USA - While there are certainly some outlandish claims based on complete nonsense made by those who oppose vaccinations as well as the rabid pro-vaxxers, there are very real reasons to advocate for informed consent and vaccine safety. No one here at TFTP is telling anyone what to do in regard to vaccinations. We are however, advocating for safety at all levels of this process. Nevertheless, those who promote vaccine safety are increasingly being treated as outcasts and lawmakers and media alike are calling for them to be silenced. There are now renewed efforts by many in the government and medical institutions to quash the chatter when it comes to talking about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine.

VATICAN - The “death” of the devil in people’s minds is accelerating the “death” of God in de-Christianized Western societies. For this reason, Dominican François-Marie Dermine decided 20 years ago to recatechize Catholic people through different initiatives. A Canadian by birth, Dermine has been an exorcist for several Italian dioceses since 1994. In 2003, he contributed to the creation of the “Course on Exorcism and Prayer of Liberation,” a weeklong interdisciplinary workshop on exorcism. This annual event, held in Rome, gathers priests, women religious and lay experts from around the world to focus on Satanic activity and the formal ministry that the Church established to respond to such activity.

CHINA - This week, the Chinese government announced that it plans to drastically increase its use of technology that artificially changes the weather. Cloud seeding technology, or systems that can blasts silver molecules into the sky to prompt condensation and cloud formation, has been around for decades, and China makes frequent use of it. But now, CNN reports that China wants to increase the total size of its weather modification test area to 5.5 million square miles by 2025 — a huge increase, and an area larger than that of the entire country of India, which could affect the environment on an epic scale and even potentially spur conflict with nearby countries.

SAUDI ARABIA - Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister has said Saudi Arabia would only normalise ties with Israel within a plan that would deliver a sovereign state to Palestinians, quashing speculation that the kingdom may soon become the latest Arab country to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel. “What we need to make [normalisation of ties with Israel] happen is a peace deal that delivers a Palestinian state with dignity and with a workable sovereignty that Palestinians can accept,” Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said on Friday. “That deal would have to be negotiated, but what is important now is to bring back Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table to work towards a fair deal,” Prince Faisal said.

GERMANY - On Thursday, six days after Nord Stream 2 AG announced that it would resume construction of the pipeline, US lawmakers unveiled the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, targeting the mammoth energy project with new sanctions. President Trump, however, has threatened to veto the 2021 NDAA over an unrelated matter. Germany’s Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency has revealed that the Fortuna – a Russian-flagged pipelaying crane vessel, will be engaged in pipelaying activity in German waters.

USA - The US is so bitterly divided between red & blue factions that some want it to split into two nations. While my country’s currently the Dis-United States of America, calls for it to be broken up into a Republican-dominated state and a Democrat-dominated one are so radical that it’s difficult to see how it could be implemented. The US is so bitterly divided that some wonks are calling for a formal split – either into an arrangement giving states more autonomy to govern themselves, or a two-nation solution. Neither will prevail because the pain of remaining ‘together’ is still insufficient. At this point, so the argument goes, the two tribes have little in common and nothing but contempt for each other. The acrimony between blue and red is so intense and thoroughgoing that something must be done – or so argue two of the Claremont Institute’s contributors.

USA - Attorney Sidney Powell says there’s plenty of time for President Donald Trump’s legal team to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. ''With the fraud case, the December 8 deadline doesn’t apply,'' Powell said Friday during an appearance on Newsmax TV’s ''Stinchfield'' in reference to the ''safe harbor'' deadline that frees a state from further challenge if it resolves all disputes and certifies its voting results. ''We have at least until December 14,'' she said. ''We might file more suits. The court in Michigan or Wisconsin today just gave us a great order recognizing that. These are not pure election contests we are filing. These are massive fraud suits that can set aside the results of the election due to this fraud at any time. The states should not be certifying election results in the face of it.''

UK - Boris Johnson will make 'one last throw of the dice' in trade talks with the EU on Monday to avert a No Deal Brexit at the end of the month as negotiations remained deadlocked this weekend. An hour-long phone call between the Prime Minister and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen failed to resolve the 'significant differences' between London and Brussels over French demands for Britain to remain tied to EU rules. Talks will resume in Brussels today.

USA - The US sold $175 billion in weapons to foreign partners and allies in fiscal 2020, a 2.8 percent rise from the previous year’s total, according to a Friday announcement from the Defense and State departments. The total comes at the end of the Trump administration, which made increasing arms exports a key part of its economic growth platform. Export licenses via the Direct Commercial Sales program totaled $124.3 billion in FY20, up from $114.7 billion the previous year. A series of reforms, started under the Obama administration and continued under the Trump team, has pushed more defense articles into the commercial sales realm.

USA - US arms official says it is 'possible' F-35 deal could happen before Biden inauguration, Senate voting on bills to block sales next week. With the Senate preparing to vote on a series of resolutions that seek to block a massive $23 billion weapons sale to the UAE, Abu Dhabi’s ambassador to the US said the UAE would seek weapons elsewhere if need be. “We would rather have the best US-equipment or we will reluctantly find it from other sources, even if less capable,” UAE envoy Yousef al-Otaiba said on Thursday. Al-Otaiba made an argument President Trump frequently makes about arms sales to Gulf states. The envoy said the sale would “support tens of thousands of US jobs.” The $23 billion sale includes F-35 fighter jets, Reaper drones, missiles and munitions and is seen as a reward for the UAE’s normalization agreement with Israel.

USA - There are approximately 74 million children in the United States, and right now millions upon millions of them do not have enough to eat. The economic collapse that has started in 2020 has been brutal for most of the nation, but it has hit children particularly hard. If their parents lose their jobs, there is nothing that they can do except hope that government handouts and the kindness of others will be enough.

AUSTRALIA - The escalating tensions with China has exposed just how tight the Asian superpower's grip is on the Australian economy, both in terms of trade and its ownership of important local assets. As Beijing becomes increasingly belligerent toward Australia, the latter's heavy reliance upon Chinese money has been exposed as vulnerability instead of a strength. China now owns key ports, mines, agricultural land, dairy processors, valuable real estate, state-sponsored schools, plus water and energy companies. The rosy days of 2015 - when the Northern Territory government decided to lease the Port of Darwin to Chinese-owned company Landbridge for 99 years - now seem long gone, but such deals cannot be undone. The global development plan is a key policy of President Xi Jinping and China aims to build and own infrastructure in as many countries throughout the world as possible to increase those nations' dependence on China. Smaller countries are often tempted to sell their land, and their sovereignty, in return for big money deals offered by Beijing.

USA - It was the judgment of the framers that this freedom is as essential to human fulfillment as are any other free choices that free people make. When teaching law students about the Bill of Rights, professors often ask on the first day of class which is the first freedom protected by the First Amendment. The students invariably answer, “freedom of speech.” It is not. If the framers were trying to tell us which freedom is the first among equals, they did so by listing the religion clauses ahead of the freedom of speech.

USA - The Amistad Project of the non-partisan Thomas More Society released a white paper on Friday making the case that current Electoral College deadlines are arbitrary and not set in stone, contrary to what most news outlets have reported. The white paper says that these deadlines — December 8 for disputes to be resolved and Electors to be determined, and December 14 for the Electoral College to meet in person and vote in their respective states — are a "direct impediment to states' obligations to investigate disputed elections." According to the Amistad Project press release, the paper examines the history of Electoral College deadlines, which "are not only elements of a 72-year old federal statute with zero Constitutional basis, but are also actively preventing the states from fulfilling their constitutional — and ethical — obligation to hold free and fair elections. According to the white paper, the only date in the election process set by the Constitution is "the assumption of office by the President on January 20."

NIGERIA - A Nigerian state governor warned on Wednesday that Nigeria’s military is struggling to defend the country from the Islamic terror group Boko Haram, which has recently ramped up the intensity and frequency of its attacks in northeastern Borno State. “The reality we can all say, and I personally as security scholar, the reality I can see is that our military is overwhelmed. Our military is no longer in a position to single-handedly tackle this menace effectively,” the governor of Nigeria’s Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, said Wednesday, according to Nigeria’s Punch newspaper.