GERMANY - Green politician Joschka Fischer cited the need to deter Russia and added that the bloc should also invest in air defenses. The European Union needs to get its own nuclear arsenal to better deter Russia, a former Foreign Minister of Germany, Joschka Fischer, has argued. The now-retired official has also warned that the bloc should be able to stick up for itself should its relations with the US cool.

UK - The UK Royal Navy has been forced to post job ads on LinkedIn as it struggles to recruit a new rear admiral to preside over the country’s submarine fleet, a move dubbed “unprecedented” and “shameful” by British military sources. The advertisement was spotted by UK media outlets on Friday, after first appearing on the professional networking site late last month. While senior officers typically rise through the ranks, the Times reported that “there is currently no one serving who is suitable” to replace outgoing submarine director Rear Admiral Simon Asquith, or who is willing to do so.

USA - Abortion has topped several infectious diseases as the world's leading cause of death for at least the fifth year in a row, even though multiple abortion restrictions have gone into place at the state level following the US Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v Wade. Statistics compiled by Worldometer, a database that tracks quantitative data on health, the global population and other metrics in real-time, show that more than 44.6 million abortions were performed worldwide in 2023.

VATICAN - The head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office has dug in his heels in the face of growing opposition to his controversial decision to allow the blessing of gay couples. Argentinian Cardinal Víctor Manuel “Tucho” Fernández, a personal friend of Pope Francis and the new chief of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), said Thursday the new document does not change traditional Church teaching on homosexuality, but only on the nature of blessings. The Vatican declaration titled Fiducia Supplicans was welcomed with joy by the LGBT lobby, which embraced the new teaching as a “huge step forward” and “an early Christmas gift” for LGBT Catholics.

VATICAN - At the last major celebration of the Christmas season, Epiphany, Globalist Pope Francis once again tried to reframe the latest, deep self-inflicted crisis of his papacy. While Francis is the most political Pope of our times, he is always calling out conservative prelates, urging them NOT to take on political stances – which is quite hypocritical of him. All the time, we see him bashing the people who are protecting the millenary Catholic dogma and doctrine that he is hell-bent on destroying. So on Epiphany, on Saint Pete’s Basilica in the Vatican, he cautioned the faithful against fracturing into groups ‘based on our own ideas’ – even though his fierce critics are defending two-thousand year old ideas from the Church fathers, not their own.

GERMANY - Pedophile activists in Germany are calling for lesbians to be removed from the LGBTQ movement due to their opposition of Minor Attracted People (MAPs). The group is demanding lesbians be banned from an exhibit at Berlin’s Gay Museum due to their opposition to pederasty. Krumme-13 is protesting the Museum, claiming that lesbians “submitted in every way to the anti-pedophile zeitgeist of the heterosexual mainstream.” "The Gay Museum is now dominated by lesbians who have submitted in every way to the anti-pedophile zeitgeist of the heterosexual mainstream. The lesbian activists in the Gay Museum are completely and uncritically committed to protecting children and victims. We strongly condemn the ideology associated with this,” the post continues.

MIDDLE EAST - There is no way to avoid an apocalyptic war in the Middle East now. Too much has been said and done, and both sides have pushed things past the point of no return. This war is going to look far different from anything we have ever seen in the Middle East before, and the level of death and destruction that we will witness will shock the entire globe. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel against waging war on Lebanon in a televised address Wednesday, a day after a strike blamed on Israel killed Hamas’s political number two, terror chief Salah al-Arouri, in a Hezbollah stronghold in the southern Beirut suburbs. “If the enemy thinks of waging a war on Lebanon, we will fight without restraint, without rules, without limits and without restrictions,” Nasrallah said in his address.

MIDDLE EAST - Hezbollah on Saturday initiated what it announced as "an initial response" to Israel's assassination by drone of Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri, which happened in a south Beirut neighborhood last week. The Lebanese paramilitary group backed by Iran unleashed large salvos of missiles that bombarded military bases as well as communities in northern Israel (many of which have long been evacuated), triggering alert sirens among some 90 towns and settlements. The Hezbollah statement declared that the assault was "part of the initial response to the crime of assassinating the great leader Sheikh Saleh al-Arouri."

SOUTH KOREA - South Korea has ordered civilians on an island near the border with North Korea to evacuate to shelters, after accusing Pyongyang of firing off hundreds of artillery shells as part of a military “provocation.” The evacuation order was issued twice on Friday afternoon by local authorities, Yonhap News reported, noting that it came amid “apparent signs of a military provocation by North Korea.” “We announced the evacuation after receiving a call from a military unit saying it was carrying out a maritime strike on Yeongpyeong Island as it has a situation with a North Korean provocation,” an unnamed official was quoted as saying by Yonhap. Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said later that North Korea launched around 200 artillery shells off its west coast on Friday morning. The projectiles landed in a maritime buffer zone established under a 2018 deal between the countries, though Pyongyang has since withdrawn from the agreement.

NORTH KOREA - North Korea has issued an ominous warning about “the highest risk of clashes this year” between the totalitarian state and its neighbor to the south, which could end in “a nuclear strike,” according to South Korean media. Yonhap News Agency, a major media outlet in Seoul, reported on Thursday that North Korea media condemned recent Army artillery exercises and naval firing drills and exercises. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the state news agency of North Korea, said the exercises are “self destructive” and called South Koreans “warmongers,” according to Yonhap. North Korea has also been preparing for conflict with the United States, according to the KCNA, which recently reported that Kim ordered the North Korean military, munitions industry, nuclear weapons sector and civil defense sectors to accelerate war preparations amid, what he called, unprecedented confrontational moves by the US.

RUSSIA - The West will continue to lose influence this year, but it won’t go quietly into that good night. Predicting the future is the most thankless task when it comes to international politics. All of the genre, in fact, because it involves the interaction of living human beings. That means it is subject to chance, elementary error, and the influence of emotion. If this were not so, history would indeed go straight on “like the sidewalk of the Nevsky Prospect,” the main thoroughfare of St Petersburg.

USA - An oil tanker ploughs into a tourist beach. Planes fall from the sky. Driverless cars run amok. The internet fails and the mobile network dies. Feral instincts take over as people fight for food, water and medicine amid the ruins of civilisation. That is the nightmare vision depicted in Leave The World Behind, Netflix's recent hit film starring Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke as a couple battling societal breakdown when the technology that underpins civilisation collapses.

USA - Southern California Weather Force has issued an Earthquake Watch effective now through the weekend into Monday for the chance of a stronger earthquake occurring on the San Andreas Fault. At 10:55am Pacific Time on January 5th, 2024, a magnitude 4.2 earthquake occurred along the junction point of the San Andreas and San Jacinto Fault zones. This area last shook with a foreshock in the 1970s, which is what this might be. At the current time, no aftershocks have been recorded. This means this very well could be a foreshock, or shock before the mainshock. If this was a foreshock, we have now to Monday to see the mainshock.

SWITZERLAND - At the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual conclave of globalist elites in Davos, Switzerland, later this month, organisers say one word is going to be central to the event: trust. The WEF has released a partial outline of just what is on the agenda at its mostly closed-door 54th annual meeting. It says it will “provide a crucial space to focus on the fundamental principles driving trust, including transparency, consistency and accountability.” The introduction goes on to detail that government officials from all over the world will be there alongside other unelected representatives from groups interested in shaping the world of tomorrow.

FRANCE - Yesterday, Macron had a telephone conversation with a member of the Israeli war cabinet, Benny Gantz, and warned that the plan to deport the Palestinians is not acceptable. Macron said that "statements related to the forced displacement of the residents of Gaza are unacceptable and contradict the two-state solution, which is the only viable solution for the return of peace and security for all," the French President's office said. He also warned of the risk of the conflict spreading, saying it was "essential to avoid any escalation, especially in Lebanon." He emphasized that France will continue to convey these messages to all stakeholders who are directly or indirectly involved in the processes in that area.