow considers to be an acute threat to its national security. Furthermore, there is an ongoing smear campaign about a “Russian military threat” aimed at vilifying Moscow, the general said. Any military build-up attempted by Russia, transparent and defensive in nature, is being spun by Western media outlets and governments as a “threat to peace,” he added… it’s essential to calm tensions building up between the West and Russia so the animosity does not lead to dangerous military incidents, Gerasimov said, describing it as “the most important area in the dialogue between Russia and the US and NATO.”

UK - MPs have backed Prime Minister Boris Johnson's plan for the UK to leave the EU on 31 January. They voted 358 to 234 - a majority of 124 - in favour of the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill, which now goes on to further scrutiny in Parliament. The bill would also ban an extension of the transition period - during which the UK is out of the EU but follows many of its rules - past 2020. The PM said the country was now "one step closer to getting Brexit done". Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told his MPs to vote against the bill, saying there was "a better and fairer way" to leave the EU - but six of them backed the government. Mr Johnson insists a trade deal with the EU can be in place by the end of the transition period, but critics say this timescale is unrealistic. The government says it will get the bill into law in time for the 31 January Brexit deadline.