EUROPE - Emmanuel Macron is plotting to turn the EU into a "powerful" sovereign bloc to counteract China and other authoritarian regimes, a senior official from his government has revealed. The French President inaugurated his country's presidency of the EU Council on Thursday with EU Commissioners in Paris. Mr Macron, who is also expected to run for a second term at the April presidential elections, will pursue his plan to turn the EU into a power player against China during the country's six-month rotating presidency of the bloc.

EUROPE - Emmanuel Macron has demanded discussions for the formation of a European Union defence capability get underway at a summit in March. Speaking to DW News on Thursday, Jacob Ross of the German Council of Foreign Relations said the French President made it clear at a speech in December discussions for a raft of summits to shape the direction of the European Union will take place in the first three months of 2022. Mr Ross added how President Macron and France now "have the tools to set the agenda to bring their priorities to the European stage" with the presidency of the European Council.

USA - They are hypocrites that preach ‘tolerance’ for everyone – except for the groups that they really, really hate. If you are a global leader, millions upon millions of people are deeply affected by the public statements that you make. So when you are in such a position, it is absolutely imperative to be incredibly careful with your words. Unfortunately, prominent politicians all over the globe are increasingly spewing hatred for certain groups even as they pretend to be champions for “tolerance”. When ordinary citizens hear such hateful statements, many of them inevitably come to the conclusion that it is okay to hate those groups too. Nearly a century ago, the Germans gave us a prime example of where this sort of hatred can ultimately lead, and we never want such a thing to ever happen again.

SOUTH AFRICA - South Africa’s passenger railway system is on the brink of total collapse, brought to its knees by thieves and vandals who have gutted many of its stations and railway tracks into a post-apocalyptic-like state. Rail journalist David Williams previously detailed the worrying condition of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa’s (Prasa’s) network in a report for the Brenthurst Foundation. Williams found that around two-thirds of the above-ground electrical cable network of 3,000km had been stolen or damaged. In Gauteng, 89% of the Prasa’s network was out of order, while about 70% of KwaZulu-Natal’s railways were dysfunctional. The situation was slightly better in the Western Cape, with 30% of the network non-operational.

USA - Andrew Zarro, a Portland, Maine City Council member, sells disturbing stickers that say “Abort Republicans” and “Defund God”. Zarro owns a coffee shop in Portland called “Little Woodfords”, and on its Instagram account it promotes sticker packs sold at the shop with crude phrases like “Defund God”, “Abort Republicans”, and “thank you for making me a godless heaux”. Oddly enough, the coffee shop also posts things trying to convince its customers that it’s “inclusive”, selling posters that read “All Are Welcome Here”, and “All races, classes, ages, religions, bodies, abilities, genders, identities, sexual orientations, countries of origin are welcome here”. Note that it does not say all “political affiliations” are welcome. That is made perfectly clear. These stickers reportedly surprised many of the council member’s supporters since he frequently preaches pro-equality and inclusivity.

USA - Alvin Bragg, the new district attorney of Manhattan, New York, announced his office is downgrading charges for many felonies and will seek prison sentences for only a handful of crimes. Bragg, a Democrat who was elected in November, outlined his policies in a “Day One Letter” sent to all staff on Monday, saying they were “effective immediately.”“The Office will not prosecute the following charges, unless as part of an accusatory instrument containing at least one felony count,” the letter read. The offenses that no longer will be prosecuted include marijuana misdemeanors, prostitution, resisting arrest, fare dodging and trespassing. Bragg also said his office would “not seek a carceral sentence” except for homicides, violent felonies, domestic violence, some sex offenses, public corruption, rackets and major economic crimes.

AUSTRALIA - Australia’s Northern Territory has officially imposed a new authoritarian lockdown on citizens who have not been ‘fully vaccinated’ against Covid-19 for the next few days as officials scramble amid fears of the highly-mild Omicron variant. Any individual who is 16 or older and is not fully vaccinated will not be able to leave their homes until the middle of next week, even if it’s to go to work or to get exercise outdoors. Essentially, anyone refusing the experimental jab is prohibited from making a living right now. Capitalizing on the hysteria surrounding the rapidly-spreading, common-cold-like Omicron variant, Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunder announced the lockdown, which is one of the world’s harshest yet, during a press conference on Thursday.

USA - As COVID-19 deaths approach 19,000 in Indiana, the insurance industry has been processing claims at a record rate. Nationally, more than 824,000 people have died from the virus. “We’re seeing right now the highest death rates we’ve ever seen in the history of this business,” said Scott Davison, the CEO of OneAmerica, a $100 billion life insurance and retirement company headquartered in Indianapolis. “The data is consistent across every player in the business.”

USA - Governments are intensifying their vitriol against the unvaccinated. Trudeau (Canada) says they shouldn’t be tolerated. Macron (France) says he’s “really going to p*** them off”. Germany says they are “not human.” Biden (US) says they are the pandemic. If not reversed soon, such rhetoric can easily lead to mass bloodshed. ⁃ TN Editor

VATICAN - Pope Francis risked the ire of the world's childless dog and cat owners Wednesday, suggesting people who substitute pets for kids exhibit "a certain selfishness". Speaking on parenthood during a general audience at the Vatican, Francis lamented that pets "sometimes take the place of children" in society."Today... we see a form of selfishness," said the pope. "We see that some people do not want to have a child. Sometimes they have one, and that's it, but they have dogs and cats that take the place of children. This may make people laugh but it is a reality." The practice, said the head of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics, "is a denial of fatherhood and motherhood and diminishes us, takes away our humanity".

EUROPE - The head of a commission representing the European Union’s Catholic bishops has called for Covid passports to be required for anyone wishing to access religious services in Europe, in the latest move towards a general Church endorsement of tighter controls. “During this phase when the pandemic is resurgent, we must save lives, and this green pass should welcome people to Mass,” said Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, president of the Brussels-based Comece. “Since Christmas, a law has been in force in Luxembourg allowing only those vaccinated to participate in liturgies, except in the case of celebrations with fewer than 20 faithful. Some priests have objected, and this isn't helping the search for a solution”.

EUROPE - “When the two biggest car companies in the world decide to go all-in on electric, then there's no longer a question of speculation — the mainstream is going electric," said Andy Palmer, the former chief of Aston Martin and ex-Nissan Motor Co executive often referred to as “the godfather of EVs" after being instrumental in developing the Japanese carmaker’s battery-powered Leaf. “I expect the shift to electric to be faster than everyone expects." The ways VW and Toyota have moved to defend their ground are as different as one would expect from proud German and Japanese titans of industry. One is coming out swinging, putting Tesla squarely in its sights, and the other is investing heavily in EVs while continuing to spread its bets, biding time as the early stages of the revolution shake out.

UK - Administrators at the University of Reading in England recently cut several lines referring to domestic violence from a classic Greek poem to avoid offending students. The 2,000-year-old poem, Types of Women, by Semonides of Amorgos, is taught to first-year classics students at the school and makes reference to silencing women through violence. Documents obtained by The UK Daily Mail include a statement by school administrators: “The portion of the poem now omitted involved a brief reference to domestic violence,” read the statement. “That portion has subsequently been removed because, while the text as a whole is vitriolic, that part seemed unnecessarily unpleasant and (potentially) triggering.” According to the school, no student had complained about the poem. “This is beyond naive,” Jeremy Black, emeritus professor of history at the University of Exeter, told the Daily Mail. “It is positively ridiculous and has no place in academia. If we applied this same kind of censorship to the news we would end up with a most limited and ignorant view of the world,” said Black.

AFGHANISTAN - The Taliban has ordered clothes shops in Afghanistan’s Herat province to behead all mannequins because they are “idols,” according to media reports. According to The Times newspaper, the ruling was issued last week by the local office of the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which is charged with enforcing the Taliban’s reading of Sharia Law in the western province. Officials initially wanted shopkeepers to remove the dummies altogether, describing them as “statues” that were being “worshiped.” However, store owners hit out at the idea, arguing that it would have an adverse effect on their already floundering business. The Taliban relented and settled for the mere beheading of mannequins instead, with severe punishment awaiting those who run foul of the new rule.

UK - How our Universe was born from nothing or if there was something that existed before it remains a mystery, but that is not stopping some physicists from trying to figure it out. The most we can say with confidence at this stage is that physics has so far found no confirmed instances of something arising from nothing. To truly answer the question of how something could arise from nothing, we would need to explain the quantum state of the entire Universe at the beginning of the Planck epoch. All attempts to do this remain highly speculative. Some of them appeal to supernatural forces like a designer. But other candidate explanations remain within the realm of physics – such as a multiverse, which contains an infinite number of parallel universes, or cyclical models of the Universe, being born and reborn again.