USA - In his book Covid-19: The Great Reset, World Economic Forum globalist Klaus Schwab asserts that the world will “never” return to normal, despite him admitting that coronavirus “doesn’t pose a new existential threat.” Breitbart’s James Delingpole unveils how Schwab is even more explicit in his book about the elite’s plan for exploiting the COVID pandemic than in his public statements.

ISRAEL - Trump will push Israeli annexation before January 20 – and Israel might grab ‘once in a lifetime’ chance. Trump will push annexation of West Bank, and if Netanyahu sees it as in his political interest to be antagonistic to Biden, he will accede, say two prominent Israel lobbyists. Michael Koplow of the Israel Policy Forum said he is “very confident” that Trump will push Israeli annexation. Aaron Weinberg, government relations director of Israel Policy Forum, echoed the view that the Trump administration would push annexation in the next few weeks.

NORTH KOREA - North Korea is believed to have 15 to 60 nuclear weapons in its arsenal and continues to pose a major threat to the United States, according to a US think tank. The Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University in Washington said in its most recent report the Kim Jong Un regime operates "more as a quasi-criminal enterprise than a legitimate nation-state" and MAY have developed as many as 60 nuclear bombs. The INSS' "Strategic Assessment 2020: Into a New Era of Great Power Competition" says North Korea, Russia and Iran are a trio of "rogue, disruptor and spoiler states" that pose threats to US national security. Beyond its nuclear capacity, North Korea has also conducted arms sales and the "transfer of military technology" that has abetted Iran's ballistic missile program. Pyongyang has also "pursued military cooperation and technology transfers in the Sudan and offered small arms and ballistic missiles to the Houthi rebels in Yemen through a Syrian intermediary."

USA - Eta strengthens to hurricane as it prepares to strike Florida for second time. The National Hurricane Center's (NHC) 0735 ET tropical update has upgraded Tropical Storm Eta to a Category 1 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph or higher. "Reports from an NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft and Doppler radar data indicate that Eta has re-strengthened into a hurricane offshore the southwestern coast of Florida, with maximum, sustained winds of 75 mph (120 km/h), with higher gusts," NHC said. The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was officially confirmed as the busiest on record this week, with the development of the 29th named storm called Theta, forming in the open Atlantic near Africa - breaking the 2005 record of 28 tropical cyclones in a given season.

USA - The Trump administration formally notified Congress on Tuesday that it intends to sell 50 stealth F-35 fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates as part of a broader arms deal worth over $23 billion, aimed at deterring potential threats from Iran, despite concern in Israel. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he had authorized the sale in keeping with the administration’s Middle East peace efforts, and directly tied the arms sale to the UAE’s decision to normalize ties with Israel. “This is in recognition of our deepening relationship and the UAE’s need for advanced defense capabilities to deter and defend itself against heightened threats from Iran,” Pompeo said in a statement. Congress now has 30 days to debate the deal, and the final authorization will almost certainly be granted during the final days of President Trump’s current term in office.

USA - Acceptance of Morocco’s claim to Western Sahara gave US President Donald Trump the key to roping another Arab government into burying the hatchet with Israel, after the UAE and Bahrain, DEBKAfile’s exclusive sources report. A US consulate now operates in Laayoune, capital of the desert region of less than half a million inhabitants, joined by Gulf states. Trump is clearly intent on using the uncertain two-and-half-months ahead of the swearing in of the next president on January 20 to wrap up his unfinished ploy for ending the historic conflict between the Arab world and Israel.

IRAN - Iran is in a fury over President Trump's peace deals between three Islamic nations and the Middle East's premiere democracy, Israel. The mullah-led regime sees the normalization of relations between the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and the Jewish state as a direct threat, endangering its hegemony in the Persian Gulf, reports the Middle East Media Research Institute. It's also a "severe blow to Iran's narrative of Islamic unity and Islamic values, and to the ideological messages of the Islamic revolutionary regime in Iran that claims to be the standard-bearer of the defense of the pure and correct Islam," MEMRI said. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei wrote in Twitter that the Muslim nations "will not tolerate any normalization with the Zionist regime." "The Americans are wrong if they think they can solve the problem of the region in this manner," he said. The Trump administration went against precedent, bypassing the Palestinian issue and approaching the Arab nations directly.

CHINA - The consequences of the presidency of Donald Trump will be debated for decades to come — but for the Chinese leadership, its meaning is already clear. China’s rulers believe that the past four years have shown that the United States is rapidly declining and that this deterioration has caused Washington to frantically try to suppress China’s rise. Trump’s trade war, technology bans, and determination to blame China for his own mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic have all confirmed the perception of Chinese policy elites that the United States is bent on keeping their country down.

USA - Fast food chain McDonald’s is making a huge push into plant-based foods with a “platform” it’s calling McPlant. New menu items based on it, including a sandwich, will be made available next year, according to USA Today. “McPlant is crafted exclusively for McDonald’s, by McDonald’s,” Ian Borden, McDonald’s international president, said during a Monday meeting with investors. “In the future, McPlant could extend across a line of plant-based products including burgers, chicken-substitutes and breakfast sandwiches.” “Markets can adopt the McPlant when they’re ready and we expect some to test the burger next year,” reads a press release. While many restaurant chains have added plant-based protein options to their menus over the past few years, the sheer scale of the McDonald’s operation could greatly accelerate the trend.

UK - An education watchdog in the UK found that some children have regressed due to COVID-19-related school closures and restrictions. A report from Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills, says some kids have fallen back in basic skills – and some who were greatly impacted have even forgotten how to use a fork and knife. Ofsted made visits to 900 schools and early childcare providers in September and October, according to a press release from the UK government department. It found there are three "broad groups" of children, according to chief inspector, Amanda Spielman.

UK - COVID could spark a third world war - and an army of 30,000 robots could fight in the future, the UK's most senior military commander says. General Sir Nick Carter made the claims about the future of the British forces as he warned the economic fallout of the pandemic has made the prospect of World War Three a "risk". And the chief of the defence staff said that the country's 82,000-strong Army will begin to look different as it modernises to face new and emerging threats - with "robots" potentially fighting on the frontlines. Sir Nick made the comments when asked by Sky News in the run up to Remembrance Sunday whether he feared the global economic crisis brought on by coronavirus could lead to war. He said he's worried the increase in regional conflicts playing out across the world could ramp up into "a full-blown war", mirroring the run-up to the two world wars.

ISRAEL - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday congratulated President-elect Joe Biden on his projected victory in the US presidential elections. Netanyahu tweeted: "Joe, we've had a long & warm personal relationship for nearly 40 years, and I know you as a great friend of Israel. I look forward to working with… you to further strengthen the special alliance between the US and Israel." Netanyahu also thanked President Donald Trump "for the friendship you have shown the State of Israel and me personally, for recognizing Jerusalem and the Golan, for standing up to Iran, for the historic peace accords and for bringing the American-Israeli alliance to unprecedented heights."

MIDDLE EAST - More than two dozen Israeli high-tech executives turned up in Dubai recently, six weeks after the Emirates and Bahrain signed agreements to normalize relations with Israel and open up embassies. The rancor of more than seven decades of Arab-Israeli conflict seemed to melt away in a matter of days. Emirati investor Mohamed Mandeel, CEO of Abu Dhabi's Royal Strategic Partners group, said he felt a sense of kinship with the Israelis. He recounted how he had taken a DNA test and found a match for his rare Babylonian gene in Tel Aviv. "If we set aside the religious ideologies and 70 years fueled by conflict, wars and the media, we end up with human beings," he said. "We share the same food, the same DNA, the same look," and he described the Israelis as "cousins." The Israelis said the encounter felt like a dream come true, unlike any they had experienced in the Arab world before, and different from Israel's decades-old "cold peace" with Egypt and Jordan.

GERMANY - “Dear Chancellor Dr Merkel, “We, the signatories, are doctors from all areas of healthcare, who have been serving people in practices and clinics for decades. During this time, we have witnessed more than one seasonal infection in Germany, most of them with far more severe conditions and significantly more deaths than since January 2020 from COVID infectious diseases. The circumstances of the coronavirus wave in the FRG have been perceived differently than the media and the ongoing warnings of politics, which were unjustified in fact, presented to the public for months. Predictions of individual advisory virologists with millions of seriously ill and hundreds of thousands of deaths in Germany have not been true in any way. According to the data situation, there hasn’t been a threat to the German population from Covid-19 for months. This must be the reason to return to normal life in Germany – a life without restrictions, fear and infection hysteria. We call on politicians and medical professional representatives to refrain from daily public warning and fear machines in the press and talk shows – this creates a deep and unsubstantiated fear among the population.”

UK - Official data is 'exaggerating' the risk of Covid-19 and talk of a second wave is 'misleading', nearly 500 academics told Boris Johnson in open letter attacking lockdown. It is signed by immunologist Dr Charlotte R Bell, paediatrician Dr Rosamond Jones, consultant surgeon and Keith Willison, Professor of Chemical Biology at Imperial College. The doctors and scientists said the Government's response to the coronavirus pandemic has become 'disproportionate' and that mass testing has distorted the risk of the virus. They said tests are likely to be producing high numbers of 'false positive' results and the Government must do more to put infection and death rates within the context of normal seasonal rates. The letter criticised the Government's handling of coronavirus for 'causing more harm than good'. The open letter to the Prime Minister was signed by 469 medics and is titled First Do No Harm - the medical principle that a cure must never be worse than the disease itself. The Government faced a stern rebuke from the UK Statistics Authority this week over its use of data.