GERMANY - Germany and Taiwan should conduct military exchanges, which would be more meaningful than exchanges with China, German lawmaker Ulrich Lechte, a member of the Bundestag Committee on Foreign Affairs, said on Sunday. “The free world should stand together,” the Free Democratic Party lawmaker wrote on Facebook. The Taipei Representative Office in Germany’s Munich office shared Lechte’s post on its Facebook page, and thanked him for his continuing support of Taiwan. The German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported that 62 nations, including China, are to receive training from the Bundeswehr, Germany’s military. The weekly news magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday reported that the German government is planning to send warships into the South China Sea and through the Taiwan Strait as a way of “refuting Chinese territorial claims” in those areas.

USA - The Census Bureau estimates about 1 million same-sex married and unmarried couples are living together nationwide, according to new figures released Tuesday. Same-sex households make up about 1 percent of all homes, according to data released as part of the Current Population Survey and the first time such figures were included in its main results. The estimates provide a limited glimpse into the LGBTQ population in America, which has not shown up in federal surveys for much of the nation’s history.

ISRAEL - The parties are reportedly discussing a last-minute deal to form a government based on President Reuven Rivlin’s unity proposal — which entails a power-sharing agreement whereby Netanyahu would take a leave of absence if indicted for corruption and be replaced by Gantz as prime minister — subject to some changes. The centrist leader was tasked with cobbling together a coalition after Netanyahu failed to do so in the wake of the September elections. The negotiation teams of both parties met Tuesday ahead of the leaders’ meeting, which is scheduled for 10 pm — 26 hours before Gantz’s deadline to form a governing coalition.

CHINA - Black plague has been discovered in China, sparking fears of a widespread outbreak. Here are the latest cases and outbreaks. A third case of bubonic plague has been reported in China. The latest case was discovered on Sunday after two other plague cases were revealed last week. Plague has killed tens of millions of people around the world with a third of Europe’s population wiped out in the 1300s by the Black Death. Last week two patients from Inner Mongolia were quarantined in Beijing suffering from pneumonic plague. The health commission later diagnosed a 55-year-old man from the same area with bubonic plague. The man caught the disease by eating wild rabbit meat, authorities reported. Between 2010 and 2015 there were 3,248 cases of plague worldwide. The disease caused to 584 deaths - a fatality rate of 18 percent, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

VATICAN - Pope Francis invited 1,500 mostly poor people to lunch this weekend to celebrate the World Day for the Poor and requested that all pork be removed from the menu so as not to give offense to Muslim guests. This Sunday marked the third annual celebration of the World Day of the Poor, a Catholic commemoration established by Pope Francis in November 2016 to celebrate the end of the Jubilee Year of Mercy.

USA - Nancy Pelosi is getting desperate. In a secret meeting today broadcast live on C-SPAN by accident, Pelosi was heard telling a group of wealthy donors that the majority of the country wants Trump removed. Our reporter in the field, Sandy Batt, says the speech was simply disgusting:

“Pelosi was overheard at a fundraiser full of Hollywood elites bashing the President and calling for a ‘total shutdown’ if her party didn’t get their way on impeachment. In her own words, Pelosi said ‘We will shut down not just the Senate smoking lounge, but their cafeteria and their bath house. The Roman Empire fell from within. The Senate will follow.’ Pelosi then went on to say she would make sure none of Trump’s ‘boomer supporters’ get their Social Security checks if they don’t ‘fall in line.’

The whole thing was like listening to Stalin give a dissertation on socialism.”

USA - Three years ago, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in one of the greatest election upsets in American history. Many conservatives have used the word “reprieve” to describe what happened, but the truth is that it was actually an opportunity. It was an opportunity for this nation to move in a fundamentally different direction culturally, but it would be up to the American people to decide if that would actually happen or not. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. Instead, just about every form of evil that you can possibly imagine is running rampant in our society, and things are getting worse with each passing day. No matter who wins the next presidential election, and no matter who controls Congress, there is no future for our country if we stay on the path that we are currently on. Our culture is steadily swirling down the toilet, and most Americans don’t seem to care.

JAPAN - Some 200 protesters gathered outside a convention center near Tokyo to demonstrate against the government-backed DSEI Japan exhibition, the country’s first-ever arms show. The Japanese government is hoping to garner interest from weapons manufacturers in a bid to boost its own arsenal to help counter looming regional threats from China and North Korea. Protesters worry the move is yet another step towards militarism, with placards emblazoned with slogans like “Say NO to Merchant of death and military exhibition!” and “War starts here. Let's STOP it here. Stop Arms Fair!” The country has increased defense spending to roughly $50 billion per year, a decision that many feel contravenes the nation’s pacifist constitution. There has been major opposition to the purchase of US stealth fighters, missile defense interceptors and radar systems among other technologies, which the government argues will dissuade North Korea from carrying out more missile tests in the Sea of Japan.

USA - President Trump just announced yet another round of emergency bailouts for US farmers. This emergency aid will be greatly welcomed by countless struggling farmers, but a few thousand dollars won’t be nearly enough to save most of the farms that are on the verge of failing. Coming into 2019, farm debt was already at a record high and farm bankruptcies were already rising. But then crazy weather patterns made planting season a complete and utter mess, and more crazy weather patterns have turned harvest season into a major disaster. On top of everything else, the Trump administration’s trade dispute with China has greatly reduced US agricultural exports and hurt prices. This has been an absolutely nightmarish year for US farmers, and a series of government bailouts hasn’t done much to ease the pain… all of the information that we have right now seems to indicate that “Farmageddon” is going to get a whole lot worse.

IRAN - Protesters angered by Iran raising government-set gasoline prices by 50% blocked traffic in major cities and occasionally clashed with police Saturday after a night of demonstrations punctuated by gunfire, in violence that reportedly killed at least one person. The protests put renewed pressure on Iran’s government as it struggles to overcome the US sanctions strangling the country after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. Videos circulating on social media showed protesters burning images of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei while others chanted “Shah of Iran, return to Iran!” BBC aired footage of banks being burned in Behbahan and Pardis.

USA - A teacher reportedly defended the presence of a drag queen during a high school class with a Facebook post in which he asserted the parents who objected are “bigoted” and “should not have the final say” in raising their own children. English teacher Anthony Lane, of Willis Independent School District (WISD) High School in Texas, reportedly removed his Facebook post in which he defended another teacher’s decision to host a drag queen in the high school’s cosmetology class to offer makeup tips. Lane sharply criticized parents who complained about the drag queen’s presence without their knowledge.” I believe that raising a child is the responsibility of the community, and that parents should not have the final say.”

UK - From a business perspective, the choice between Corbyn and Johnson is one of the most dismal of the post-war age. We deserve better. What a miserable choice awaits voters on December 12. On the one hand we have the unrealistic flag-waving optimism of Boris Johnson, determined to take us out of Europe on a wing and a prayer, and on the other the reckless socialism of Comrade Corbyn. Hovering in the middle is the ineffectual liberalism of what’s her name; other than revoking article 50, nobody’s got a clue what she stands for. From a business perspective, the choice is one of the most dismal of the post-war age.

GERMANY - The country’s traditional powerhouses on the centre-left and the centre-right face a moment of reckoning. Postwar German politics has a reputation for being moderate, consensual and a touch on the dull side. But there have been moments of high drama. In November 1959, for example, the Social Democratic party (SPD) abandoned its historic ambition to replace capitalism with socialism, dropped the Marxist account of class struggle and began to pitch itself as a broad-based Volkspartei (people’s party).

EUROPE - Mario Draghi essentially failed. The outgoing president of the European Central Bank was brave, tenacious and skilful. He secured consent from Berlin for a rescue of the disintegrating Italian and Spanish debt markets in 2012. In that sense, he saved the euro. But for all his accomplishments he does not bequeath a safely-constructed monetary union to Christine Lagarde, his unlucky successor. The task was too great. The damage from the Trichet dark age and austerity overkill ran too deep. German and North European refusal to countenance fiscal union - albeit for valid constitutional reasons - leaves the euro an orphan currency with no pan-EMU budgetary mechanisms to counter economic shocks.

EUROPE - Residues from billions of doses of antibiotics, painkillers and antidepressants pose a significant risk to freshwater ecosystems and the global food chain, a new analysis said Thursday. There are growing fears that the unchecked use of antibiotics in both medicine and agriculture will have adverse effects on the environment and on human health. When animals and humans ingest medicines, up to 90 percent of active ingredients are excreted back into the environment. Many medicines are simply discarded - in the United States alone an estimated one third of the four billion drugs prescribed each year ends up as waste. Another study cited said "extremely high" concentrations of pharmaceutical products had already been detected in water ways in China, India, Israel, South Korea and the United States.