USA - In her meticulously referenced testimony submitted to the Massachusetts legislature which is considering whether to eliminate religious exemptions from the childhood vaccination schedule, Meryl Nass, MD, board member of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, laid out the facts to refute the Pharma-orchestrated propaganda about vaccines.

PHILIPPINES - The Taal volcano could cause further devastation in the Philippines as the Alert Level rose from three to four after it caused volcanic tremors and earthquakes. As the volcanic activity intensified, two volcanic earthquakes of magnitudes M2.5 and M3.9 were created. They were felt in Tagaytay City and Alitagtag at 6.15pm and 6.22pm local time. The Department of Science and Technology at the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (DOST-PHIVOLCS) released the warning, raising the Alert Levels. Releasing a statement on Twitter the organisation urged people to evacuate. About 8,000 residents were ordered to evacuate, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. The eruption produced terrifying lightning strikes in the ash cloud above its crater. Volcanic lightning is an electrical discharge caused by a volcanic eruption, rather than from an ordinary thunderstorm.

GERMANY - As Trump pushes his weight around, Russia-Germany relations defrost. Angela Merkel’s visit to Moscow is far from a courtesy call. Germany and Russia’s political relations are thawing. It’s good news for all Europeans. As Iran and the United States seemingly limbered up for war, Russia and Germany, as the continent’s two most powerful countries, have a special responsibility to protect it from any fallout.

AUSTRIA - Washington has become an increasingly unreliable partner for its European allies, Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has said, adding that the European Union remains a “weak” player on the world stage. “The balance of power is shifting internationally,” Kurz told lawmakers as he presented his new government, formed after his conservative People’s Party struck a coalition deal with the Greens.

EUROPE - With Brexit looming, new European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is facing a huge challenge to absorb the costs of the UK’s departure from the bloc alongside a “whole range of problems”, from slow growth across the Eurozone to the behaviour of “rogue members” such as Poland and Hungary, a political analyst has said. He told Express.co.uk: “The EU has a whole range of problems and Brexit is just one on a list." In a reference to Hungary and Poland, both of whom are facing sanctions under the EU’s Article 7 over controversial legal reforms, Prof Travers said: “There are a whole range of problems - they have got slightly rogue members, members who are not actually behaving in ways that proper democracies are expected to. So against that backdrop, Brexit is on a list of big issues but it is by no means the only one. It’s true that losing the UK’s money will make their budget a bit more difficult though in fairness less money will go out as well."

EUROPE - European Council President Charles Michel today admitted the EU faces a challenge to remain united during its future relationship talks with Britain. Speaking at the launch of Croatia’s rotating EU presidency, Mr Michel said: “It will be very important, like the first phase, to guarantee the unity… to guarantee the transparency of member states in order to get that deal.” He added: “Unity requires permanent effort at the European level and we know when we have to negotiate a budget it is always complex and difficult, especially difficult at a European level because we face the Brexit gap. I am confident… I am confident because I feel at a European level there’s a strong commitment to make progress together.” According to the European Commission’s assessment, the Brexit gap accounts for around £11 billion per year.

IRAN - The Ukrainian passenger jet that crashed after takeoff from Tehran was downed due to "human error" after it flew too close to a military site and triggered a missile launch amid a standoff with the US, the Iranian Army said. The Army General Staff stressed that the tragic mistake was made amid the flare-up of tensions with Washington. The nation's air defenses were placed on alert and ready to "respond to possible threats of the highest level," after US President Donald Trump warned that the Pentagon would strike targets on Iranian soil if US citizens or assets were attacked by Iran.

PAKISTAN - Pakistan has violated a ceasefire with India after one person was killed and three other injured, with the Indian army now responding “strongly and effectively”. This is the latest escalation in tensions between the two feuding Asian countries and the second time Pakistan has violated a ceasefire in the last two weeks. The Indian army responded immediately on December 27 after Pakistan broke a ceasefire in the Shahpur sector of the Poonch district, and Naushera in Rajouri district along the Line of Control (LoC). The Pakistan Army fired on Indian posts along the LoC, triggering a strong retaliation from the Indian army.

USA - Funny, no one seemed to consider what to do with the massive amount of wind turbine blades once they reached the end of their lifespan. Thus, the irony of the present-day Green Energy Movement is the dumping of thousands of tons of “non-recyclable” supposedly renewable wind turbine blades in the country’s landfills.

Who would have thought? What’s even worse, is that the amount of wind turbine blades slated for waste disposal is forecast to quadruple over the next fifteen years as a great deal more blades reach their 15-20 year lifespan. Furthermore, the size and length of the newly installed wind turbine blades are now twice as large as they were 20-30 years ago. According to the data from Hochschule Bremerhaven & Ahlstrom-Munksjo, the wind industry will generate 50,000 tons of blade waste in 2020, but that will quadruple to 225,000 tons by 2034.

UK - Britain’s future outside the European Union was finally secured last night in a momentous Commons vote. MPs marched through the voting lobbies to give their backing to the Brexit Bill which sailed through by 330 votes to 231 – a thumping majority of 99. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay said the vote sent a clear message to the public that the Government has “listened and we have acted”. He confirmed he will be out of his job within weeks because his department will be scrapped once Britain severs the ties with the bloc on January 31.

LIBYA - Tit-for-tat military strikes by Washington and Tehran have distracted international attention from fears in the European bloc about the escalating proxy war in Libya, just a few hundred kilometres from its shores. The battle for the North African state has become something of a perfect storm of European worries, including over migration, the arrival of Isis fighters from Syria, Russia’s growing Mediterranean ambitions and Turkey’s increasing regional assertiveness. As EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell observed yesterday, it “doesn’t take the risk of a nuclear proliferation or confrontation” to stoke the bloc’s anxieties about the deterioration of Libya. “We are maybe facing a watershed point,” the top diplomat said of the growing turmoil. “The situation is very dangerous.” Almost nine years after air strikes by British and French warplanes helped topple the late Libyan dictator Muammer Gaddafi, the country is racked by a conflict between the UN-backed government in Tripoli and military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

USA - CEOs of major US military contractors stand to reap huge windfalls from the escalation of conflict with Iran. This was evident in the immediate aftermath of the US assassination of a top Iranian military official last week. As soon as the news reached financial markets, these companies’ share prices spiked, inflating the value of their executives’ stock-based pay. I took a look at how the CEOs at the top five Pentagon contractors were affected by this surge, using the most recent SEC information on their stock holdings. New Northrop Grumman CEO Warden saw the 92,894 shares she’d accumulated as the firm’s COO expand in value by more than $2.7 million in just one day of post-assassination trading.

USA - Media outlets have omitted aspects about the US assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani that don’t fit Washington’s narrative, comedian Lee Camp has argued. He’s debunked the Pentagon spin so you don’t have to. The host of Redacted Tonight has listed six things about the highly controversial killing that the media has either ignored completely or under-reported, including the not-so-convenient fact that Soleimani had come to Baghdad to hold de-escalation talks with Saudi Arabia – before being killed by a US drone. And what about the fact that the US carried out this strike without the permission of its democratic ‘ally’, Iraq, or the completely unsubstantiated accusation that Soleimani’s assassination was justified because he was plotting against the United States? Camp tears into the media’s uncritical and all-too-familiar narrative, and asks: Do we really want to enter into a war that would likely kill millions of people, only to find out it was all based on lies – again?

IRAN - Iran’s propaganda trumpets are presenting Qasem Soleimani as a Shiite version of a saint whose martyrdom deserves religious glorification. Soleimani trained, armed, and provided funds to terror organizations and used Revolutionary Guards Quds Force and Hizbullah instructors, as Iran’s national security policy sought to distance the frontlines from Iran’s own borders.

USA - James Shupe, the man who became the first person to obtain a legal sex designation of “non-binary,” now says the transgender lifestyle is a “fraud.” On Christmas Eve, an Oregon judge restored James (formerly Jamie) Shupe’s gender to male and allowed him to resume using his birth name. A recent report at PJ Media noted that Shupe characterized his “non-binary” status as a “psychologically harmful legal fiction.” “The lies behind my fictitious sex changes, something I shamefully participated in, first to female, and then to non-binary, have been forever exposed,” Shupe told PJ Media. “A truthful accounting of events has replaced the deceit that allowed me to become America’s first legally non-binary person.” He added the “non-binary” sex designation is “fraud and legal fiction based on pseudoscience.” “I was indoctrinated to believe that I had this thing called a gender identity and that suppressing it was causing my mental health problems,” he added. “It was all a lie.”