Dear Readers,

2014 is about to end, and if you have been following our website closely, you will be aware that it has been one heck of a year! By paying attention to the truth behind events as they unfold on our planet, you begin to see the world more as it is rather than as you would like it to be. That knowledge can bring you a certain sense of liberation, where you finally understand what is wrong with our world. With that understanding, you can then begin to make the choices that will change your life for the better, despite the increasing chaos all around you. As we're fond of saying, 'knowledge protects'. And that is what we wish you for the incoming year: Knowledge and awareness, and hence protection.

Saying goodbye to the year 2014, we'd like to tell you a little bit about our accomplishments, since you may not be aware of them all. We have reason to be proud. There is always much more we can do, but this year, just as we thought our plates were too full, thanks to our readers' support, and the impetus from many new volunteers around the world, we have been expanding!

The SOTT Talk Radio Show has now become the SOTT Radio Network, with three different shows: "Behind the Headlines" (Sundays), "The Truth Perspective" (Saturdays), and "Atando cabos" (Saturdays, in Spanish). Listeners from all over the world listen in and participate. If you haven't tuned in yet, you're missing out! More shows are planned for 2015, including a show on health, psychology and well-being, to be launched in early January.

Some articles we picked up this year 'went viral' in 2014 (such as this one, this one and this one), and we have also been producing much more original content. In addition to our SOTT Focus articles, SOTT Exclusive articles analyze and summarize breaking news events and global trends. Meanwhile, our Earth Changes Summary monthly videos are now being translated into multiple languages, including French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Croatian, Russian, and Vietnamese. Recognizing how important these "signs of the times" are, people have been sharing them far and wide on social media.

This year we also launched SOTT WorldView, a visual, interactive map of world events that lets you read the news in a whole new way by seeing the links between different types of events for any chosen time period. Check it out, and search according to the parameters that interest you most. We have also been working hard to release, early in 2015, SOTT.net in 5 new languages: Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Greek and Croatian. More and more people are going to be able to read our news, without being hindered by language barriers!

Sunday's funeral for New York City Police Officer Wenjian Liu marked the continuation of a political counterattack aimed at rendering illegitimate and even outright criminal the growing resistance to police violence.

Similar to last week's ceremony for Rafael Ramos, who was gunned down alongside Liu on December 20, what occurred over the weekend was a political operation coordinated by high-ranking officials from all levels of government. Liu was eulogized not only by family members, but also by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, and FBI Director James Comey. New York Senator Chuck Schumer, Governor Andrew Cuomo and dozens more politicians made appearances either at the funeral Sunday or the wake Saturday.

Thousands of cops from around the country traveled to Brooklyn to attend the proceedings. Together with NYPD officers they filled the cordoned-off streets for blocks outside the funeral home. Giant projection screens broadcast the proceedings to the cops assembled outside. Cable news channels carried the event live.

The aftermath of Christmas is a good time to think about where consumer-capitalism is getting us. The sad fact is that, with these values, our society can never be ecologically sustainable or just. Accelerating global problems cannot be solved in a society obsessed with production and consumption, affluent living standards, market forces, the profit motive and economic growth. The only way out is via a huge and radical transition to The Simpler Way.

An exaggeration? Only if you fail to grasp the magnitude of the overshoot. Consider, for instance, the well-known "footprint" numbers. It takes eight hectares of productive land to provide water, energy, living space and food for one person in Australia.

If the 9 billion people of the future were to live as Australians do now, we would need about 72 billion hectares of productive land - about nine times the total on Earth. Even now, footprint analyses indicate that the world is consuming resources 1.5 times faster than we can sustain.

It gets worse. Our affluence, comfort and security could not be possible if we few who live in rich countries were not hogging most of resources. The per capita consumption of the top 10 countries for iron ore use is more than 80 times that of all the rest. If the global economy were not so grossly unjust we would have to get by with a tiny fraction of what we use now.

The explosion of a fireworks factory near the Colombian capital was captured on video and caused at least two injuries.

Firefighters in Granada, near Bogota, said two people were injured in the Sunday morning blast, including a driver who was passing by at the time of the explosion.

The Crue emergency center of Cundinamarca province said the driver suffered shrapnel wounds on his right arm and was released following treatment.

Carlos Espinoza, the man filming the explosion, was thrown by the force of the blast, the video shows.

Authorities said the factory blast and ensuing fire destroyed five warehouses that were being used to store gunpowder.

Provincial Gov. Alvaro Cruz said the cause of the explosion is under investigation.

Edmonton police have identified the victims in this week's mass murder, saying Phu Lam's shooting rampage claimed the life of his wife, several of her family members - including her eight-year-old son and three-year old niece - and a family friend.

Lam, who took his own life after the killings, appears to have spared the lives of a one-year-old and an eight-month-old baby who may have been in the north Edmonton home at the time of the deadly attack.

Lam's wife, Thuy Tien Truong, 35, was slain along with her son, her sister, her parents, her niece and a friend at a north Edmonton home between 3:45 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Sunday, police said Friday.

I interviewed Viktor Yanukovych for 4 hours in Moscow for a new English language documentary produced by Ukrainians. He was the legitimate President of Ukraine until he suddenly wasn't on February 22 last year. Details to follow in the documentary, but it seems clear that the so-called 'shooters' who killed 14 police men, wounded some 85, and killed 45 protesting civilians, were outside third-party agitators. Many witnesses, including Yanukovych and police officials, believe these foreign elements were introduced by pro-Western factions - with CIA fingerprints on it.

Remember the Chavez 'regime change'/coup of 2002 when he was temporarily ousted after pro and anti-Chavez demonstrators were fired upon by mysterious shooters in office buildings. It also resembled a similar technique early this year in Venezuela when Maduro's legally elected Government was almost toppled by violence aimed at anti-Maduro protestors. Create enough chaos, as the CIA did in Iran '53, Chile '73, and countless other coups, and the legitimate Government can be toppled. It's America's soft power technique, called 'Regime Change 101.'

Almost an entire plane-load of passengers refused to re-board an AirAsia jet after one of the engines struck a problem as it started to taxi at Surabaya airport, it was reported today.

It was the same airline that lost an Airbus last weekend as it flew from Surabaya to Singapore with the presumed loss of all 162 passengers and crew.

As search teams reporting seeing a fifth large object at the bottom of the Java Sea which might be parts of the missing plane, the new drama involving an engine was the kind of news the airline did not want.

Frank Van Den Bleeken, a serial murderer and rapist, who has spent 30 years in prison, is set to be euthanized in Belgium on January 11. He has asked to die due to his "unbearable" psychological suffering, local media reports.

Fifty-year-old Frank Van Den Bleeken has been convicted of repeated rape and murder, and the "euthanasia will indeed be implemented" in the northwestern town of Bruges, a justice ministry spokeswoman told local De Morgen newspaper.

"Now the time has come," she said.

Van Den Bleeken's euthanasia request was approved in September, but no date for the procedure was set then.

He has reportedly refused to be considered for early parole, viewing himself as a threat to society. However, he found the conditions behind bars inhumane, AFP reported, citing Belgian media.

A freak incident led to distressing scenes as a family home was invaded by a high speed pyrotechnic

This was the terrifying moment a stray rocket shot directly into a family's apartment.

The occupants were fortunate to escape serious injury or worse as the footage shows a firework heading straight towards them at their home in Brazil.

With the accuracy of a heat seeking missile, the powerful pyrotechnic loops scarily away from its intended trajectory and towards the apartment block.

Five men have been arrested for kidnapping a young Japanese woman, who managed to escape after some three weeks of repeated gang-rape at gunpoint near a Buddhist holy site in Bodh Gaya, a popular Indian tourist spot.

A gang of men, some of whom presented themselves as tour guides, reportedly raped a Buddhist student, who came from Japan, after kidnapping and taking her to Paro village in the East Indian state of Bihar.