GERMANY - A member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s own party said their conservative CDU needs “new party leadership,” accusing Merkel of shifting the party further to the left. Alexander Mitsch, who leads a right-leaning group within the CDU, in an interview on Monday criticized the party’s immigration policies in recent years as well as the loss of voters’ support in September’s national election. “Now after this election debacle, in which the CDU had the worst result since 1949 … the party leadership is obviously not ready to correct anything,” he told broadcaster Deutschlandfunk, referencing the CDU’s drop to 26.8 percent in the election, compared to 34.1 percent in the prior 2013 election. “That brings us then to the realization that we need new party leadership.”

QATAR - Qatar is just as dangerous to world stability as North Korea, the US President’s former strategist has said. Steve Bannon claimed Qatar is the single most important thing happening in the world and people should be paying a great deal of attention to it. The Saudi-Arabia led isolation of Qatar is the most worrying confrontation in the world at the moment, the former strategist for Donald Trump added.

USA - Don’t look now, but it’s becoming a real possibility that the government will shut down in December. Congress has until midnight on December 15 to pass a spending bill or the federal government will run out of money. The tricky thing is that Republicans need at least eight Democrats in the Senate to meet the 60-vote threshold needed to pass a bill, which means they will need to make some serious compromises to get a spending bill through.

CHINA - For the last weeks the world’s geopolitical situation has been deteriorating because of the tensions around North Korea and renewed talks about re-imposing sanctions against Iran. The sanctions imposed against Kim Jong Un’s regime do not affect Europe or the United States, but are unacceptable for China, which is North Korea’s almost exclusive supplier of goods. We did not need to wait long for the response: China introduced oil futures contracts, payable in the yuan, which could be exchanged for gold on stock exchanges in Shanghai and Hong Kong. By using these contracts the United States dollar as well as the economic sanctions against Russia and Iran can be bypassed.

USA - Outbreaks of life-threatening infectious diseases are spreading faster and with more unpredictability than ever. Although there is more awareness about the issue, experts agree that the world is not prepared for the next pandemic. “We still are not ready for the big one,” Ron Klain, who was the United States’ Ebola czar during the epidemic said, noting that next year is the centennial of the great influenza pandemic of 1918 -1919 that killed at least 50 million people worldwide. “We’re frankly not ready for a medium-sized one. The threat is still out there.”

CHINA - For people who love bacon but hate everything it does to their diet, scientists in China may have created a way to have your pig and eat it too. A team of researchers have genetically altered pigs to carry nearly 24 percent less body fat. Using the CRISPR-Cas 9 gene editing technique, the team reportedly modified a group of pigs which gave birth to much leaner piglets. The experiment, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), is looking to make pigs less susceptible to the cold. Scientists noted that modern pigs, especially younger ones, lack the ability to deal with colder temperatures and build up unhealthy levels of fat. The researchers added that the change could create huge savings for the pig farming industry.

USA - Last year, farmers around the world planted genetically modified crops like soybeans, corn and cotton across 240 million acres of land that create proteins from the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) bacterium. Capable of killing pests like beetles and caterpillars, their effects on the environment and human health have long been the subject of much debate.

RUSSIA - Vladimir Putin warns of future sci-fi super-human soldiers more ‘destructive than nuclear bombs’ who feel no fear or pain. The Russian President spoke to youngsters at a festival in Sochi about the prospect of mass-killing supermen who are incapable of feeling pain or compassion.

USA - An extensive survey of hundreds of adults across the United States has just revealed that the thing most Americans fear — more than anything else — is their own government. In fact, according to the survey, no other fear even comes close to the percentage of Americans who worry about their corrupt government officials. The survey was conducted by Chapman University and it serves to back up the point that while Americans claim to live in the Land of the Free, deep down, they realize they are living in a corrupt oligarchy.

MADAGASCAR - Travelers are being warned to keep their distance from areas of Madagascar affected by the bubonic plague. As the outbreak worsens, some doctors are even warning that “no one is safe” from the disease.

SWITZERLAND - The most elite scientists in the world are still struggling to find why exactly our universe didn't destroy itself as soon as it came into existence. That's what science says should have happened – but it clearly hasn't, since you're here reading this, as far as we know.

RUSSIA - Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently warned the United States not to withdraw from their nuclear arms control treaty, noting that doing so would prompt the Kremlin to “hit back fast,” reports Reuters. “From our side, the response will be instant, and I want to warn, symmetrical,” cautioned Putin during the high-profile televised Valdai discussion with foreign academics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, on Thursday. His comments come amid allegations that the Clintons facilitated the sale of 20 percent of US domestic uranium production to Russia under the administration of former US President Barack Obama. According to Reuters, Putin accused America of betraying the Kremlin by not reciprocating what he described as the “unprecedented access” Moscow granted Washington to its secret nuclear sites in the 1990s.

ITALY - The votes were nonbinding, but the leaders of the neighboring regions hope to leverage strong turnout in talks with Italy's center-left government. As leading members of the anti-migrant, anti-EU Northern League, they want to keep more tax revenue and have autonomy over such policy areas as immigration, security, education and environment.

USA - America’s Air Force is preparing to put nuclear-armed bombers on 24-hour standby for the first time in a quarter of a century amid escalating tensions with North Korea. The move would see B-52 planes carrying nuclear weapons sitting on the runway at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and ready to fly when given the order. It would be the first time the status was put in place since 1991, when the Cold War was nearing an end.

JAPAN - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe swept to a resounding victory in a snap election Sunday and immediately vowed to “deal firmly” with threats from North Korea that dominated the campaign. Abe’s ruling conservative coalition was on track to win more than 310 seats in the 465-seat parliament, according to a projection from public broadcaster NHK, handing the premier a two-thirds “super-majority.” This allows nationalist Abe to propose changes to pacifist Japan’s US-imposed constitution, which forces it to renounce war and effectively limits its military to a self-defence role.