King Charles III has delivered his annual Christmas Day message by thanking medical staff who have cared for him and his daughter-in-law Princess Kate, after they both underwent treatment for cancer this year.

The monarch's broadcast is a tradition that dates back to a radio speech by George V in 1932. This year's message was King Charles' third since being crowned and touched on global conflicts and riots that broke out in the United Kingdom in August.

The holiday message is watched by millions of people in the United Kingdom and across the Commonwealth, with many households timing Christmas lunch around it.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has referred to Vladimir Zelensky as an “all-time champ” in a post on social platform X following US President Joe Biden’s announcement on Monday of a $2.5 billion US arms package for Kiev.

Musk’s remark came in response to another X user’s comment saying that the Ukrainian leader “has genuinely pulled off one of the greatest money heists of all time.”

President Biden’s latest military aid package for Ukraine includes advanced weaponry, ammunition, and armored vehicles, with a total value of $2.5 billion. Biden emphasized the need to support Ukraine in his final weeks in office, specifying that $1.25 billion of the package would be drawn from US stockpiles under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA).

US President-elect Donald Trump has endorsed Representative Mike Johnson to continue on in the role of House Speaker, just days before lawmakers are set to decide on who will hold the position. 

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a Speaker on Friday, during the first day of the 119th congressional session. 

Johnson faces some opposition from within his own party after working with Democrats on a bipartisan funding plan earlier this month. 

Republicans have a slim majority in the House, giving Johnson little room for defectors if he is to remain in the role, which he has held since October 2023.

They don’t make world leaders like they used to, as far as Vladimir Putin is concerned. Talking to a Kremlin-friendly gathering of journalists at his traditional end-of-year press conference on Friday, the Russian president spoke with fond nostalgia of the old gang, saying he’d like to spend more time with “people close to me”, such as the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, the former French president Jacques Chirac and Silvio Berlusconi, late prime minister of Italy.

There’s little chance of peace on earth with leaders like these

[GUSNOTE: LEADERS LIKE WHOM? JOE BIDEN? SCHOLZ? MACRON? URSULA VONTHINGSTERS? OH I SEE! THE IMAGE ON OFFER IS THAT OF PUTIN WITH A MISSILE IN THE BACKGROUND...]

BY Jonathan Este

As geopolitical tensions escalate, the U.S. wields its most formidable weapon—not military might, but a sophisticated network of political and informational control that reshapes nations and regions to serve its interests.

From China Daily....

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME YOURSELF.

The mainstream media and almost all of the American political elite class refuse to acknowledge reality: The crisis in Gaza did not begin on October 7, 2023.

Neither did the annihilation of Native Americans begin following the battle of the Little Bighorn. There is a continuous 120-year history of Zionism, whose foundational belief from the outset was colonial and racist. There was no place for Palestinians in Palestine.

Zionism’s Colonial Heritage and Transatlantic Reach
By Gerald Sussman

This was straightforwardly put forth by its founders who believed in the sacred biblical right of Jews to take over Palestine and remove its indigenous inhabitants.

2021... A retired French army general is facing possible criminal charges following an appearance on a popular TV show in which he let out a crudely antisemitic “dog whistle” in front of a shocked presenter.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday that it was opening an investigation into Gen. Dominique Delawarde, following his comments last Friday on the “Morandini Live” program on French broadcaster CNews.

Delawarde made his inflammatory remarks during a live exchange about ownership of the media. Smiling broadly, he told journalist Claude Posternak, “You know who controls the media pack in the world and in France. Who controls the Washington Post, the New York Times, BFMTV and all the newspapers.”

Delawarde then added sarcastically: “Who are these people?”

The newly-elected Democrat Jimmy Carter, a former Governor of Georgia, was at the time a relatively unknown figure in American politics. Although he successfully captured most of the votes in the South, his victory over Gerald Ford was rather marginal. He represented a promising choice of a moral and religious character attempting to purify the actions of the former disastrous presidencies and regain public confidence.

American Presidency: Recalling the Failures of Jimmy Carter...

2016

BY Natália Poláková

https://www.e-polis.cz/clanek/american-presidency-recalling-the-failures-of-jimmy-carter.html

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has expressed his shock at the International Chess Federation’s (FIDE) harsh dress code enforcement, which led to Norwegian champion Magnus Carlsen storming out a tournament in protest. The diplomat noted that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelesnky gets away with routinely flouting the formal dress code at official international events, and sporting military-style attire.

Speaking to Russia’s Kommersant newspaper on Sunday, Lavrov said: “The fact that world champion Magnus Carlsen was essentially booted out [of a competition] for appearing in jeans leaves me surprised, if not dumbfounded.” The Russian foreign minister clarified that while not a chess player himself, he follows the game.

“Then you need to kick Zelensky out of everywhere over dress code, this would solve many problems,”the official added.

Joe Biden regrets having pulled out of this year’s presidential race and believes he would have defeated Donald Trump in last month’s election – despite negative poll indications, White House sources have said.

In 2024, humanity – as a whole – took a purposeful stride towards engineering the collapse of modern civilisation.

While climate, politics, wars and celebrities vied for the headlines, the hard indicators of human management of Planet Earth and our own future were all pointing south. Here is a selection of catastrophic risks for 2024, based on trusted information:

Forest loss: 488 m ha tree cover lost since 2000. Current loss is around 25mha/ year to all causes, including agriculture, development, wildfires and climate.

Early in 2025, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has been invited to an informal summit of EU leaders. It's the first such invitation for the UK since the bitter days of the Brexit negotiations.

The focus of the February meeting is future security and defence co-operation. The backdrop: the volatile state of the world from Europe's perspective. 

Wars rage in the Middle East and in Europe - with Russia aided in its assault on Ukraine by Iran, North Korea and China.

Adding to the uncertainty haunting this continent, Donald Trump is poised to re-enter the White House. 

Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands now open to US military
The decision is part of a process that seeks the reestablishment of US military bases in Ecuadorian territory. Several voices have severely criticized the decision as a violation of Ecuador’s sovereignty.

The national government of Daniel Noboa approved a resolution that enables US ships and crews to use the Galapagos Islands for control and patrol activities in the area.

On February 15, 2024, Noboa signed a series military cooperation treaties with the US government, allowing ships, military personnel, armament, equipment, and submarines to be installed in the natural reserve, which UNESCO declared a World Natural Heritage Site in 1978.

In September 2015, President Barack Obama boasted that “greater prosperity and greater security — that’s what American and Chinese cooperation can deliver.” But by the time the Trump administration issued its first national security strategy only two years later, great-power competition with China — not cooperation — guided US foreign policy.

The Bipartisan Origins of the New Cold War
BY
MICHAEL BRENES and VAN JACKSON