ISRAEL - Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel was enforcing its ceasefire with Hezbollah with “an iron fist” amidst warnings from his administration that a return to hostilities would trigger more far-reaching Israeli strikes within Lebanon. Netanyahu warned that the 60-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah, which came into effect last Wednesday morning, did not equal “the end of the war”. “If we return to war we will act strongly, we will go deeper, and the most important thing they need to know: there will no longer be an exemption for the state of Lebanon,” defence minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday. He called on the Lebanese state to keep Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon and to “dismantle their infrastructure”. Failure to do so, he warned, could lead Israeli forces to hit the Lebanese state directly.

CHINA - The Chinese government has said it will ban exports to the US of some key components in making semiconductors, escalating trade tensions a day after Washington announced curbs targeting China’s ability to make advanced chips. Among the materials banned from export were the metals gallium, antimony and germanium, China’s commerce ministry said in a statement that cited “national security” concerns.

FINLAND - A data cable running across the land border between Sweden and Finland has been damaged, a company providing digital infrastructure and data communication in Northern Europe said Tuesday. Global Connect said the internet cable was damaged in two separate places in southern Finland on Monday, affecting 6,000 private customers and 100 business customers. Police in Finland put out a brief statement today saying that they "are not currently conducting a criminal investigation into the damage caused to a fibre-optic cable between Finland and Sweden". The incident comes after the rupture of two data cables on the Baltic Sea bed last month. The two, one running from Finland to Germany and the other from Lithuania to Sweden, were in Swedish waters. Last week, Sweden formally asked China to cooperate in explaining the rupture of the Baltic Sea data cables where a China-flagged vessel had been sighted.

UK - Labour ministers considering taking all or part of company into public ownership to avoid its collapse. The nationalisation of British Steel is being considered by government ministers, The Telegraph can reveal. It comes amid tension over the amount of UK investment being demanded by the company’s Chinese owners. Taking either part or the whole of the company into state ownership is understood to be on the table as a back-up option if the talks collapse. The move would be a symbolic reversal of Margaret Thatcher’s decision to privatise British Steel in 1988. Since coming to power, Sir Keir Starmer has extended the reach of the state, announcing plans to nationalise the railways and exploring more Government involvement in the water industry.

VATICAN - You see them, heads close together, chatting quietly, in their favourite restaurants in Rome. It might be Velando, close to St Peter’s Basilica. Or they might go further west to Rinaldi al’Quirinale, where members of the Italian intelligence service enjoy the seafood as much as the princes of the Church do. Not that those princes – the elite squad of the Roman Catholic Church, its cardinals who elect the Pope – seem all that different to other priests, as, for lunch, they dress down in black suits and Roman collars. The giveaway is the heavy gold ring each wears – placed on their finger by whichever pope made them a cardinal.

CHINA - China will continue to expand cooperation with fellow members of the BRICS economic bloc despite the threat of tariffs by US President-elect Donald Trump, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lin Jian said on Tuesday. Trump recently warned that BRICS countries will be hit with 100% tariffs on their goods if they create a new currency or back an existing one as a rival to the dollar. BRICS previously comprised Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and was expanded in January to include Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. Around 30 other nations have expressed interest in joining the group of emerging economies. The group is an important platform for cooperation among emerging markets, and its aim is to achieve comprehensive development and prosperity, not to engage in “bloc confrontation” or “target any third party,” Jian said at a briefing on Tuesday.

TURKEY - The country has seen its GDP shrink by 0.2 percent in the quarter between July and September, according to data from the Turkish statistical agency on Friday, having dropped by the same margin in the previous one. Nicholas Farr, Emerging Europe Economist at Capital Economics told the outlet: “The central bank suggested at its meeting last week that it thought domestic demand was slowing, and today’s data supports this view. This could raise expectations that the central bank may cut interest rates as soon as its December meeting,” he added, though he said such a move would be "jumping the gun". Turkey also continues to see eye-wateringly high inflation, estimated to be 48.6 percent year-on-year in October.

EUROPE - The Eurozone is on the brink with "no sign of recovery", while UK orders continue to slump due to cutback with concerns growing over the economic outlook. Europe’s manufacturers suffered a slump in demand last month, as UK factory owners also reported a slowdown in orders. France's manufacturing sector faced in November its steepest decline in new orders since the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, a survey by S&P Global showed. Alongside France, Germany and Austria also reported a rapid decline in demand for their goods in November, with Berlin reporting its fastest drop in output.

VATICAN - The latest financial statements showed the Vatican - the world's smallest country - ran an operating deficit of 83 million euros (£69 million) in 2023, five million more than in 2022. One key reason for the deficit is a collapse in donations from Catholic Churches around the world, as well as from the public. Donations are one of three major sources of income for the Vatican, along with monies received from real asset assets and museum entry fees. Many Catholics have stopped their donations after growing disillusioned with the reforms of Pope Francis. At the same time, visitor numbers to the city-state have still not recovered to their pre-Covid levels. The city is preparing to celebrate the Great Jubilee, which commemorates the union between Christianity and the Roman Empire at the Council of Nicaea 1,700 years ago. The Council laid the foundations for the Church's omnipotent power over the next seventeen centuries. The Jubilee is expected to attract over 35 million pilgrims, eager for indulgence from their sins.

NATO - A NATO chief has warned that Europe is heading towards a "dire security threat" from three adversaries amid the nearly three-year-long Russia-Ukraine war. Secretary-General Mark Rutte stressed that China, Iran, and North Korea would threaten Europe and the US if Ukraine is forced into accepting a peace deal that favours Russia. Rutte warned of Russia supplying missile technology to North Korea, money to Iran, and giving China "thoughts about something else" in an apparent reference to Taiwan. He told the Financial Times: "[Xi Jinping] might get thoughts about something else in the future if there is not a good deal [for Ukraine]. Because in the long term, that will be a dire security threat not only to Europe but also to the US." He says he told the president-elect: "Look at the missile technology which is now being sent from Russia into North Korea, which is posing a dire threat not only to South Korea, Japan but also to the US mainland. So the fact that Iran, North Korea, China and Russia are working so closely together… [means] these various parts of the world where conflict is, and have to be managed by politicians, are more and more getting connected.”

LEBANON - Israel and Hezbollah exchanged air strikes and rocket fire on Monday as their 60-day ceasefire appeared to be unravelling within its first week. Both sides faced accusations of breaching the truce, which came into force on Wednesday to end a war that has killed thousands in Lebanon and sparked mass displacements on both sides of the border. Despite the retaliatory attacks, John Kirby, White House spokesman, told reporters on Monday that the “sporadic strikes” in recent days were to be expected. “There has been a dramatic reduction in the violence. The monitoring mechanism is in full force and is working... largely speaking the ceasefire is holding,” he said. This did not appear to be the case on Monday, however. At least two people were killed in the retaliatory strikes on southern Lebanon according to Lebanese authorities.

MIDDLE EAST - Donald Trump has demanded the immediate release of Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza, warning that if they are not freed before he takes office there will be “hell to pay”. The US president-elect delivered the ultimatum on his Truth Social site on Monday. “If the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity,” he wrote. He added: “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”

CANADA - A tiny Canadian town has been fined $10,000 for refusing to fly an LGBT+ rainbow flag during Pride month. Emo, which has a population of around 1,300 people, was ruled to have violated the Ontario human rights code when it refused to declare June as Pride month and failed to fly an LGBT+ flag, and its officials have been ordered to complete human rights training. The ruling noted that it had failed to fly an “LGBTQ2 rainbow flag” – despite the fact that the town does not even have an official flag pole, the National Post reports. The proposal was put before the town’s council in May of that year, where it was defeated by a vote of three to two. The tribunal found that the remark was “demeaning and disparaging” and “therefore constituted discrimination” under the human rights code.

EUROPE - There is a change of guard at the top of the European Union. The five-year term of top posts draws to a close this weekend as the continent adapts to a political landscape that has been transformed beyond recognition since 2019. The bloc faces an isolationist America under Donald Trump, who has threatened to hit Europe’s stalling economies with tariffs and ram through a peace deal with Russia. Over the past five years the EU has swung sharply to the right. Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, is the new “queen of Europe”, not Angela Merkel, whose autobiography last week was defensive about her discredited centrist past.

UKRAINE - The war in Ukraine could spark direct confrontation between Russia and NATO after the UK and US allowed Kyiv to strike Russian territory with Western missiles. World War 3 has already started as tensions between the West and its enemies continue to ramp up. The war in Ukraine could spark direct confrontation between Russia and NATO after the UK and US allowed Kyiv to strike Russian territory with British and American missiles. Vladimir's Putin's war also comes at a time when the Middle East is the setting of multiple conflicts involving Israel and Iran's proxies. Meanwhile, China continues to threaten military action against Taiwan. A number of experts have warned that World War 3 is already underway.