USA - Several years ago in Cameroon, a country in West Africa, a Western Black Rhinoceros was killed. It was the last of its kind on Earth. Hence, the Western Black Rhinoceros, the largest subspecies of rhinoceros which had lived for millions of years and was the second largest land mammal on Earth, no longer exists. But while you have probably heard of the Western Black Rhinoceros, and may even have known of its extinction, did you know that on the same day that it became extinct, another 200 species of life on Earth also became extinct? This is because the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history is now accelerating at an unprecedented rate with 200 species of plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects and reptiles being driven to extinction on a daily basis. And the odds are high that you have never even heard of any of them.

UNITED NATIONS - North Korea's missile launch has sparked an emergency meeting of the United Nations (UN) Security Council after it launched a ballistic missile “capable of hitting the continental US”, it has been revealed. The secretive state conducted a terrifying missile test yesterday and the official mouthpiece, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), claimed the despotic regime was now a nuclear power.

MIDDLE EAST - Proponents of the Palestinian cause have tried to inflate the position of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in Islam, and thereby paint Israel's sovereignty in this city as an affront to their religion. But, a couple years ago, renowned Egyptian scholar and novelist Youssef Ziedan acknowledged in a series of television interviews that Jerusalem holds no religious significance for Muslims. Today, it is common to hear that Jerusalem is Islam's third holiest city, being the location of the "Al Aqsa Mosque" referred to in the Koran. Ziedan said the whole thing is nonsense: "The Al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem] did not exist back then, and the city was not called Al-Quds. It was called Aelia, and it had no mosques."

UK - BioCarbon Engineering (BCE), a UK-based start-up, has developed a technique that they say could potentially plant one billion trees per day. The method? Drones. Every year, about 15 billion trees are cut down to make way for agriculture, mining, logging, and urban sprawl. Such mass deforestation has accelerated global warming and imperiled the survival of millions of species. Though many nations, organizations, and even individuals have tried, no one has been able to plant enough trees to make up for that loss — but some innovative entrepreneurs are working on a high-tech solution. Current tree-planting programs “are just not fast enough,” said Irina Fedorenko, a co-founder of the company. “But our technology is automated, so we can scale up quite realistically and quite quickly.”

AFRICA - Under the central theme "Investing in youth for a sustainable future", African and European Heads of State and Government will gather together. EU-Africa Summits take place every three years alternatively in Africa and Europe. Merkel heads to EU-Africa summit with eye on migrant issue at home.

EGYPT - Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, a wilderness of deserts and raw mountains about the size of West Virginia, is famed for its Biblical history, Bedouin tribal life, and Red Sea resorts. But, now that the Islamic State’s caliphate in Iraq and Syria has been destroyed, the Peninsula linking Africa and Asia is also gaining notoriety as the Middle East’s hottest frontline against jihadist groups, including ISIS, an Al Qaeda franchise, and smaller cells. Since 2013, terrorism has increasingly disrupted life in Egypt, especially in the Sinai. The Egyptian hinterland has witnessed more than seventeen hundred attacks over the past four years, according to a tally by the Washington-based Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.

USA - Have you ever sat through a very long political speech and realized at the end of it that nothing of any real substance was said the entire time?  This is what professional politicians have been trained to do.  They have been trained to sound good without ever really getting very specific about anything.

USA - Big Food is at it again, fooling us with false advertisements to make us buy food we don’t want to consume. Most of today’s consumers are increasingly health conscious and want to avoid products that contain health-damaging ingredients. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is one of the substances that has made a bad name for itself.

GERMANY - The German Chancellor faces the end of her tenure in power, after 12 years at the helm of Europe's largest economy, according to a key news correspondent. Angela Merkel is "at the end of career" following her failure to form a government, according to Jenny Hill, the BBC's Berlin correspondent.

POLAND - Poland’s parliament has voted to slowly begin the process of abolishing Sunday shopping to allow workers to spend more time with their families. The law has been passed by the sejm — equivalent to the British House of Commons or the US House of Representatives — but must be approved by the Senate and the president, both of which could veto the decision. Although the major change — which reverses decades of movement on turning Sunday from a holy day of rest into an ordinary day of shopping and work — has been criticised as putting jobs at risk, the government hopes it will improve quality of life for ordinary Poles.

USA - The latest issue of the National Interest asks if we are looking at “war in Asia” within the next decade or so. The question asked collectively by the headline articles is whether the multi-sided contest between China, the Koreas, and Japan can be resolved without someone, somewhere, pulling a trigger.

ISRAEL - “President Donald Trump is actively considering when and how to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,” Pence told the gathering of UN ambassadors, diplomats and Jewish leaders, hosted by Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.

USA - On Saturday, writer Bee Shapiro published an article in The New York Times entitled, “His Eye Makeup is Way Better Than Yours.” The Times tweeted it as such: “How teenage boys (and younger) wearing makeup are affecting beauty norms.” The article shows many pictures of young boys making themselves pretty with makeup. Imagine the outcry if they had done this with young girls, trying to make them look “pretty.” I don’t care how this author and The New York Times wants to spin this gender bender baloney. The fact that they found some young boys who desire to wear makeup does NOT make it the “norm.”

UK - The Girl Guides will allow boys who identify as female to shower with girls, it has emerged. For the first time, Girlguiding's official guidance instructs guide leaders to allow members who were born male but now identify as female to share changing rooms, toilets and sleeping quarters with girls when away on excursions. The 107-year-old organisation updated its rules, which apply to members aged from five to 25, to allow transgender girls to "share accommodation with other young members if they wish" and use the same facilities.

USA - Hallucinogenic drugs sought to provide non-Biblical answers to questions like who we are, why are we here and where are we going. Traditionally, Christianity has provided these answers. Technocrat scientists and physicians want to equip hospice caregivers with both psilocybin and LSD to deliver alternate answers to end-of-life patients. Opiates are the drugs of choice in battling pain in the terminally ill, but opiates render such patients dull and unresponsive. Hallucinogens could well offer a better path.