USA - Donald Trump is considering establishing a “warrior board” to review senior officers in the US military and weed out “woke generals”, according to reports. A draft executive order under consideration by the president-elect’s transition team would set up a board of retired senior officials to audit top brass that do not meet standards of “leadership capability, strategic readiness, and commitment to military excellence”. The move is thought to be Mr Trump’s first step in tackling the issue of “woke generals”, which he complained about on the campaign trail, arguing that diversity and inclusion politics had become more important than war-fighting ability. The Republican platform policy document formally signed off at the party’s National Convention before the presidential election promised to “get woke Left-wing Democrats fired as soon as possible”.

UK - The Chancellor introduced a new tax burden for farmers who are already struggling with low prices for their goods and export headaches. Ports could be blockaded and food shortages could hit the high street this month as more than 10,000 angry farmers are expected to march on Westminster in protest at Rachel Reeves' Budget. The Chancellor could face French-style farming unrest with rural workers committed to direct action in retaliation for her introduction of a new tax burden on farms worth £1 million or more from April 2026.

UK - The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has resigned after the Church of England was rocked by a high-profile abuse scandal. Mr Welby has apologised after the independent Makin Review concluded that barrister John Smyth, who is thought to have been the most prolific abuser associated with the church, might have been brought to justice had the archbishop formally alerted authorities in 2013. Sir Keir Starmer would not comment directly on Mr Welby’s position, saying it was a “matter, in the end, for the church”, but he made clear that Smyth’s victims had been let down. He said: “Let me be clear: of what I know of the allegations, they are clearly horrific in relation to this particular case, both in their scale and their content. My thoughts, as they are in all of these issues, are with the victims here who have obviously been failed very, very badly.”

ZIMBABWE - Capable of holding a staggering 185 cubic kilometres of water, the world's largest man-made lake is in crisis as water levels hit an almost record low. The world’s largest man-made lake, which stretches across two southern African countries and took five years to be filled, is in crisis. A punishing drought has drained the huge reservoir close to record levels, raising the prospect that the Kariba Dam, which powers the economies of Zambia and Zimbabwe, may have to shut down for the first time in its 65-year history. The dry spell has led authorities to ration water allowed to flow through the Kariba Dam, and, in recent months, power cuts of up to 21 hours a day in Zambia on the lake’s northern side and 17 hours in Zimbabwe to the south.

USA - The US is accusing Russia of preparing to cut undersea cables which carry Internet traffic all over the world, and Russia is accusing western powers of preparing to do the exact same thing. In some cases, these undersea cables literally stretch from one continent to another, and so it is impossible to guard them. That means that they are an exceedingly vulnerable target, and it is probably just a matter of time before someone decides to attack them. Of course if the undersea cables that connect one global superpower to the Internet get hit, they will probably start cutting key undersea cables that connect their enemies to the Internet. Needless to say, such a scenario would have the potential to turn apocalyptic very rapidly. Over the past two decades, our entire economy has become exceedingly dependent on the Internet. If we were suddenly cut off from the rest of the globe, there would be widespread economic chaos…

USA - Republicans are projected to take control of the House of Representatives, giving the party a trifecta as Republicans also took control of the Senate and the presidency. Decision Desk HQ projected that the Republicans had won enough seats for them to take control of the House. Republicans were projected to have secured a 218-209 majority. The news that the Republicans had won the majority in the House comes a week after the presidential election in which President-elect Donald Trump won the election over Vice President Kamala Harris after he secured a pathway to over 270 votes in the Electoral College.

USA - Donald Trump is set to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement for the second time - even quicker than during his first term in office. Donald Trump is understood to be poised to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement for the second time - after declaring climate change is “all a big hoax”. The US President Elect’s clear vow to withdraw is set to once again leave America as one of the only countries not to be a party to the 2015 pact, in which nearly 200 governments have made non-binding pledges to reduce their planet-warming pollution. Climate scientists have warned that the US’s absence from the deal will mean other countries are forced to make bigger reductions to their pollution. But it will also inevitably raise questions from some countries as to how much more effort they should put in when the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas polluter is walking away.

GERMANY - In the immediate aftermath of Donald J Trump’s victory in the American Presidential Election, the German governing coalition collapsed when Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired Finance Minister Lindner from the FPD party over irreconcilable differences about an economic plan. Without FDP support, Scholz has to call for a vote of confidence to try to lead a minority government, which he is widely expected not to get – let’s remember he is the least popular German Chancellor in recorded history. When he loses the confidence vote, early elections will be called. The thing is: Scholz wants to delay this process until next year, a move that generated strong reactions both from the opposition and from inside his own crumbling coalition. Scholz wants to have these months to ram through legislation to have any chance in the upcoming election.

GERMANY - With the German government collapsing, one of the main proponents of an Alternative for Germany (AfD) ban, CDU politician Marco Wanderwitz, is pushing for a speedy procedure right before new elections. In order to submit a motion to ban the AfD, he needs 37 fellow MPs, or 5 percent of the Bundestag MPs, to vote with him. No matter what happens, a ban on the AfD could take years. Any final ban would have to be approved by the Federal Constitutional Court, and the burden for such a ban is supposed to be very high. Notably, the AfD party routinely polls between 16 and 20 percent of the national vote, and is the second most popular party in the nation. The courts have never banned such a popular party, setting the stage for a potential national crisis should the motion go through. Another wild card in a potential AfD ban is Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Musk has come out as a quasi-supporter of the party on his X platform. Any move on democratic backsliding in Germany, including a ban on a major opposition party, could result in US sanctions and increased tensions with a Trump-led United States.

UK - Alexander Rogers took his own life after being shunned by his peers – his death highlights the dangers of ‘righteous’ censorship.

USA - New class is latest to explore a pop icon’s impact, with other universities offering courses on Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga. Brook’s Beyoncé class will be offered by multiple departments, including those of African American studies, women’s gender and sexuality studies and American studies and music. Students at Yale University are getting the chance to take a class entirely devoted to Beyoncé, school officials have announced. The class – titled Beyoncé Makes History: Black Radical Tradition History, Culture, Theory & Politics through Music – will be taught by the African American studies and music professor Daphne Brooks beginning in the upcoming spring semester.

PHILIPPINES - The Philippines issued new weather warnings on Tuesday as the fifth major storm in three weeks bore down on the archipelago, days after thousands were evacuated ahead of Typhoon Toraji. Now a weakened tropical storm, Toraji blew out to sea overnight after causing relatively limited damage and no reported deaths. But Tropical Storm Usagi was now just two days away from the country’s northeast coast, the national weather agency said. The government said it had evacuated more than 32,000 people from vulnerable areas in the northern Philippines ahead of Toraji’s Monday landfall, weeks after Severe Tropical Storm Trami, Typhoon Yinxing and Super Typhoon Kong-rey killed a combined 159 people.

ISRAEL - The seemingly separate conflicts in the Middle East and Europe are in fact different parts of a single global war, experts said last night. It follows Israel’s recent and successful attack on Iran, which has neutralised Tehran’s ability to deliver new missiles and drones to Russia for use in Ukraine, and threatened its ability to export large quantities of oil to China. Israel’s sophisticated 25 October attack was “without question the most sophisticated use of air power in the history of air warfare”, said Professor Gwythian Prins, a former advisor to Nato and the UK’s chiefs of staff. With sophisticated intelligence assets on the ground, Israel’s air force “obliterated the eyes and teeth” of Iran’s air defence capabilities including radar systems as far afield as Iraq, Abadan and the Indian Ocean coast.

RUSSIA - Russia and Ukraine both launched record drone attacks on each other overnight, as the Kremlin said it saw "positive signals" from US President-elect Donald Trump over his desire to strike a deal to end the conflict. Trump's election to the White House has the potential to upend the almost three-year conflict and has thrown into question Washington's multi-billion-dollar support for Kyiv, crucial to its defense. The Republican said on the campaign trail that he could end the fighting within hours and has indicated he will talk directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin — a major break from the approach adopted by President Joe Biden. Trump will not be inaugurated until January and for the moment on the battlefield and in the skies, the conflict shows no signs of subsiding. "At least he's talking about peace, and not about confrontation. He isn't talking about his wish to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia — that distinguishes him from the current administration," Peskov added.

MIDDLE EAST - Trump’s first term as president was notably successful in reconciling Israel with its Arab neighbours. While much of the world’s attention is focused on the incoming Trump administration’s approach to the Ukraine conflict, another of Donald Trump’s key foreign-policy priorities will be to bring peace and stability to the Middle East. The region afforded the president-elect some of his more notable foreign-policy achievements during his first spell in the White House. They include spearheading the campaign to destroy Islamic State’s so-called caliphate in Syria, and negotiating the Abraham Accords, the groundbreaking peace deal that saw several Arab states normalise relations with Israel.