The shutdown is expected to cause severe disruption. But the decision has been forced by the increasingly decrepit and dangerous condition of the airport's sole runway, which has ruptured in several places. "The runway was designed for 20 years, but it has been in use for 34," says Henrietta Yakubu, general manager of corporate affairs at the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). "It has decayed so much that there is a need to shut down the airport for complete rehabilitation."

During the closure, flights will be re-routed to the much smaller Kaduna airport around 200 kilometers north. Domestic carriers have agreed to use Kaduna, but many international carriers will not. British Airways, Turkish Airlines, and Lufthansa are among the airlines to decline the alternative airport, citing security and infrastructure concerns. Violent clashes between herdsmen and farmers have flared in Kaduna state.

If you take 152 trillion dollars and divide it by the seven billion people living on the planet, you get $21,714, which would be the share of that debt for every man, woman and child in the world if it was divided up equally. So if you have a family of four, your family’s share of the global debt load would be $86,856.

Very few families could write a check for that amount today, and we also must remember that we live in some of the wealthiest areas on the globe.  Considering the fact that more than 3 billion people around the world live on two dollars a day or less, the truth is that about half the planet would not be capable of contributing toward the repayment of our 152 trillion dollar debt at all.  So they should probably be excluded from these calculations entirely, and that would mean that your family’s share of the debt would ultimately be far, far higher.

Of course global debt repayment will never actually be apportioned by family.  The reason why I am sharing this example is to show you that it is literally impossible for all of this debt to ever be repaid. We are living during the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, and our financial engineers have got to keep figuring out ways to keep it growing much faster than global GDP because if it ever stops growing it will burst and destroy the entire global financial system.

Bill Gross, one of the most highly respected financial minds on the entire planet, recently observed that “our highly levered financial system is like a truckload of nitro glycerin on a bumpy road”. When you go into debt there are consequences. And when the greatest debt bubble in human history finally bursts, the consequences will be exceedingly severe. The best that our leaders can do for now is to keep the bubble alive for as long as possible, because what comes after the bubble is gone will be absolutely unthinkable.

Of course other pagan and occult groups have been exploding in popularity as well, one of the primary reasons for this is because many young adults are seeking ways to rebel against their conservative Christian upbringings. The shocking truth is that the values of most Millennials much more easily fit into pagan spirituality than they do into most evangelical Christian churches.

If you want to sleep around with as many people as possible, that is okay in witchcraft.

If you want to take drugs and get high every day, that is okay in witchcraft.

If you want to be a radical pro-abortion feminist, that is okay in witchcraft.

If you want to be a gay transsexual exhibitionist, that is okay in witchcraft.

Essentially, one of the great draws of witchcraft is that nobody holds you accountable for anything and you can do so many of the things that the Bible commands you not to do.

On Tuesday, she will meet with US President Donald Trump in Washington, DC. It will be the first in-person meeting between the two since the US election in November. And it could be the most difficult meeting Merkel has ever faced as chancellor.

The two couldn't be more different. On the one side is an unsophisticated yet self-absorbed political neophyte who has made it clear that there is nothing he won't sacrifice to achieve what he sees as America's interests. On the other is one of the most experienced leaders in the world, one who many see as being the last defender of democracy and Western values - a view that Merkel herself considers to be a dangerous misjudgment given the limits of German power. Indeed, she calls it "absurd."

The task at hand could hardly be more important. Trump is not only the most powerful man in the world. He has also shown that he cares nothing about the rules of Western political games. His plans could rupture the European Union and weaken Germany economically.

Even though there is cautious optimism in the Chancellery about foreign policy, Merkel and her staff are preparing for the worst when it comes to trade. Even as vague as they may still be, Trump's plans could become the greatest threat to the global economy since the financial crisis, with Germany standing directly in the firing line.

Almost 50 percent of all jobs in Germany are dependent on exports. The Americans alone last year purchased 107 billion euros worth of German goods, whereas only 57 billion worth of US goods got imported to Germany. The country would suffer severely if the US started a trade war with Europe or China.

In order to assuage Trump, Merkel is deploying a dual strategy. In addition to her charm offensive, she also wants to send the message that, if push comes to shove, she has a nastier side as well. On the one hand, Merkel wants to emphasize in the meeting the significant degree to which the Americans also benefit from good trans-Atlantic relations

But what happens in the likely event that Trump sticks to his "America First" plans? If that happens, then Merkel is expected to push for a united EU front to blockade Washington. At a summit in Brussels on Thursday, Merkel noted, "We renewed our support for free trade."

A few days earlier, European trade ministers met for a working lunch in Brussels and agreed to a joint position. They agreed that the EU should not fuel the conflict, but it should prepare for the possibility of a trade war with the United States. The goal, in such a case, would be that of isolating the US.

Since the second world war German leaders have, understandably, shrunk from the idea that their country can exercise leadership on the global stage. The view in Bonn and then Berlin was that German power should be exercised through “Europe”. But the EU is no longer enough. Foreign policy challenges are crowding in: a US president who questions the Nato alliance, war in Ukraine, refugees from a collapsing Middle East, Brexit, and Turkey’s nationalist turn. The EU is too weak and Germany is too large for “Europe” to be a complete response to all these challenges.

The challenges Ms Merkel faces — from Moscow to the Middle East and from Washington to London — are daunting. But Germany has two big things going for it: a strong economy and international respect — global opinion polls regularly show that modern Germany is one of the most popular countries in the world.

It is bad enough that the government spies on its own people. It is equally bad that the CIA, through its incompetence, has opened the cyberdoor to anyone with the technological skills and connections to spy on anyone else.

The constant erosion of privacy at the hands of the government and corporations has annihilated the concept of a “right to privacy,” which is embedded in the rationale of the First, Third, Fourth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution.

It is becoming increasingly clear that we are sliding down the slippery slope toward totalitarianism, where private lives do not exist.

The group, made up of civil engineers who would benefit greatly from infrastructure investment, estimates that $3.9 trillion will be lost in US GDP by 2025 due to the country’s aging electric grids, airports, and water systems.

President Trump has pledged to invest $1 trillion in infrastructure, but the latest ASCE report estimates that it would take $4.59 trillion by 2025 to get the country up to what it considers a “B” grade, considered “adequate for now.” Norma Jean Mattei, ASCE president, says current projected local, state, and federal spending only calls for $2.5 billion, leaving a $2 billion gap.

"The decline has been slow and insidious," Mattei says, referring to the nation's aging public works. "We built things back in the '30s, '40s and into the '50s. But we have taken a whole generation off from investing in infrastructure."

Pamela Williams writes: I am total shock with what Vice President Pence told Fox News About WIKILEAKS Vault 7 CIA news. But I am in more shock that FBI Director James Comey, the man President Trump kept on as FBI Director, is outright telling the DOJ to ignore President Trump’s accusations of being wiretapped. Comey is making a firm point of telling everyone to ignore Trump’s wiretapping claims… it did not happen. I hate to see two more government entities pop up and cause anymore trouble for President Trump and the American people.

However, I will admit here I did not trust VP Pence to begin with. I cannot explain it exactly, but I can say he is too pro-establishment. We know that President Trump praised WIKILEAKS throughout the Election. If not for Julian Assange, we would not know about the DNC turning on one of its own, Bernie Sanders. We would not know about the crimes of Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, and others.

WIKILEAKS has been and still is a friend of the American people. They are now volunteering to help businesses devise methods of protecting their data from the CIA and from being hacked period. I think that qualifies a pardon by President Trump for Julian Assange. That is what I am praying for.

What Assange has done serves Americans and people the world over. He exposed the criminals within our government, that should not be a crime. It’s contradictory to oppose the CIA wiretapping of the President and at the same time condemn the person who alerted us to countless instances of that identical thing happening to all of us. Bottom line is there is a difference between a criminal and a whistleblower. Assange is a whistleblower.

Jordan, which was created out of thin air by Winston Churchill in 1921 in order to accommodate British imperial interests, has always led a precarious existence. Today’s dangers are manifold. ISIS lurks in Syria and Iraq, just beyond Jordan’s border, and is attractive to a small but real minority of Jordanians. Jordan’s once-robust trade with Syria and Iraq has nearly collapsed — and with it, Jordan’s lucrative transit role.

In a region that is bountiful in oil and gas, Jordan is one of the very few countries to have almost no petroleum resources. City-dwellers receive water just one day a week, and country-dwellers often even less. Tourism has declined due to the Middle East’s notorious volatility, and the king’s recent assertion of authority is alienating the people, who are demanding more democracy.

Then there’s Israel. “Where are the fruits of peace?” is a common refrain about Jordan’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel. Jordanian politicians and press outlet may not say so, but the answer is blindingly obvious. Whether it’s the fact that Jordan uses Haifa as an alternative to the Syrian trade route, the purchase of inexpensive water from Israel or the provision of plentiful gas (which is already being delivered), Jordan benefits directly and substantially from its ties with Israel. Despite this, a perverse social pressure against “normalization” with Israel has grown over time, intimidating absolutely everyone and preventing relations with the Jewish state from reaching their potential.

One Jordanian asked me why Israelis accept being treated like a mistress. The answer is clear: Jordan’s welfare ranks as a paramount Israeli priority, so successive Israel governments accept — even if through gritted teeth — the calumnies and lies told about it in the Jordanian press and on the streets.

All eyes were obviously on the US shale producers, now that the oil inventory level has been increasing for nine weeks in a row. This increase was caused by another production increase in the US, where the daily output now came in at 9.1 million barrels. That’s the highest level in more than one year, but what really caught the attention was the EIA outlook for 2018. The agency now anticipates the US oil production to increase by an additional 7% before the end of 2018.

This obviously has caused some consternation in the oil markets. After all, the OPEC members didn’t reduce their production volumes to bring the US shale producers ‘back into the game’, and the tensions are running high. No drastic measures have been taken yet, but the Saudi oil minister did warn the United States that ‘Saudi Arabia will not be used by others’.

The message is clear. Either the non-OPEC producers will reduce the production growth rate, or OPEC might very well decide to not extend the current agreement to reduce their own output. After all, the reduced OPEC production rate was only instated to put a bottom under the oil price, while waiting for the world demand to pick up with the existing supply rate.

It has obviously never been the intention of OPEC to support the American oil industry, as this would reduce the impact of the lower OPEC production rate, and it’s now less likely the OPEC members will continue to honor the deal. More oil on the supply side could kill the market, and put some marginal producers on the verge of bankruptcy – again.