USA - CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge made a “dark” prediction that 2024 will produce a ‘Black Swan Event’ which shocks the world. Herridge made the call during a round table discussion when she was asked by host Margaret Brennan about what we could expect to see unfold over the coming year. “Well, mine’s a little dark,” Herridge stated. “I just feel a lot of concern that 2024 may be the year of a black swan event. This is a national security event with high impact that’s very hard to predict.”

SOUTH AMERICA - The Amazon rainforest experienced its worst drought on record in 2023. Many villages became unreachable by river, wildfires raged and wildlife died. Some scientists worry events like these are a sign that the world's biggest forest is fast approaching a point of no return. As the cracked and baking river bank towers up on either side of us, Oliveira Tikuna is starting to have doubts about this journey. He's trying to get to his village, in a metal canoe built to navigate the smallest creeks of the Amazon. "I'm 49 years old, we've never seen anything like this before," Oliveira says. "I've never even heard of a drought as bad as this."

NIGERIA - At least 140 people were killed by gunmen who attacked remote villages over two days in north-central Nigeria’s Plateau state, survivors and officials said Tuesday in the latest of such mass killings this year blamed on the West African nation’s farmer-herder crisis. The assailants targeted 17 communities during the “senseless and unprovoked” attacks on Saturday and Sunday, during which most houses in the areas were burned down, Plateau Governor Caleb Mutfwang said Tuesday in a broadcast on the local Channels Television. No group took responsibility for the attacks though the blame fell on herders from the Fulani tribe, who have been accused of carrying out such mass killings across the northwest and central regions where the decades long conflict over access to land and water has further worsened the sectarian division between Christians and Muslims in Africa’s most populous nation.

IRAN - A high-ranking Iranian general has been killed in an Israeli air strike in Syria, it has been claimed, as Tehran vows revenge for the attack. Iranian officials and allied militant groups in the region swore they would take revenge for the killing but did not immediately launch any retaliatory strike. The killing of Seyed Razi Mousavi, a longtime adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria, comes amid ongoing fears of the Israel-Hamas war sparking a regional spillover. Iran-backed groups in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq have launched attacks on Israel and its allies in support of Hamas. Clashes along the Lebanon-Israel border between Hezbollah and Israel have continued to intensify, with daily exchanges of missiles, air strikes and shelling across the frontier.

ISRAEL - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will intensify its fight against Hamas in the coming days. He told members of his party that he had visited Gaza on Monday morning and that Israel's military campaign there was "not close to being over". His comments come days after the US secretary of state said Israel should lower the intensity of its strikes. The war began on 7 October after Hamas led a deadly attack on communities inside Israel. Mr Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and return the hostages to Israel.

GERMANY - Germany's decision to make Norway its biggest gas supplier, culminating in a deal this week that will cover a major chunk of its industrial needs, means it has replaced the formerly dominant Russia with another equally dominant supplier. The deal consolidates Norway's position as Germany's main supplier that it has held since Gazprom suspended direct deliveries via the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia to Germany in 2022. It will take Norway's share of Germany's gas supplies to around 60%, comparable with the amount Russia used to account for.

GERMANY - Bundeswehr participation in a naval coalition against Yemeni Houthi militias under discussion. Red Sea deployment could mean direct German involvement in a wider Middle East war. Some German business representatives and politicians in the FDP are calling for a deployment of the German Navy to the Red Sea. This comes in response to US efforts to forge a multinational naval coalition to combat the current attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militias on merchant ships. The Houthi’s say their attacks are intended to increase the pressure on Israel to cease its onslaught in the Gaza Strip. Should the conflict escalate, Germany would find itself party to an open-ended war in the Middle East.

GERMANY - During his Christmas speech, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said people should "never abandon" longing for a more peaceful world. He urges a united country, saying people working together can only make the country stronger. "The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine is now entering its second winter," Steinmeier said. "And, since the autumn, we have been looking in horror at Hamas' atrocities and at what is happening to the victims of the war in the Middle East." Despite the challenges, Steinmeier stressed the importance of hope and the need to approach the new year with courage and determination.

INDIA - Essential India helps you understand a vast and complicated country that will increasingly shape the future. India has the world’s biggest population and in recent years has had one of its fastest-growing economies with a large and thriving business and tech scene. It is the world’s biggest democracy, an almost miraculous achievement for such a poor and diverse country — even if its politics has grown increasingly authoritarian under Narendra Modi. India is emerging as an important player on the geopolitical stage, in hock neither to China nor America, and as a self-styled leader of the global south.

USA - The ominous trends that we see all around us are taking us somewhere. Needless to say, 2023 was not a good year for our country. Hunger and homelessness have been absolutely exploding, the suicide rate just continues to go even higher, and there is chaos in the streets on an almost nightly basis. It is in this environment that the election of 2024 will happen. I expect election season to add an additional level of strain to our society, and I don’t think that our society will be able to handle it. We are headed for a nightmare, and at this point everyone should be able to see that. When conditions deteriorate, it is often those at the bottom of the economic food chain that feel it first. And right now food banks all over the nation are dealing with a tsunami of hunger… Susannah Morgan, the president of Oregon Food Bank, says that she is literally witnessing “the worst rate of hunger in my career”

CHINA - “More uncertainty and unpredictability”: A forecast for US-China ties in 2024. The most important event that will determine the future of bilateral relations is the US presidential election. The two candidates, if they are indeed President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, represent two entirely different futures of US-China relations. While Biden is keen on managing the competition and avoiding confrontation, Trump will potentially bring more uncertainty and unpredictability to bilateral relations.

USA - Award-winning journalist Alex Newman, author of the popular book “Deep State,” is back from the recent COP28 conference in Dubai, UAE. Newman continues to report on the not-so-secret plan to destroy everything in America by pushing scams on the West in energy and education. Let’s start with what Newman calls the “scam” of CO2 reduction. Newman explains, “The thing that really jumped out at me with this whole UN COP28 summit, my big take away… is they were talking about fazing out carbon emissions and fazing out fossil fuels, but that’s just for the Western world. That’s just the United States under Joe Biden.

USA - Globalists and woke leftists often openly boast about their agenda to deconstruct western society and replace it with their own ideological cult. They are not simply in disagreement, they have declared war. They’ve been treating conservatives and patriots as the enemy for quite some time, while we continue to treat them as fellow citizens. They tried to erase all of our freedoms permanently during the COVID panic (which they perpetuated through false information). They then twisted the events of the January 6th protests and declared war on us again. They fired rubber bullets and tear gas into the crowds, got a violent response, and then acted as if the reaction was an “insurrection.”

USA - Democrats in the Colorado Supreme Court ruled last night that President Trump’s name will not be listed on the Colorado ballot in 2024. Ironically, these far-left justices used a post-Civil War Amendment that no Democrats voted for at the time, to block the leading opposition candidate from the ballot. This was not the first time Democrats pulled this trick during a national election for President of the United States. As Randy DeSoto reported at Western Journal back in November – the last time Democrats pulled such a stunt was in the presidential election of 1860, when Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln’s name did not appear on most Southern states’ ballots.

USA - The Satanic Temple has unveiled a new “holiday” display, this time at the Michigan State Capitol. As reported earlier, the group claims that the Satanic altars are meant to promote “religious diversity.” It didn’t take long for a Democrat to kiss it. Samantha Skorka, a Michigan Democrat staffer, posted a photo to Twitter-X of her kissing the Satanic display. She calls it “sexy.” Skorka wrote this on her tweet before later deleting it, “In the name of Satan, I claim the sexy satanic baphomet goat altar at OUR Michigan Capitol. Amen.” When people show you who they are, believe them. Michigan Democrats recently passed legislation allowing abortion up to birth. This may explain the Satan monument on the state grounds.