EUROPE - Chancellor Angela Merkel should not have attended the Armistice Centenary because Germany lost the First World War, Alexander Gauland, the leader of the populist anti-mass migration Alternative for Germany (AfD), said. “We can’t put ourselves in a historical situation that clearly favours the winner and walk alongside Mr Macron through the Arc de Triomphe,” Mr Gauland said, according to Reuters.

USA - It is “cruel and unscientific” to define a person’s legal sex by their biology, says a pro-transgender complaint signed by 98 Democratic House legislators. The Democrats’ statement was sent to President Donald Trump’s administration after the New York Times reported that the administration will formally clarify that the sex of people involved in sex-discrimination legal fights will be based on their male or female body. Trump’s biology-determines-sex policy “makes it clear that members of this administration are willing to … solidify an archaic, dogmatic, and alarming view of the world,” the Democrats complain in their letter to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

UK - Earth should brace itself for a large earthquake in the coming days as planets in the solar system align and tug on Earth’s tectonic plates, as an earthquake forecaster predicts a tremor will strike between now and Thursday. This is because Venus, Uranus, Neptune, the Moon and Mars are all pulling on Earth. The gravitational pull of the celestial bodies either side of our planet could pull on Earth’s tectonic plates, according to the prediction. As the plates are tugged apart, they could cause earthquakes around the globe. The website also recently predicted major tremors over Christmas. According to Mr Hoogerbeets: “A very critical planetary configuration on 21 December 2018 is likely going to trigger a large earthquake between December 21 and 25, 2018. Current estimation is high 7 to 8 magnitude.”

UK - A third of the world's food is lost before it ever reaches anyone's plate, a panel of global experts has warned as it called for a war on waste to improve worldwide diets. Waste and spoilage in harvesting, storage, transport and shops accounts for an estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of food a year and squanders huge amounts of resources. At the same time, poor diet is now more of a threat to public health than infectious diseases like malaria and measles, the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition said. Food rich in nutrients vital for a healthy diet, such as fruit and vegetables, meat and fish, dairy products, and seeds and nuts is particularly prone to going off, or being wasted. The panel led by the UK's former chief scientific adviser, Sir John Beddington, estimated the value of wasted food reaches $1 trillion (£777 billion) each year.

ISRAEL - The first two Holy Temples of the Israeli city ceased to exist centuries ago, having been demolished at the hands of the Babylonians and later by the Romans. Despite multiple calls to rebuild the temple, they have remained largely unheard. Biblical conspiracy theorists have voiced a warning that the erection of a third Holy Temple in Jerusalem, which religious activists have recently called for, inevitably carries with it Jesus Christ’s imminent return.

EUROPE - France has launched a feverish campaign to shore up the euro before the next global downturn, warning that monetary union is not strong enough to withstand another crisis and faces disintegration without fiscal union. Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, said there are just weeks left for Germany and the Dutch-led "Hanseatic League" to grasp the nettle on long-delayed reforms. “Either we get a eurozone budget or there will eventually be no euro at all,” he said. “If there was a new financial and economic crisis tomorrow, the eurozone could not respond. It is really urgent that we build-up the eurozone’s defences. We have been talking for too long,” he told the Handelsblatt. “Time is running out...”

ISRAEL - Over 300 rockets rained down on southern Israel from Gaza on Monday. One 19-year-old is in critical condition after a rocket struck a bus in Kfar Aza; Magen David Adom reports 13 other casualties. In response, the IDF deployed fighter planes, helicopters and tanks in Gaza and killed three Palestinians, striking over 70 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets. Hamas announced that the rockets were a retaliation against Sunday's botched IDF operation in Gaza that saw the death of seven Hamas terrorists. Hundreds of Red Alert sirens rang out across Israel, including one as far as the Dead Sea.

ISRAEL - The guns of a possible Israel-Gaza war were fired less than 12 hours after church bells rang out throughout Paris at 11 am on Sunday to commemorate the moment when the guns of World War I became silent exactly a century ago. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had come to Paris to celebrate the 100th anniversary of that peace, cut his trip short after an IDF military operation gone awry rekindled violence with Hamas.

EUROPE - After the ceremony, Merkel and UN Secretary-General Guterres gave the opening speeches at a new peace forum in Paris set up by Macron - with both warning that rising nationalism threatens the rules-based international order. "The concern I have is that blinkered nationalist views may gain ground once again," Merkel said, warning that people were calling the "European peace project" into question. Guterres warned of "many parallels with both the start of the twentieth century and the 1930s, giving us grounds to fear that an unpredictable chain of events could ensue".

USA - Paradise in California has burned to the ground and a rising death toll continues to devastate the residents of the Northern California city. So far 42 people have been killed by the massive Camp Fire inferno raging in Northern California. More than a hundred people are still unaccounted for and the death toll is expected to rise in the coming days. The whole community of Paradise has been lost in the devastating blaze, a town meant for retirement. The small town, with a population of 27,000 is completely empty of people as residents have taken shelter far away from the dangerous flames. Cal Fire has dispatched rescue crews to search for the approximately 200 people still missing but the chance of anyone being alive in the town is low. The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.

USA - Science has provided yet more clues as to why autism rates in children continue to skyrocket throughout the Western world. A groundbreaking new study recently published in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that pesticide exposure in pregnant women is directly correlated to increased autism risk in children, pointing to industrial agriculture as a major cause of brain damage in exposed children. The researchers also found that these chemicals stimulated the production of free radicals – particles that can damage the basic building blocks of cells and that have been implicated in a number of brain diseases.

GERMANY - In Germany, however, the importance of November 11 is overshadowed by a date two days earlier: November 9, 1918, when a widespread anti-government revolution reached Berlin, forcing Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate his throne and go into exile. Just hours after the monarchy was overthrown, Philipp Scheidemann and Karl Liebknecht, politicians from rival Social Democratic parties, separately announced the birth of a German republic. The political chaos of November 9 helped bring the war to an end two days later, but also laid a fragile foundation for the first German democracy, one that would be brought down by the Nazis 15 years later.

GERMANY - A majority of Germans say the level of mass migration has left them feeling “like a stranger in their own country”, according to a new study. Presented as part of this year’s Leipzig University research into “authoritarian” attitudes in the country, the figure showed a rise of 12 points since the Competence Center for Right-Wing Extremism and Democracy Research tested Germans on the same questions in 2014, with 56 per cent of Germans expressing the sentiment in 2018. ...44 per cent would support a ban on Muslim immigration… More Than Half of German Welfare Recipients Come from Migrant Backgrounds.

EUROPE - Europe should be “strong” and shoulder a larger share of the NATO defense burden, Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron agreed when they met after the US president slammed the French leader’s idea of a “real European army.” “We want a strong Europe, it’s very important to us, and whichever way we can do it, the best and more efficient would be something we both want,” Trump told journalists as he met Macron at the Elysee Palace ahead of commemorative events marking the centenary of the end of WWI. Trump finds Macron's idea of a European army for protection from 'China, Russia and even the US' insulting...

UK - Britain’s biggest employer organisation and main trade union body have sounded the alarm over the prospect of British companies implanting staff with microchips to improve security. UK firm BioTeq, which offers the implants to businesses and individuals, has already fitted 150 implants in the UK. The tiny chips, implanted in the flesh between the thumb and forefinger, are similar to those for pets. They enable people to open their front door, access their office or start their car with a wave of their hand, and can also store medical data.