For the past 35 years, Carmelo Lombardo has never missed a Christmas working in the same stand at the Sydney Fish Market.

But this year, the last Christmas at the cornflower blue concrete structure before the new fish market opens next year, the 36-hour trading blitz feels bittersweet.

Last prawns for Christmas shoppers at the old Sydney Fish Market

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has unveiled a 20-point draft peace framework which he claims Kiev has been discussing with the US, presenting the document as a proposed basis for ending the conflict with Russia.

Zelensky disclosed the details during a briefing with journalists on Wednesday, claiming the draft largely reflects a joint Ukrainian-American position, while several key issues remain unresolved.

Among the most contentious provisions is the proposal regarding the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), which is currently fully controlled by Russian forces. Kiev wants the plant to be jointly operated by Ukraine and the US on a 50-50 basis instead of Washington’s proposed trilateral management involving Russia.

Ursula von der Leyen’s perma-smile is morphing into a rictus grin.

2025 could have been the year the six-year Commission president made her long-held ambition to make the EU a geopolitical powerhouse a reality.

Instead, as this week’s failure to tap Russian assets for Ukraine showed, the EU will enter the new year cowed by big powers, and more divided than ever by its own internal far-right forces, who have been needlessly emboldened.

It could have been different.

Von der Leyen took her pliant commissioners to India in February, declaring an ambition to strike a trade deal by the year’s end. She planned to close the historic Mercosur agreement in Brazil on Saturday. In the end, both ended up postponed.

WE ARE GOING TO EXPLORE THE VANISHING/RESURGENT PUSH FOR WOKEISM... FROM THE ONSET WE SHOULD STATE THAT THE LGBTi MOVEMENT DESERVES RESPECT AND ACCEPTANCE — AS WE HAVE DONE MANY TIMES ON THIS HONEST SITE... BUT THE MOVEMENT — A SMALL LOUD MINORITY — DOES NOT DESERVE TO RULE EVERYONE AS IT HAS TRIED TO DO.

PROTECT TRANS KIDS? HERE THE SLOPE OF INFLUENCE IS FAST INCLINING TOWARDS SOCIAL CONFUSED DEGRADATION. AS KIDS ARE BLANK CANVAS READY TO LEARN ANYTHING — GENDERISATION OF CHILDREN HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MORALS OR EVEN NATURAL TRENDS, BUT PEER PRESSURE FROM THE LGBTi COMMUNITY THAT WANTS TO GROW ITS NUMBERS.

The air smells [stinks] of after Christmas

Decaying prawn shells and mouldy turkey breast

Ham rotting under the sun and a shower of rain

Stale bread, fruit-fly salad quietly abuzz from Jane

Extended families have gone back home to the west

Street-sleepers braseros have extinguished

This long joyous exuberant feast has just finished 

Empty bottles of intoxication emptied in the garbo truck

Rubbish piles more than thrice as much the usual muck

Soiled crackers bonbons wrappers and a little useless yuck

The awful jokes that made us smile 

As we placed the crown jagged style

Thin paper on our light-headed head

Now make us feel sick and morose

Life hangs only by a thinning thread

Fading petal of a whitish failing rose

Falling in the stinking mud of after Christmas

The governments and media elites of the West pride themselves on providing and promoting freedom of thought, opinion, and debate.

Together with a selective feminism that easily sacrifices the women of, say, Libya, Iraq, and Palestine, and a very odd understanding of “democracy” that includes the use of miscounts and lawfare to shape elections, their claim to a superior public sphere features among those “values” routinely invoked to justify Western regime change aggression.

Who are the deluded ‘experts’ trying to send Germans to war with Russia?
The price of stifling dissent is not only dishonesty, it’s self-harming incompetence

BY Tarik Cyril Amar

Washington, DC [US], December 23 (ANI): President Donald Trump said that it would be a "smart" move for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to relinquish power, as the United States continues to ramp up military and economic pressure on the South American nation.

Responding to questions about whether his administration's current strategy is designed to force Maduro from office, Trump remained noncommittal about the specific endgame but was clear about his advice to the Venezuelan leader.

"Well, I think it probably would," Trump said when asked if the goal was to force Maduro out.

"Can't tell. That's up to him what he wants to do. I think it would be smart for him to do that. Again, we're going to find out."

How to make ‘Iran like Gaza’ and describing the genocide in Palestine as a weapons testing laboratory. Michael West and Stephanie Tran with the inside story of a weapons expo.

Inside a conference hall at Tel Aviv University, executives, generals and venture capitalists took turns boasting about “combat-proven” Israeli weapons and surveillance systems.

“Make Iran like Gaza”: Chilling insider view from Israel weapons expo

by Stephanie Tran and Michael West

Compare Robodebt victims’ compo to the quantum of Scott Morrison’s publicly funded legal fees. It’s shameful, reports Rex Patrick.

He knew!

Scott Morrison was the minister who took Robodebt to Cabinet for approval.

And the biggest compo payout for Robodebt victims is … Scott Morrison!

by Rex Patrick

“Mr Morrison knew …”, wrote the Robodebt Royal Commissioner. He knew that ‘income averaging’ was the primary basis for Robodebt and “ [Department of Social Security] had advised [Department of Human Services] that legislative change was required to implement the DHS proposal in that way”.

When I saw this NY Times headline late Sunday evening — i.e., The Putin Confidant Who Pushed Back Against the War — it caught my attention because this is something I have neither seen nor heard in my seven trips to Russia since December 2023. Then I read the story and the male-bovine-excrement alarm started sounding (or should I say, stinking).

NY Times Weirdly Publishing a Bizarre Propaganda Piece About Putin

by Larry C. Johnson

Here are the salient portions of this odoriferous article:

As the war in Ukraine drags far into its third year, the ranks of the Russian army are increasingly filled with older fighters, according to a new report from Verstka [VOXEUROP: A ("RUSSIAN") DISINFORMATION CHANNEL IN EUROPE DESIGNED TO UNDERMINE PUTIN AND RUSSIA, THUS THE INFORMATION IN THIS FIRST ARTICLE OF THIS POST IS FALSE. MOST MEDIA ARE ACTUALLY MENTIONING THE OPPOSITE: THE UKRAINIANS ARE RECRUITING MEN OVER 65...].

French President Emmanuel Macron “betrayed” Friedrich Merz by failing to back the German chancellor’s push to steal Russian assets frozen in the EU to fund Ukraine, the Financial Times has claimed.

Earlier this week, EU leaders failed to agree on the European Commission’s controversial proposal to use Russia's immobilized central bank funds to finance Kiev’s military and economy.

IS DONALD TRUMP DOING HIS BIT AND TRYING TO PREVENT GLOBAL WARMING BY PREVENTING RUSSIA AND VENEZUELA TO SELL THEIR OIL? ONE WOULD HAVE TO BE SARCASTIC TO SUGGEST THIS CAPER, AS DONALD WANTS HE AND HIS MATES (SAUDIS, ETC) TO HAVE EXCLUSIVE PETRODOLLAR RIGHTS ON THIS WARMING PLANET — A WARMING DUE TO THE HUMAN USAGE OF FOSSIL FUELS...................

The Arctic endured a year of record heat and shrunken sea ice as the world’s northern latitudes continue a rapid shift to becoming rainier and less ice-bound due to the climate crisis, scientists have reported.