USA - Breitbart News senior contributor and Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President Peter Schweizer’s latest investigative exposé, Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win, reveals how 23 former US senators and congressman have lobbied for Chinese military or intelligence-linked companies after leaving office. Many lawmakers cash in after leaving office by becoming lobbyists for corporations and other special interests. But one would hope that they would not become advocates for America’s primary economic and political adversary — communist China — by lobbying for outcomes that run counter to the United States’ long-term interests. However, Schweizer’s book reveals that many former congressional leaders, committee chairman, and rank-and-file members are lobbying for Chinese intelligence and military-linked companies.

VATICAN - Last April Pope Francis held mass at a nearby church of the Holy Spirit in Sassia in the center of Rome. During his homily, [Pope] Francis told his flock that “sharing ownership is not communism but is pure Christianity.” Of course, shared ownership is exactly the definition of communism. This past week Pope Francis told tax authorities taxation is a necessary tool for wealth redistribution. This is a truly dangerous man leading the Catholic Church today. Rush Limbaugh was right way back in 2013 when he said this pope is a Marxist.

RUSSIA - Hopes that rock-bottom relations between Moscow and Washington can be turned around are unlikely at present, a top Russian politician has claimed, arguing that only when a new world order is established will there be less conflict between the two states. Speaking as part of an interview with Ukraina.ru earlier this week, Aleksey Pushkov, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, who previously served as chairman of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, cast his view on the current power dynamic on the world stage.

USA - One year in, US President Joe Biden faces a long list of troubles and growing doubts that he’s fit for the job. Last October, President Biden went to Capitol Hill to meet with the Democrats in the House of Representatives. Party members had been feuding over his proposed legislation, and leaders believed only the President could rally them together. Instead Biden stunned the caucus by sending them back to the drawing board. As he was leaving, a member approached him and pleaded, “Mr President, we need a plan.” Biden didn’t answer, according to a source familiar with the exchange.

GERMANY - The announcement was met with a wall of derision. “What kind of support will Germany send next?” asked Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. “Pillows?” In the first crisis of the post-Merkel era, Germany is floundering. The complex legacy of the second World War is weighing on its efforts to craft a coherent policy on Russia. A new government in office for only seven weeks is being pulled in one direction by its powerful pacifist lobby and in the other by Washington.

USA - "The Jew is the devil" and "Jews rape children and drink their blood" were among slogans chanted at a rally in Orlando held by the National Socialist Movement. Participants at a neo-Nazi rally in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday waved Nazi flags and shouted antisemitic and anti-Black slogans, according to the NGO StopAntisemitism.org. The rally was organized by the National Socialist Movement (NSM) and was live-streamed on the American Nazi Party’s website. NSM has a 25-point manifesto on its website and advocates an American “White” ethnostate in which only those with European ancestry can be citizens.

IRAN - "Despite the regime wanting Iranians to hate Israel, you can see that the people feel differently. We see it on the streets of Iran every day when students refuse to step on the Israeli flag. I am incredibly hopeful for the future of my sisters and brothers back home in Iran, because I know that this regime is an anomaly in Persian and Iranian history,” says American broadcast journalist and former State Department envoy Ellie Cohanim. “Remember, we are the people who had Cyrus the Great, in essence, be the first to give religious freedom to the world, and also encourage the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild our Temple.”

CANADA - A 'Freedom Convoy' of trucks joined by thousands of demonstrators brought Ottawa to a virtual standstill for a second day on Sunday as they protested Canada's vaccine mandates, as other sympathetic truckers blocked a border highway into the United States. The truckers say there is no 'end date' in sight and plan to stay in the capital 'for as long as it takes' and until the Canadian government flips and withdraws its policy on vaccine mandates. The chaos clogged the capital's downtown near parliament throughout the weekend and brought criticism from officials, including Ottawa's mayor who said residents were 'prisoners in their own home.' But the demonstrators say they intend to stay and that their aim is to 'create chaos' and a 'logistics nightmare' for Justin Trudeau's government.

USA - In secret meetings two years ago this month, members of Congress were briefed on what the rest of America would soon learn: A deadly virus was spreading rapidly overseas and headed for the United States. Some lawmakers acted immediately — not in the public’s interest, but in their own. They sold stocks weeks before markets crashed, when the scale of the threat posed by the novel coronavirus became broadly known. A global pandemic was unfolding, and these lawmakers were fretting as much about the health of their financial portfolios as about the health of their constituents. “There’s widespread bipartisan disgust with America’s political class, and stock trading by members of Congress is egregious and offensive,” Ossoff told me last week. “Members hear all kinds of news that essentially may amount to insider trading, but it’s almost impossible to enforce insider trading and to prove what happened when,” Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, a Democrat who has been pushing for years to restrict stock trading by members of Congress, told me.

USA - American truckers are preparing to follow the lead of their Canadian counterparts and convoy protest from California to DC. A Facebook group for the anti-vaccine mandate protest has already amassed over 50,000 people. Many American truckers joined in solidarity with the Canadians, who have formed a 45-mile-long convoy of up to 50,000 truckers heading to Ottawa to protest the government’s covid vaccine mandate for drivers who cross the US-Canada border. “We are part of many large groups who believe in our founding fathers. We believe everyone has a voice. We support our freedom. Help us spread the word about this group and together we all can make it a better place… God Bless America,” the group’s description reads. “We’re done with the mandates. We’re done with the government telling us what to do.”

CHINA - Last week, China reportedly demonstrated yet another advancement in space-based technology and capabilities as an analytics firm claimed to have seen a satellite "grab" another one and yank it from its orbit. According to a Breaking Defense report upon the event, China's Shijian-21 satellite, or SJ-21, vanished from view on January 22 and resurfaced while performing a "large maneuver" to approach a dead BeiDou Navigation System satellite. The SJ-21 then yanked the BeiDou from its orbit and deposited it in a "graveyard orbit" a few hundred kilometers away, where it is unlikely to interact with or collide with live satellites. Graveyard orbit is typically classified as 300 kilometers above geostationary orbit, or around 36,000 kilometers above the ground.

NORTH KOREA - North Korea on Sunday fired what appeared to be the most powerful missile it has tested since President Joe Biden took office, as it revives its old playbook in brinkmanship to wrest concessions from Washington and neighbors amid a prolonged stalemate in diplomacy. The Japanese and South Korean militaries said the missile was launched on a high trajectory, apparently to avoid the territorial spaces of neighbors, and reached a maximum altitude of 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) and traveled 800 kilometers (497 miles) before landing in the sea. The flight details suggest the North tested its longest-range ballistic missile since 2017, when it twice flew intermediate-range ballistic missiles over Japan and, separately, three intercontinental ballistic missiles that demonstrated the potential to reach deep into the American homeland.

USA - In the old days, Americans would derisively speak of “third world countries” that were plagued by high crime rates, corrupt governments, severe economic problems and an overall lack of civilized behavior. Unfortunately, the tables have turned, and now we are becoming a “third world country”. The thin veneer of civilization that we all used to take for granted has been steadily disappearing, and our nation seems to become a little bit more degenerate with each passing day. Of course this didn’t happen overnight. It has taken decades of decline to get us to this point, and now our decline appears to be accelerating. If you have ever visited a foreign country with a major crime problem, you probably recall the unsettling experience of suddenly realizing that you are the prey and that the predators on the streets won’t hesitate to take advantage of you if they sense an opportunity. Sadly, many Americans now feel like that on a permanent basis in their own local communities.

UK - The average British household will pay more than £1million in tax over their lifetime, new research suggests. The TaxPayers’ Alliance said paying around £1.1million in tax would mean having to work for 18 years just to pay it off. It comes as the Prime Minister and the Chancellor were urged to rethink a planned increase in National Insurance set to go ahead in April. Analysis of official statistics found the poorest households will work 24 years to pay off their tax bill, leaving 16 years of income for themselves. Meanwhile the bottom 20 per cent of households, or families with a household income of £19,171, will work for almost 24 years to pay off their lifetime tax bill, the longest of any group.

UK - UK food and drink firms say they remain concerned about supply shortages as a deal which ensured carbon dioxide (CO2) supplies comes to an end. CO2 is used in fizzy drinks, to keep packaged food fresh and to stun livestock before slaughter. The government stepped in to subsidise a major CO2 producer in October after its shutdown due to high gas prices threatened food supplies. The arrangement ends on Monday, despite continuing high global demand for gas. Industry body the Food and Drink Federation is warning supermarkets could suffer shortages of some foods if the deal with US firm CF Industries is not extended.