USA - The Government has partially shut down. Again. No other advanced democracy has government shutdowns. In America they have become almost routine. This is the third since Donald Trump became president and by far the most damaging. The others were resolved quickly; this is already the second-longest on record. It is not happening because America is in turmoil: the country is not at war, unemployment is as low as it has ever been. It is happening because that is what the president wants. What is playing out in Washington is the denouement of a political fight. Mr Trump was elected on a promise to build a wall on the southern border, though Mexico was supposed to pay for it. The new Democratic majority in the House is reluctant to give the president a victory on his best-known policy. The Senate majority leader, who might be able to end the standoff, is AWOL. But the fight is about much more than policy: it is about Mr Trump’s authority.

USA - President Barack Obama’s Border Patrol chief went public on Tuesday and said that President Donald Trump is correct about building a border wall. President Trump fired Obama-appointed Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan one day after taking office in January 2016. Despite this, former Chief Morgan made a public statement released on Tuesday supporting the president’s plan to build border walls, LawAndCrime.com reported. “I’m here today breaking my silence to tell the American people that the president is correct in what he’s doing,” Morgan told interviewer Brian Ross with the Law & Crime Network. “The wall works — 100 percent.”

USA - Prominent leaders of the Democratic Party once fiercely endorsed border security, and had even voted to secure a border fence along the nation’s southern border. These stringent calls for tougher border policy appear to have ceased since Donald Trump took office as President of the United States. In 2006, Senate Democrats — including then-senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, and Joe Biden — voted to secure a fence along the United States southern border. Hillary Clinton: “Look, I voted numerous times when I was a senator to spend money to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in, and I do think you have to control your borders,” said Clinton, referring to the Secure Fence Act of 2006, “We need to secure our borders, I’m for it, I voted for it, I believe in it.”

SWITZERLAND - EU Bosses are refusing to renegotiate the bloc’s trade deal with Switzerland despite several attempts from the country’s new federal president Ueli Maurer to get the agreement back on the table. Berne and Brussels finally came up with a draft deal on future bilateral relations just before Christmas after four years of intense and occasionally bad-natured negotiations.

USA - Newly-elected Virginia congresswoman Jennifer Wexton is showing solidarity with the LGBTQ community by hanging a transgender pride flag alongside the official Virginia flag outside her Washington DC office. Narissa Rahaman, a regional field organizer for the Human Rights Campaign, shared an image of the flag on Twitter Thursday, which she said is the only office on the Hill with one. Rahaman also said Wexton told her the flag is there because of the community’s support. The trans flag is proudly and openly displayed next to the Virginia flag outside @RepWexton’s new office! She said to me, “Did you see the flag?! I think we’re the only office on the Hill with one.” To all her volunteers: the flag is there because of you & for you! Change is here!

USA - Activist and concerned citizens have for years been ringing the alarm bells over genetically modified (GM) foods taking over our food supply. There are several critical concerns surrounding this issue. We do not yet know what the long-term health effects will be of mass consumption of GM products. We know that they have in some cases been linked to the development of cancer. Production of GM crops requires massive amounts of patented chemical fertilizers, herbicides and seed activators. GM crops contribute to monoculture. GM seeds are patented by seed companies and GM crops are known to migrate between fields, leaving non-GM farmers liable for patent infringements. GM crops represent the corporate takeover of the food supply and will make the entire world dependent on for-profit for survival. In short, GM crops are an exceptionally bad idea, and now even the main scientist who has developed all GM potatoes is speaking out publicly on the hidden dangers of this new frankenfood.

RUSSIA - The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church has said that humans’ dependence on modern technology will result in the coming of the Antichrist.  In an interview with Russian state media, Patriarch Kirill explained he does not entirely oppose gadgets, but warned against “falling into slavery” to smartphones.  Patriarch Kirill said that the collection of user data including “location, interests and fears” will make it possible for humans to be controlled by external forces. “Control from a single point is a harbinger [sign] of the coming of the Antichrist,” Kirill told the state-run Rossia-1 TV network on Orthodox Christmas Monday. “The Antichrist is a personality that will be at the head of the world wide web controlling the entire human race. Thus, the structure itself presents a danger,” he said.  The church leader stressed that “if we don’t want to bring the apocalypse closer, thereshould be no single [control and access] center.”

UK - The Bible predicts the end times will be "terrible", filled with "deception" and will become as "evil" as the last days of Noah. The Bible describes events and conditions that would mark “the conclusion of the [current] system of things,” or “the end of the world". The Bible calls this time period “the last days” and the “time of the end,” or “end times", and clearly teaches that society will degenerate. In Matthew 24:37-39, it is said that the end times will be more evil than it was in the days of Noah. Jesus said that as lawlessness increases, “most people’s love will grow cold”. The Bible also says that the end times will be an age of deception. According to Matthew 24:24: “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elected.” However, the Bible does not state when the end times will occur, Matthew 24:44 states: “Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect."

EUROPE - The European Union will need to do “less better” and undergo a “radical rethink” in order to survive, warned professor of European studies Stefan Auer. “I think what the EU needs is a radical rethink. It needs to do less, better.” As a consequence, the EU expert said he is “deeply sceptical” about Emmanuel Macron’s ambitions to turn Europe into a “quasi-federation” – insisting “Europe needs to do less and better”.

EUROPE - The unannounced move by the US State Department, which has not previously been reported, downgraded the EU delegation's diplomatic status in Washington from member state to international organization. "We don't exactly know when they did it, because they conveniently forgot to notify us," an EU official who is familiar with the matter told DW in an interview. "I can confirm that this has not been well received in Brussels," the person said, adding that the issue and an official EU response was still being discussed. After the delegation noticed that the EU's Washington ambassador had not been invited to certain events late last year, officials organizing the state funeral for President George HW Bush provided final confirmation to EU diplomats that the status of the representation had in fact been downgraded. Diplomats believe the downgrade must have been implemented in late October or early November.

GERMANY - German factory orders dropped in November, dragged down by a fall in demand from other eurozone countries. The Economy Ministry said Monday that overall orders were 1 percent lower than in the previous month following a slight 0.2 percent gain in October. The figure includes an 11.6 percent drop in orders from elsewhere in the 19-nation eurozone, which more than cancelled out a 7.4 percent gain a month earlier. Orders from inside Germany were up 2.4 percent, and those from outside the eurozone rose 2.3 percent.

VATICAN - Pope Francis warned on Monday against a resurgence of nationalist and populist movements and criticized countries that try to solve the migration crisis with unilateral or isolationist actions. The pope, speaking to diplomats in an annual speech known informally as his “state of the world” address, suggested such movements and closed-door policies were turning the clock back 100 years to the dangerous period between the world wars. Relationships within the international community “are experiencing a period of difficulty, with the resurgence of nationalistic tendencies,” he said, making dialogue between countries difficult and hurting the most vulnerable members of society, including migrants. Populist anti-immigrant parties made gains in a number of countries last year, including Italy, France, the Netherlands, Hungary, Brazil and Poland.

USA - Socialism is becoming more normalized among Americans who identify as Democrats, according to a recent poll, as their approval of capitalism falls at the same time. A recent Gallup poll showed that 57 percent of Democrats view socialism positively, while 47 percent of Democrats view capitalism positively. Across the aisle, only 16 percent of Republicans view socialism in a positive light, a number still frighteningly high among those who identify as conservative. Socialists — running for office as democrats — are indeed getting elected, as they promise to provide young Americans with free services, which they will make other generations pay for. The late American economist Milton Friedman once said: “a society which is socialist cannot also be democratic, in the sense of guaranteeing individual freedom.”

ISRAEL - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made his first public appeal for the United States to officially recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. “The Golan Heights is tremendously important for our security,” Netanyahu said in Jerusalem, alongside US National Security Adviser John Bolton on Sunday night, adding Israel “will never leave the Golan Heights,” and stressed the gravity of all countries recognizing the region as Israeli territory. Netanyahu also acknowledged he has previously raised the matter behind closed doors with President Trump, who reportedly supported the idea. But Trump was concerned by a possible rebuke from Russia, the leading international authority and staunch supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which mandates Israel is Syrian territory.

USA - Actually, most flu cases are “bacteria cases,” “fungal cases,” or “pollution cases,” or “tainted food” cases, or “eating GMO cases,” or “weak immune system” cases, or something else. But they aren’t the flu. Here’s the exact quote from Peter Doshi’s BMJ review, “Influenza: marketing vaccines by marketing disease” (BMJ 2013; 346:f3037): “…even the ideal influenza vaccine, matched perfectly to circulating strains of wild influenza and capable of stopping all influenza viruses, can only deal with a small part of the ‘flu’ problem because most ‘flu’ appears to have nothing to do with influenza. Every year, hundreds of thousands of respiratory specimens are tested across the US. Of those tested, on average 16% are found to be influenza positive.”