GERMANY - Germany’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has said that it will implement strict immigration laws even if it has to enlist the support of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) to pass them. The move marks the first time a mainstream German party has agreed to work with the AfD and stands in stark contrast with the policy of former CDU leader and Chancellor Angela Merkel known for her lenient approach to migration. In a letter to party members seen by Politico on Friday, CDU leadership said that its lawmakers would introduce harsh immigration restrictions even “if only the AfD supports our proposals.”

GERMANY - The likely next Chancellor of Germany has categorically ruled out a coalition between his supposedly centre-right conservative party and the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), opting instead to partner with a leftist party. Appearing at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland this week, Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz said that he will “never” allow “right-wing populists into a government, which is led by me.”

USA - President Donald Trump has restored single-sex prisons, sending male inmates who identify as women back to men’s facilities. The approximately 1,500 male federal prisoners who identify as women will now be sent to men’s facilities in the wake of President Trump’s executive order establishing single-sex prisons, according to a report by the New York Times. President Trump’s executive order, titled, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” also ends transgender-related medical procedures for prison inmates.

USA - Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News personality and decorated Army veteran, was sworn in as the 29th US Secretary of Defense on Saturday, following a narrow and contentious Senate confirmation. In his inaugural address to the military, Secretary Hegseth emphasized his commitment to “restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and re-establishing deterrence.”

USA - President Trump spoke in Las Vegas on Saturday afternoon, where he announced plans to make good on his “No Tax on Tips” promise. “Can you remember that little statement about tips?” Trump previously said on inauguration day. “I think we won Nevada because of that statement.” Early in his speech, Trump spoke about Biden and the Democrats' destruction of our country through crippling regulations, inflation, and a wide-open southern border. He also attacked the Democrats' climate change hysteria as he championed his ending of the "incredibly wasteful" Green New Deal, withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, and cancelation of Biden's "insane and costly" electric car mandates.

SWITZERLAND - Since at least 2020, the World Economic Forum has argued in favor of giving nature, rivers, valleys, and streams personhood. According to a previous article on the WEF website, granting legal personhood to forests, rivers, and species could give them the best chance of survival and renewal. But in order to do this, the paganist group claims, “you must listen to and understand the language of nature” itself. The pagan movement to grant nature personhood took off last year when Canada classified the Quebec River a person under the law. This label protects the river from harm by humans. On Thursday, a Davos speaker again encouraged world leaders to start granting personhood to nature. THEY WON’T PROTECT THE LIFE OF A FETUS IN THE WOMB BUT THEY WANT TO GIVE RIVERS AND CANYONS THE SAME RIGHTS AS A HUMAN BEING.

USA - Right now, a tremendous awakening is happening as people all over the world become educated about the tools that the elite use to enslave us to their system. The number one tool that they use to enslave us is debt. The financial powers of the world use it to enslave individuals, corporations and governments. For thousands of years humanity has been taught the proverb that “the borrower is the servant of the lender”, and yet today billions of people around the globe have willingly made themselves servants of the money powers.

SWITZERLAND - The world’s patience with Great Reset, net-zero carbon, and similar schemes has waned as economic realities continue to intrude on elites’ misguided priorities. Their climate agenda has fallen apart. The global net-zero emission alliances (Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero) launched in 2021 have disintegrated. The global Net-Zero Insurance Alliance fell apart last year. The Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative suspended its activities earlier this month after its largest member, Blackrock, withdrew. And the Net Zero Banking Alliance has seen most major US banks withdraw in the last month, with four Canadian banks following suit last week.

USA - In a striking shift, major financial institutions and corporations are stepping back from ambitious climate commitments, signaling a growing recognition of the economic costs and impracticalities of such policies. The US Federal Reserve’s withdrawal from the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) and BlackRock’s exit from the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAM) highlight a broader retreat from climate-focused agendas that critics argue have overreached and underdelivered.

EUROPE - The EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has warned bloc member states against prioritizing social welfare over defense and urged them to increase weapons production to address what she termed a Russian “threat” to which, she warned, Europeans “need to wake up.” Russia is spending 9% of its GDP on defense whereas the Brussels-based bloc’s member states collectively spend an average of 1.9% of GDP, Kallas told the annual conference of the European Defenсe Agency on Wednesday. “We spent billions on our schools, welfare, healthcare, but if we do not invest more in defense, all of this is at risk,” she said. "Russia’s defense industry is churning out tanks, glide bombs, artillery shells in vast quantities. In three months, they can produce more weapons and more ammunition than we can in twelve,” the senior EU diplomat warned.

GERMANY - Vladimir Putin is ‘clearly creating the conditions’ for an assault, says German army chief. Russia is rearming faster than first thought for a potential attack on Nato, Germany’s military pointman on Ukraine has warned. On the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president, Major General Christian Freuding said that Russia had already replaced missiles and tanks lost in its invasion of Ukraine. “The Russian armed forces are not just able to compensate for their enormous personnel and material losses… they are successfully rearming,” he told Die Welt newspaper. He warned that although it was not clear that Putin had plans to attack Nato, he was “clearly creating the conditions for it”.

USA - The US president has said he wants to “get that war ended” in order to stop “so many young people being killed”. US President Donald Trump has said he would “very much like” to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin “soon” in order to end the ongoing Ukraine conflict. It is not just important from the standpoint of the global economy, but also to prevent further human suffering, he told the World Economic Forum in Davos via teleconference on Thursday. “Millions of lives are being wasted,” Trump claimed, referring to the ongoing hostilities and calling the conflict “horrible.” “I am not talking economy, I am not talking economics, I am not talking about natural resources, I’m just talking about so many young people being killed in this war,” he added.

UKRAINE - Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has said he could engage in direct peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin if US President Donald Trump provides Kiev with enough security guarantees, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. In an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday in Davos, Zelensky appeared to have changed his stance on the issue. According to the agency, the Ukrainian leader now says he wants to secure a commitment from Trump to support and secure Ukraine before engaging with Putin. “The only question is what security guarantees and honestly I want to have understanding before the talks. If he can guarantee this strong and irreversible security for Ukraine, we will move along this diplomatic path,” he said.

USA - “The Golden Age of America begins right now”, Donald Trump opened his second inaugural address on Monday. The cadence of his introductory sentence recalled a line from his first inaugural address in 2017, but the message was far more optimistic than the defiant tenor of that earlier speech, in which he said: “The American carnage stops right here, right now”.

USA - Donald Trump told Vladimir Putin to “stop this ridiculous war” or face a fresh round of tariffs and sanctions. The US president said he was “doing a favour” for Putin by offering him the chance to negotiate over peace, but would punish Russia if it did not come to the table. Mr Trump, who was inaugurated on Monday, has repeatedly promised to bring a swift end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, has publicly backed his American counterpart to broker a ceasefire, but Putin has yet to signal his willingness to entertain peace talks. However, the Ukrainian president said for the first time on Wednesday that he would demand US troops join a Western peacekeeping force as part of any settlement, in a blow to Mr Trump’s attempts to end the war.