EUROPE - With Brexit looming, new European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is facing a huge challenge to absorb the costs of the UK’s departure from the bloc alongside a “whole range of problems”, from slow growth across the Eurozone to the behaviour of “rogue members” such as Poland and Hungary, a political analyst has said. He told Express.co.uk: “The EU has a whole range of problems and Brexit is just one on a list." In a reference to Hungary and Poland, both of whom are facing sanctions under the EU’s Article 7 over controversial legal reforms, Prof Travers said: “There are a whole range of problems - they have got slightly rogue members, members who are not actually behaving in ways that proper democracies are expected to. So against that backdrop, Brexit is on a list of big issues but it is by no means the only one. It’s true that losing the UK’s money will make their budget a bit more difficult though in fairness less money will go out as well."

EUROPE - European Council President Charles Michel today admitted the EU faces a challenge to remain united during its future relationship talks with Britain. Speaking at the launch of Croatia’s rotating EU presidency, Mr Michel said: “It will be very important, like the first phase, to guarantee the unity… to guarantee the transparency of member states in order to get that deal.” He added: “Unity requires permanent effort at the European level and we know when we have to negotiate a budget it is always complex and difficult, especially difficult at a European level because we face the Brexit gap. I am confident… I am confident because I feel at a European level there’s a strong commitment to make progress together.” According to the European Commission’s assessment, the Brexit gap accounts for around £11 billion per year.

IRAN - The Ukrainian passenger jet that crashed after takeoff from Tehran was downed due to "human error" after it flew too close to a military site and triggered a missile launch amid a standoff with the US, the Iranian Army said. The Army General Staff stressed that the tragic mistake was made amid the flare-up of tensions with Washington. The nation's air defenses were placed on alert and ready to "respond to possible threats of the highest level," after US President Donald Trump warned that the Pentagon would strike targets on Iranian soil if US citizens or assets were attacked by Iran.

PAKISTAN - Pakistan has violated a ceasefire with India after one person was killed and three other injured, with the Indian army now responding “strongly and effectively”. This is the latest escalation in tensions between the two feuding Asian countries and the second time Pakistan has violated a ceasefire in the last two weeks. The Indian army responded immediately on December 27 after Pakistan broke a ceasefire in the Shahpur sector of the Poonch district, and Naushera in Rajouri district along the Line of Control (LoC). The Pakistan Army fired on Indian posts along the LoC, triggering a strong retaliation from the Indian army.

USA - Funny, no one seemed to consider what to do with the massive amount of wind turbine blades once they reached the end of their lifespan. Thus, the irony of the present-day Green Energy Movement is the dumping of thousands of tons of “non-recyclable” supposedly renewable wind turbine blades in the country’s landfills.

Who would have thought? What’s even worse, is that the amount of wind turbine blades slated for waste disposal is forecast to quadruple over the next fifteen years as a great deal more blades reach their 15-20 year lifespan. Furthermore, the size and length of the newly installed wind turbine blades are now twice as large as they were 20-30 years ago. According to the data from Hochschule Bremerhaven & Ahlstrom-Munksjo, the wind industry will generate 50,000 tons of blade waste in 2020, but that will quadruple to 225,000 tons by 2034.

UK - Britain’s future outside the European Union was finally secured last night in a momentous Commons vote. MPs marched through the voting lobbies to give their backing to the Brexit Bill which sailed through by 330 votes to 231 – a thumping majority of 99. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay said the vote sent a clear message to the public that the Government has “listened and we have acted”. He confirmed he will be out of his job within weeks because his department will be scrapped once Britain severs the ties with the bloc on January 31.

LIBYA - Tit-for-tat military strikes by Washington and Tehran have distracted international attention from fears in the European bloc about the escalating proxy war in Libya, just a few hundred kilometres from its shores. The battle for the North African state has become something of a perfect storm of European worries, including over migration, the arrival of Isis fighters from Syria, Russia’s growing Mediterranean ambitions and Turkey’s increasing regional assertiveness. As EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell observed yesterday, it “doesn’t take the risk of a nuclear proliferation or confrontation” to stoke the bloc’s anxieties about the deterioration of Libya. “We are maybe facing a watershed point,” the top diplomat said of the growing turmoil. “The situation is very dangerous.” Almost nine years after air strikes by British and French warplanes helped topple the late Libyan dictator Muammer Gaddafi, the country is racked by a conflict between the UN-backed government in Tripoli and military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

USA - CEOs of major US military contractors stand to reap huge windfalls from the escalation of conflict with Iran. This was evident in the immediate aftermath of the US assassination of a top Iranian military official last week. As soon as the news reached financial markets, these companies’ share prices spiked, inflating the value of their executives’ stock-based pay. I took a look at how the CEOs at the top five Pentagon contractors were affected by this surge, using the most recent SEC information on their stock holdings. New Northrop Grumman CEO Warden saw the 92,894 shares she’d accumulated as the firm’s COO expand in value by more than $2.7 million in just one day of post-assassination trading.

USA - Media outlets have omitted aspects about the US assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani that don’t fit Washington’s narrative, comedian Lee Camp has argued. He’s debunked the Pentagon spin so you don’t have to. The host of Redacted Tonight has listed six things about the highly controversial killing that the media has either ignored completely or under-reported, including the not-so-convenient fact that Soleimani had come to Baghdad to hold de-escalation talks with Saudi Arabia – before being killed by a US drone. And what about the fact that the US carried out this strike without the permission of its democratic ‘ally’, Iraq, or the completely unsubstantiated accusation that Soleimani’s assassination was justified because he was plotting against the United States? Camp tears into the media’s uncritical and all-too-familiar narrative, and asks: Do we really want to enter into a war that would likely kill millions of people, only to find out it was all based on lies – again?

IRAN - Iran’s propaganda trumpets are presenting Qasem Soleimani as a Shiite version of a saint whose martyrdom deserves religious glorification. Soleimani trained, armed, and provided funds to terror organizations and used Revolutionary Guards Quds Force and Hizbullah instructors, as Iran’s national security policy sought to distance the frontlines from Iran’s own borders.

USA - James Shupe, the man who became the first person to obtain a legal sex designation of “non-binary,” now says the transgender lifestyle is a “fraud.” On Christmas Eve, an Oregon judge restored James (formerly Jamie) Shupe’s gender to male and allowed him to resume using his birth name. A recent report at PJ Media noted that Shupe characterized his “non-binary” status as a “psychologically harmful legal fiction.” “The lies behind my fictitious sex changes, something I shamefully participated in, first to female, and then to non-binary, have been forever exposed,” Shupe told PJ Media. “A truthful accounting of events has replaced the deceit that allowed me to become America’s first legally non-binary person.” He added the “non-binary” sex designation is “fraud and legal fiction based on pseudoscience.” “I was indoctrinated to believe that I had this thing called a gender identity and that suppressing it was causing my mental health problems,” he added. “It was all a lie.”

USA - With a federal safety review ongoing, Boeing has decided to suspend production of the troubled 737 MAX passenger jet, having made over 400 that it can’t deliver until the ban is lifted – if ever. Workers will remain safe, for now. The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the grounding of all 737 MAX models in March, grudgingly following the lead of countries around the world after the fatal crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 killed 157 people. Five months earlier, a 737 MAX of Indonesia’s Lion Air crashed in the same manner, killing 189 passengers and crew. Since then, almost 400 MAX jets have been stuck on the ground, and Boeing has manufactured 400 more, which it cannot deliver to customers anywhere. The FAA review is still ongoing, amid a number of revelations suggesting that flaws with the MAX’s control software were long known to the company and its test pilots.

USA - We are at one of the most critical turning points in modern world history, and whether or not we will be able to avoid World War 3 will come down to a handful of key decisions that Donald Trump will make over the next few days. If he makes the wrong decisions, he will be second guessed for generations to come. But if he makes the right decisions, he could literally change the course of human history for the better.

USA - While listening to news reports of what a monstrous threat Iran is, I’ve been wracking my brain to think of a single terrorist attack in this country committed by an Iranian. If there is one, now would be a good time to mention it! But I can’t find any. To get killed by an Iranian - or even to be harassed by an Iranian - you have to go the Middle East.

USA - While these countries represent less than 6 percent of the world’s population, they host more than half of all people identified as being in need globally. IRC Watchlist 2020 (International Rescue Committee) highlights the countries where they assess there to be the greatest risk of a major deterioration in the humanitarian situation in the coming year. The countries on Watchlist 2020 have changed little since last year, underscoring both the protracted nature of many of these crises and collective failure of the international community to resolve their root causes. In many cases, constraints on humanitarian access contribute to the already precarious conditions of Watchlist 2020 countries. - Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Syria, Nigeria and Venezuela are Watchlist 2020’s Top Five crises – followed by Afghanistan, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Somalia and the Central African Republic (CAR).