UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations' 'two-faced' refugee agency has sent scores more asylum seekers to Rwanda – despite opposing Britain's scheme. Officials in Rwanda announced that they had welcomed 153 people who had been evacuated from Libya under a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) programme. Last night, the agency was accused of 'hypocrisy of the highest level' for its role in thwarting Britain's Rwanda deal while operating its own scheme with the east African nation. The UN agency hired a legal team to set out its 'grave concerns' about Britain's scheme during a Supreme Court hearing just three months ago. The latest batch of refugees brought the total number of people relocated to Rwanda by the UNHCR to more than 2,000.

INDIA - In a stunning discovery, hundreds of revered stone balls known as “Kuldevtas” or family deities have been found to be fossilized dinosaur eggs, estimated to be around 175 million years old. The villagers of Padlya in Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh, had long considered these sacred stones, locally known as “Kakad Bhairav”, as protectors of their farms and livestock. Recent scientific tests have revealed that these revered stones played a significant role in local customs, having been worshipped as family deities for generations. Vishal Verma, a local paleontologist, emphasized the importance of preserving these traditions, underscoring that the area was also once home to a thriving population of dinosaurs in the Mesozoic era. Dhar district is home to the Dinosaur Fossil National Park, which preserves the fossilized remains of ancient dinosaurs.

MIDDLE EAST - With American service personnel increasingly in a dangerous firing line and with US and allied naval assets on high alert after multiple drone attacks, the deteriorating situation is leading to a tense holiday period for the White House. The rising possibility of US combat deaths and the worsening security situation from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and stretching through Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Israel represents an unwelcome new foreign crisis as President Joe Biden’s re-election year dawns. And it is becoming a petri dish for a new geopolitical trend — endless tests of America’s will and credibility by its adversaries and their proxies.

ISRAEL - Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs Committee that Israel is engaged in a war on seven fronts, and all of Israel’s enemies are potential targets. He added, “We have already responded and acted in six of these areas, and I say here in the clearest way: Anyone who acts against us is a potential target, there is no immunity for anyone.”

MIDDLE EAST - The US launched a retaliatory strike against Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah, the White House said on Monday — just hours after a drone launched by the Iranian-aligned group injured three American service members. President Joe Biden ordered the airstrike on Monday afternoon after a call with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and they hit the militia bases around 8:45 pm Eastern, according to the White House and the military’s Central Command. The strikes were directed at three locations the White House said Kataib Hezbollah and other armed groups were using for “unmanned aerial drone activities.” Central Command said the strikes destroyed the drone facilities and killed Kataib Hezbollah fighters, with “no indications” of civilian casualties.

MIDDLE EAST - “A full-blown open-ended regional war would be horrific,” warned a letter to Biden signed by over 30 organizations. Dozens of anti-war organizations on Friday urged US President Joe Biden to rule out any military escalation in Yemen as tensions in the Red Sea continue to rise following a series of Houthi attacks on shipping vessels.

CHINA - The Chinese leader vowed “complete reunification” ahead of elections on the island. Beijing will use “any means” to prevent the secession of Taiwan, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday, adding that the island’s reunification with the mainland is inevitable. Xi’s comments were part of a speech to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, at a symposium marking the 130th birthday of Mao Zedong, according to Xinhua news agency.

USA - The collapse of three US regional banks - First Republic Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, and Signature Bank - marked some of the largest failures in the banking system since 2008. Central banks contained the "mini-crisis" earlier this year with forced interventions and the mega-merger of Credit Suisse and UBS. Despite the interventions, global banks still axed the most jobs since the global financial crisis. A new report from the Financial Times shows twenty of the world's largest banks slashed 61,905 jobs in 2023, a move to protect profit margins in a period of high interest rates amid a slump in dealmaking and equity and debt sales. This compared with the 140,000 lost during the GFC of 2007-08. "There is no stability, no investment, no growth in most banks — and there are likely to be more job cuts," said Lee Thacker, owner of financial services headhunting firm Silvermine Partners.

USA - Radical Islamic activists are increasingly causing major problems all over the United States. They are blocking airports, storming government buildings and causing all sorts of chaos in the streets. On Wednesday, pro-Hamas protesters blocked access to the largest airports in New York City and Los Angeles on “one of the busiest travel days of the year”… At one point the protesters on the Van Wyck Expressway were heard chanting “from the sea to the river”, which is essentially a call for genocide. This sort of chaos should not be happening at a major US airport, but it is happening.

USA - Two days before Christmas in 1913, Woodrow Wilson gave the United States a Christmas gift that keeps taking. On that day, he signed the Federal Reserve Act into law, creating the US central bank. Since that inauspicious day, the US dollar has lost 96% of its value. It’s no surprise that Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act just one day before Christmas Eve. It was perfect timing so the general public wouldn’t notice. The stated purpose of the legislation was to “provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system.” In reality, it was a gift to bankers.

UK - Gang violence in London has seen knife crime reportedly surge at its fastest rate in five years, with over 40 incidents logged with police per day, according to an analysis conducted by a top British broadsheet. A report from The Telegraph newspaper has claimed that over 200 gangs are operating in the British capital, with around 46,000 members at their disposal, some of whom are as young as ten years old. The prevalence of criminal gangs and inevitable turf wars and other disputes have contributed to increasing violence on the streets of London, with knife crime rising at its quickest pace in five years and gun crime rising by six per cent over last year. So far this year, there have been over 90 homicides recorded in the city, 20 of whom were minors. The paper revealed that the Metropolitan Police are currently receiving an average of 43 reports of knife crime incidents every single day.

USA - The Biden administration and the corporate media are telling us over and over that the economy is just fine, but the term “silent depression” has been going viral on TikTok. Housing, vehicles, food and just about everything else that we spend money on is far more unaffordable today than it was during the Great Depression of the 1930s. A realtor in Florida named Freddie Smith posted a video on TikTok with some absolutely startling numbers about the cost of living in the United States today, and that is what started the “silent depression” trend…

USA - Time is running out. Lately, I have been hearing from so many people that believe that 2024 will be the year when our society goes over the edge. Our financial system is teetering on the brink of disaster, crime is absolutely exploding all over the country, homelessness is rising at the fastest pace ever recorded, food banks are facing unprecedented demand for their services, and I believe that 2024 will be the most chaotic election year in the entire history of our nation. And of course all of this is happening in the context of a global environment in which war, pestilences, economic problems, famine and natural disasters are all on the rise. A “perfect storm” is raging all around us, and millions upon millions of Americans have become deeply concerned about what our immediate future will look like.

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."