NIGERIA - At least 17 Christians were killed in Nigeria hours after President Donald Trump designated the nation as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for ongoing attacks by radical Islamists, with local media reporting “fresh attacks by gunmen across communities in Plateau and Kaduna states.” A Friday evening attack in Kaduna claimed the lives of seven people and injured one more, with Nigerian outlet Punch reporting that the assailants “invaded” the Damakasuwa community in Chawai Chiefdom around 8:00 pm and began “shooting sporadically and forcing residents to flee into nearby bushes for safety.” In Plateau State, 10 more people were reportedly killed in separate attacks on Friday and Saturday, Punch reported.

NIGERIA - Nigeria said Sunday the country would welcome American intervention against Islamic extremist groups behind the massacre and persecution of Christians in the African nation. Daniel Bwala, advisor to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, told Reuters Sunday the country would welcome US intervention to combat Islamic terrorists persecuting and massacring Christians within its borders, as long as Nigeria’s sovereignty was respected. President Donald Trump threatened Saturday on Truth Social to deploy US forces in Nigeria if the nation did not do enough to stop Islamic terrorist organizations like Boko Haram. “We welcome US assistance as long as it recognizes our territorial integrity,” the advisor told Reuters.

NIGERIA - Nigeria has rejected President Trump’s threat of military intervention to protect the country’s Christian population. As Christians continue to be massacred at the hands of Islamist militias in the northern region of the most populous African country, Trump has sounded the alarm and said he may even use military force to protect them. “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. However, the Nigerian government has pushed back on this idea and denied that the persecution of Christians is even taking place. Nigeria, which is home to some 220 million people, is almost evenly divided between Muslims in the north and Christians who are concentrated in the south and central regions.

USA - On my first day @USDA, we told every state to send us their SNAP data so we could make sure illegal immigrants aren’t getting benefits meant for American families. 29 states stepped up. 21 blue states refused — and two SUED US FOR ASKING! And guess what? In just the states that cooperated, we’ve already uncovered massive fraud. The Democrat Party has turned its back on working Americans and built its entire strategy around protecting illegal aliens. They know if the handouts stop, those illegals will go back home, and Democrats will lose 20+ seats after the next census. There’s a new sheriff in town. @POTUS will not tolerate waste, fraud, or abuse while hardworking Americans go hungry.

ISRAEL - In the middle of the night, while most Americans were asleep, the Federal Reserve injected $29.4 billion into the US banking system. It was a “repo operation” — short for repurchase agreement — a mechanism the Fed uses to lend cash to banks in exchange for collateral, usually Treasury securities. The move didn’t make mainstream headlines, but it sent ripples through financial circles. A sudden infusion of this size often signals acute liquidity stress, the kind that central banks are usually desperate to conceal. The question is: why now? The banking system has been treading on thin ice for months. Bond markets remain unstable, commercial real estate is imploding, and deposit flight has quietly resumed among regional banks. The Federal Reserve has been walking a tightrope — raising interest rates to fight inflation while trying not to trigger another 2008-style collapse. Yet this $29.4 billion overnight cash injection suggests that pressure inside the system is reaching a point that requires emergency relief.

USA - It appears that a liquidity crisis is upon us, and that is really bad news for the financial markets. What is the Fed not telling us? The numbers clearly indicate that big trouble is brewing in the banking system. I wish that I could specifically tell you which banks are in the most trouble, but at this stage we simply aren’t being told anything. They probably figure that the best approach is to try to keep everyone as calm as possible. But they won’t be able to keep a lid on what is going on indefinitely, and when word finally gets out people could start to panic.

UK - A stock market crash is on the way – growing numbers of experts are agreed on that. What they don't know is when it will hit, as there is plenty going on in the world that has the potential to trigger havoc on the markets. Concerns about the Trump administration and US government shutdown are causing jitters, and closer to home there are worries about this month's Budget. Tensions persist in the Middle East, stock markets – and AI company shares in particular – are hitting record highs, and a potential French government failure is in the offing. Meanwhile, investors are still grappling with sticky inflation, interest rate uncertainty and gloomy economic forecasts. Timing the market is nigh on impossible...

USA - The 2026 world economy has a cautious outlook, according to the October report put out by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The organization says that global growth is slowing amid fragmentation and rising protectionism. Significant downside risks are present, ranging from a potential tech stock repricing to eroding institutional independence which could weaken policy decisions. The US is the largest economy in the world. The American economy is expected to reach $31.8 trillion in GDP by 2026. This is roughly the size of China (2nd), Germany (3rd), and India (4th) combined. However its growth projections have been revised downward since this time last year after trade wars rattled global markets and contributed to rising prices for the world’s largest consumer economy.

USA - Tech billionaire Elon Musk just dropped a political bombshell during his latest three-hour interview with Joe Rogan, revealing what he calls the Democrats’ dirty secret behind the ongoing government shutdown. During the interview on The Joe Rogan Experience, Musk revealed how blue states like California and New York are propped up by billions in fraudulent federal handouts disguised as “Medicaid” for illegals, and how cutting off this cash spigot would trigger a mass exodus of these imported voters, crippling the left’s electoral machine. Musk hammered home the point that sanctuary states are addicted to this federal gravy train. Democrats are refusing to open the government unless Republicans agree to give health benefits to illegal aliens.

ISRAEL - Partners in the Israeli Leviathan offshore natural gas project have submitted a multi-billion-dollar plan with the government to significantly expand the field and boost production, one of the partners in the group said on Sunday. NewMed Energy said its plan that it filed with the Energy Minister's Petroleum Commissioner calls for the drilling of three additional production wells, more undersea systems and expansion of processing facilities on the platform that will increase total gas production capacity to 21 billion cubic metres (bcm) a year and cost an estimated $2.4 billion. Leviathan, a deep-sea field with huge deposits, came online at the end of 2019 and produces 12 bcm of gas per year for sale to Israel, Egypt and Jordan. That will rise to some 14 bcm in 2026 with the completion of laying of a third pipeline.

VENEZUELA - Amid a buildup of American forces in the Caribbean, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro is reaching out to Russia, China and Iran to enhance its worn military capabilities and solicit assistance, requesting defensive radars, aircraft repairs and potentially missiles, according to internal US government documents obtained by The Washington Post. The requests to Moscow were made in the form of a letter meant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and was intended to be delivered during a visit to the Russian capital by a senior aide this month. Maduro, according to the documents, also composed a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping seeking “expanded military cooperation” between their two countries to counter “the escalation between the US and Venezuela.” The USS Gerald Ford, the Navy’s heaviest and most modern aircraft carrier, has been dispatched to the region.

PHILIPPINES - The US has deployed troops and anti-ship missiles into the northern Philippines as part of almost continuous, joint war drills throughout the country. One goal is to block the Bashi Channel and deny Chinese warships access to the Pacific Ocean if Beijing launches an attack on Taiwan. As a former Philippine military chief told Reuters: You can’t invade Taiwan if you don’t control the northern Philippines. Marilyn Hubalde still remembers the first time she heard the thunderous chop of military helicopters swooping over this northernmost outpost of the Philippines, less than 90 miles from Taiwan. It was April 2023, when Filipino and American troops descended on the cluster of 10 emerald green islands of Batanes province for amphibious warfare drills. Geography dictates that it is now on the frontline of the great power competition between the United States and China for dominance in the Asia-Pacific region.

NIGERIA - Donald Trump has threatened to send the US military into Nigeria with “guns-a-blazing” if the African country does not stem what he described as the killing of Christians by Islamists. Mr Trump said on Saturday that he had asked the Pentagon to map out a possible plan of attack, one day after warning that Christianity was “facing an existential threat in Nigeria”. “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Mr Trump said on Truth Social. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians.” He added that the Nigerian government “BETTER MOVE FAST!”

USA - This Right-wing populist opposition to the Jewish state is far different from the traditional, pro-Israel stance of Reagan Republicans and evangelicals like Mike Huckabee, who is now US ambassador to Israel. Still, support is waning even among evangelicals, especially younger ones. This shifting view on the Right was on display on Wednesday night at Ole Miss, where vice-president JD Vance spoke to a crowd, organised by Turning Point USA. After a short speech, Vance answered questions from students. Two posed questions hostile to Israel. Instead of pushing back, the vice-president largely seemed to endorse the students’ antagonism. That’s new for such a prominent voice in Republican politics.

USA - In the hours after the fatal shooting of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Dr Nicholas Kardaras held his weekly college class on the impact of digital media on mental health. “I walked into my classroom that afternoon and one of my students said, ‘Oh, Kirk was just shot, we think he might be dead’,” said Kardaras, a professor at Stony Brook University in New York and one of the country’s foremost addiction experts. “Then another one — who is getting their mental health degree — said, ‘Well, yeah, but he had it coming’.” He said that it was an example of the rise of extreme “binary thinking” among members of Gen Z — the type demonstrated by the suspects behind the assassinations of Kirk in September and United CEO Brian Thompson last year. Kardaras said many of his students were “lionising” Robinson and Mangione, laying out the argument that “sometimes violence is necessary for the greater good”. “This healthcare CEO represents this evil, greedy, corporate archetype, and whoever takes him out is a hero,” he said. “The same thing with Charlie Kirk, who they see as a hate speech villain and Nazi fascist who deserved everything he got.”