CHINA - The head of a Chinese firm that is building the world's biggest animal cloning factory has vowed not to use the technology on people — for now, at least. Biotech company Boyalife Group's $30 million facility in the coastal city of Tianjin will produce embryos of cattle as well as racehorses and contraband-sniffing dogs when it becomes operational next year. "No, we don't do human cloning, we won't make Frankensteins," said Dr Xu Xiaochun, its chief executive. "The technology we have is very advanced … [but if uncontrolled] technology can also do damage … Every technology has to have a boundary."
USA - Justice Antonin Scalia predicts that the Supreme Court will eventually authorize another a wartime abuse of civil rights such as the internment camps for Japanese-Americans during World War II.
USA - The history of the suppression of medical science in America is a long one, filled with true accounts of pioneering doctors and clinicians being threatened, intimidated and even assassinated in order to bury emerging cures and keep the "sick care" industry in control. (The American Medical Association, for example, has been found guilty by the US federal courts of a conspiracy to destroy the chiropractic industry, by the way.)
ISRAEL - Yehudah Glick is undeterrable. Last year, he survived an assassination attempt when a Palestinian shot him four times at point-blank range. Before firing, the terrorist had called Glick an “enemy of al-Aqsa” for his vocal advocacy on behalf of Jews’ rights on the Temple Mount.
UK - The Queen used her Christmas Day broadcast to make one of her most overtly religious addresses to the nation in recent years. Quoting directly from the Gospel of John, she spoke of light which “shines in the darkness” which she described as a “verse of great hope”.
MIDDLE EAST - In what is believed to be his first public message in seven months, Isil chief warns Israel attacks are imminent. He also said Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) would soon be in Palestine to establish an Islamic state there. "Jews, soon you shall hear from us in Palestine which will become your grave," the voice, purporting to be Baghdadi, is heard saying. "The Jews thought we forgot Palestine and that they had distracted us from it," he says in the recording. "Not at all, Jews. We did not forget Palestine for a moment. With the help of Allah, we will not forget it… The pioneers of the jihadist fighters will surround you on a day that you think is distant and we know is close. We are getting closer every day."
EUROPE - David Cameron's EU renegotiation has been given a boost after it emerged that Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande have offered to allow him to stop migrants claiming benefits in the UK for three years. The two EU leaders have suggested the compromise deal in a bid to save Mr Cameron's flagging renegotiation and ensure Britain does not leave the EU.
GERMANY - German business leaders fear that deep divisions over how to handle the refugee crisis and growing nationalism among member states could break up the European Union, according to five of the country's biggest industry bodies.
CHINA -The China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), viewed by some as a rival to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, was formally established on Friday, according to a statement issued by Beijing.
SWITZERLAND - Switzerland will hold a referendum to decide whether to ban commercial banks from creating money. The Swiss federal government confirmed on Thursday that it would hold the plebiscite, after more than 110,000 people signed a petition calling for the central bank to be given sole power to create money in the financial system.
USA - Earlier this week on his radio show, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh explained why it was his view Islam wasn’t a religion, but instead what he called a “conquest ideology.” According to Limbaugh, not properly defining Islam for the sake of political correctness will be to our own detriment. Partial transcript as follows:
MIDDLE EAST - Oil prices fell by over half from June 2014 to January 2015 (Brent: $110 to $50), then another one-third since (to $35). Natural gas and coal prices have also plunged, partially due to the same forces but also from substitution.
UK - Some London neighbourhoods have higher rates of tuberculosis than almost anywhere else in the world, as high as 113 per 100,000 people. That's significantly higher than in countries such as Rwanda, Iraq and Guatemala.
USA - Eight people are reported to have been killed in Texas after new tornadoes, raising the death toll to 26 in a week of storms in several US states. Local media said five people in cars were probably blown off a motorway in Garland, near Dallas. Another three bodies were found in nearby towns.
UK - Emergency teams are working to evacuate people from homes in York, as flooding continues to hit northern England. Police advised between 300 and 400 people to evacuate near the River Ouse and River Foss in York, with up to 3,500 properties at risk.