VATICAN - Pope Francis postponed a series of meetings because of a lung inflammation and breathing difficulties, the Vatican said Monday morning. Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said in an emailed statement that a CT scan ruled out pneumonia but added that doctors had inserted a cannula to provide antibiotics. The pope lost part of a lung following an illness some 50 years ago. Francis, the first pope from the Americas, turns 87 next month and has battled ill health for years, canceling multiple engagements and appearing in public in a wheelchair.

USA - The handwriting was on the wall. An Op-Ed in the New York Times entitled “I’m a Ukrainian, and I Refuse to Compete for Your Attention” summed things up nicely: a media junket the author’s friend had been organizing to Ukraine was canceled. The TV crew instead left for the Middle East. The United States controls how the war in the Ukraine proceeds and always has. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said it was the American side which scuttled any chance of peace in Ukraine as early as March 2022, soon after the war began. “The only people who could resolve the war over Ukraine are the Americans. During the peace talks in March 2022 in Istanbul, Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed to. They had to coordinate everything they talked about with the Americans first. However, nothing eventually happened. My impression is that nothing could happen because everything was decided in Washington.”

HUNGARY - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said that the US and EU strategy of indefinitely funding Ukraine’s battle with Russia, in the hope that an unlikely battlefield loss will bring about regime change in Moscow, is futile. “What was the strategy of the West in that war? I'm simplifying it a little bit, but this is the fact. Our strategy was that the Ukrainians will fight and will win on the front line. The Russians will lose… and that loss will create a change in Moscow,” he explained, according to a video of the speech published by Zoltan Kovacs, a spokesman for the Hungarian government on Sunday. “That was the strategy: We finance, the Ukrainians fight and die,” he added. However, he said, “where we are now, it is obvious that the Ukrainians will not win on the front line.” “There is no solution on the battleground. The Russians will not lose. There will be no political change in Moscow. This is the reality,” the Hungarian leader stated.

GERMANY - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his cabinet have led Germany into a “serious national crisis,” Markus Soeder, the prime minister of the nation’s most populous state, Bavaria, told journalists on Saturday. Berlin can now hardly find a way out of this predicament, the politician warned, adding that the government’s “budget emergency” would likely turn into another burden for ordinary Germans.

ISRAEL - Israel hosted Elon Musk on Monday, where he toured sites of the October 7 massacre and was shown footage of the violent acts committed by the terrorist organization on Israeli soil. Musk voiced support on Monday for Israel after it came under attack by Hamas terrorists, saying one challenge was "ultimately stopping the propaganda that is convincing people to engage in, you know, murder." After hearing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Hamas must be destroyed in a live online chat, Musk said: "There's no choice." Musk, visiting Israel during its war on Hamas in Gaza, added: "I'd like to help as well."

UK - Sitting down to Christmas dinner this year, your plate may be a bit more empty than usual, with farmers going through one of the toughest harvests on record. Britain will be forced to rely on cold storage supplies as potato crops are predicted to hit a record low of 4.1 million tonnes. Those buying for their Christmas dinner might also find empty shelves when they’re looking for cauliflower and broccoli, and smaller sprouts than usual.

USA - A ‘Gender Diversity Tree’ calling on festival attendees to ‘protect trans kids’ was also the subject of considerable blowback. A museum in the US state of Wisconsin has been accused of promoting “cultural propaganda” after it featured some non-traditional entries in its annual Christmas tree festival this year, including one adorned with red ornamental pentagrams paying festive homage to Beelzebub.

USA - Work is being ramped up to produce plutonium “pits” – spherical shells about the size of bowling balls that are a vital component of warheads in the US nuclear arsenal. For two decades, the Pentagon and Congress have been concerned about the US ability to produce the cores of nuclear warheads, including the plutonium pits. Since 1989, the US has not been able to produce pits in quantities required to refresh or renew a stockpile of 3,708 warheads (about 1,770 warheads are deployed and 1,938 are held in reserve).

ISRAEL - Beware of terrorists bearing gifts. Compassionate goals and unrelenting war make for a complex mix. While freeing Hamas’s October 7 victims is laudable, there are right and wrong ways to do so. There are costs as well as benefits. Here, Hamas has won a significant victory. Whether the deal sets a definitively negative precedent for Israel remains unclear, but it casts doubt on whether it will attain its legitimate goal of eliminating Hamas’s terrorist threat.

ANTARCTICA - One of the world’s largest icebergs is drifting beyond Antarctic waters, after being grounded for more than three decades, according to the British Antarctic Survey. The iceberg, known as A23a, split from the Antarctic’s Filchner Ice Shelf in 1986. But it became stuck to the ocean floor and had remained for many years in the Weddell Sea. Not any more. Recent satellite images reveal that the iceberg, weighing nearly a trillion metric tonnes, is now drifting quickly past the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, aided by strong winds and currents. The iceberg is about three times the size of New York City and more than twice the size of Greater London, measuring about 4,000 sq km (1,500 square miles).

UNITED NATIONS - Rules for thee, but not for me! Every year, the UN hosts a climate conference where they discuss how to fight climate change. Of course, they lecture us on how we need to be more green… But here’s the ironic part: The most recent UN climate conference may have caused the most pollution ever! Over 400 private jets were used to fly to this conference. Private jets, especially that many, pollute far more than commercial airlines. Also, why are these people flying in private jets? Are they too good to sit and fly with the rest of us? Shouldn’t they practice what they preach? By flying private, they’re adding more to their carbon footprint than if they had flown commercial. The hypocrisy! Here’s the reality: If these folks were truly concerned about the climate, they would be practising what they’re preaching. The fact that they’re being hypocrites should raise a lot of questions!

NEW ZEALAND - New Zealand’s Conservative PM Christopher Luxon vows to cut taxes, roll back citizen’s gun restrictions, revert oil and gas exploration ban. The world is starting to get it ‘right’. In another relevant development in the worldwide realignment to the right, the Conservative New Zealand’s National Party finally sealed agreement on a new three-party coalition government. This took drawn-out negotiations over ministerial roles and policies – including Indigenous rights, tax cuts and changes at the central bank. The centre-right Nationals, led by incoming Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, will return to power alongside the populist New Zealand First party and libertarian ACT New Zealand. This comes after six long years of rule by governments led by the left-leaning, fiercely Globalist Labour Party.

THE FAROE ISLANDS - Historically, it was overfishing that hurt the much-prized fish – but now rising ocean temperatures are inhibiting the fish’s ability to produce codlings at all. Guðrún Bjarnadóttir Bech sings to herself while she sorts through baby fish with a pair of tweezers. “Ding! Ding! Ding!” she suddenly bursts out. “That’s a plaice,” she says – her reaction testament to how few she sees. It is 2021 and Bech is working onboard the Jákup Sverri, a Faroese marine research ship that’s trawling for juvenile fish around the Faroe Islands in the north Atlantic to assess the state of populations including haddock, sand eel and Norwegian pout.

EUROPE - Starting in 2015, most European countries began implementing frankly suicidal immigration policies. In the deluge that followed, millions of people flocked unchecked to European countries – and less than a decade later, their societies find themselves in a situation of unmitigated disaster. It is, therefore, no surprise that we are now witnessing a string of recent political victories that have led rightwing populist and nationalist parties to power or preeminence across Europe.

RUSSIA - Western sanctions have so far failed to halt Russia’s economic growth, which is now projected to outpace that of the Eurozone, the Guardian reported on Thursday, citing investment firm Amundi. According to the company’s forecast, Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 1.5% in 2024. In contrast, the Eurozone economy is set to expand by mere 0.5% next year, according to Amundi, Europe’s largest fund manager in terms of assets. “It means that the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia – the major developed countries – are unable to sanction a country effectively… We can deplore it, but it’s a reality,” Amundi CIO Vincent Mortier said at a news conference in Paris.