USA - Robert F Kennedy Jr has set his sights on the processed foods industrial complex. Nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Kennedy has long been an outspoken critic of toxic ingredients in food, including dyes and seed oils. Trump's second term has yet to begin, but the merging of the 'Make America Healthy Again' and 'Make America Great Again' movements has sparked a dietary awakening among millions of consumers. It's not just dyes and seed oils poisoning Americans and ending their lives short; plastic chemicals are increasingly being found in popular fast foods and supermarket staples.

EUROPE - Europe could see a 'drastic' rise to energy costs as Russian natural gas exports via Soviet-era pipelines running through Ukraine were halted on New Year's Day. The move comes as a transit deal expired while warring Moscow and Kyiv have failed to reach an agreement to continue the flows. The shutdown of Russia's oldest gas route to Europe ends a decade of fraught relations sparked by Russia's seizure of Crimea in 2014. Ukraine stopped buying Russian gas the following year. 'We stopped the transit of Russian gas. This is a historic event. Russia is losing its markets, it will suffer financial losses. Europe has already made the decision to abandon Russian gas,' Ukraine's Energy Minister German Galushchenko said in a statement. Ukraine now faces the loss of some $800 million a year in transit fees from Russia, while Gazprom will lose close to $5 billion in gas sales.

USA - The US government is currently constructing the most colossal monument in the history of the world. It is a monument of debt, and we will forever be remembered as the nation that piled up far more debt than anyone else ever did. For decades, this generation has been recklessly spending the money of future generations of Americans. Most people seem to think that we are totally getting away with this swindle, but the truth is that the party is almost over. Our national debt has already surpassed the 36 trillion dollar mark, and according to usdebtclock.org at our current rate of spending our national debt will surpass the 51 trillion dollar mark four years from now.

MIDDLE EAST - With Hamas and Hezbollah in ruins, the IDF is ready to intensify its attacks on Iran’s last proxy. For a brief moment as Lebanon and Israel signed a ceasefire pact a little over a month ago, the Middle East appeared to have stepped away from the abyss of all-out war. Yet now Israel is weighing its next battle against Iran’s last proxy standing: the Houthi rebels of Yemen, who are in the firing line despite being more than a thousand miles from Tel Aviv.

ITALY - Libero, edited by a former spokesman for Giorgia Meloni, says its choice is a provocative way of poking fun at the left’s ‘obsession’ with the dictator. Benito Mussolini has been named man of the year by a right-wing Italian newspaper, prompting howls of indignation on social media. Libero ran the headline “He is the man of the year” over a large image of a bronze head of the dictator who killed off democracy in 1920s Italy, passed racial laws targeting Jews and allied with Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

USA - What kind of year is 2025 going to be? If you ask 1,000 different people that question, you will probably get 1,000 different answers. There are some that are very optimistic about the year ahead, but there are others that are very pessimistic about the year ahead. In fact, Gallup just conducted a survey that discovered that most Americans believe that 2025 will be a year of “political conflict, economic difficulty, international discord, increasing power for China and Russia, and a rising federal budget deficit”…

UK - Sir Keir Starmer has admitted many people are finding it “hard to think about the future” in a downbeat New Year address. The Prime Minister addressed the difficulties families were facing and conceded that the change his government aimed to deliver would take time. He expressed hope that 2025 would see Britain rediscover “the great nation we are”, adding: “I know there is still so much more to do, and that for many people it’s hard to think about the future when you spend all your time fighting to get through the week.” The government is approaching its six-month mark in office with economic growth stagnant after a £40 billion tax rise in the Budget in October.

GERMANY - Chancellor’s New Year’s Eve address follows Elon Musk’s endorsement of German far-right party AfD on X. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has urged voters not to let the “owners of social media channels” decide next year’s snap election, after Elon Musk repeatedly endorsed the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). In a New Year’s Eve address recorded for television and made available before its broadcast on Tuesday, Scholz said German citizens alone had the power to decide “where Germany goes from here” after the general election on 23 February. “It will not be decided by the owners of social media channels,” Scholz said of the country’s future. On Monday, a spokesperson for Scholz, Christiane Hoffmann, accused Musk of trying to meddle in the country’s election campaign with a series of declarations backing the anti-Muslim, anti-migration AfD party.

PAKISTAN - Islamist group warns Islamabad not to ‘underestimate our capabilities’ as it dispatches battalions of fighters to the border. The Afghan Taliban has launched a wave of artillery strikes against Pakistani checkpoints across the border, raising fears of war between the neighbouring countries. The Islamist group claimed to have destroyed “several” enemy positions and dispatched battalions of fighters to the border in anticipation of any response from Islamabad. It followed Pakistani air strikes on the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a separate group but close ally to the Afghan Taliban, in eastern Afghanistan. Afghan officials say the strikes killed 46 civilians, mainly women and children. “Several battalions have been dispatched to the border, and we are prepared for anything – we didn’t kick Nato out only to be intimidated or humiliated by Punjabis,” he said. Maria Zakharova, a foreign ministry spokesman, said: “Moscow is worried about the escalation of tensions at the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

EUROPE - The European Union purchased a blender for a school without electricity and funded a “conflict prevention” radio station which only played music as part of a €5 billion (£4.1 billion) trust fund for Africa. A report by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) highlighted dozens of similar projects that were deemed to be a waste of taxpayers’ money, including from Britain. Its 66-page report also raised fears that criminal gangs and people smugglers had benefited from billions of euros being spent by Brussels on the African continent in the hope of curbing illegal migration to the bloc.

CHINA - China’s massive dam-building plans in Tibet, already facing opposition within the country, are threatening to reignite a row with India. Indian experts have joined their Chinese and Tibetan counterparts in warning that one dam approved in December, on the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra River in the Himalayas, could have devastating consequences. The dam, to be built at Metok in Tibet at an estimated cost of $137 billion, could be the most expensive infrastructure project in the world.

USA - Joe Biden’s decline has, on one of America’s longest-running current affairs shows, been labelled the most underreported story of 2024. The designation was made on CBS’s Face The Nation by Jan Crawford, the network’s chief legal correspondent, after the show’s moderator, Major Garrett, asked reporters in a panel discussion to identify the most uncovered issues in a review of the year’s events. “Undercovered and underreported. That would be, to me, Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline that became undeniable in the televised debate,” Crawford said in Sunday’s broadcast. She was referring to the June presidential debate between Biden and Donald Trump in Atlanta, where the president’s confused display triggered deep concern among Democrats about his ability to win the election. Biden’s debate performance ultimately led to him withdrawing as the party’s nominee in favour of Kamala Harris. Crawford castigated fellow journalists for not shedding light much earlier on the effect of ageing on the now 82-year-old Biden’s prowess.

USA - National Weather Service says severe storm system is moving east through Alabama and into Georgia. At least two people were killed and six more injured as several tornadoes touched down in Texas and Mississippi on Saturday, damaging homes and flipping vehicles as the storm system moved east across Alabama early on Sunday. The US National Weather Service (NWS)’s severe storm tracker indicated the system was moving east through Alabama into Georgia shortly before 4am. The agency issued severe thunderstorm warnings with the possibility of tornadoes in western Georgia and the north-western tip of Florida directly above the Gulf of Mexico.

USA - Scientists have warned that an underwater volcano off the coast of the northwestern US is likely to blow sometime in 2025. The volcano, called Axial Seamount, is more than 3,600-feet-tall and sits half a mile underwater just 300 miles off the coast of Oregon. Experts made the prediction on December 10 after detecting seafloor swelling around Axial that mimicked a level seen immediately before an eruption in 2015. Seismic activity has also increased, with hundreds of earthquakes generated around the volcano per day and earthquake swarms greater than 500 per day.

GERMANY - In Germany, public dissatisfaction with the political establishment has reached fever pitch. As Europe’s largest economy grapples with inflation, high energy costs, and a general sense that “liberal elites” have grown out of touch, more radical parties on both the right and left are seizing the moment. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is gaining ground almost daily, wooing voters who feel abandoned by the mainstream, while Sahra Wagenknecht, a controversial leftist, is forming a new party that could siphon off working-class support from traditional parties. With these developments, Germany – once the epitome of stability – now stands on the verge of a political earthquake whose tremors may be felt throughout the European Union.