UK - At the end of the year, this column traditionally takes a look at the reasons for optimism and fear in the global economy in the 12 months ahead. But 2025 has been more tumultuous than most years, making any attempt at predictions even more of a fool’s errand than usual. Instead, here is a look at some of the big questions that will be preoccupying governments, central bankers and investors in 2026. That aside, the intervening 11 months will be dominated by a couple of economic touchpoints: affordability and the jobs market.

ISRAEL - Majorities in five major economies say the cost of living has worsened, pressuring incumbents and redrawing alliances, according to a new international survey. Voter frustration over rising prices is continuing to upend politics across some of the world’s largest democracies, with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Canada all reporting deepening cost-of-living strain, according to a Politico poll released earlier this month. The survey suggested that the affordability crunch remains a dominant force shaping elections and party strategies in 2026, with voters blaming incumbent governments and seeking alternatives. In the US, nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents reported that the cost of living worsened over the past year. In the UK, 77% reported the same, whereas in Germany, 78% reported deterioration. In France, 82% reported rising costs, and in Canada, 60% described the current cost of living as the worst they can remember.

UK - A D-Day veteran who was awarded a British Empire Medal says the country is “disappointing” and risks repeating the mistakes that led to the Second World War. Kersh said he was deeply concerned about rising antisemitism. “What’s disappointing is the antisemitism that I see everywhere, hear everywhere or read,” he said. Kersh said he believed the lessons of the Second World War were being forgotten and that he “absolutely” saw parallels with the present day, adding that Russia was “threatening the West”. Comparing today’s political leadership with the prewar era, he said: “We’ve got to either have another leader who’s more aggressive, I don’t mean start a war, but aggressive. We’ve got to defend, that’s the first concern.”

UK - Recently, the trend forecaster Marian Salzman announced that her 2025 trendspotting report would be her last. Salzman has been producing these reports since 1994. So what happened? Well, it would seem that predicting the future is not what it used it be. “Trendspotting isn’t over because nothing is happening,” she told me. “It’s over because everything is happening, all the time, to everyone, everywhere.” Commentary she explains, is layered on commentary “like an emotional mille-feuille — the signal didn’t disappear, it drowned.”

ISRAEL - 'A message to our enemies': “The entire combat doctrine will change through laser technology, with all that this implies. This is a very big day for the State of Israel, and it is another huge contribution to global security, and to the entire region being able to cooperate together against a great common enemy, who is constantly trying to destabilize the region and trying to destroy us. In the end, he will fall,” he added, referring to the system’s delivery to the Israeli military. “This is also a message to our enemies,” declared Herzog. “We suggest that you simply not mess with us, and understand that Israel is an existing fact, and instead of engaging in a discourse of war, engage in a discourse of peace.”

UK - The Church of England should not cherry-pick scripture to justify a Left-wing agenda. Parts of the Bible implore people to welcome strangers. But other parts stress that strangers must respect their hosts. Scripture undeniably calls us to be hospitable and love the stranger. However, there is an entire balancing strand in the Bible which the Church has completely neglected in this public discussion: the duty that strangers and guests owe to their hosts.

TAIWAN - China encircles Taiwan with live-fire drill as invasion panic grows. The drills came after Beijing expressed anger at US arms sales to the territory and a statement by Japan's prime minister. China has deployed land, air and sea assets for major joint military drills around the island of Taiwan. Beijing called the move a "stern warning" against separatist and "external interference" forces. Sanae Takaichi (Japan's prime minister) said Japanese forces could get involved if China were to take action against Taiwan, the self-governing island that the world's second-biggest economy says must come under its rule.

IRAN - The US, Israel and Europe have been warned. Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian said Saturday his country is in a full-scale war with all three ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting on Monday with President Donald Trump. Pezeshkian said in an interview published on the website of the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the war is worse than Iran’s deadly war with Iraq in the 1980s, AP reports. “We are in a full-scale war with the US, Israel and Europe; they don’t want our country to remain stable,” he said. His words echo proclamations by Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) commander, General Hossein Salami, who has previously cautioned the West that death awaits it at the hands of a victorious Iranian regime.

ISRAEL - Israel has begun field deployment of its “game-changing” Iron Beam laser air defense system, according to the country’s Defense Ministry, which confirmed the technology is now operating as part of the country’s layered missile defense network, with its combat performance expected to inform US missile defense planning. The announcement, made Sunday, follows months of phased rollouts and testing by Israel’s defense establishment and domestic industry partners. Defense officials said the system is already being positioned at multiple sites nationwide. With deployment now underway and additional batteries planned, Israeli defense leaders say Iron Beam is moving from a wartime innovation to a central pillar of the country’s future air defense doctrine.

USA - I think that nearly the entire population of the world would like to see peace in 2026, but global events just continue to drag us toward war. I honestly do not understand why more people are not upset about this. The drumbeats of war seem to get louder with each passing day, and we are getting dangerously close to a point of no return. Nobody wanted World War I to happen, but once it started nobody could stop it and more than 20 million people died. Nobody wanted World War II to happen, but once it started nobody could stop it and more than 50 million people died. Now we have reached a stage where a war between major powers should be unthinkable because of the immense power of the weapons that we now possess. If we are not very careful, billions of people could die before World War III is finally over. The time to stop a war is before it starts. If we do not choose peace now, the consequences could be cataclysmic.

USA - Several cities worldwide are calling off their New Year's Eve festivities due to credible threats of terrorist attacks. This follows the FBI's thwarting of an alleged planned bombing attack in Los Angeles set for New Year's Eve. In Paris, the concert planned for New Year's Eve this year has been canceled, according to the local news outlet sortiraparis.com, which said was due to the request of the Paris police over security concerns. New Years Eve fireworks in Australia have been cancelled in the wake of the deadly Bondi Beach shooting earlier this month. The display was set to draw 15,000 people to Bondi Beach. Similar to Paris, officials in Tokyo cancelled the planned New Years Eve countdown Shibuya Station due to concerns about large crowd gatherings being a target for attacks and the potential for stampedes, according to local news outlet Japan Today.

USA - If you are having a really difficult time keeping up with the rapidly rising cost of living, you are certainly not alone. This year, “affordability” was a buzzword that was constantly on the lips of politicians, economists and talking heads on television. Americans are being slammed by rising prices from a multitude of directions. Meanwhile, “layoffs” has been another buzzword that has been widely used in 2025. Thanks to the rise of AI and our steadily deteriorating economy, we have seen far more mass layoffs this year than we did last year. Unfortunately, one survey has found that executives are gearing up for an even larger round in 2026. This is what happens when you flood the system with money and you go into unprecedented amounts of debt. Eventually a day of reckoning arrives.

USA - Silver surged past $75 per ounce for the first time in the overnight session leading into December 26, extending a powerful rally that has made it the strongest-performing precious metal this year, while gold and platinum also climbed to record highs, as investors bet on US interest rate cuts and grappled with tight supply and geopolitical uncertainty. Spot silver rose by as much as 2.4 percent to a record $75.62 and was at about $75.30 at 10:30 am EST on December 26. The metal is up by more than 150 percent so far this year, far outpacing gold’s gain of more than 70 percent. “We see gold prices hitting more record highs in 2026.”

THAILAND - President Donald J Trump has once again proven why the United States under his leadership is the world’s premier force for peace. Following weeks of renewed border clashes, Thailand and Cambodia signed a new ceasefire agreement, effectively halting the fighting and restoring adherence to the original treaty framework that President Trump helped broker earlier this year. This rapid resolution underscores the power of America First foreign policy: strong leadership, direct diplomacy, and leveraging US influence to prioritize peace and trade over endless conflict. While the ineffective United Nations dithers on major crises like Ukraine, President Trump has delivered tangible results — ending or halting eight major conflicts in just eleven months.

EUROPE - We're on the brink of a historical turning point... We're on the brink of a historical turning point... and it should terrify us. The old world order has ended. We're on our own. This was the year the old world order ended. The order that had defeated Nazi Germany, the greatest evil the modern world has known, then went on to see off Soviet communism – the other great evil of the age. The order that rebuilt – from the carnage, ruins and dictatorships of the Second World War – prosperous Western European democracies. Then embraced the new democracies of Eastern Europe as they threw off their communist yoke. The order that, for all its many lapses in living up to its principles, placed liberal democracy, human rights and the prosperity of the people at the core of its purpose, leading to the greatest rise in global living standards these past eight decades the world has ever known.