EUROPE - Verbose Brussels bureaucrats have produced a 5,000 word directive – on cabbages. Commission regulation 1591/87 lays down common standards for cabbages, sprouts, ribbed celery, spinach and plums. The edict, which was drawn up in 1987, runs to 5,371 words.
UK - Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, has described the prospect of a British exit from the European Union as the "biggest domestic financial stability risk" facing the UK. He said the deal reached by David Cameron in Brussels was an "important commitment".
GERMANY - Stability used to define Germany's political system. But the refugee crisis has fundamentally changed the country's party landscape. The rise of the fringe has eroded the traditional centers of power.
USA - On Thursday, the US Navy announced they dispatched a small armada to the South China Sea. Consisting of the John C Stennis aircraft carrier, two cruisers, two destroyers, and the 7th Fleet flagship, the US is making their mission clear — we are not scared of kicking off World War III.
USA - According to the Wall Street Journal, the White House is considering drastic measures to reboot the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Among those measures is a UN Security Council resolution that would set the parameters for a two state solution and that would recognize East Jerusalem as the official capital of a Palestinian state. If Barack Obama makes this move, it will almost certainly be before the election in November.
NORTH KOREA - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the country has miniaturised nuclear warheads to mount on ballistic missiles and ordered improvements in the power and precision of its arsenal, state media reported on Wednesday.
USA - Last month, the European Central Bank suggested that the 500 Euro note needs to be eliminated. Not long after, academics and policy makers in the US started to call for the elimination of the $100 bill. This isn’t something that the average person really thinks about on a regular basis, or even cares about. The vast majority of our purchases are done through digital channels these days. Unless you’re about to buy a used car on Craigslist, you probably won’t be needing the hundred-dollar bill. For most people, eliminating it would be an inconvenience at best. So what gives?
USA - When stories like the lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan make national news, people sit up and take notice. What people don’t realize is just how contaminated our water is all the time, every day, every where. I’m not talking about heavy metals like lead, although unless regular testing is done the nation over or you test your own water with a home kit, how do you know what’s coming out of your faucet is lead-free anyway?
USA - Honey, often referred to as “liquid gold,” houses a wide range of vitamins and minerals. It is a natural and healthier alternative to sugar to sweeten things up. It kills bacteria, viruses and fungi. It also lowers cholesterol and inflammation. However, to reap all of honey’s benefits, you should always buy local and organic, which comes from bees rather than from a factory. According to Food Safety News, more than 75 percent of honey sold in US grocery stores isn’t actually the same thing honey bees produce.
GERMANY - From Snopes.com, the myth-busting website…
CLAIM: Germany has banned pork because it offends Muslim 'migrants.'
WHAT'S TRUE: Politicians complained less pork was being served in Germany, diluting culinary cultural heritage.
WHAT'S FALSE: Germany banned pork in any way, shape, or form.
VATICAN - Pope Francis has described the European migration crisis as an “Arab invasion”. He said that “Europe weakens” by “forgetting its own history”, but, because of its low birth rate and colonial history, the mass migration could be beneficial. “Today we can talk about an Arab invasion”, the Roman Catholic leader told the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano this Thursday. “It is a social fact”.
SWITZERLAND - The world’s credit boom is beginning to show dangerous signs of unraveling, ushering in a period of fresh turmoil for the over-indebted global economy, the Bank of International Settlements has warned. The globe’s top financial watchdog called time on the world’s debt binge, noting that debt issuance and cross border flows in emerging economies slowed for the first time since the aftermath of the global credit crunch at the end of last year. With financial markets thrown into fresh paroxysms in 2016, oscillating between extremes of “hope and fear”, the over-leveraged world was finally approaching a day of reckoning, said Claudio Borio, the bank's chief economist. “We may not be seeing isolated bolts from the blue, but the signs of a gathering storm that has been building for a long time”, he said.
SWITZERLAND - The global economy is heading for a storm as faith in policymakers dwindles, according to a stark warning from one of the world’s most respected financial institutions. The uneasy calm in financial markets last year has given way to turbulence, the Bank for International Settlements, known as the central bank for the world’s central banks, said in its latest quarterly report. Financial markets are losing faith in the healing power of central banks and their latest policy weapon — negative interest rates — to boost the world’s main economics, the bank said.
UK - Parents should be allowed to have their newborn babies killed because they are “morally irrelevant” and ending their lives is no different to abortion, a group of medical ethicists linked to Oxford University has argued. The article, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, says newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life”. The academics also argue that parents should be able to have their baby killed if it turns out to be disabled when it is born.
GREECE - Greece is heading towards another financial meltdown in a repeat of last summer’s fiasco that could see them crash out of the euro. Greek leaders have failed to make enough progress on reforms aimed at bringing down their monstrous debt after multi-billion pound bailouts last summer.