GERMANY - Germany’s new Christian Democrat leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has called for the creation of a European army amid growing global instability caused by sabre-rattling leaders in Russia, China and the US. Angela Merkel’s successor used a speech in Brussels to outline a key CDU party campaign theme with European Parliament elections coming up in May. Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer warned the EU would be left trailing behind global superpowers Russia, China and the USA unless it stepped up to the plate militarily. She also predicted the EU’s external borders would need extra protection for many decades to come in the face of a sustained migrant crisis. Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer’s speech focused on the idea of a “Europe of security” and she insisted an EU army was a “logical step” in pursuit of that goal.

AUSTRALIA - Climate change is a hoax developed as part of a secret plot by the United Nations to undermine democracies and takeover the world, a top adviser to Tony Abbott, Australia’s prime minister, has warned. Maurice Newman, the chief business adviser to the prime minister, said the science showing links between human activity and the warming climate was wrong but was being used as a “hook” by the UN to expand its global control. “This is not about facts or logic. It’s about a new world order under the control of the UN,” he wrote in The Australian. “It’s a well-kept secret, but 95 per cent of the climate models we are told prove the link between human CO2 emissions and catastrophic global warming have been found, after nearly two decades of temperature stasis, to be in error,” he wrote.

USA - In a leaked military manual on “unconventional warfare” recently highlighted by WikiLeaks, the US Army states that major global financial institutions — such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) — are used as unconventional, financial “weapons in times of conflict up to and including large-scale general war,” as well as in leveraging “the policies and cooperation of state governments.”

VATICAN - The Pope and Islam’s most important Imam just signed a covenant that pushes us much closer to a one world religion. A historic interfaith covenant was signed in the Middle East on Monday, and the mainstream media in the United States has been almost entirely silent about it. Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb is considered to be the most important imam in Sunni Islam, and he arrived at the signing ceremony in Abu Dhabi with Pope Francis “hand-in-hand in a symbol of interfaith brotherhood”.

USA - It could be even worse than aspartame. The FDA is amending their food additive regulations to provide for the “safe” use of ADVANTAME, after receiving a petition from Ajinomoto Co Inc, a Japanese company which produces most of the world’s MSG as well as being a major supplier of aspartame… Senior Scientist Lisa Lefferts, at CSPINET (The Center for Science in the Public Interest) shares her concern that “In a key cancer study in mice, the number of mice that survived to the end of the study [of Advantame] was below the FDA’s own scientific recommendations, and is therefore inadequate to provide confidence in the safety of a chemical likely to be consumed by millions of people.”

EUROPE - In the latest frustrated comment from the EU as Brexit dealings crumble, European Commission boss Jean-Claude Juncker said his job in Brussels was “hell.” The quip came after another top EU official spoke of a hell for Brexiteers. The Devil’s domain was first mentioned by EU Council president Donald Tusk, when he lambasted the UK authorities over their attempts to change the already negotiated withdrawal agreement with the bloc.

EUROPE - The European Union will make no new offer on Brexit and those who promoted Britain’s exit without any understanding of how to deliver it deserve a “special place in hell”, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Wednesday. The United Kingdom is on course to leave the EU on March 29 without a deal unless Prime Minister Theresa May can convince the bloc to reopen the divorce agreement she reached in November and then sell it to skeptical British lawmakers. But as Tusk’s pointedly blunt language showed, frustration runs deep among European leaders over the British parliament’s rejection of the divorce deal and May’s demands that the EU now give up on key principles or face disruption in just 50 days.

UK - Donald Tusk has legitimised the UK's decision to leave the EU by claiming there is a "special place in hell" for those who campaigned for Brexit without a plan in 2016, as he "reaffirmed" Britons' rejection of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, claimed Andrea Leadsom. The leader of the House of Commons told BBC World at One she believed President Tusk's comments were "unacceptable" and "disgraceful".

UK - Nigel Farage claimed three countries were beginning to “fracture” from EU unity noting "comments" from Lithuania, Poland and Hungary. The former Ukip leader and Vice-Chairman of Leave Means Leave rejected claims the EU was standing united over the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. Mr Farage also claimed the one option “looming larger” for the UK was Britain walking away from the European Union on WTO terms. He said: “The truth is they are beginning to fracture. We are hearing comments from Lithuania, we are hearing comments from Poland. Indeed a little bit from Hungary. There is a beginning of a process of fracturing. One of the options now, that is looming larger, and particularly with the British public, is that we leave on WTO (World Trade Organization) terms. That is what Mr Tusk is scared of.”

USA - President Trump said the United States will never become a socialist country in his 2019 State of the Union address. "We stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom — and we condemn the brutality of the Maduro regime, whose socialist policies have turned that nation from being the wealthiest in South America into a state of abject poverty and despair," Trump said Tuesday night. "Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country," the president said. "America was founded on liberty and independence - not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free."

VATICAN - Pope Francis said today that the Vatican would be willing to mediate in the Venezuela crisis, but only if both sides asked for help. The pontiff said preliminary steps to try to bring the warring factions closer together should be taken before mediation from the head of the Catholic church was used. Francis has acknowledged receiving a request from the embattled Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro to help relaunch talks to end the country's political crisis, but is ruling out any involvement unless opposition leader Juan Guaido also requests it. Today the pontiff said he had not read Maduro's letter, which he said arrived via diplomatic pouch.

GERMANY - German factory orders unexpectedly dropped for a second month in December, adding to signs that Europe’s largest economy is facing a more protracted loss in momentum. The 1.6 percent decline, the steepest in six months, may feed speculation that Germany, once Europe’s major growth engine, contracted in the final quarter of 2018. Since the statistics office predicted a “slight” increase in gross domestic product, data have painted a more downbeat picture, and Deutsche Bank argued on Tuesday that the German economy was drifting toward recession amid deteriorating business sentiment.

GERMANY - Germany’s cabinet has approved a revision to the country’s controversial, Nazi-era abortion law, a move that – pending parliamentary approval – would allow doctors and medical associations to provide women with more information about where and how to seek abortions.

USA - Is it okay for the US government to pay for scientific experiments involving bizarre mouse/human hybrid creatures that were created by grafting aborted baby parts on to mice?  Needless to say, the answer to that question is self-evident.  Our tax dollars are being used to fund experiments that are so sickening that it is difficult to find words to describe how evil they are. 

UK - UK cabinet ministers have secretly held talks on plans to delay Brexit by eight weeks, the Telegraph newspaper reported late on Tuesday. The delay would postpone Brexit to May 24. Currently, Britain is due to leave the European Union on March 29. Ministers are hoping the EU will agree to a two-month “grace period” after March 29 in case Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal passes through parliament to provide the additional time for necessary legislation, the report said. May will travel to Brussels on Thursday to tell EU leaders they must accept legally binding changes to the Irish border arrangements of Britain’s divorce deal or face the prospect of a disorderly no-deal Brexit.