ISRAEL - Although the Passover and daily sacrifices do not require a full temple, they must be done on an altar built according to the requirements of Jewish law, and placed at the appropriate spot on the Temple Mount, believed to be several meters east of the Islamic Dome of the Rock shrine. Professor Hillel Weiss, a hard-right political activist and Temple activist, said he and the Temple activists and organizations would begin animal sacrifices immediately if the state allowed them to bring their altar to the requisite spot on the Temple Mount, and declared that the state should be “the first to support” the resumption of these rituals.

USA - Due to porn, children are sexually assaulting other children at alarming rates. A grotesque report out of Kansas City recently has drawn attention to a problem that has begun to grow nearly unnoticed: The sexual assault of children — by other children. The Children’s Mercy hospital says that they are seeing “a disturbing trend in child sexual assault cases,” and that pornography has a lot to do with it. Heide Olson, the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, noted that the number of offenders between 11 and 15 years of age is unprecedented: “I think [what] was kind of shocking to us all as we were collecting this data, is that almost half of our perpetrators are minors.”

UK - Brexit supporter Gisela Stuart has warned the European Union has “troubles” at home with domestic issues and are desperate to get Brexit over the line. She said: “Most of the European leaders at the moment are by far more troubled about the European elections which are coming their way. The kind of troubles they have got at home, just turn on your television sets and watch what is happening in Paris. These are domestic things, these are things the European Union has to resolve. It is as much in their interest to resolve Britain leaving in an orderly and successful manner, as it is in ours.”

EUROPE - More than half of EU leaders will boycott a major European conference in Austria next week in a humiliating backlash against right wing Vienna's anti-migration stance. Several EU officials and diplomats expressed their disappointment after Austria, which holds the EU presidency, withdrew from the migration deal following a two-day conference in Marrakesh, Morocco. Delegates were expected to work on how best Africa and Europe can work together to ensure mutually prosperous futures. But one EU diplomat told Politico: “I would not call [Austria] the best possible honest broker when it comes to migration." Countries expected to attend include Czech Republic, Slovenia, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, Finland, Estonia, Malta and Belgium - but the whole south of the EU and most of the west will not attend.

FRANCE - The EU army has been deployed to the streets of Paris in an attempt to crush the historic French revolution currently sweeping across France. Armoured European Union military vehicles were filmed storming Paris on Saturday, as hundreds of thousands of protestors continue to protest globalism.

GERMANY - German car makers are fearing a ten fold increase in tariffs as Donald Trump’s negotiators refuse to back down over what the US President says are unfair trade practices. The organisation’s CEO, Bertram Brossardt, has desperately urged the US to reopen negotiations.

GERMANY - The conservative party elected Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to replace Merkel as their leader on Friday, making her frontrunner to become the next chancellor of Germany, which has Europe’s biggest economy. However, the narrow win over the more conservative Friedrich Merz exposed splits in Germany’s biggest party, which she must try to close before next May’s vote for the European Parliament and four state elections in 2019.

SPAIN - Spain’s far-right party, Vox, won 12 parliamentary seats in the Andalusian regional elections on December 2. The results of the election have come as a surprise, since the far-right party, led by Santiago Abascal, was only expected to win five seats. There are 109 seats in the Andalusian regional parliament, and with this win, Vox could form a right-wing governing coalition with the conservative People’s Party (PP) and Citizens party. Vox’s victory is the latest in a nationalist wave that has been spreading across Europe. The win comes as a shock, as memories of life under Francisco Franco’s fascist dictatorship still linger in Spain. Abascal’s newly strengthened party is anti-Muslim, tough on immigration and opposed to Catalan independence and abortion.

UNITED NATIONS - Some 3.9 billion people are now using the Internet, meaning that for the first time more than half of the global population is online, the United Nations said Friday. The UN agency for information and communication technologies, ITU, said that by the end of 2018 a full 51.2 percent of people around the world will be using the Internet. "By the end of 2018, we will surpass the 50/50 milestone for Internet use," ITU chief Houlin Zhou said in a statement. "This represents an important step towards a more inclusive global information society," he said, adding though that "far too many people around the world are still waiting to reap the benefits of the digital economy." He called for more support to "technology and business innovation so that the digital revolution leaves no one offline."

UK - Theresa May is set to launch a last-ditch bid to win over mutinous Tory MPs before deciding whether to proceed with a vote on her Brexit deal on Tuesday, as one of her closest cabinet allies issued a stark warning that the UK should learn from Northern Ireland about “the damage that division can do”. With less than 48 hours to go before May faces the reckoning of her MPs, few of the 100-plus rebels who have vowed to vote against her deal showed any sign of altering their positions. The prime minister is under intense pressure from aides and senior ministers to consider pulling the vote on Tuesday, a move Downing Street has emphatically denied will happen, though a final decision is unlikely to be made until the 11th hour.

EUROPE - In 1977, a couple of years after British voters decided to “continue” membership in the European Economic Community or Common Market, the Eagles released a song called “Hotel California.” Its famous line, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave,” was, on one account, about the Church of Satan or more generally the clutches of Satan. Once having embraced him, you can no longer escape, even if you repent.

MIDDLE EAST - A carrier strike group led by the Nimitz-class supercarrier USS John C. Stennis has arrived in the Middle East, ending an eight month period without a US carrier based in the region, the US Navy has reported. The carrier group will be based with the 5th Fleet, whose zone of responsibility includes the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, and will be stationed in the region for at least two months. According to the US government-funded news service Voice of America, the carrier strike group is being deployed to “help in the fight against the Islamic State terror group in Iraq and Syria and the war in Afghanistan.” Furthermore, a defense official confirmed earlier reports that the US was beefing up its presence in the region as a “message” to Tehran, telling VOA that “just being there is a show of force to Iran.”

USA - US forces must remain in the bogged-down Afghanistan campaign, or terrorists might get back on their feet and launch another 9/11-scale attack on American people, General Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Speaking at an event organized by the Washington Post, Dunford said that the American military presence in Afghanistan is essential to contain terrorists who otherwise would regroup and take revenge on the US. Dunford stressed that his top priority is not to ensure security and stability in Afghanistan, which has been lying in shambles as a result of the 17-year-long war, but to "make recommendations for the deployment of military force that protects the American people, the homeland and our allies."

EUROPE – Emmanuel Macron earlier voiced the idea of building a European military so that fellow EU nations could defend themselves from wide-ranging threats. The French leader subsequently came under fire from the White House, which called on him to pay his fair share of NATO membership. "The idea of a European Military didn't work out too well in WWI or WWII. But the US was there for you, and always will be. All we ask is that you pay your fair share of NATO," he added. "Germany is paying 1% while the US pays 4.3% of a much larger GDP - to protect Europe. Fairness!”

INDIA - New Delhi and Abu Dhabi have inked a currency swap agreement to boost trade and investment without involvement of a third currency like the US dollar. The swap is for an amount of two billion UAE dirham or 35 billion Indian rupees (US$495 million), according to the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi. “The bilateral currency swap agreement between India and UAE is expected to reduce the dependency on hard currencies like the US dollar,” the embassy said.