USA - A former Planned Parenthood manager who now helps other abortion industry workers leave the business said the “greatest lie women have been told” is that, in order to achieve success, equality, and justice, they need abortion. In an op-ed at Fox News Wednesday, as the Supreme Court heard opening arguments in a case that poses the most significant challenge in decades to the right to abortion created by the Court’s decision in Roe vs Wade, Johnson acknowledged she “told this very lie to countless women in order to convince them to pay us at Planned Parenthood to get rid of that growing life inside of them.”

USA - Former President Donald Trump tore into President Joe Biden in a wide-ranging interview Thursday, suggesting that the administration is "knowingly" destroying the country and is distrusted by the American people. During an appearance on "Fox & Friends," Trump shot back at the president over his 2020 comments, where he suggested that Trump was responsible for American COVID deaths and should not remain in office. Trump largely laid the blame for the continued deaths, which now exceed the lives lost in 2020, on distrust of the current administration and their inability to "sell" the vaccine to the public. "Some people don’t want to take them and that’s their freedom and that’s what we have to do. But, people don’t want to take them because they don’t trust Biden, they don’t trust the administration," said the former president. Trump later slammed Biden for his foreign policy decisions regarding the Afghanistan withdrawal, China, and the rising cost of gasoline. "We have a group of people... that are destroying our country and perhaps knowingly destroying our country," said Trump.

GERMANY - Germany is poised to clamp down on people who aren’t vaccinated against Covid-19 and drastically curtail social contacts to ease pressure on increasingly stretched hospitals. In one of her final acts as chancellor, Angela Merkel will hold talks with Germany’s 16 regional premiers later on Thursday at which they’re expected to agree on new curbs including allowing only people who are vaccinated or recovered into restaurants, theaters and non-essential stores. According to a draft agreement prepared by Merkel’s office, there will also be tighter contact restrictions for non-vaccinated people, nightclubs will be closed in places with high infection rates and there will be strict limits on the number of spectators at large public events. “The important thing is that this is virtually a lockdown for the unvaccinated,” outgoing Health Minister Jens Spahn said Thursday in an interview with ZDF television. “The more than 12 million adults who aren’t inoculated is what is creating a challenge for the health system.”

GERMANY - Irony has been declared many times in this pandemic but now, from Covid-riddled Germany comes the final proof: you can't kill yourself now unless you've been vaccinated. As European countries battle to limit the spread of the virus, Verein Sterbehilfe – the German Euthanasia Association – has issued a new directive, declaring it will now only help those who have been vaccinated or recovered from the disease. In a statement, the association said: “Euthanasia and the preparatory examination of the voluntary responsibility of our members willing to die require human closeness. Human closeness, however, is a prerequisite and breeding ground for coronavirus transmission. As of today, the 2G rule applies in our association, supplemented by situation-related measures, such as quick tests before encounters in closed rooms. 'Close encounters in closed rooms' – what a fabulous German euphemism for assisted suicide. The term '2G' meanwhile refers to a system which only allows free movement for leisure activities for the geimpft oder genese — 'vaccinated or recovered.' God forbid that a person without the jab should try to end it all – talk about a vaccine passport to the afterlife...

USA - Their legacy? Between 1973 and 2017, according to numbers published this year by the Guttmacher Institute, doctors killed 58,177,540 babies in the United States. The National Right to Life Educational Foundation estimates that from 1973 and 2020, the number is 62,502,904. This year, the killing has continued. But the Supreme Court now has a chance to reverse Roe vs Wade. Will Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Barrett stand with Blackmun — or with the innocent unborn?

USA - The most insidious threat to humankind is something called “extinction debt.” There comes a time in the progress of any species, even ones that seem to be thriving, when extinction will be inevitable, no matter what they might do to avert it. The cause of extinction is usually a delayed reaction to habitat loss. The species most at risk are those that dominate particular habitat patches at the expense of others, who tend to migrate elsewhere, and are therefore spread more thinly. Humans occupy more or less the whole planet, and with our sequestration of a large wedge of the productivity of this planetwide habitat patch, we are dominant within it. H. sapiens might therefore already be a dead species walking. The signs are already there for those willing to see them. When the habitat becomes degraded such that there are fewer resources to go around; when fertility starts to decline; when the birth rate sinks below the death rate; and when genetic resources are limited — the only way is down. The question is “How fast?” I suspect that the human population is set not just for shrinkage but collapse — and soon. To paraphrase Lehrer, if we are going to write about human extinction, we’d better start writing now.

USA - Just minutes from the California border sits a sun-drenched town in Nevada that wants nothing to do with its neighbor to the west. Located about 60 miles from Las Vegas, Pahrump was once home to the Southern Paiute Indians and didn’t install telephone service until the 1960s. Many current residents moved to the unincorporated town to get away from the traffic and pollution that plague much of California. Residents now find themselves at odds with Candela Renewables, a San Francisco-based renewable energy company that hopes to build a large-scale solar field across some 2,300 acres. “It seems illogical to me to destroy the environment to protect the environment,” said Pahrump resident Jeannie Cox-King, who helped organize a protest Saturday against the Rough Hat Nye County solar field. “We should keep our public lands public.”

GERMANY - Incoming German chancellor Olaf Scholz has been clear about his intention to pursue a federal European state. But far from bringing the European Union’s member countries closer together, his plan could rupture it completely. Scholz will become the new chancellor of Germany within the next 10 days, heading a ‘traffic light’ coalition made up of his own party, the SPD, the Greens, and the Free Democrats.

TURKEY - Lines outside bread stores and gas stations; farmers defaulting on loans; impromptu street demonstrations. The signs of economic distress in Turkey are all too clear as the lira continues a dizzying slide. Sporadic protests have broken out around Turkey and the opposition parties have called for a series of rallies to demand a change of government after the lira crashed sharply last week. The latest week of turmoil follows months of worsening economic conditions for Turkish citizens. The currency has lost more than 45 percent of its value this year, and nearly 20 percent in the last week, continuing its downward trend on Tuesday. Economists have tied the currency crisis to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s direct interference in monetary policy and his determination to lower interest rates. Necla Sazak, an 80-year-old retired bank employee heading home with a bag of groceries, said she was surviving on credit cards. “Our purchasing power dropped — our money has no value anymore,” she said.

IRAN - In a dramatic change, senior Iranian officials have admitted that Iran has plans to build offensive atomic weapons. The plans were prepared by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of Iran's nuclear program, who, according to foreign sources, was assassinated by Israel a year ago. A senior Iranian military official said that Iran has the ability to build a military nuclear weapon but supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei must approve it. In addition, former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani said that Fakhrizadeh had prepared plans for an offensive weapon, not just to defend Iran but also to serve other nations threatened by Israel, such as Syria and Iraq. At the nuclear talks in Vienna, the Iranians will announce to the world: "We have the ability and knowledge to make the bomb." In addition, they will say that the factory making advanced centrifuges at Karaj is out of bounds and international inspectors will not be permitted.

IRAN - After two weeks of growing protests over water shortages in the Iranian city of Isfahan, the Iranian government violently cracked down on Friday. Security guards fired bird shot and tear gas at crowds of protesters and beat them with batons, injuring scores of demonstrators. Dozens of people were arrested. Videos showed protesters throwing stones at police and chanting "death to the dictator" and "death to Khamenei." In Isfahan, water has been diverted away from farmlands and toward industrial complexes in the desert province of Yazd and for drinking water to the religious city of Qom. The Iran Meteorological Organization estimates that 97% of the country is dealing with drought.

CANADA - Unvaccinated travellers over the age of 12 won’t be able to board a plane or train in Canada beginning today, and a negative COVID-19 test will no longer serve as a substitute for most people. The policy came into effect on October 30, but the federal government allowed a short transition period for unvaccinated travellers who could board as long as they provided a negative molecular COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours before their trip. The stringent new requirement comes into effect as Canada reacts to the emergence of the new, highly mutated Omicron variant of COVID-19.

EUROPE - In the battle against the coronavirus, the unvaccinated are being increasingly targeted. Germany and Israel are moving closer to making Covid-19 vaccine shots compulsory, Greece is introducing fines and Spain is banning some unvaccinated travelers. Despite protests, making life harder for those who don’t want a shot is a tactic increasingly favored by governments, spooked by the spread of the omicron variant.

EUROPE - It is time for the European Union 'to think about' making Covid vaccines mandatory across the entire bloc, Ursula von der Leyen has said as the continent battles a winter wave of virus amid fears about the Omicron variant. The EU Commission President, speaking in Brussels, said it will ultimately be up to member states to decide their own vaccine rules - but it is her 'personal opinion' that the time is right to discuss forcing people to get jabs. 'We have one third of the population which is not vaccinated. This is 150 million people - that is a lot. Not each and every one could be vaccinated... but the vast majority could,' she said. Ms Von der Leyen's comments come after Austria announced plans to make vaccines mandatory for all eligible citizens by February, with an aide to incoming German Chancellor Olaf Scholz saying yesterday that he wants to follow suit.

GERMANY - The New German Government is pushing for closer ties with the European Union, paving the way for a “United States of Europe.” Olaf Scholz, the leader of the Social Democrats (SPD) and the incoming Chancellor, reached an historic three-way coalition with the Greens and the Free Democrats this week. Udo Bullmann, the SPD’s Europe negotiator in coalition talks, said the government will seek a closer relationship with Europe, and that this will be easier now that Brexit has been finalized. “Germany needs to send a signal in which direction the German government wants the European Union to develop,” he told German magazine Der Spiegel. “We want to take bold steps toward integration because we know time is running out and people are expecting us.” After the Green Party’s co-leader Annalena Baerbock, an outspoken pro-European, was appointed foreign minister, the new regime’s direction has begun to take shape.