FRANCE - France faced calls to avoid a “war of secularism" after a court banned a nativity scene in a town hall, igniting a nationwide row yesterday. The court in Nantes ordered regional authorities in the western town of La Roche-sur-Yon to remove the crib from the mayoral entrance hall, following a complaint from the secular campaign group Fédération Nationale de la Libre Pensée [The National Federation of Free Thought]. The council is appealing against the decision, and has received backing from far-Right Front National leader Marine Le Pen, who described it as “stupid and blinkered secularism”. Bruno Retailleau, the local senator, exclaimed: “Next we’ll be banning epiphany cakes at the Élysée Palace.” He threatened to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

GERMANY - Military experts of the SPD group in the German Bundestag are calling for an EU "military academy" and "permanent military headquarters" along with other steps toward establishing an EU army. "As Social Democrats, we want to be the driving force in Europe of a parliamentary controlled European army," declared its "Working Group on Security and Defense Policy" in a position paper.

ISRAEL - A sheikh giving a spontaneous sermon at the al-Aqsa mosque recently called for the “slaughter” of the Jews, saying they were “the most evil creatures to have walked this Earth.” “Talking about the traits of the Jews requires one to get into a special mode, because we are dealing with people to whom every single vile trait has been attributed,” the sheikh says. “They were the masters of these vile traits, and they taught their secrets to others.”

USA - With demand increasing across the West, Colorado is drawing up a strategy to keep some of the trillions of gallons of water that gush out of the Rocky Mountains every spring — most of which flows downstream to drought-stricken California, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico. Colorado wants to ensure its farms, wildlife and rapidly growing cities have enough water in the decades to come. It's pledging to provide downstream states every gallon they're legally entitled to, but not a drop more. "If anybody thought we were going to roll over and say, 'OK, California, you're in a really bad drought, you get to use the water that we were going to use,' they're mistaken," said James Eklund, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which wrote the draft after a series of public meetings.

GERMANY - The meeting did not take place in the Dusseldorf Parkhotel, but in Berlin’s Hotel Adlon. Sitting in the audience was not Fritz Thyssen and Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, but Thyssen-Krupp CEO Heinrich Hiesinger and other current heavyweights of German big business. And of course, the Social Democratic Party Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is not Adolf Hitler.

GERMANY - A new type of anti-immigration protest is sweeping across Germany, as thousands take to the streets against what they say is the growing “Islamisation” of the country. The new protests, which began in the city of Dresden in the former East Germany, feature no neo-Nazi slogans and have nothing to do with the traditional far right. Instead the demonstrators have adopted the old rallying call of the protests against the East German communist regime that brought down the Berlin Wall 25 years ago, “Wir sind das Volk”, or “We are the people”. They say they want to preserve Germany’s Judeo-Christian Western culture.

GERMANY - For the third time this year, monthly German exports surpassed the 100 billion-euro threshold, with the figures for October showing no sign of a major impact of geopolitical crises in the Middle East or Ukraine. In October, Germany exported goods to the tune of 103.9 billion euros ($127.9 billion), thus improving September's record of 102.5 billion euros, the National Statistics Office Destatis reported Tuesday. In a year-on-year comparison, shipments abroad rose by 4.9 percent and imports increased by 0.9 percent from October 2013 to October 2014. The country's trade surplus amounted to 21.9 billion euros in October, up from 17.8 billion euros a year earlier.

ISRAEL - Expected Hanukkah celebrations next week will likely enflame tensions between Muslims and Jews living in Occupied Jerusalem, according to observers. Several Jewish ultraorthodox movements have announced joint celebrations inside Al Haram Al Sharif, the site of recent clashes after Israelis have intruded into the area which defies protocol. Al Haram Al Sharif is the third most holy site in Islam and includes the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque.

ISRAEL - Israel’s prime minister responded bitterly Monday to comments by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that six million Palestinian refugees, himself included, were waiting to “return” to Israel and that “we need to find creative solutions because we cannot close the door to those who wish to return.”

USA - A new law will place restrictions on scientists with clear knowledge on GMO dangers, and create room for experts with overt financial ties to the biotech and pharmaceutical industries affected by EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] regulations. H.R. 1422, which passed 229-191, is an earthquake rumbling through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Scientific Advisory Board.

USA - Security has been stepped up at US facilities around the world ahead of the release of a report expected to reveal details of harsh CIA interrogations, the White House says. Embassies and other sites were taking precautions amid "some indications" of "greater risk", a spokesman said. A 480-page summary of the Senate report is due to be released on Tuesday. It is expected to detail the CIA's campaign against al-Qaeda in the aftermath of 9/11.

UK - While the rest of us face austerity, the Lords spend roughly £65,000 a year on champagne, and is refusing to drink anything cheaper. Nothing highlights the gulf between the governing class in this country and the rest of us than today's story about champagne in the House of Lords. It's been revealed that a proposal to save taxpayers money by making the House of Lords and House of Commons share a catering department was rejected “because the Lords feared that the quality of champagne would not be as good if they chose a joint service”.

CANADA - Udo Schüklenk, who was the chair of the one-sided Royal Society of Canada: End of Life Decision Making panel and who is also the co-editor of the leading academic journal Bioethics, is now proselytizing his philosophy (or Peter Singer's philosophy) promoting euthanasia of newborns and infanticide. Schüklenk uses quality-of-life arguments to support his eugenic philosophy to encourage the killing of newborns with disabilities.

FRANCE - France’s finance minister has called on the German establishment to watch its words when criticising his country’s economic policies, claiming barbs from Germany are fuelling the rise of anti-EU populists. Michel Sapin, who is under pressure from Brussels and Berlin to be more aggressive in cutting spending and in his reforms, said he was concerned by “certain extreme comments in Germany”. He called for mainstream parties to counter “outdated” stereotypes. “As minister of finance of France, I take steps I think are good for the country. I think people have to be careful from the outside on how they express views on France,” Mr Sapin told the Financial Times. “We really need to be careful, to respect each other and to respect each others’ history, national identity and points of sensitivity, because otherwise it will help extreme parties to grow.”

EUROPE - Just as Angela Merkel finished reminding France and Italy (again) that they weren’t making enough progress on tightening their budgets, a left-wing French politician reacted with a tweet, reading: ‘Shut your trap, Frau Merkel! France is free.’ The French MEP, Jean-Luc Melanchon, in the same tweet, continuing in French, told the ‘frau’ (woman) to concentrate instead on her own country’s poverty and crumbling infrastructure. This was in response to Merkel’s warnings for the two countries to trim their spending, which she outlined in a recent interview to Die Welt am Sonntag. "The Commission has made clear that what has been put on the table so far is insufficient. I would agree with this."