VATICAN - Conservative criticism of Pope Francis intensified Saturday after his intervention in the Knights of Malta order, with posters appearing around Rome citing his actions against conservative Catholics and asking: "Where's your mercy?" The posters appeared on the same day that Francis cemented his authority over the Knights by naming a top Vatican archbishop, Angelo Becciu, to be his special delegate to the ancient aristocratic order.

GERMANY - As Reformation Year begins, the leadership of Germany's Protestant Church makes a visit to the Vatican. Expectations for the meeting with Pope Francis are high. A high-ranking Protestant delegation from Germany - the home of the Reformation - will visit the Vatican on Monday. After frequent ecumenical disillusionment over the past 20 years, many are astonished to see the meeting take place at all. The Protestants' visit is particularly significant as 2017 marks the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation.

EUROPE - European Union leaders have promised to take over the role of being the world’s Superpower after America collapses following Donald Trump’s presidency. According to Maltese prime minister Joseph Muscat, Trump’s isolationist policies will give Europe the “opportunity for leadership it has always craved” on the world’s stage.

GERMANY - Germany’s president has said his country has overcome its postwar reluctance to participate in world affairs and is prepared to assume a more active role politically and militarily in the wake of the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump. Joachim Gauck said many Germans were increasingly accepting of their country’s responsibility to assert itself internationally, despite their awareness of the suspicions some still hold regarding any form of German dominance. “We can be proud that this Germany is different from the other Germanies of history, that we live in lasting peace alongside our neighbours, and are a reliable partner within the EU and Nato; that our country is robustly at peace with itself and enjoys a welfare state which stops people falling into destitution,” he said.

USA - The US Navy’s F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet strike fighters are the tip of the spear, embodying most of the fierce striking power of the aircraft carrier strike group. But nearly two-thirds of the fleet’s strike fighters can’t fly — grounded because they’re either undergoing maintenance or simply waiting for parts or their turn in line on the aviation depot backlog.

USA - President Trump plans to order a rollback Friday of regulations governing the financial services industry and Wall Street under the Dodd-Frank law and beyond, a White House source confirmed.

USA - It’s just over a week after Donald Trump’s inauguration, and his administration has already indicated that it is preparing for global economic war. The currency war the White House has in mind is clearly aimed not just against China — which has long been suspected of “cheating” in order to win the globalization game — but also Germany: On Tuesday, Peter Navarro, the head of the new National Trade Council, claimed that Germany is using its currency to “exploit” both its neighbors and the United States. The White House evidently thinks of the European Union, and the monetary union that established the euro currency, as essentially a mechanism to protect German interests and extend German power — as an instrument of Germany, as Trump himself put it.

GERMANY - We were told Germany would never be allowed to rearm. They now have got 300,000-400,000 men and arms, and they are now moving tanks into Lithuania. Why? To confront Russia. But Russia isn’t the threat, Graham Moore, political commentator, told RT. “They have imported a ready-made foreign legion into their country of 1.2 million fighting-age men. And yet our politicians say ‘there is no problem with that.’ You’ve only got to go back to Churchill and watch what Churchill said. For years he was put on the back benches; he was ridiculed. And for years he said there is a problem here, they are arming. Russia is not the threat; it is the European Union and the control that Germany has.” President of the European Council Donald Tusk on Wednesday called US President Donald Trump one of the major external threats to the EU.

EUROPE - US President Donald Trump loomed over a Mediterranean gathering of European leaders, who used the meeting Friday to hit back at the new administration that has upended trans-Atlantic relations by dismissing the European Union’s validity. “It is unacceptable that there be, through a certain number of statements by the president of the United States, a pressure on what Europe must be or what it must not be,” French President Francois Hollande told reporters Friday at the EU summit in Valletta, Malta. As the EU grapples with the region’s biggest migration crisis since World War II, Britain’s impending exit and how to hold the group together in an increasingly uncertain world, several leaders showed themselves annoyed by the new US president’s biting remarks about the viability of the EU project, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.

GERMANY - SPD candidate Martin Schulz would receive 16 percent more votes than current CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel, a survey showed. The SPD has benefited since Schulz was nominated as the party's candidate for the Chancellery. German voters would elect the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate Martin Schulz as chancellor if the country were to hold direct elections today, an opinion poll conducted for the German broadcaster ARD revealed on Thursday. Schulz would receive 50 percent of votes cast while Angela Merkel, the current chancellor and head of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), would receive 34 percent of the vote.

USA - Donald Trump's defence secretary Jim 'Mad Dog' Mattis has warned North Korea of an "effective and overwhelming" response if Pyongyang used nuclear weapons. In December, Russian President Vladamir Putin told a meeting of defence chiefs that strengthening nuclear capability should be a key objective for 2017. The then US President-elect then took to Twitter to respond, vowing to do the same. Between them, the world's nuclear-armed states have around 15,500 warheads - the majority of which belong to the US and Russia. There are five nuclear-weapon states in the world: China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States. There are also four other countries that have nuclear weapons: Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea. These countries didn't sign the Treaty, and together possess an estimated 338 nuclear weapons. 

USA - Washington will unleash an “effective and overwhelming” response if North Korea chooses to use nuclear weapons, US defence secretary James ‘mad dog’ Mattis has warned. Speaking during a two-day trip to South Korea, General Mattis reassured Seoul that the US intends to maintain support amid increasing fears of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. He said: "Any attack on the United States, or our allies, will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons would be met with a response that would be effective and overwhelming." He described his trip to South Korea and Japan as “a priority for President Trump’s administration” and he looks to maintain good relations with their main allies in Asia.

USA - President Trump says he wants the US to have better relations with Russia and to halt military operations against Muslim countries. But he is being undermined by the Pentagon. The commander of US forces in Europe, General Ben Hodges, has lined up tanks on Poland’s border with Russia and fired salvos that the General says are a message to Russia, not a training exercise. How is Trump going to normalize relations with Russia when the commander of US forces in Europe is threatening Russia with words and deeds?

USA - Finally, the Fed is in Trump's sights. In what may be a harbinger of major headaches to come for the Fed, a recent letter (January 31) penned by Republican representative Patrick McHenry, Vice Chairman of the Financial Services Committee, has lashed out at Janet Yellen, telling the Fed chair in no uncertain terms that "despite the clear message delivered by President Donald Trump in prioritizing America's interest in international negotiations, it appears that the Federal Reserve continues negotiating international regulatory standards for financial institutions among global bureaucrats in foreign lands without transparency, accountability, or the authority to do so." His assessment of this ongoing activity by the Fed: "This is unacceptable." The implication: the current Fed officials do not prioritze America's best interests, and are therefore expendable.

USA - The US President Donald Trump has warned Tehran that a military option is ‘not off the table’ as a response to the latest alleged missile test by Iran. When asked whether the US would consider using force to respond to Tehran, Trump told reporters on Thursday that "nothing is off the table."