USA - The Trump administration issued a rule Friday barring Planned Parenthood and other groups that offer abortions or abortion referrals from participating in the $286 million federal family planning program, reports the Washington Post. What they're saying: Per the Post, critics of the mandate say it indirectly defunds Planned Parenthood, which provides general health care and STD treatment in addition to abortion services. The Title X program mostly serves low-income women. Supporters of the rule and anti-abortion groups, like the Susan B Anthony List, say it will "disentangle taxpayers" from Planned Parenthood.

USA - Two wealthy Ecuadorian brothers who were principals in DaVinci Biosciences and DV Biologics, the California companies fined and ordered to shut down for illegally trafficking world-wide in aborted baby parts it obtained from Planned Parenthood, were arrested by ICE on February 13, 2019. The arrest of Roberto and William Isaias was gratifying to Operation Rescue, which published an investigative research report on October 27, 2016 – just days before the Presidential Election that put Donald J Trump in office – that detailed their crimes in Ecuador, dubious dealings with the Obama administration, their business with Planned Parenthood and the aborted baby body parts trade.

UK - The UK Conservative government is set to announce plans for the introduction of compulsory sex education that may include lessons on homosexuality and transgenderism in primary school, according to the Sunday Times. The Sunday Times reports that the new curriculum has been finalized after a six-month consultation with the Department of Education, and will be rolled out across England’s schools starting from the 2020-21 educational year. It will be taught to pupils from the age of five. While parents will be able to request to withdraw their children out of the classroom, the school would have to follow a set guidance to consider the move. Parents will not be able to withdraw kids from Relationship classes.

CHILE - A series of earthquakes has struck the coast of Chile with a magnitude as high as 5.3 recorded in the region. The most severe eruption hit the port city of Coquimbo located in the deadly 'Ring of Fire' region in the Pacific Ocean. Three tremors were measured in the space of just 14 hours each with considerable force, reaching 4.6, 4.9 and 5.3 on the Richter scale.

PAKISTAN - Imran Khan vows Pakistan 'shall respond' as '300 killed'. India has claimed air strikes on neighbouring Pakistan killed 300 terrorists at a training camp “known to Pakistan authorities” as tensions between the two nuclear powers reached boiling point today, with Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan warning his country "will respond". But Pakistan's top civilian and military leaders on Tuesday rejected India's comments that it had struck "terror camps" inside Pakistan, vowing to prove wrong India's claims and warning that it will retaliate to Indian aggression.

USA - Democratic socialist Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Democrat for New York) suggested on Sunday night that people should consider not having children due to climate change because there is a “scientific consensus” that life will be hard for kids. “Our planet is going to hit disaster if we don’t turn this ship around and so it’s basically like, there’s a scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult,” Ocasio-Cortez said while chopping up food in her kitchen during an Instagram live video. “And it does lead, I think, young people to have a legitimate question, you know, ‘Is it okay to still have children?'”

USA - Obama used his ideas on his path to the US Presidency, Hilary Clinton wrote her thesis on his work, and grass-roots movements, from both the left and now the right, treat his work as the template for action. Yet many people have never heard of the American Saul Alinsky. He is thought be the founder of modern community organising and wrote one of the most influential books on setting up grass-roots movements: the 1971 book “Rules For Radicals”. The basic philosophy was to give power to the have-nots

UK - The British Financial Times published an article by its columnist Philip Stevens about the crisis in the ranks of NATO. At the conference on international security held in Munich (February 15-17), German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s speech in defense of the liberal international legal order and, by default, against the policies of the administration of US President Donald Trump, was met with a bang. 

GERMANY - The 2019 Munich Security Conference marks an apogee in transatlantic relations. The strategic alliance between Europe and the US, long understood as the West, is failing as a political factor. The standing ovations for the Chancellor in Munich came from the relief of hearing it said out in the open. Also from the clarity with which she rejected the new American unilateralism – in method, as well as in the real world. Whether trade war, Iran agreement, or energy policy, at none of these points did she omit the contradiction to the ultimate demands from the Trump administration.

GERMANY - A study has shown that Germany stands to lose the greatest number of jobs if Britain exits the EU without a deal. Some of the country's well-known auto and tech hubs are likely to be the worst hit. A hard Brexit could affect more than 100,000 jobs in Germany, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported on Sunday, citing a study by the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research Halle (IWH) and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. The study, which looks at the effect of a hard Brexit down to individual districts and cities, showed that some of Germany's well-known auto and technology hubs could face the maximum brunt. "In no other country is the effect on total employment as great as in Germany," Oliver Holtemöller, one of the authors of the study, told the newspaper.

USA - The number of states where liberals outnumber conservatives has dropped more than 30 percent, with just six now in that category: Massachusetts, Hawaii, Vermont, Washington, New York, and New Hampshire. According to the latest Gallup survey, in every other state but California, where conservatives and liberals split 29 percent to 29 percent, conservatives lead. Nationally, those who identify themselves conservative hold a nine-point lead. Before conservatives start to cheer, Gallup said the gap used to be 21 points and a handful of the state numbers fall in the margin of error. But the survey still shows a large swath of red and pink states bookended by the whole West Coast, New England, and the mid-Atlantic, including the Washington, DC area.

VATICAN - Pope Francis said Friday that the Church does not want “ecclesiastical feminism” since every form of feminism ends up being just “machismo in a skirt.” The pope’s off-the-cuff remarks came in response to an address by Dr Linda Ghisoni, the undersecretary of the laity section of the Vatican’s Department of Laity, Family, and Life. Dr Ghisoni delivered her remarks to the participants in a major Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse. “Listening to Dr Ghisoni, I heard the church talk about herself,” the pope said. “That is, we all spoke about the church, in all interventions. But this time it was the church herself that spoke.” “It is not just a matter of style,” Francis continued, “the feminine genius is reflected in the church that is a woman. Inviting a woman to speak is not shifting into the mode of an ecclesiastical feminism, because in the end every feminism ends up being machismo with a skirt.”

VATICAN - Pope Francis on Sunday compared the sexual abuse of children to human sacrifice as he addressed the Catholic Church's top bishops at the end of a landmark summit to tackle paedophilia. "Our work has made us realise once again that the gravity of the scourge of the sexual abuse of minors is, and historically has been, a widespread phenomenon in all cultures and societies," he said.

USA - China’s first emperor ordered his subjects to search for the elixir of life in a quest for immortality. In 16th century France, nobles would drink gold in a bid to extend their lifespans. Gilgamesh, the Sumerian king at the heart of humanity’s earliest epic poem, found a magic herb, but a snake ate it. In 2015, a woman on the MTV series True Life: I’m Obsessed With Staying Young bathed in pig blood.

UK - Plastic poses a health risk to humans "at every stage of its lifecycle," a shocking international report warned yesterday. It linked plastic to diseases such as cancer and kidney, heart and reproductive problems. It declared: "Uncertainties and knowledge gaps undermine a complete evaluation of health impacts, limit the ability of consumers, communities and regulators to make informed choices, and heighten both acute and long-term health risks at all stages of the plastic lifecycle." It cited particular concerns about "the health effects of the cumulative exposure to the mixtures of thousands of chemicals used in food packaging and other manufactured products". The report by groups including the US Center for International Environmental Law and Britain's Exeter University comes amid growing concerns about the impact of plastic pollution.