UK - The head transplant juggernaut rolls on. Last year, maverick surgeon Sergio Canavero caused a worldwide storm when he revealed his plan - to New Scientist magazine - to attempt a human head transplant. He claimed that the surgical protocol would be ready within two years and said he intended to offer the surgery as a treatment for complete paralysis. Now, working with other scientists in China and South Korea, he claims to have moved closer to that goal with a series of experiments in animals and human cadavers. “I would say we have plenty of data to go on,” says Canavero. “It’s important that people stop thinking this is impossible. This is absolutely possible and we’re working towards it.”
ITALY - The Italian financial meltdown that we have been waiting for has finally arrived. For quite a long time I have been warning my readers to watch Italy, and now people are starting to understand why. Italian banking stocks continued their collapse for a fifth consecutive day on Wednesday, and nervous Italians are beginning to quietly pull large amounts of money out of the banks.
EUROPE - The European financial powerhouse could be facing a huge financial crisis which would have devastating implications for Britain as a lethal storm of economic problems brews in Germany. Germany’s industrial production has slipped to ZERO per cent and customer confidence has plummeted in just part of a catalogue of disasters for Chancellor Angela Merkel.
USA - Last time around it was subprime mortgages, but this time it is oil that is playing a starring role in a global financial crisis. Since the start of 2015, 42 North American oil companies have filed for bankruptcy, 130,000 good paying energy jobs have been lost in the United States, and at this point 50 percent of all energy junk bonds are “distressed” according to Standard & Poor’s.
CHINA - China's economy is in a far worse state and growing at a much slower rate than its authorities say, fear experts. Chinese policymakers this week said the economy grew by 6.8 per cent in the final three months of 2015, and 6.9 per cent during 2015 as a whole.
USA - Huge corporations and the seriously wealthy will be the big winners from the controversial US-EU trade deal known as TTIP. That’s the implication of a new study which shows that billions of pounds have been won by giant companies like Mobil, EDF, Enron, Suez and Cargill, which have sued governments under similar treaties for taking action they believe to be ‘unfair’.
VATICAN - Pope Francis, like all his recent predecessors, has expressed a desire for good relations among the world’s religions, as well as the various Christian churches, from the very beginning. Rarely, however, has that drive been as visible or intense as it is right now. We’re currently in the middle of a 10-day stretch that features three high-profile events: One could be described as fairly routine, but the other two are anything but.
USA - Goldman Sachs has announced that it has reached a $5.1 billion settlement as its wrist slap for participating in the wholesale swindle that was the subprime mortgage meltdown. The settlement breaks down into $2.385 billion in civil monetary penalties, $875 million in cash payments and $1.8 billion in consumer relief.
UK - Exclusive: Situation worse than it was in 2007, says chairman of the OECD's review committee. The global financial system has become dangerously unstable and faces an avalanche of bankruptcies that will test social and political stability, a leading monetary theorist has warned.
INDONESIA/RUSSIA - Earthquakes have now struck in a volatile region that saw TWO massive volcanic eruptions yesterday. More than 1,200 people today remain evacuated from a 1.9-mile containment zone around Mount Egon in Kupang, eastern Indonesia, after toxic gas and volcanic ash erupted yesterday.
USA - Claims a tsunami and volcano-inducing earthquake could soon strike the west coast of north America in a seismic hotspot have spread panic online.
SAUDI ARABIA - A prominent Saudi media activist revealed that Crown Prince and Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayef has held secret talks with the country's tribal leaders to heighten internal conflicts and prevent empowerment of Mohammed bin Salman.
USA - Antibiotic-resistant illnesses currently kill an estimated 700,000 people a year globally. By 2050, these illnesses are expected to kill 10 million people. Based on recent research, it could be even worse — and coming even sooner.
DAVOS, SWITZERLAND - As the crash in commodities prices spreads economic woe across the developing world, Europe could face a wave of migration that will eclipse today’s refugee crisis, says Klaus Schwab, executive chairman of the World Economic Forum.
DAVOS, SWITZERLAND - Politicians and business leaders gathering in the Swiss Alps this week face an increasingly divided world, with the poor falling further behind the super-rich and political fissures in the United States, Europe and the Middle East running deeper than at any time in decades. Just 62 people, 53 of them men, own as much wealth as the poorest half of the entire world population and the richest 1 percent own more than the other 99 percent put together, anti-poverty charity Oxfam said on Monday. Significantly, the wealth gap is widening faster than anyone anticipated, with the 1 percent overtaking the rest one year earlier than Oxfam had predicted only a year ago. Rising inequality and a widening trust gap between people and their political leaders are big challenges for the global elite as they converge on Davos for the annual World Economic Forum, which runs from January 20 to 23.