A modern Catholic priest from the Philippines has been suspended by his diocese after giving the Christmas Eve sermon on a two wheel Electric Scooter, the shopping craze of the holiday season. Roman Catholic Church officials have reprimanded the culprit Reverend Father for his action, that has gone viral in an online video. Rev. Albert San Jose from Our Lady of Miraculous Medal, Biñan Parish, has been suspended by his local Diocese. The Reverend Father has already apologized for his past deeds.

Two weeks ago, we noted - with some amusement - that Ukraine has defaulted to Russia on a $3 billion obligation. To be sure, the move wasn’t unexpected. 

“I have a feeling that they will not pay us back because they are crooks,” Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev said previously. 

Here, in a nutshell, is what happened. 

Submitted by Steve St.Angelo via SprottMoney.com,

After looking over all the figures, it seems as if something broke in the U.S. Silver Market this year. By that, I mean the normal supply and demand forces no longer make sense. I believe this stemmed from the massive amount of physical silver investment demand beginning in June as financial and geopolitical events pushed the retail silver market into severe shortages.

On our way to documenting Turkey’s arrest of two generals and a colonel who dared to stop a weapons-laden MIT truck in route to Syria, we said that “if there’s a silver lining to last Tuesday’s downing of a Russian Su-24 warplane by two Turkish F-16s it’s that the world is now starting to scrutinize President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”

Temperatures in the north pole could be 35C warmer than usual for this time of year, say meteorologists. The low pressure system that has brought extreme weather to the UK and US, and is the result of the 2015 El-Nino, could make the Arctic’s temperature hotter than Chicago, Vienna or Istanbul on Wednesday. The Guardian reports: The Arctic could reach temperatures about 35C (63F) warmer than average for this time of year, meteorologists have warned.