CHINA - Chinese communist leader Xi Jinping assured listeners in his New Year’s Eve speech that “China has something to say” on international issues in 2018, promising that under his regime, Beijing will be a “keeper of international order.” On international issues, Xi said China was “a responsible major country,” and, as such, “China has something to say.” He said: China will resolutely uphold the authority and status of the United Nations, actively fulfill China’s international obligations and duties, remain firmly committed to China’s pledges to tackle climate change, actively push for the Belt and Road Initiative, and always be a builder of world peace, contributor of global development and keeper of international order.

USA - People in California's southwest last felt any significant rain in February, the National Weather Service noted this week. Los Angeles is marking a record dry spell, with rainfall just 9 percent of normal for the past 10 months, the weather service said.

USA - The eruption of Mount Agung on the island of Bali has sparked worldwide media interest, yet volcanic eruptions in Indonesia are nothing new. Of the country’s 139 “active” volcanoes, 18 currently have raised alert levels, signifying higher than normal seismic activity, ground deformation or gas emissions. On a global scale, in any week in 2017, there were at least between 14 and 27 volcanoes erupting.

UK - Children as young as ten are becoming dependent on social media for their sense of self-worth, a major study warned. It found many youngsters now measure their status by how much public approval they get online, often through ‘likes’. Some change their behaviour in real life to boost their image on the web. The report into youngsters aged from eight to 12 was carried out by Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield. She said social media firms were exposing children to major emotional risks, with some youngsters starting secondary school ill-equipped to cope with the avalanche of pressure they faced online. Last month a former Facebook boss claimed the social network’s ‘dopamine-driven feedback loops’ were ‘ripping apart the social fabric of how society works’. 

GERMANY - Ursula von der Leyen, 59, topped a poll of politicians in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party most likely to take the top job, narrowly ahead of Thomas de Maizière, 63, the interior minister. Another poll suggested that nearly half of Germans thought Mrs Merkel, who is struggling to form a government, should resign immediately.

FRANCE - Thugs ran amok up and down France torching more than 1,000 cars and attacking police in a night of chaos on the streets. New Year celebrations were marred by 510 people arrested and 1,031 cars being set alight, according to official numbers from the interior ministry. The numbers were up from 456 arrests and 935 cars torched last year. And eight police officers and three anti-terrorist Sentinel soldiers had been injured on Sunday night. In one brutal attack, in Paris, a female police officer and her colleague were beaten by a group of men as she tried to break up a brawl in Champigny-Sur-Marne, in the south-east of the city.

USA - The same pharma companies that profited from the opioid epidemic in the US by hooking patients on their drugs are profiting again as their victims migrate to heroin and participate in needle exchange programs, an attorney told RT. The opioid epidemic is one of the biggest stories of 2017. The number of people dying from big pharma’s prescription narcotics has skyrocketed. But the same pharmaceutical companies that profited from creating the crisis in the first place, and received a slap on the wrist for it, are now profiting from it again, attorney Peter Mougey said in an interview with RT America’s Mike Papantonio. Mougey also talked about how the corporate media, which receives advertising money from big pharma, ignored the unfolding epidemics for a decade, until its lethality surpassed that of the Vietnam War. And so did regulators and lawmakers.

USA - News headlines in 2017 were primarily dominated by coverage of President Donald Trump’s administration and tense party politics. But while most of the attention was focused on the president’s antics, officers in police departments around the country killed over 1,000 civilians. According to the database Mapping Police Violence, police have killed 1,129 people this year in the US, which was similar to the number of killings in previous years. Black people were disproportionately affected, as they made up 25 percent of those killed, despite making up only 13 percent of the population. Sixty-eight of those killed by police this year were unarmed.

USA - Longtime Donald Trump advisor and confidante Roger Stone warned that the globalist establishment would do everything in its power to stop the president from draining the swamp, even if it means taking him out John F Kennedy style.

IRAN - The Iranian regime accused Britain, the US and Saudi Arabia of fomenting protests in the country as government forces struggled to contain the increasingly violent and widespread unrest. In his first public comments since protests began six days ago, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei blamed the uprising on the “enemies of Iran” and said foreign governments were sending money and weapons to undermine the Islamic Republic. "The enemy is always looking for an opportunity and any crevice to infiltrate and strike the Iranian nation,” he said. At least 21 people have been killed since last Thursday, including a police officer and a Revolutionary Guardsman…

CHINA - China's Communist Party adopted a secret plan in September to bolster the North Korean government with increased aid and military support, including new missiles, if Pyongyang halts further nuclear tests, according to an internal party document. The document, labeled "top secret" and dated September 15 — 12 days after North Korea's latest underground nuclear blast — outlines China's plan for dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue. It states China will allow North Korea to keep its current arsenal of nuclear weapons, contrary to Beijing's public stance that it seeks a denuclearized Korean peninsula.

NIGERIA - Gunmen killed at least 14 churchgoers returning from a midnight service on Monday in Nigeria's Rivers State, a police source told AFP, the latest violence to hit the oil-rich region. "The gunmen opened fire on a set of worshippers at about 12:30 on Monday," said Ugochi Olugbo, a relative of one of the victims who were attending a New Year's Eve service. The shooting took place in the town of Omoku about 90km from the southern oil hub of Port Harcourt. "Fourteen persons died on the spot, while 12 who sustained gunshot wounds were rushed to the hospital and are receiving medical attention," said a police source who asked to remain anonymous.

SWEDEN - A church in a Swedish city has defended its choice of gender-neutral pronoun ‘hen’ in reference to Jesus in an advertisement. The church insists the word gives “new perspective.” In November, the largest religious institution in the country, the Church of Sweden, advised its clergy to avoid terms like ‘Lord’ and ‘He’ in worship services in order to not highlight that God is male, in the new version of a handbook on how to conduct services. The move has triggered a backlash, with critics saying the change undermines the Christian concept of the Holy Trinity and politicizes faith.

USA - US President Donald Trump apparently decided not to start the New Year with a clean slate, opting to re-ignite old disputes instead. In his first 2018 tweets, the US leader hit out at Iran and Pakistan.

USA - The nation’s most populous state joins a growing list of other states, and the nation’s capital, where so-called recreational marijuana is permitted even though the federal government continues to classify pot as a controlled substance, like heroin and LSD. Pot is now legal in California for adults 21 and older. But finding a retail outlet to buy non-medical pot in California won’t be easy, at least initially. Only about 90 businesses received state licenses to open on New Year’s Day. They are concentrated in San Diego, Santa Cruz, the Bay Area and the Palm Springs area.  Los Angeles and San Francisco are among the many cities where recreational pot will not be available right away because local regulations were not approved in time to start issuing city licenses needed to get state permits.