- The Trump regime has ordered its diplomats to lobby against efforts by other countries to regulate American tech companies' handling of people's personal information. Secretary of State Marco Rubio singled out the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as an example of the "unnecessarily burdensome" legislation that needs to be stopped. Rubio has previously condemned Europe's Digital Services Act for its requirement that social media firms remove illegal content such as child pornography and extremist materials. The US is also developing an online portal that's intended to allow people to get around such restrictions.
- Pakistan has launched airstrikes against Afghanistan after the latter country launched an offensive against Pakistani bases near the border. A representative of Pakistan's government says that 133 Afghan troops had been killed and over 200 wounded. The regime in Afghanistan denies any provocation, but also claims to have inflicted heavy losses, something Pakistan denies. Pakistan has launched strikes in the country previously, but this time government facilities have been hit. Their defense minister now describes the country as being in a state of "open war" with their neighbour. I guess the good part is that while they're fighting with Afghanistan they're less likely to enter hostilities with nuclear-armed India.
- Iceland's government, which had previously promised a referendum on entering talks to join the European Union by 2027, now hopes to move up the date to as soon as this August. Given that the country has essentially no military and the country to which it has outsourced most of its defense keeps threatening to invade neighbouring Greenland, this is quite understandable.
- The Green Party's Hannah Spencer has been elected to the UK parliament in a byelection in the constituency of Gorton and Denton, in Greater Manchester. Spencer, a plumber by profession, had previously led her party in the council of the Manchester suburb of Trafford.
- A new law in Kansas declares trans people's driver's licenses to be invalid if the licence does not correspond with their sex at birth. The state's governor, Laura Kelly, had vetoed the bill but her veto was overridden by the legislature.
- Vancouver's rightwing mayor, Ken Sim, has accused an opposition councillor, without evidence, of distributing illegal drugs. Sim claimed that Coun. Sean Orr of the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) was "handing out illegal drugs on Christmas Day to people on the streets". COPE calls Sim's claim "a clear violation of the city's code of conduct" and suggests that it may constitute defamation.
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