UK - Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s new Special Envoy on Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) has been praised by Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need as “a doughty defender of religious freedom”. Ms Bruce, an Anglican and an evangelical, said in a press release announcing her appointment: “There is much to do, and my post will be placed at the service of some of the most vulnerable people across the world.” She continued: “This appointment comes in the light of continuing large scale horrors taking place – such as those against Uighur Muslims in China, Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and Yazidis in Iraq and at a time when, as the late and much respected former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, stated, ‘the persecution of Christians throughout much of the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, and elsewhere, is one of the crimes against humanity of our time.’”

JAPAN - The Japanese government has approved a hike in military spending to address an “increasingly tough” security environment, as the country struggles under the world's largest debt and the pandemic-induced economic slump. Japan's cabinet approved on Monday the record-high $1.03 trillion budget proposal for the next fiscal year starting in April 2021. The package includes a stimulus for the economy which has been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic and a hike in defense spending.

VATICAN - The Vatican told Roman Catholics on Monday that it was morally acceptable for them to use COVID-19 vaccines, even if their production employed cell lines drawn from tissues of aborted fetuses. A note from the Vatican's doctrinal congregation, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the use of such vaccines was permitted as long as there were no alternatives.

GERMANY - But the Neo-Nazis Were Inside the Police. Death threats linked to police computers and the discovery of far-right chat groups in police departments across Germany have fed concerns about far-right infiltration. Germany’s police force is much more sprawling and decentralized than the military, with less stringent oversight.

USA - The S&P 500 fell Monday as a fast-spreading strain of coronavirus emerging from England prompted fresh travel restrictions, dealing a blow to prospects for the global economic recovery. The broad-based index was down 0.5% in early-afternoon trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked up less than 0.1%, having bounced back from a mid-morning loss of more than 420 points. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.3%. All three indexes were trading at records last week. Overseas, European shares tumbled after countries across the continent and beyond barred travelers from Britain in an effort to keep out an infectious variant of coronavirus that is spreading rapidly in England. The pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 slumped 2.3%. “People are bracing themselves for a challenging start to 2021,” said Brian O’Reilly, head of market strategy for Mediolanum International Funds.

USA - A statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee was removed from the US Capitol overnight. The statue has stood with America's first president, George Washington, as the state of Virginia's contribution to the National Statuary Hall Collection at the Capitol for more than 100 years. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, announced on Monday the state will seek to have it replaced with a statue of civil rights icon Barbara Johns. “We should all be proud of this important step forward for our Commonwealth and our country,” Northam said. “The Confederacy is a symbol of Virginia’s racist and divisive history, and it is past time we tell our story with images of perseverance, diversity, and inclusion.”

USA - With the latest, $900 billion covid-stimulus deal now done, attention turns to what's actually in it. First: the good news - the bill will include a fresh round of benefits for small businesses as well as the usual one-time pittance for peasants, amounting to a $600 check. Here are the key components:

USA - President Donald Trump alleged Sunday that “we’re getting closer and closer,” in reference to his ongoing challenges to election results in key battleground states. “We’re getting closer and closer. And I hope you let everybody know we’re actually very close,” Trump said on WABC radio. “The fake news will not tell you that. They don’t want to talk about it. They’re trying to suppress it. We don’t have freedom of the press at all. It’s suppressed news. It’s a terrible thing that’s happened in our country. It’s been going on for, it started a long time ago, but it’s gotten to a point, it’s a terrible thing. It’s not freedom of the press, and we got to bring that back, because the press is so suppressed. It’s so dishonest. I don’t even call it fake news anymore. I call it corrupt news,” he added.

USA - Sidney Powell's "Kraken" has finally made it to the docket of the Supreme Court. The suit is perhaps the strongest collective argument yet against voter fraud. It contains the forensic audit done in Michigan that proves systemic voter fraud occurred through the Dominion Voting System tabulation. It also has proof of at least 200,000 fraudulent votes cast in the election. Further, it contains official Georgia elections records that prove the Dominion Voting Systems program's "inability to repeatably duplicate creditable election results." In other words, official Georgia election canvassers could not rely on Dominion Voting Systems' software to count the vote because it didn't repeat the same vote totals twice.

USA - A hand recount on Wednesday confirmed that a Michigan county falsely reported on election night a win for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. The recount in Antrim County found 9,759 votes for President Donald Trump, versus 5,959 for Biden. On November 3, county officials said Biden received over 3,000 more votes than Trump. Two days later, they said Trump won by about 2,500 votes. A third change took place on November 21, with Trump being certified the winner by nearly 4,000 votes. Officials blamed the skewed results on human error. Antrim County uses Dominion Voting Systems machines and software.

EUROPE - The EU’s investment deal with Beijing punctures America’s dream of a ‘transatlantic alliance’ against China. The conventional wisdom in Washington that President Biden would find it easier to co-opt Europe into an anti-China agenda has been exposed as misplaced and naive. The EU is pragmatic, and Beijing’s being smart.

NATO - NATO said Saturday it was checking its computer systems after a massive cyberattack on US government agencies and others that Washington blamed on Moscow. "At this time, no evidence of compromise has been found on any NATO networks. Our experts continue to assess the situation, with a view to identifying and mitigating any potential risks to our networks," a NATO official told AFP.

USA - The SolarWinds breach could be the most significant cyber incident in American history. Russian intelligence — likely the SVR, the foreign-intelligence branch — infiltrated and sat undetected on US government networks for nearly 10 months. It was a sophisticated, smart and savvy attack that should alarm the public and private sectors.

GERMANY - The 2021 federal budget passed last week makes clear the priorities of the ruling class: not the health and lives of working people, but the interests of German imperialism at home and abroad. While the budgets for health, education and social affairs have been massively cut compared to this year, spending on the military and the security apparatus continues to rise. Next year, for example, the defence budget will be increased by a further €1.3 billion to €46.93 billion. It has thus increased by almost €15 billion since 2014. The additional billions for the security forces and the military are just the start of a massive arms offensive. The economic stimulus package adopted by the grand coalition of the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats in early May already included €10 billion for “new armaments projects with a high proportion of German value-added.”

GERMANY - As German Chancellor Angela Merkel prepares to leave office after nearly two decades in power, approval of Germany's leadership has never been higher in many countries. Across the 29 countries and areas that Gallup has surveyed so far in 2020, a median 62% approves of Germany's leadership, up slightly from a median of 59% for this same group in 2019. Approval ratings are at, or top, previous record highs in 18 of the 29 countries.