CHINA - The Chinese leader vowed “complete reunification” ahead of elections on the island. Beijing will use “any means” to prevent the secession of Taiwan, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday, adding that the island’s reunification with the mainland is inevitable. Xi’s comments were part of a speech to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, at a symposium marking the 130th birthday of Mao Zedong, according to Xinhua news agency.

USA - The collapse of three US regional banks - First Republic Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, and Signature Bank - marked some of the largest failures in the banking system since 2008. Central banks contained the "mini-crisis" earlier this year with forced interventions and the mega-merger of Credit Suisse and UBS. Despite the interventions, global banks still axed the most jobs since the global financial crisis. A new report from the Financial Times shows twenty of the world's largest banks slashed 61,905 jobs in 2023, a move to protect profit margins in a period of high interest rates amid a slump in dealmaking and equity and debt sales. This compared with the 140,000 lost during the GFC of 2007-08. "There is no stability, no investment, no growth in most banks — and there are likely to be more job cuts," said Lee Thacker, owner of financial services headhunting firm Silvermine Partners.

USA - Radical Islamic activists are increasingly causing major problems all over the United States. They are blocking airports, storming government buildings and causing all sorts of chaos in the streets. On Wednesday, pro-Hamas protesters blocked access to the largest airports in New York City and Los Angeles on “one of the busiest travel days of the year”… At one point the protesters on the Van Wyck Expressway were heard chanting “from the sea to the river”, which is essentially a call for genocide. This sort of chaos should not be happening at a major US airport, but it is happening.

USA - Two days before Christmas in 1913, Woodrow Wilson gave the United States a Christmas gift that keeps taking. On that day, he signed the Federal Reserve Act into law, creating the US central bank. Since that inauspicious day, the US dollar has lost 96% of its value. It’s no surprise that Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act just one day before Christmas Eve. It was perfect timing so the general public wouldn’t notice. The stated purpose of the legislation was to “provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system.” In reality, it was a gift to bankers.

UK - Gang violence in London has seen knife crime reportedly surge at its fastest rate in five years, with over 40 incidents logged with police per day, according to an analysis conducted by a top British broadsheet. A report from The Telegraph newspaper has claimed that over 200 gangs are operating in the British capital, with around 46,000 members at their disposal, some of whom are as young as ten years old. The prevalence of criminal gangs and inevitable turf wars and other disputes have contributed to increasing violence on the streets of London, with knife crime rising at its quickest pace in five years and gun crime rising by six per cent over last year. So far this year, there have been over 90 homicides recorded in the city, 20 of whom were minors. The paper revealed that the Metropolitan Police are currently receiving an average of 43 reports of knife crime incidents every single day.

USA - The Biden administration and the corporate media are telling us over and over that the economy is just fine, but the term “silent depression” has been going viral on TikTok. Housing, vehicles, food and just about everything else that we spend money on is far more unaffordable today than it was during the Great Depression of the 1930s. A realtor in Florida named Freddie Smith posted a video on TikTok with some absolutely startling numbers about the cost of living in the United States today, and that is what started the “silent depression” trend…

USA - Time is running out. Lately, I have been hearing from so many people that believe that 2024 will be the year when our society goes over the edge. Our financial system is teetering on the brink of disaster, crime is absolutely exploding all over the country, homelessness is rising at the fastest pace ever recorded, food banks are facing unprecedented demand for their services, and I believe that 2024 will be the most chaotic election year in the entire history of our nation. And of course all of this is happening in the context of a global environment in which war, pestilences, economic problems, famine and natural disasters are all on the rise. A “perfect storm” is raging all around us, and millions upon millions of Americans have become deeply concerned about what our immediate future will look like.

USA - CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge made a “dark” prediction that 2024 will produce a ‘Black Swan Event’ which shocks the world. Herridge made the call during a round table discussion when she was asked by host Margaret Brennan about what we could expect to see unfold over the coming year. “Well, mine’s a little dark,” Herridge stated. “I just feel a lot of concern that 2024 may be the year of a black swan event. This is a national security event with high impact that’s very hard to predict.”

SOUTH AMERICA - The Amazon rainforest experienced its worst drought on record in 2023. Many villages became unreachable by river, wildfires raged and wildlife died. Some scientists worry events like these are a sign that the world's biggest forest is fast approaching a point of no return. As the cracked and baking river bank towers up on either side of us, Oliveira Tikuna is starting to have doubts about this journey. He's trying to get to his village, in a metal canoe built to navigate the smallest creeks of the Amazon. "I'm 49 years old, we've never seen anything like this before," Oliveira says. "I've never even heard of a drought as bad as this."

NIGERIA - At least 140 people were killed by gunmen who attacked remote villages over two days in north-central Nigeria’s Plateau state, survivors and officials said Tuesday in the latest of such mass killings this year blamed on the West African nation’s farmer-herder crisis. The assailants targeted 17 communities during the “senseless and unprovoked” attacks on Saturday and Sunday, during which most houses in the areas were burned down, Plateau Governor Caleb Mutfwang said Tuesday in a broadcast on the local Channels Television. No group took responsibility for the attacks though the blame fell on herders from the Fulani tribe, who have been accused of carrying out such mass killings across the northwest and central regions where the decades long conflict over access to land and water has further worsened the sectarian division between Christians and Muslims in Africa’s most populous nation.

IRAN - A high-ranking Iranian general has been killed in an Israeli air strike in Syria, it has been claimed, as Tehran vows revenge for the attack. Iranian officials and allied militant groups in the region swore they would take revenge for the killing but did not immediately launch any retaliatory strike. The killing of Seyed Razi Mousavi, a longtime adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria, comes amid ongoing fears of the Israel-Hamas war sparking a regional spillover. Iran-backed groups in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq have launched attacks on Israel and its allies in support of Hamas. Clashes along the Lebanon-Israel border between Hezbollah and Israel have continued to intensify, with daily exchanges of missiles, air strikes and shelling across the frontier.

ISRAEL - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will intensify its fight against Hamas in the coming days. He told members of his party that he had visited Gaza on Monday morning and that Israel's military campaign there was "not close to being over". His comments come days after the US secretary of state said Israel should lower the intensity of its strikes. The war began on 7 October after Hamas led a deadly attack on communities inside Israel. Mr Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and return the hostages to Israel.

GERMANY - Germany's decision to make Norway its biggest gas supplier, culminating in a deal this week that will cover a major chunk of its industrial needs, means it has replaced the formerly dominant Russia with another equally dominant supplier. The deal consolidates Norway's position as Germany's main supplier that it has held since Gazprom suspended direct deliveries via the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia to Germany in 2022. It will take Norway's share of Germany's gas supplies to around 60%, comparable with the amount Russia used to account for.

GERMANY - Bundeswehr participation in a naval coalition against Yemeni Houthi militias under discussion. Red Sea deployment could mean direct German involvement in a wider Middle East war. Some German business representatives and politicians in the FDP are calling for a deployment of the German Navy to the Red Sea. This comes in response to US efforts to forge a multinational naval coalition to combat the current attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militias on merchant ships. The Houthi’s say their attacks are intended to increase the pressure on Israel to cease its onslaught in the Gaza Strip. Should the conflict escalate, Germany would find itself party to an open-ended war in the Middle East.

GERMANY - During his Christmas speech, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said people should "never abandon" longing for a more peaceful world. He urges a united country, saying people working together can only make the country stronger. "The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine is now entering its second winter," Steinmeier said. "And, since the autumn, we have been looking in horror at Hamas' atrocities and at what is happening to the victims of the war in the Middle East." Despite the challenges, Steinmeier stressed the importance of hope and the need to approach the new year with courage and determination.