UK - Children as young as ten are becoming dependent on social media for their sense of self-worth, a major study warned. It found many youngsters now measure their status by how much public approval they get online, often through ‘likes’. Some change their behaviour in real life to boost their image on the web. The report into youngsters aged from eight to 12 was carried out by Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield. She said social media firms were exposing children to major emotional risks, with some youngsters starting secondary school ill-equipped to cope with the avalanche of pressure they faced online. Last month a former Facebook boss claimed the social network’s ‘dopamine-driven feedback loops’ were ‘ripping apart the social fabric of how society works’. 

GERMANY - Ursula von der Leyen, 59, topped a poll of politicians in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party most likely to take the top job, narrowly ahead of Thomas de Maizière, 63, the interior minister. Another poll suggested that nearly half of Germans thought Mrs Merkel, who is struggling to form a government, should resign immediately.

FRANCE - Thugs ran amok up and down France torching more than 1,000 cars and attacking police in a night of chaos on the streets. New Year celebrations were marred by 510 people arrested and 1,031 cars being set alight, according to official numbers from the interior ministry. The numbers were up from 456 arrests and 935 cars torched last year. And eight police officers and three anti-terrorist Sentinel soldiers had been injured on Sunday night. In one brutal attack, in Paris, a female police officer and her colleague were beaten by a group of men as she tried to break up a brawl in Champigny-Sur-Marne, in the south-east of the city.

USA - The same pharma companies that profited from the opioid epidemic in the US by hooking patients on their drugs are profiting again as their victims migrate to heroin and participate in needle exchange programs, an attorney told RT. The opioid epidemic is one of the biggest stories of 2017. The number of people dying from big pharma’s prescription narcotics has skyrocketed. But the same pharmaceutical companies that profited from creating the crisis in the first place, and received a slap on the wrist for it, are now profiting from it again, attorney Peter Mougey said in an interview with RT America’s Mike Papantonio. Mougey also talked about how the corporate media, which receives advertising money from big pharma, ignored the unfolding epidemics for a decade, until its lethality surpassed that of the Vietnam War. And so did regulators and lawmakers.

USA - News headlines in 2017 were primarily dominated by coverage of President Donald Trump’s administration and tense party politics. But while most of the attention was focused on the president’s antics, officers in police departments around the country killed over 1,000 civilians. According to the database Mapping Police Violence, police have killed 1,129 people this year in the US, which was similar to the number of killings in previous years. Black people were disproportionately affected, as they made up 25 percent of those killed, despite making up only 13 percent of the population. Sixty-eight of those killed by police this year were unarmed.

USA - Longtime Donald Trump advisor and confidante Roger Stone warned that the globalist establishment would do everything in its power to stop the president from draining the swamp, even if it means taking him out John F Kennedy style.

IRAN - The Iranian regime accused Britain, the US and Saudi Arabia of fomenting protests in the country as government forces struggled to contain the increasingly violent and widespread unrest. In his first public comments since protests began six days ago, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei blamed the uprising on the “enemies of Iran” and said foreign governments were sending money and weapons to undermine the Islamic Republic. "The enemy is always looking for an opportunity and any crevice to infiltrate and strike the Iranian nation,” he said. At least 21 people have been killed since last Thursday, including a police officer and a Revolutionary Guardsman…

CHINA - China's Communist Party adopted a secret plan in September to bolster the North Korean government with increased aid and military support, including new missiles, if Pyongyang halts further nuclear tests, according to an internal party document. The document, labeled "top secret" and dated September 15 — 12 days after North Korea's latest underground nuclear blast — outlines China's plan for dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue. It states China will allow North Korea to keep its current arsenal of nuclear weapons, contrary to Beijing's public stance that it seeks a denuclearized Korean peninsula.

NIGERIA - Gunmen killed at least 14 churchgoers returning from a midnight service on Monday in Nigeria's Rivers State, a police source told AFP, the latest violence to hit the oil-rich region. "The gunmen opened fire on a set of worshippers at about 12:30 on Monday," said Ugochi Olugbo, a relative of one of the victims who were attending a New Year's Eve service. The shooting took place in the town of Omoku about 90km from the southern oil hub of Port Harcourt. "Fourteen persons died on the spot, while 12 who sustained gunshot wounds were rushed to the hospital and are receiving medical attention," said a police source who asked to remain anonymous.

SWEDEN - A church in a Swedish city has defended its choice of gender-neutral pronoun ‘hen’ in reference to Jesus in an advertisement. The church insists the word gives “new perspective.” In November, the largest religious institution in the country, the Church of Sweden, advised its clergy to avoid terms like ‘Lord’ and ‘He’ in worship services in order to not highlight that God is male, in the new version of a handbook on how to conduct services. The move has triggered a backlash, with critics saying the change undermines the Christian concept of the Holy Trinity and politicizes faith.

USA - US President Donald Trump apparently decided not to start the New Year with a clean slate, opting to re-ignite old disputes instead. In his first 2018 tweets, the US leader hit out at Iran and Pakistan.

USA - The nation’s most populous state joins a growing list of other states, and the nation’s capital, where so-called recreational marijuana is permitted even though the federal government continues to classify pot as a controlled substance, like heroin and LSD. Pot is now legal in California for adults 21 and older. But finding a retail outlet to buy non-medical pot in California won’t be easy, at least initially. Only about 90 businesses received state licenses to open on New Year’s Day. They are concentrated in San Diego, Santa Cruz, the Bay Area and the Palm Springs area.  Los Angeles and San Francisco are among the many cities where recreational pot will not be available right away because local regulations were not approved in time to start issuing city licenses needed to get state permits.

NORTH KOREA - North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made a dramatic shift in his approach to Seoul on Tuesday as he called for direct talks in an apparent bid to drive a wedge between South Korea and the United States, its key ally. The isolated dictator said he hoped the two Koreas could meet "immediately" as the south prepared to host the Winter Olympics in Peyongchang, but warned he had no intentions of backing down over his nuclear weapons strategy. "The Winter Games to be held in South Korea will be a good occasion for the country", Mr Kim said in a speech televised by state-run media on Monday. "We sincerely hope that the Winter Games will be a success", he added. "We are willing to take various steps, including the dispatch of the delegation… to this end, the two Koreas can immediately meet."

SOUTH KOREA - South Korea has seized a second oil tanker it claims was involved in delivering fuel to North Korea. Authorities are holding the Panama-registered vessel on suspicion it breached international sanctions that ban the supply of fuel to the communist state. The tanker, named KOTI, and its crew are being held at the port of Pyeongtaek-Dangjin. Few details of the alleged illegal trading have been provided, but the vessel is believed to have been seized between 19 and 21 December. 

VATICAN - Pope Francis has recommended jettisoning life's "useless baggage" in 2018, including what he called "empty chatter" and banal consumerism, and focusing instead on building a peaceful and welcoming world, particularly for refugees and migrants. Francis offered his reflections on paring down non-essentials as he celebrated New Year's Day Mass Monday in St Peter's Basilica and later greeted some 40,000 people in St Peter's Square. His advice included setting aside a moment of silence daily to be with God. Doing so would help "keep our freedom from being corroded by the banality of consumerism, the blare of commercials, the stream of empty words and the overpowering waves of empty chatter and loud shouting," Francis said.