The digital record would be regularly updated based on databases from airlines, customs agencies, banks and other sources, and could be managed by an independent international authority.” The quotation above comes from CNN, an American news network that has done such an exemplary job in recent years in serving as a mouthpiece for the US Government.

The argument for global passports is a familiar one: “You are in danger of being killed by terrorists. We will save you by removing yet another of your freedoms.”

Or, as Hermann Goering said, “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

This is an issue to be watched closely. Historically, whenever governments have put the squeeze on their citizens’ freedoms, citizens have reacted by trying to wriggle out. The squeeze in many countries is presently at its zenith and many, many people are voting with their feet. There will always be takers in the world when this occurs and, in the Caribbean, opportunities for increased freedom are very much on the increase.

Reflecting on Donald Trump’s recent election success, the scientist claims “the deep structural forces that brought us the current political crisis have not gone away.” He warns the 2020s could bring society to an “instability peak” as issues over the rich-poor divide, political infighting and government dysfunction come to a head. 

According to Professor Turchin’s research: "We should expect many years of political turmoil, peaking in the 2020s. But this is a science-based forecast, not a ‘prophecy’. It's based on solid social science.”  The professor at the University of Connecticut in the ecology and evolutionary biology department is a world-leading expert on cliodynamics. 

The research uses maths and science to predict historical events such as the rise and fall of empires and growth and death of religions. Professor Turchin said as living standards fall and political parties in the US threaten to break apart, his model found “social instability and political violence would peak in the 2020s”. 

Gabriel, whose Social Democrats (SPD) are junior partner to Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives in her ruling grand coalition, said strenuous efforts by countries like France and Italy to reduce their fiscal deficits came with political risks.

The SPD is expected to choose Gabriel, their long-standing chairman who is also economy minister, to run against Merkel for chancellor in September's federal election, senior party sources said on Thursday. Asked if he really believed he could win more votes by transferring more German money to other EU countries, Gabriel replied: "I know that this discussion is extremely unpopular."

"But I also know about the state of the EU. It is no longer unthinkable that it breaks apart," he said in the interview, published on Saturday. "Should that happen, our children and grandchildren would curse us," he added. "Because Germany is the biggest beneficiary of the European community - economically and politically."

It is not true that humanity cannot learn from history. It can and, in the case of the lessons of the dark period between 1914 and 1945, the west did. But it seems to have forgotten those lessons. We are living, once again, in an era of strident nationalism and xenophobia. The hopes of a brave new world of progress, harmony and democracy, raised by the market opening of the 1980s and the collapse of Soviet communism between 1989 and 1991, have turned into ashes.

What lies ahead for the US, creator and guarantor of the postwar liberal order, soon to be governed by a president who repudiates permanent alliances, embraces protectionism and admires despots? What lies ahead for a battered EU, contemplating the rise of “illiberal democracy” in the east, Brexit and the possibility of Marine Le Pen’s election to the French presidency?

What lies ahead now that Vladimir Putin’s irredentist Russia exerts increasing influence on the world and China has announced that Xi Jinping is not first among equals but a “core leader”? We are, in short, at the end of both an economic period — that of western-led globalisation — and a geopolitical one — the post-cold war “unipolar moment” of a US-led global order.

The question is whether what follows will be an unravelling of the post-second world war era into deglobalisation and conflict, as happened in the first half of the 20th century, or a new period in which non-western powers, especially China and India, play a bigger role in sustaining a co-operative global order.

Critics say the move will create a "snowflake" generation of students unable to cope with the world. The University of Glasgow, part of the elite Russell Group, has introduced the warnings to its theology students studying Creation to Apocalypse: Introduction to the Bible (Level 1). In one lecture about Jesus, it warned students it "contains graphic scenes of the crucifixion" adding that it would be flagged up to students beforehand.

The same centre has issued warnings to its veterinary students who work with dead animals and those studying Contemporary Society who will be discussing illness and violence. It has defended the move saying it is to protect pupils' mental health. A spokesman for Glasgow University said: “We have an absolute duty of care to all of our students and where it is felt course material may cause potential upset or concern warnings may be given.” 

Forensic science students at Strathclyde University have been given a "verbal warning… at the beginning of some lectures where sensitive images, involving blood patterns, crime scenes and bodies are in the presentation". At Stirling University archaeology students were given advanced warning that they would be shown an image of a well-preserved archaeological body in case they found it "a bit gruesome".

Scottish Tory education spokesperson Liz Smith said it was just "ridiculous". "Universities are meant to be a place of learning where concepts are challenged and tricky subjects debated," she said. "That will become increasingly difficult if they go too far out of their way to ensure everything survives the politically correct test. Some of the examples set out here are patently ridiculous."

“Graphic footage captured on Facebook Live shows a mentally handicapped white man being tortured in Chicago by African-American assailants as they laugh and express their disgust for white people and President-elect Donald Trump,” reports The Daily Caller: “The video, taken by a woman identified on Facebook as ‘Brittany Herring,’ shows a white man tied up with tape across his mouth. The victim is shown being repeatedly hit, sliced at with a knife, berated and his clothes ripped off.”

If you’ve ever wondered whether violent black hoodlums are targeting white people for extreme violence, hatred and felony assault, this sickening, racially motivated violence — broadcast live by Facebook — just confirmed it once and for all. In fact, black-on-white crime is now far more prevalent, violent and hate-oriented than white-on-black crime across America, as the following statistics reveal.

The statistics on who’s really committing violent crime prove this beyond any debate. “Today blacks are about 13 percent of the population and continue to be responsible for an inordinate amount of crime. Between 1976 and 2005 blacks committed more than half of all murders in the United States,” reports The Washington Times.

“The black arrest rate for most offenses — including robbery, aggravated assault and property crimes — is still typically two to three times their representation in the population. Blacks as a group are also overrepresented among persons arrested for so-called white-collar crimes such as counterfeiting, fraud and embezzlement. And blaming this decades-long, well-documented trend on racist cops, prosecutors, judges, sentencing guidelines and drug laws doesn’t cut it as a plausible explanation.”

Not surprisingly, this “lynching” of a white special needs boy is being almost completely censored by the entire left-wing media that incited it. The dishonest “fakestream” media only reports news that fits their false narratives. Thus, if four white teens had bound, beaten and kidnapped a young black boy, it would be headline news everywhere, alongside nationwide riots in every major city.

Since 1990, the “nones” have exploded rapidly as a sociological phenomenon — from 10 percent of US adults, to 15 percent, to 20 percent. Now they’ve climbed to 25 percent, according to a 2016 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute. That makes them the nation’s largest faith category, outstripping Catholics (21 percent) and white evangelicals (16 percent). They seem on a trajectory to become an outright majority.   America is following the secular path of Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and other modern places.  The Secular Age is snowballing.

Perhaps honesty is a factor in the disappearance of religion. Maybe young people discern that it’s dishonest to claim to know supernatural things that are unknowable.

When I was a cub reporter, my city editor was an HL Mencken clone who laughed at Bible-thumping hillbilly preachers. One day, as a young truth-seeker, I asked him: You’re correct that their explanations are fairy tales — but what answer can an honest person give about the deep questions: Why are we here? Why is the universe here? Why do we die? Is there any purpose to life? He eyed me and replied: “You can say:  I don’t know.”  That rang a bell in my head that still echoes. It’s honest to admit that you cannot explain the unexplainable.

The church explanation — that Planet Earth is a testing place to screen humans for a future heaven or hell — is a silly conjecture with no evidence of any sort, except ancient scriptures.  No wonder that today’s Americans, raised in a scientific-minded era, cannot swallow it. Occam’s Razor says the simplest explanation is most accurate. Why is religion dying? Because thinking people finally see that it’s untrue, false, dishonest.