Vatican City, Dec.31.– Retired Pope Benedict XVI, who had an impressive record as a teacher and defender of the basics of Catholic faith, is likely to go down in history books as the first pope in almost 600 years to resign.
He died on Dec. 31 at the age of 95, nearly 10 years after leaving the papacy to retire to what he said would be a life of prayer and study.
Luis Fernando Camacho's detention lead to renewed social unrest by residents of the restive Santa Cruz region. Police later announced Camacho had been arrested on "terrorist" charges. 
La Paz, Dec.29.– Luis Fernando Camacho, the governor of Santa Cruz, was arrested by Bolivian police on Wednesday on "terrorist" charges, sparking street brawls between his supporters and law enforcement.
"We inform the Bolivian people that the Bolivian police executed an arrest warrant against Luis Fernando Camacho," Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo said.
Mexico City, Dec.22.– After his reforms of the energy sector and public security, the Mexican President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has succeeded in a new passage in force by getting approval for a reform that amputates the National Electoral Institute (INE) of a large part of its budget and its employees and curbs the faculties of the Electoral Court.
Critics say the reform, passed by the Senate at second reading on the night of Wednesday, December 14, represents a three-decade setback for Mexico’s young and fragile democracy and a return to a presidential system. supported by a hegemonic party, similar to that imposed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) for more than seventy years. They fear that the president’s attack on the operational structure of the INE will favor his party, the National Regeneration Movement (Morena, left) for the presidential elections of 2024, where the continuity of his political project will be at stake.
Germany takes control of Russian-owned refinery amid energy crisis 
Schwedt/Oder, Dec.21.– On a wintry evening in late November, protesters gather in the plaza outside the Uckermark Theater to demonstrate against government plans to cut off the supply of Russian oil to the PCK refinery, located just a mile up the road.
It’s a critical issue, and not just for locals. Ural crude has flowed uninterrupted from 3,000 miles away since 1963, providing Berlin, eastern Germany, and part of Poland with almost all its gasoline, jet fuel, and heating oil, plus jobs for thousands whose salaries in turn fuel businesses from bakeries to the theater. So the threat to the refinery has drawn protesters brandishing peace flags and anti-sanctions banners into the cold night.
| Iran has an active-duty force of 525,000 troops, compared to Israel's 170,000. Israel's air force is larger than Iran's and has long been regarded as one of the best in the world. The IAF's primary fighting force consists of 66 F-15s, 175 F-16s, and at least 27 F-35 stealth fighters. The IAF expects to get another 23 F-35s by 2024 and plans to have 75 in total. In comparison, the backbone of Iran's air force (IRIAF) is 63 F-4s and 26 F-14s, all of which are aging and suffer from lack of spare parts. It also has 19 MiG-29s and 23 Su-24s from Russia and 17 F-7s from China. Israel is believed to have at least 90 nuclear warheads and enough plutonium for 100 or 200 more weapons. It can deliver those weapons by aircraft or with missiles. (Israel has one of the region's most advanced missile arsenals.) |
Jerusalem, Dec.21.– The world is at a transition point analogous to being on the verge of a cliff, after which a series of crises striking simultaneously will reorder the planet’s geopolitics, the place of technology, the economic order and a variety of other disciplines from health to energy, according to Israel’s first government national intelligence estimate.
The report was published by the Intelligence Ministry in the vein of the type of reports issued in the United States and other Western countries. A copy was obtained by The Jerusalem Post.
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