TURKEY - The country has seen its GDP shrink by 0.2 percent in the quarter between July and September, according to data from the Turkish statistical agency on Friday, having dropped by the same margin in the previous one. Nicholas Farr, Emerging Europe Economist at Capital Economics told the outlet: “The central bank suggested at its meeting last week that it thought domestic demand was slowing, and today’s data supports this view. This could raise expectations that the central bank may cut interest rates as soon as its December meeting,” he added, though he said such a move would be "jumping the gun". Turkey also continues to see eye-wateringly high inflation, estimated to be 48.6 percent year-on-year in October.

EUROPE - The Eurozone is on the brink with "no sign of recovery", while UK orders continue to slump due to cutback with concerns growing over the economic outlook. Europe’s manufacturers suffered a slump in demand last month, as UK factory owners also reported a slowdown in orders. France's manufacturing sector faced in November its steepest decline in new orders since the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, a survey by S&P Global showed. Alongside France, Germany and Austria also reported a rapid decline in demand for their goods in November, with Berlin reporting its fastest drop in output.

VATICAN - The latest financial statements showed the Vatican - the world's smallest country - ran an operating deficit of 83 million euros (£69 million) in 2023, five million more than in 2022. One key reason for the deficit is a collapse in donations from Catholic Churches around the world, as well as from the public. Donations are one of three major sources of income for the Vatican, along with monies received from real asset assets and museum entry fees. Many Catholics have stopped their donations after growing disillusioned with the reforms of Pope Francis. At the same time, visitor numbers to the city-state have still not recovered to their pre-Covid levels. The city is preparing to celebrate the Great Jubilee, which commemorates the union between Christianity and the Roman Empire at the Council of Nicaea 1,700 years ago. The Council laid the foundations for the Church's omnipotent power over the next seventeen centuries. The Jubilee is expected to attract over 35 million pilgrims, eager for indulgence from their sins.

NATO - A NATO chief has warned that Europe is heading towards a "dire security threat" from three adversaries amid the nearly three-year-long Russia-Ukraine war. Secretary-General Mark Rutte stressed that China, Iran, and North Korea would threaten Europe and the US if Ukraine is forced into accepting a peace deal that favours Russia. Rutte warned of Russia supplying missile technology to North Korea, money to Iran, and giving China "thoughts about something else" in an apparent reference to Taiwan. He told the Financial Times: "[Xi Jinping] might get thoughts about something else in the future if there is not a good deal [for Ukraine]. Because in the long term, that will be a dire security threat not only to Europe but also to the US." He says he told the president-elect: "Look at the missile technology which is now being sent from Russia into North Korea, which is posing a dire threat not only to South Korea, Japan but also to the US mainland. So the fact that Iran, North Korea, China and Russia are working so closely together… [means] these various parts of the world where conflict is, and have to be managed by politicians, are more and more getting connected.”

LEBANON - Israel and Hezbollah exchanged air strikes and rocket fire on Monday as their 60-day ceasefire appeared to be unravelling within its first week. Both sides faced accusations of breaching the truce, which came into force on Wednesday to end a war that has killed thousands in Lebanon and sparked mass displacements on both sides of the border. Despite the retaliatory attacks, John Kirby, White House spokesman, told reporters on Monday that the “sporadic strikes” in recent days were to be expected. “There has been a dramatic reduction in the violence. The monitoring mechanism is in full force and is working... largely speaking the ceasefire is holding,” he said. This did not appear to be the case on Monday, however. At least two people were killed in the retaliatory strikes on southern Lebanon according to Lebanese authorities.

MIDDLE EAST - Donald Trump has demanded the immediate release of Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza, warning that if they are not freed before he takes office there will be “hell to pay”. The US president-elect delivered the ultimatum on his Truth Social site on Monday. “If the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity,” he wrote. He added: “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”

CANADA - A tiny Canadian town has been fined $10,000 for refusing to fly an LGBT+ rainbow flag during Pride month. Emo, which has a population of around 1,300 people, was ruled to have violated the Ontario human rights code when it refused to declare June as Pride month and failed to fly an LGBT+ flag, and its officials have been ordered to complete human rights training. The ruling noted that it had failed to fly an “LGBTQ2 rainbow flag” – despite the fact that the town does not even have an official flag pole, the National Post reports. The proposal was put before the town’s council in May of that year, where it was defeated by a vote of three to two. The tribunal found that the remark was “demeaning and disparaging” and “therefore constituted discrimination” under the human rights code.

EUROPE - There is a change of guard at the top of the European Union. The five-year term of top posts draws to a close this weekend as the continent adapts to a political landscape that has been transformed beyond recognition since 2019. The bloc faces an isolationist America under Donald Trump, who has threatened to hit Europe’s stalling economies with tariffs and ram through a peace deal with Russia. Over the past five years the EU has swung sharply to the right. Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, is the new “queen of Europe”, not Angela Merkel, whose autobiography last week was defensive about her discredited centrist past.

UKRAINE - The war in Ukraine could spark direct confrontation between Russia and NATO after the UK and US allowed Kyiv to strike Russian territory with Western missiles. World War 3 has already started as tensions between the West and its enemies continue to ramp up. The war in Ukraine could spark direct confrontation between Russia and NATO after the UK and US allowed Kyiv to strike Russian territory with British and American missiles. Vladimir's Putin's war also comes at a time when the Middle East is the setting of multiple conflicts involving Israel and Iran's proxies. Meanwhile, China continues to threaten military action against Taiwan. A number of experts have warned that World War 3 is already underway.

FRANCE - Marine Le Pen has the fate of Emmanuel Macron's prime minister in her hands - and could plunge France into economic and political crisis. The French government may be about to collapse, after Prime Minister Michel Barnier forced through the first part of his budget without a vote in the National Assembly. Mr Barnier, the EU's former chief Brexit negotiator, had to employ Article 49.3 of the French constitution, to get his controversial plan for spending cuts and tax hikes through. In response to being sidelined by the PM, under the French system lawmakers are able to pursue "censure" - otherwise known as a vote of no confidence - against him. The 73-year-old could be out of his post within 48 hours, with the radical left New Popular Front effectively teaming up with hard right National Rally, the party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, to oust him.

USA - Joe Biden has pardoned his son Hunter despite repeatedly denying he would do so before leaving office in the broadest clemency agreement since Richard Nixon. The US president’s son, 54, was due to be sentenced on firearms charges in early December. In a statement, Mr Biden said he was making the decision because his son had been unfairly prosecuted. As recently as November 7, the White House insisted Mr Biden had no plans to pardon Hunter. But in a statement on Sunday night, the US president said: “Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.”

RUSSIA - Ukraine isn’t World War Three. But it is a truly global struggle. The Russo-Ukrainian war seems to be spreading. Along with the 10,000-12,000 North Koreans reportedly ready to engage with the Ukrainians, Moscow is now said to have recruited hundreds of Yemenis with the promise of generous salaries and citizenship. Meanwhile, South Korea is considering sending intelligence officers or special forces to observe Pyongyang’s men and perhaps help interrogate any prisoners or defectors. This confluence of international troops on frozen Ukrainian soil has led some — such as General Valery Zaluzhny, formerly Ukraine’s commander-in-chief and now its ambassador to the UK — to suggest it is on the verge of becoming a world war.

FRANCE - On Thursday night, France’s foreign minister left Chad confident about its ongoing military relationship with its last strategic partner in the Sahel. Yet shortly after Jean-Noël Barrot took off for Paris from the capital N’Djamena, a Facebook message flashed up announcing Chad’s “decision to end the accord in the field of defence”. Chad’s shock announcement to end its military ties with its former colonial power will likely result in the exit of some 1,000 French troops currently stationed in the country to help in its fight against jihadists and various rebel groups. Compounding the humiliation, the move came just hours after Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Senegal’s president, announced that France should close its military bases in the West African country as part of its drive to regain full “sovereignty”.

BAHRAIN - At least they protect their borders and get things done. “Democracy,” Winston Churchill famously said, “is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” And I’ve no doubt that is true. But sometimes, one wonders. I have just returned from Bahrain – a country where the monarch appoints the prime minister and his ministers, commands the army and controls the judiciary – and the contrast with our supposedly “superior” nation was stark.

UK - How Britain will collapse in two terrifying days if Russia cuts our undersea cables: Your bank account gone. Power out. Emergency services paralysed. Then the anarchy really starts… Until last week, when two fibre-optic cables were severed in the Baltic Sea, few people realised how vulnerable the UK is to internet sabotage. Suspicion over the most recent incident has fallen on a Chinese ship, the Yi Peng 3, which sailed over both cables – linking Finland to Germany and Sweden to Lithuania – around the time they were cut.