IRAQ - After US fighter jets bombed five facilities controlled by the Kataib Hezbollah militia group in Iraq and Syria on Sunday, killing at least 24 people and injuring at least 50 in response to the killing of a US civilian contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base, Iraqi militias are warning a "strong response" is coming.

GERMANY - A report by the Swedish Defense Research Agency found that Russia has threatened to cut energy supplies to Central and Eastern Europe more than 50 times. Even after some of those states joined the European Union, Russian threats continued. Not surprisingly, Germany's current Social Democratic Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, has criticized the US sanctions as foreign interference. "Decisions on European energy policy are made in Europe, not the USA," he tweeted on December 12. "We fundamentally reject foreign interventions and sanctions with extraterritorial effects."

USA - The world's three biggest exporters, Germany, China and the United States, are the biggest beneficiaries of membership of the World Trade Organization, a new study by the Bertelsmann Foundation published on Monday revealed. The countries have achieved the biggest income gains as a result of the rules-based global trading system, the report found. The US benefited by $87 billion (€77.7 billion) in 2016, China by $86 billion while Germany reaped some $66 billion in financial rewards. A group of scientists calculated the wealth effects of WTO membership on 180 countries, including all 164 WTO members. Both internal and external trade flows were included.

GERMANY - The political and economic identity crisis seen in the UK during its torturous Brexit process could shift across the continent to Europe’s largest economy Germany in 2020, according to economists and market watchers. Germany’s political system is going through a period of instability with the governing “grand coalition” of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) under increasing strain over the last year. Tensions came to a head earlier in December when the CDU party leader, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, rejected calls from the SPD’s new leftwing leadership team to renegotiate the terms of the governing alliance, putting the coalition’s survival into 2020 in doubt. The instability comes amid a wider picture of polarization in German politics with rising support for the far-right populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Green Party.

UK - A vegan who has claimed he was sacked because of his ‘ethical beliefs’ has demanded a court recognises veganism as a protected category like religion in a landmark legal case. The animal rights campaigner is fighting a legal battle to get ethical veganism added to a list of beliefs which should be protected under the Equality Act 2010. His lawyers are expected to compare veganism to religious evangelism and will show the court receipts for vegan shoes and aftershave to prove it is more than a diet for the campaigner. Jordi Casamitjana said: “I am an ethical vegan. This involves much more than just not eating food with animal ingredients, it’s a philosophy and a belief system which encompasses most aspects of my life.”

AUSTRALIA - Scores of fires are burning out of control across Australia amid a heatwave that has seen temperatures exceed 40C (104F) in every state. The most dangerous fires on Monday were in the state of Victoria. About 30,000 residents and tourists were urged to flee East Gippsland - a popular holiday region - but evacuations were later deemed too risky as fires encroached on major roads. A volunteer firefighter died battling a blaze in the state of New South Wales. In total, 10 people have died in the nation's bushfire crisis since September. Meteorologists say a climate system in the Indian Ocean, known as the dipole, is the main driver behind the extreme heat in Australia. Officials said the fire in Bundoora, some 16km (10 miles) north of Melbourne city centre, was "threatening homes and lives". He said the huge blazes had produced their own weather systems from smoke columns "punching into the atmosphere 14km high". "There's lightning coming out of these columns. It is unpredictable and it's dangerous out there," he said.

AUSTRALIA - Australia has been at the wrath of wildfires in recent weeks, which have taken 12 lives. As the blaze races towards beaches in Victoria, is it safe for travellers to visit the country? Tourists and local residents in Victoria were left fearing for their lives as they camped out on a beach in the early hours of December 31. The blazes rapidly spread to Mallacoota, with locals describing the incident as a “terrifying experience”. Thousands camped out on the sands, or hid beneath wharves and boats, as the sky above turned red from the flames. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has added a further warning urging travellers to reconsider trips to affected areas. A Fire Danger Rating system operates across Australia indicating the possible consequences of a fire, if one were to start. The highest rating of ‘Catastrophic’ has been issued in several locations.

MEXICO - Actor Sebastian Ferrat, beloved in his native Mexico, has died after a long and horrifying struggle with an infection he reportedly contracted from contaminated pork. Is 2020 the year to give up bacon? Fans are in deep sorrow as Sebastian Ferrat, 41, died on Sunday after a long battle with a grave illness that local media identified as cysticercosis, a parasitic infection that attacks the brain, muscles, or other tissues. According to reports, the actor, best-known for his roles in various television dramas, contracted the deadly infection after eating spoiled pork. He reportedly languished in a coma for several months in hospital before finally succumbing to the infection.

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations wants to hand power to dictatorial regimes like China to control the Internet, prompting fears of a massive new free speech purge. The General Assembly has approved a resolution sponsored by China and Russia to set up a committee of “international experts” whose role would be to stop “the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes.” However, many caution that the move is merely a back door for authoritarian regimes to further censor dissent.

USA - Russian and Chinese warships joined Iran’s Navy and Revolutionary Guards vessels on Friday for four days’ worth of maritime exercises in the Gulf of Oman and the northern Indian Ocean, simulating search and rescue, anti-piracy and shooting drills. The US Navy is concerned that the recent lull in hostilities with Iran following this summer’s string of escalatory actions in the form of tanker sabotage attacks, ship seizures and drone shootdowns may be repeated, Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly has said. “I think they’re going to continue to perform provocative actions over there,” Modly said, speaking to Reuters on Friday. “And I think they’ll look at every opportunity they can to do that,” he added, without offering any more details. “There’s nothing that suggests to me, short of a regime change there, that you have a different tone set from the leadership, that would suggest to me that they’re going to stop doing what they’ve been doing,” Modly explained.

USA - WikiLeaks has published yet another set of leaked internal documents from within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) adding even more material to the mountain of evidence that we’ve been lied to about an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria last year which resulted in airstrikes upon that nation from the US, UK and France.

USA - A reader points out that the US prison population is higher by 21,100 than the combined prison populations of China and India, the two largest countries in terms of population whose combined populations are eight times larger than that of the US. America is a country of scandals. The latest scandal is the Jewish multi-billionaire Mike Bloomberg’s use of prison labor call centers to spread the message of his presidential campaign. It seems to me that Bloomberg’s attack on the American Constitution is the scandal, not his use of prison labor. Bloomberg wants to repeal the Second Amendment and disarm the American people right at the time that the country is falling apart spiritualy, morally, economically, and politically. The contractors who lease prison labor to Bloomberg, to Apple, to the Department of Defense, are the ones who make the money. They are paid the state minimum wage for the prison labor, and the prisoners are paid a few dollars a month.

USA - Undersea volcano spews millions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Iceland volcano eruption (2012) caused havoc over Europe, Philippines Mount Pinatubo (1991) blasted ash and gas for three days, Hawaii’s Kilauea continues erupting since 1983, and Alaska's Pavlof; Toba caldera in North Sumatra, Sakurajima Japan, Pacana Chile, Popocatepetl & Colima Mexico, New Zealand’s Taupo caldera, Indonesia Mount Sinabung and many others under oceans are all still releasing CO2 in massive amounts the Earth’s natural capacities are able to cope with. Just one major volcano has produced more CO2 than man has ever produced — the current amount of CO2 (0.04%) is irrelevant compared to natural and volcanic emissions. An estimated 139,096 undersea volcanoes are active and 1,581 on land. Will the Greens please protest where the real CO2 problem lies — inside the volcanoes.

SPAIN - They came for your car, your light bulb, your dishwasher and washing machine, your electricity, your airline flight and so much more. Add your steak to the list. The global warming agenda is the gift that keeps on giving for everyone who wants to control what you do, and like the mafia, wants a piece of the action whenever money is on the line. Anti-meat crusaders have been pushing hard in recent months to use climate change to achieve their goal of forcing you into an all plant-based diet. This year their rhetoric became a big part of the dialogue at UN COP 25. They've introduced a new buzzword you'll be hearing a lot of, "peak meat." As CFACT's team learned - as usual, it's do as I say, not as I do. What was the big seller for anyone looking for lunch at the UN climate conference? Burger King - Delicious all meat American burgers, with not a single one of Burger King's latest meatless Whoppers in sight.

SPAIN - The UN climate summit in Madrid has been hit with a whopper of hypocrisy as delegates and activists attending are lining up daily for hamburgers at the conferences’ onsite Burger King despite the UN warnings that eating meat is not climate-friendly. UN climate summit attendees devoured the Burger King burgers daily, despite the UN’s loud admonitions on the alleged climate dangers of consuming meat. Climate Depot was able to confirm that the onsite Burger King at the UN summit DID NOT offer any fake meat alternatives like the Impossible Burger. Burger King only offered real cow meat at the summit location. No fake meat burger available is even more ironic, given that the UN just gave its “Planetary Heath” award to the company responsible for Burger King’s fake meat “Impossible Meat” burgers on December 10. The UN climate summit features anti-meat protestors outside the entrance with many messages to urge a halt to meat-eating. But this did not phase the hungry meat-eaters inside.