USA - The Great Reset is real, it’s happening now and will lead to devastation worse — “much, much worse” — than the Weimar Republic, a German economist has warned. It was the decline of Germany’s Weimar Republic — a period of high unemployment, deprivation, and hyperinflation — which led to the rise of Hitler. But however bad it might have been, the coming depression is going to be much worse because society is more atomised and less family-oriented and religious. “Most people have not noticed yet because at the moment governments can afford to give them subsidies and welfare payments. But the question is: ‘For how long?’ We know this money is coming to an end and that it will soon be over. Next you will see massive unemployment all over Europe as one country pulls down another country.” The coming economic crisis will be worse than any the world has seen before because all the countries in the Western world will become impoverished simultaneously and be unable to help one another.

JAPAN - Japan on Friday invited Germany's warship for a naval drill to counter China's growing regional influence in the Indo-Pacific region. In talks between Japanese Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi and his German counterpart, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Kishi hoped that a German warship would hold joint exercises with Japan`s Self-Defense Forces in 2021. Kishi suggested that such an act would also ensure the right of passage through the South China Sea (SCS), most of which is now claimed by China. Over years, Japan has voiced for a free and open Indo-Pacific (FOIP), as a large volume of trade goes through the region, particularly energy supplies. The defence ministers of the two nations met at a time when Germany had expressed interest over sending its navy to patrol the Indian Ocean trade routes. Addressing Australian and German think tanks, Kramp-Karrenbauer had recently said that her country would also like to have closer defence cooperation with Australia.

GERMANY - “We want combat drones to protect the lives of our soldiers,” Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition partner the Social Democratic Party (SPD) has been insisting that a wider public debate is needed. But Kramp-Karrenbauer dismissed this argument as “absurd.” “We have been debating this for eight years in Germany. Broad public debates and hearings took place,” she said. “The soldiers apparently cannot rely on the SPD,” the minister stated, referring to the party’s opposition to the purchase of drones. Kramp-Karrenbauer, who leads Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, said she was seeking a €25 million bill ($30.5 million) for the military UAVs.

EUROPE - European bank deposit rates are still above zero, although close to zero which harm savers. A negative deposit rate is intended to encourage lenders to do something more useful with their money than park it with the ECB. But European banks are adding fees to already beleaguered savers. In normal times, bankers who oversee assets exceeding $1 trillion wouldn’t be groping for loose change under the sofa. But in the banking equivalent of hunting for pennies, European financial giants like Banco Santander SA and ING Groep NV are looking to squeeze more revenue from depositors. For a banker, “if you only have a current account with me, I lose money,” said Angel Corcostegui, former Santander CEO and founder of private equity firm Magnum Capital Industrial Partners. “Banks need to be a lot clearer about the costs that they assume.” The move toward more fees will most likely have more impact on those who don’t have a steady paycheck or the means to buy financial products, said Patricia Suarez, president of financial consumer watchdog Asufin. “They’re separating more profitable clients from the less profitable ones,” she says.

UK - Nigel Farage has warned Brexit is the "beginning of the end" for the European Union. In a message to Boris Johnson, who struck a post-Brexit deal with Brussels on Christmas Eve, the Brexit Party leader declared "the war is over" and "we won". But Mr Farage admitted the deal is not exactly what he campaigned for as "some major concessions have been made". Writing in the Daily Mail, the Brexiteer said: "Northern Ireland has been cut off from the rest of the UK; the European Human Rights regime will remain in place here; our coastal communities have been saddled with a rotten fishing deal; and EU firms will still be allowed to tender for UK government contracts.”

UK - Britons have agreed with Andrew Neil's dire warning to the European Union that the bloc could become a "backwater" in as little as 15 years. Today, the former BBC journalist said the EU could slip from prominence and be replaced by a booming Asian economy. Mr Neil made the comments following a tweet from Jim Pickard, chief political reporter at the Financial Times. Mr Pickard said: "I suspect the heat may go out of the EU debate in the short and medium term but not in 15 or 20 or 30 years when today’s young adults are running the country." In response to this, Mr Neil replied: "There’s a real danger that the EU will be an economic and technological backwater in 15 years time and today’s young Brits will be doing flourishing business in Hanoi and Djakarta. This summer Asian GDP overtook the rest of the world put together." One reader said: “Andrew Neil is absolutely correct. His estimate of 15 years is in my view more likely an overestimate. And it assumes that the EU will still exist in 15 years, which is far from certain, given the excellent job its hierarchy is doing towards its own self-destruction."

GERMANY - The "anti-competitive" principles which underpin the European Union - eventually triggering Brexit - have their roots in a little-known blueprint developed by Germany in the midst of World War 2, an economist has revealed. Professor David Blake was speaking prior to the confirmation of a post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and the EU on Christmas Eve, with one of the key sticking points having been the bloc's insistence on Britain adhering to rules and regulations aimed at protecting its single market after the end of the year. And the academic, who is Professor of Economics at Cass Business School, said Brussels' tendency towards protectionism dated back almost 80 years - many years before the birth of the inception of the European Steel and Coal Community in 1952, or the Treaty of Rome which created the European Economic Community (EEC) and the common market.

EUROPE - Yanis Varoufakis claimed the break up of the eurozone would not be because of crisis-hit Greece or Italy but because of Germany, with Berlin the first capital to drop out of the monetary union and print Deutsche Marks. Amid fears the eurozone might not be able to survive, a speech by former Greek Finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has resurfaced, in which he claimed the eurozone will not break up because of countries like Italy or Greece but because of Germany. In a 2018 debate at the Oxford Union, the ex-Greek minister said: “The euro will break up, if it breaks up, I am not wishing that it does, I am simply describing the future as I see it. The way it will happen is that Germany will leave the euro once the Berlin political class has had enough of the riff raff, asking Greeks, the Italian, the French, the Portuguese and so on. The moment they start sniffing in the wind that possibility they might have to bail out 2.7 trillion euros of Italian debt, believe you me, the Bundesbank already has a plan in the drawer for printing Deutsche Marks.”

UK - The world continued to pay a very high price for extreme weather in 2020, according to a report from the charity Christian Aid. Against a backdrop of climate change, its study lists 10 events that saw thousands of lives lost and major insurance costs. Six of the events took place in Asia, with floods in China and India causing damages of more than $40 billion. In the US, record hurricanes and wildfires caused some $60 billion in losses. But financial losses don't convey the full impact of these storms and fires. While South Sudan's floods weren't among the costliest in dollar terms, they have had a huge impact, killing 138 people and wiping out this year's crops.

UK - EU diplomats get trade deal briefing. The British Parliament will sit on 30 December to vote on the trade deal. The 1,246-page document, which includes about 800 pages of annexes and footnotes, has been seen by the BBC. Dr Joelle Grogan, senior lecturer in law at Middlesex University London, told BBC News: "To put this in real context, if I spend the next five days before Parliament is recalled on Wednesday spending 10 hours a day just reading that document, I will have a maximum of two minutes and 30 seconds to fully understand, analyse and comment on it."

USA - President Donald Trump signed the coronavirus relief bill but he made substantial changes to it before sending it back to Congress. In a statement announcing that he had signed the bill that passed the House and Senate last week, the president demanded that Congress continue to revise the bill and cut the excess spending. “I will sign the Omnibus and Covid package with a strong message that makes clear to Congress that wasteful items need to be removed. I will send back to Congress a redlined version, item by item, accompanied by the formal rescission request to Congress insisting that those funds be removed from the bill,” he said. House Speaker and California Representative Nancy Pelosi issued her own statement applauding the president for signing the bill and calling on him to pressure Republicans to pass a $2,000 per person stimulus.

USA - A Harvard Medical School department Twitter account referred to women as “birthing people” in a tweet, and claimed that “not all who give birth” are women. After being called out by social media users for referring to women as “birthing people,” the Harvard Med Postgraduate Twitter account posted a follow-up tweet, explaining why such verbiage was used. “The webinar panelists used the term ‘birthing person’ to include those who identify as non-binary or transgender because not all who give birth identify as ‘women’ or ‘girls,'” the account explains in its follow-up tweet. “We understand the reactions to this terminology and in no way meant for it to erase or dehumanize women,” the tweet adds.

EUROPE - In her bizarre speech, Ursula von der Leyen casually redefined ‘sovereignty’. This is why Brexit has always been inevitable. Finally free of the European Union’s ‘lunar pull’, Boris Johnson announces a no-quotas, zero-tariff trade deal days before the Brexit deadline and Britain celebrates taking back its sovereignty. But the EU will never fully understand. The Commission president decided it was a good time for a lesson in sovereignty, using a common politician’s trick to insist they first define the terms of what they are talking about in order to attempt to control the narrative.

CHINA - The South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Wednesday reviewed Chinese customs data and found several major blockages of Australian imports over the past month, including 9,000 liters of Australian craft beer turned away at the port city of Xiamen and 8,000 kilograms of frozen beef denied entry to Shanghai. China and Australia are embroiled in a long-running trade and diplomatic feud. According to the documents reviewed by the SCMP, the craft beer from Sydney Beer Co was blocked for “incorrect labeling” of its products, while the frozen beef from Meramist was held for “mismatched certifications.” Neither of these vague justifications was presented to the Australian companies at the time their products were rejected. Australia’s other exports to China are only down 0.4 percent as a consequence of the trade war, although its trade surplus with China hit a 16-month low of $62.9 billion in November.

USA - The Christmas morning bombing in Nashville left a wake of destruction that was captured in dramatic photos and videos that made downtown Music City look more like Baghdad or Beirut. Cellphone footage shot shortly after the massive blast caught victims wailing in panic and screaming for help as flames consumed vehicles parked along North Second Avenue and black smoke filled the sky. Other shots revealed gaping holes that were once storefronts in historic brick buildings, with broken glass, charred tree limbs and rubble littering the street. The explosion, which could be felt for blocks, rocked the city just as dawn was breaking around 6:30 am. Officials said cops were already at the scene, having responded to a report of shots fired about 30 minutes earlier.