GIBRALTAR - Sir Keir Starmer has agreed a Brexit deal that hands control of Gibraltar’s border to the EU. The Prime Minister was accused of plotting to undo Brexit after negotiations to keep the border with Spain open finally ended after almost four years. Under the terms of the deal, Spanish border guards will have the final say on whether a UK citizen can enter the British Overseas Territory. British tourists entering Gibraltar will have to show their passports twice, once to a Gibraltarian and again to a Spanish guard, as part of a “dual” entry system. The sacrifice of hard-won sovereignty follows Sir Keir’s decision to pay billions to Brussels to rejoin the EU’s Erasmus programme. If any UK citizen wants to move to Gibraltar, they will have their application vetted by Spanish authorities working on behalf of the EU.

UK - A university has been accused of discriminating against Christians after allowing a nativity play called A Gay in a Manger to go ahead. York St John University’s LGBTQ network is staging a play in which the baby Jesus and his parents Mary and “Jo” are depicted as homosexual, the three wise men as drag queens and heaven as a gay disco. Josiah Diamond, 21, wrote to the university raising concerns that Christians were being discriminated against in a manner that would not be tolerated against Muslims. The second year politics and international relations student, who was formerly a Muslim but is now a Christian, asked the university whether it would permit a performance on campus called A Gay in Mecca. In a letter to the university, seen by The Telegraph, Mr Diamond wrote: “By allowing this performance to go ahead, the university is supportive of groups who chose to openly mock the Bible.”

SAUDI ARABIA - Normalization with Saudi Arabia cannot begin while Mecca broadcasts antisemitic hate. In a weekly sermon delivered at Mecca two days before the Bondi Beach terror attack the preacher called on God to punish the Jews and portrayed Israel as a cruel “Zionist enemy." Saudi Arabia cannot ask the world to treat it as a partner for peace while a sermon broadcast from Mecca vilifies Jews and sanctifies their enemies. Normalization is not a trophy but a test. Dr Edy Cohen, an expert in the Arab world, described the weekly sermon delivered from Islam’s holiest site two days before the antisemitic terrorist attack in Sydney: The preacher, Sheikh Salih bin Abdullah bin Humaid, called on God to punish the Jews and portrayed Israel as a cruel “Zionist enemy,” while praising the Palestinian struggle. Regardless of any operational connection, sermons such as these provide moral justification. They tell millions of listeners that hostility to Jews is not prejudice; it is righteousness.

UK - The Government has finally unveiled its long-overdue plan for tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG), which seeks to address misogyny and abuse by “disrupting dangerous attitudes and stopping harmful behaviours escalating”. Proposed measures include sending experts into schools to tutor children on “healthy and respectful relationships”, as part of an effort to integrate the strategy into every aspect of school life. Announcing the plans on Thursday, safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, warned of a “national emergency” over gender-based violence, adding the Government’s aim was to be “so ambitious that we change culture”. However, key aspects of the document – which only sketches a broad outline of the Government’s plans – have been called into question by critics. In particular, they warn that the proposals risk demonising an entire generation of boys and young men as inherently problematic, or “toxic”.

USA - Robert F Kennedy Jr has announced a ban on hospitals providing gender-transition procedures to children, accusing doctors of “endangering the very lives that they are sworn to safeguard”. Speaking on Thursday, the US health secretary said hospitals had been providing “needless and irreversible sex-rejecting procedures” and outlined a slate of measures to curtail access to gender treatment for minors. “So-called gender-affirming care has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people,” he said. Kennedy signed a declaration on Wednesday morning stating that the procedures, which can include puberty blockers, hormone treatment and surgery, should be considered “neither safe nor effective” treatment for children with gender dysphoria.

USA - With Putin’s murderous intent in Europe clearly exposed in Ukraine and his deadly combination of KGB ideology and imperialist expansion ever more apparent, the wake-up call is finally being heard in Western capitals. Against a background of increasing cooperation between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, the threat to the free world and its values – the rule of law, democracy and human rights – has never been greater in living memory. Yet a much more subtle and sadly self induced crisis corrodes our ability to confront our enemies. Debt levels in the West, driven up by consumption and welfare that we cannot afford, means that our ability to raise defence and security spending to meet the level of the threat is seriously, if not yet fatally, compromised. Last year the UK spent £105 billion on debt interest compared to just £65 billion on defending our country. We are not alone. In 2024 the United States spent around $882 billion on interest payments, overtaking the world’s largest defence budget of $874 billion.

GERMANY - Addressing the attendees of a party conference of Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU) in Munich on Saturday, Merz acknowledged that Germany had “lost” its economic competitiveness. “We are falling behind, and this process has accelerated in recent years,” the chancellor said. Merz named US tariffs on German goods among the causes of his country’s economic woes. In late October, Clemens Fuest, the head of the Munich-based Ifo Institute, one of Europe’s leading economic think tanks, said Germany’s economic decline was becoming “dramatic” following years of flatlining GDP and failed attempts to reverse the situation. Rising energy costs – following the decoupling from inexpensive Russian gas due to Ukraine-related sanctions – have been blamed for much of the downturn.

GERMANY - Germany’s largest automaker, Volkswagen, is set to cease production at its 'Transparent Factory' in Dresden on Tuesday, several media outlets have reported. Rising energy prices coupled with weak sales and US tariffs have subjected the company to considerable cash flow pressure in recent months. The plant’s closure on Tuesday will be the first time in Volkswagen’s 88-year history that it has shut down a production line in its home country, Germany. Volkswagen has recently seen a significant slump in profits due to weak sales in Europe, China, and the US. Several other German carmakers, including BMW and Mercedes-Benz, have been grappling with similar problems this year.

UK - Police chiefs are under pressure to follow two of Britain’s biggest forces in cracking down on those who chant “globalise the intifada”. Sir Mark Rowley and Sir Stephen Watson, the respective heads of the Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester police, said on Wednesday that activists caught chanting the slogan would face arrest. Hours later, the Met detained two people for racially aggravated public order offences after they allegedly shouted “slogans involving calls for intifada” at a rally in central London. It is understood the police chiefs hope the crackdown will encourage prosecutors to be “bolder” in their willingness to test more cases in court. Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, suggested West Midlands police, the force in her own constituency, should follow suit. She told Times Radio: “The Metropolitan Police have made the right decision in this instance, because I cannot think of any interpretation other than that it is inciting people to violence which has terrible consequences.”

USA - California has been rattled by multiple earthquake swarms over the past four days, with the latest hitting on Tuesday. The US Geological Survey (USGS) reported a 3.1-magnitude quake at 5.53 am PT (8.53 am ET) near San Ramon, the epicenter of the recent seismic activity. The uptick in seismic activity has raised concerns among some residents, with fears that the clusters of quakes could be a warning sign of a much larger earthquake. However, experts say the small tremors do not indicate that a major event is imminent. Records from the USGS highlighted similar swarms in 1970, 1976, 2002, 2003, 2015 and 2018. Sarah Minson, a research geophysicist with the USGS's Earthquake Science Center at California's Moffett Field, told SF Gate: 'This has happened many times before here in the past, and there were no big earthquakes that followed.'