CHINA - Beijing deploys new assault ships during its largest-ever military drills around disputed island. China has fired rockets close to Taiwan in its most extensive military drills around the island nation to date. On Tuesday, Beijing deployed new amphibious assault ships alongside destroyers and bomber aircraft, on the second day of drills rehearsing a blockade of Taiwan, which it claims as its own territory. The war games began 11 days after the Trump administration announced its largest-ever weapons package to Taiwan, which has been self-governing since 1949. Beijing has also been more forcefully promoting its territorial claims over the island, particularly after Japan’s prime minister last month suggested Tokyo could take military action if Beijing attacked Taiwan.

IRAN - BREAKING NOW: The massive anti-regime, pro-Shah and pro-@PahlaviReza, uprising in Iran continues through the night and has spread to multiple provinces across the country. In Hamedan, people are chanting “Long Live The Shah” (#JavidShah) in support of Iran’s exiled Shah and National Leader, Reza Shah Pahlavi II.

USA - The financial press reports that people are swarming the coin shops these days, grabbing as much as possible. This is exactly what one would expect given the wild and parabolic increases in the silver price over the last month, moving from $30 to $75 in the period of one year. The wild bull market seems to reflect new levels of demand from AI and solar panels. There is no better conductor of electricity or temperature. There is also the perception that supplies are dwindling. Put it together — supply and demand — and the magic just happens. If you are among those who are stocking up on coins you might take a few minutes to look more carefully at the dates of these coins. The year was 1965, the great turning point. The last 90 percent silver circulating coins (dimes, quarters, half-dollars) were dated 1964, and everyday “silver coinage” ended with that date for most denominations.

RUSSIA - The photograph of Steve Witkoff with Vladimir Putin in Moscow is not merely another episode in the long chronicle of American informal diplomacy. It is a symbol of something far more consequential: the definitive erosion of the Euro-Atlantic security architecture that has anchored Europe since 1945. Europe now finds itself a spectator to a negotiation that directly concerns its future but in which it has no meaningful voice. For decades, European leaders assumed that their security environment was guaranteed through three pillars: American military supremacy, NATO cohesion, and a Russia that could be simultaneously contained and marginalised. Europe’s tragedy is not that it is being excluded from the negotiations shaping its own future, but that it does not yet fully grasp the depth of its exclusion. But as the conflict has entered its later stages, and as new political dynamics have emerged in Washington, a deeper reality has become visible: Europe’s vision of security is not aligned with America’s long-term strategic trajectory.

USA - President Trump said on Monday that he would support an Israeli attack on Iran if Tehran “continues” its conventional missile program or if it works to rebuild its civilian nuclear program that was damaged by US airstrikes during the US-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic in June. The president made the comments at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida before a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when asked if he would back more Israeli attacks on Iran. “If they continue with the missiles, yes. The nuclear, fast,” he said. “One will be yes, absolutely,” he added, appearing to reference Iran’s missiles. “The other was we’ll do it immediately,” he said, referencing the possibility of Iran rebuilding its nuclear program. The president also threatened to “knock the hell” out of Iran if it “builds up again.”

EUROPE - Europe’s tragedy is not that it is being excluded from the negotiations shaping its own future, but that it does not yet fully grasp the depth of its exclusion. The Moscow meetings are not a negotiation between equals; it is a negotiation between systems of power. Trump and Putin understand one another because they speak the language of transactional geopolitics. Europe speaks the language of norms, laws, and bureaucratic procedures — in a world that is no longer governed by them. A new European security architecture is being drafted, and it is not being drafted in Brussels. It is being drafted in Washington and Moscow. Europe must confront a stark question: Can a continent that has lost strategic agency recover it before the next geopolitical cycle closes?

USA - President Trump hopes to banish the Chinese-driven view that America is in decline at home and abroad. The galloping pace of politics and war in 2025 was such that even potentially big showdowns such as that between the United States and Venezuela seemed like mere footnotes to an annus terribilis. The coming year will perhaps be less bloody but no more serene. An old order is giving way to a global free-for-all, overshadowed by the problem of how to manage the Sino-American rivalry and how to restrain President Putin’s Russia. Eventually European powers will face their own trilemma for 2026: how, simultaneously, to maintain an increasingly ideological confrontation with Washington, a military confrontation with Russia and an economic war with China?

ISRAEL - Majorities in five major economies say the cost of living has worsened, pressuring incumbents and redrawing alliances, according to a new international survey. Voter frustration over rising prices is continuing to upend politics across some of the world’s largest democracies, with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Canada all reporting deepening cost-of-living strain, according to a Politico poll released earlier this month. The survey suggested that the affordability crunch remains a dominant force shaping elections and party strategies in 2026, with voters blaming incumbent governments and seeking alternatives. In the US, nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents reported that the cost of living worsened over the past year. In the UK, 77% reported the same, whereas in Germany, 78% reported deterioration. In France, 82% reported rising costs, and in Canada, 60% described the current cost of living as the worst they can remember.

UK - A D-Day veteran who was awarded a British Empire Medal says the country is “disappointing” and risks repeating the mistakes that led to the Second World War. Kersh said he was deeply concerned about rising antisemitism. “What’s disappointing is the antisemitism that I see everywhere, hear everywhere or read,” he said. Kersh said he believed the lessons of the Second World War were being forgotten and that he “absolutely” saw parallels with the present day, adding that Russia was “threatening the West”. Comparing today’s political leadership with the prewar era, he said: “We’ve got to either have another leader who’s more aggressive, I don’t mean start a war, but aggressive. We’ve got to defend, that’s the first concern.”

ISRAEL - 'A message to our enemies': “The entire combat doctrine will change through laser technology, with all that this implies. This is a very big day for the State of Israel, and it is another huge contribution to global security, and to the entire region being able to cooperate together against a great common enemy, who is constantly trying to destabilize the region and trying to destroy us. In the end, he will fall,” he added, referring to the system’s delivery to the Israeli military. “This is also a message to our enemies,” declared Herzog. “We suggest that you simply not mess with us, and understand that Israel is an existing fact, and instead of engaging in a discourse of war, engage in a discourse of peace.”