MALI - The Bundeswehr mission in Mali has come to an end. Tuesday 12 December 2023, the last 142 German soldiers withdrew from their former base in Gao in northern Mali. They are making their way back to Germany, where they are expected to arrive on Friday. German soldiers were stationed in the country for ten years, most of that time alongside French combat troops as part of an EU and a UN mission – EUTM Mali and MINUSMA respectively.

USA - The United States is set to enter 2024 with its smallest military in more than eight decades and faces one of its 'greatest challenges' as it tries to boost recruiting from Gen Z, Pentagon officials said. Under the $886 billion annual defense bill passed by Congress this week total active-duty troop numbers will fall to 1,284,500 next year. That is the lowest total since before the US entered the Second World War in 1941 and officials said there should be a 'national call to service'. Recent recruitment targets were missed in the Army, Navy and Air Force, although the Marine Corps and the newly established Space Force reached their goals. This week Ashish Vazirani, the Pentagon’s acting undersecretary for personnel and readiness, told the House Armed Services Committee that the individual services missed their recruitment goals in 2023 by a combined 41,000 personnel.

USA - On the night of her election as Boston's first Asian mayor, Michelle Wu proclaimed defiantly: 'We are ready to become a Boston for everyone. We're ready to become a Boston that doesn't push people out, but welcomes all who call our city home.' It was a rallying cry for unity and inclusion from a young, idealistic politician who was determined the capital city of New England should shed its conservative image and embrace its increasing ethnic diversity. But two years later, Wu is in the extraordinary position of herself being accused of racism after hosting a Christmas party on Wednesday night exclusively for 'non-white' members of the city council. Her decision has stoked a nationwide row over 'reverse racism' and exposed once again a deeply polarised American electorate that once put Donald Trump in the White House because they shared his contempt for wokeness, and may well do so again.

USA - Just about every aspect of American life is under a new threat from unimaginable debt. There is record credit card debt, an implosion in commercial real estate, millions are delinquent on mortgage payments and car payments and, to top it all off, hundreds of trillions in unpayable derivative debt that Warren Buffett called “weapons of mass destruction” is coming due. It’s all coming to a head in a so-called debt reset we have heard about for years.

EUROPE - EU agrees on law to secure strategic raw materials to reduce vulnerabilities in the West’s economic war against China. China responds to sanctions and restricts exports of important resources. Beijing, which has always been a reliable supplier, is currently beginning to defend itself against the West’s economic war, in which it is coming under increasing attacks with punitive tariffs and sanctions. It is resorting to restrictions on its exports of strategically essential natural resources – including gallium, germanium and soon also graphite. If the West persists in its economic warfare, it will face material shortages in the foreseeable future, for example, in regards to the production of semiconductors and climate change technologies.

ISRAEL - The Palestinian Authority (PA), like Hamas, seeks the utter demise of the State of Israel, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who asserted that the difference between the two groups is only a matter of methodology, as he vowed to never have the “hostile” PA control a post-Hamas Gaza. The Israeli premier compared the supposedly “moderate” Palestinian Authority (PA) to the US-designated terrorist organization Hamas, claiming both actively seek the destruction of the Jewish state, as reported by Hebrew media based on leaks from the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting Monday.

ARGENTINA - Argentina devalued the peso by 54%, overhauled its crawling peg and announced massive spending cuts to eliminate its primary fiscal deficit next year as the first steps in President Javier Milei’s shock-therapy program. The newly inaugurated administration weakened the official exchange rate to 800 pesos per dollar, Economy Minister Luis Caputo said in a televised address after the close of local markets on Tuesday. It was 366.5 per dollar before the address. The central bank will henceforth target a monthly devaluation of 2%.

USA - Our kids can’t really read very well. And it turns out that they aren’t very good at math either. But those running our system of education continue to tell us that they are doing a wonderful job. If they just had more funding, they insist, our test scores would go way up. Of course that is complete and utter nonsense. Our system of public eduction was a failure back when I was in school many years ago, and it is much worse now. At this point, only about one-third of all US students in the fourth, eighth, and twelfth grades are proficient in reading…

UK - Whether it's eating less meat or cycling instead of driving, humans can do many things to help prevent climate change. Unfortunately, breathing less isn't one of them. That might be a problem, as a new study claims the gases in air exhaled from human lungs is fueling global warming. Methane and nitrous oxide in the air we exhale makes up to 0.1 per cent of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions, scientists say. And that's not even accounting for the gas we release from burps and farts, or emissions that come from our skin without us noticing. The new study was led by Dr Nicholas Cowan, an atmospheric physicist at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Edinburgh.

UK - Parents should think very carefully before allowing children to use Facebook as it is no longer safe, the National Crime Agency (NCA) says. NCA bosses have sounded the alarm over Meta's platforms after it decided to automatically encrypt all Facebook and Messenger chats. The head of the NCA has likened this to 'consciously turning a blind eye to child abuse'. The NCA arrests about 800 suspected paedophiles and safeguards 1,200 children a month – largely as a result of information from Meta about abusers on its platforms.

ISRAEL - The State of Israel is fighting the Palestinian Hamas terror organization in Gaza, but that is just one front in an ongoing war against terror groups and their sponsors. In fact, Israel currently faces at least five enemies on five fronts.

USA - Most Americans think their country is in decline. In 2018, when the Pew Research Center asked Americans how they felt their country would perform in 2050, 54 percent of respondents agreed that the US economy would be weaker. An even larger number, 60 percent, agreed that the United States would be less important in the world. This should not be surprising; the political atmosphere has been pervaded for some time by a sense that the country is headed in the wrong direction. According to a long-running Gallup poll, the share of Americans who are “satisfied” with the way things are going has not crossed 50 percent in 20 years. It currently stands at 20 percent.

PANAMA - Shipping delays in the Panama Canal threaten £22million worth of fruit, vegetables, coffee, tea and meat from Peru bound for Britain this Christmas, experts said today. Britain relies heavily on imports from the South American country, according to a study of UK-bound ships using the canal by data and analytics firm Russell Group. Researchers claimed the products may be in short supply in shops this month. Most of the disruption will be related to fruit, with £18 million worth coming from Peru.

UK - A rise in fake news photos generated by AI is eroding public trust in online information, a charity has warned. Thousands of internet users are being duped into sharing bogus images, from Prince William and Harry embracing at the coronation to fake mugshots of Donald Trump. Full Fact said the 'influx' of phoney images often came in response to the increased demand for up-to-date information during major international events. Researchers at the fact checking charity said the intention was likely not to convince people the images were real but to 'reduce trust in information generally'. Chief executive Chris Morris warned the growing problem posed a huge threat to democracy, particularly with a General Election looming.

EUROPE - President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, announces the launch of the EU's central bank digital currency (CBDC)—the digital euro—which will enable unelected technocrats at the ECB to program how, when, where, on what and by whom it can be spent, including the imposition of social credit, carbon allowance and vaccine passport systems. And despite the lie that "cash is here to stay", you can be absolutely certain that megalomaniacal technocrats such as Lagarde have every intention of gradually phasing out cash altogether, so eventually people will be forced to use CBDCs whether they like it or not.