SOUTH AFRICA - South Africa’s passenger railway system is on the brink of total collapse, brought to its knees by thieves and vandals who have gutted many of its stations and railway tracks into a post-apocalyptic-like state. Rail journalist David Williams previously detailed the worrying condition of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa’s (Prasa’s) network in a report for the Brenthurst Foundation. Williams found that around two-thirds of the above-ground electrical cable network of 3,000km had been stolen or damaged. In Gauteng, 89% of the Prasa’s network was out of order, while about 70% of KwaZulu-Natal’s railways were dysfunctional. The situation was slightly better in the Western Cape, with 30% of the network non-operational.

USA - Andrew Zarro, a Portland, Maine City Council member, sells disturbing stickers that say “Abort Republicans” and “Defund God”. Zarro owns a coffee shop in Portland called “Little Woodfords”, and on its Instagram account it promotes sticker packs sold at the shop with crude phrases like “Defund God”, “Abort Republicans”, and “thank you for making me a godless heaux”. Oddly enough, the coffee shop also posts things trying to convince its customers that it’s “inclusive”, selling posters that read “All Are Welcome Here”, and “All races, classes, ages, religions, bodies, abilities, genders, identities, sexual orientations, countries of origin are welcome here”. Note that it does not say all “political affiliations” are welcome. That is made perfectly clear. These stickers reportedly surprised many of the council member’s supporters since he frequently preaches pro-equality and inclusivity.

USA - Alvin Bragg, the new district attorney of Manhattan, New York, announced his office is downgrading charges for many felonies and will seek prison sentences for only a handful of crimes. Bragg, a Democrat who was elected in November, outlined his policies in a “Day One Letter” sent to all staff on Monday, saying they were “effective immediately.”“The Office will not prosecute the following charges, unless as part of an accusatory instrument containing at least one felony count,” the letter read. The offenses that no longer will be prosecuted include marijuana misdemeanors, prostitution, resisting arrest, fare dodging and trespassing. Bragg also said his office would “not seek a carceral sentence” except for homicides, violent felonies, domestic violence, some sex offenses, public corruption, rackets and major economic crimes.

AUSTRALIA - Australia’s Northern Territory has officially imposed a new authoritarian lockdown on citizens who have not been ‘fully vaccinated’ against Covid-19 for the next few days as officials scramble amid fears of the highly-mild Omicron variant. Any individual who is 16 or older and is not fully vaccinated will not be able to leave their homes until the middle of next week, even if it’s to go to work or to get exercise outdoors. Essentially, anyone refusing the experimental jab is prohibited from making a living right now. Capitalizing on the hysteria surrounding the rapidly-spreading, common-cold-like Omicron variant, Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunder announced the lockdown, which is one of the world’s harshest yet, during a press conference on Thursday.

USA - As COVID-19 deaths approach 19,000 in Indiana, the insurance industry has been processing claims at a record rate. Nationally, more than 824,000 people have died from the virus. “We’re seeing right now the highest death rates we’ve ever seen in the history of this business,” said Scott Davison, the CEO of OneAmerica, a $100 billion life insurance and retirement company headquartered in Indianapolis. “The data is consistent across every player in the business.”

USA - Governments are intensifying their vitriol against the unvaccinated. Trudeau (Canada) says they shouldn’t be tolerated. Macron (France) says he’s “really going to p*** them off”. Germany says they are “not human.” Biden (US) says they are the pandemic. If not reversed soon, such rhetoric can easily lead to mass bloodshed. ⁃ TN Editor

VATICAN - Pope Francis risked the ire of the world's childless dog and cat owners Wednesday, suggesting people who substitute pets for kids exhibit "a certain selfishness". Speaking on parenthood during a general audience at the Vatican, Francis lamented that pets "sometimes take the place of children" in society."Today... we see a form of selfishness," said the pope. "We see that some people do not want to have a child. Sometimes they have one, and that's it, but they have dogs and cats that take the place of children. This may make people laugh but it is a reality." The practice, said the head of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics, "is a denial of fatherhood and motherhood and diminishes us, takes away our humanity".

EUROPE - The head of a commission representing the European Union’s Catholic bishops has called for Covid passports to be required for anyone wishing to access religious services in Europe, in the latest move towards a general Church endorsement of tighter controls. “During this phase when the pandemic is resurgent, we must save lives, and this green pass should welcome people to Mass,” said Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, president of the Brussels-based Comece. “Since Christmas, a law has been in force in Luxembourg allowing only those vaccinated to participate in liturgies, except in the case of celebrations with fewer than 20 faithful. Some priests have objected, and this isn't helping the search for a solution”.

EUROPE - “When the two biggest car companies in the world decide to go all-in on electric, then there's no longer a question of speculation — the mainstream is going electric," said Andy Palmer, the former chief of Aston Martin and ex-Nissan Motor Co executive often referred to as “the godfather of EVs" after being instrumental in developing the Japanese carmaker’s battery-powered Leaf. “I expect the shift to electric to be faster than everyone expects." The ways VW and Toyota have moved to defend their ground are as different as one would expect from proud German and Japanese titans of industry. One is coming out swinging, putting Tesla squarely in its sights, and the other is investing heavily in EVs while continuing to spread its bets, biding time as the early stages of the revolution shake out.

UK - Administrators at the University of Reading in England recently cut several lines referring to domestic violence from a classic Greek poem to avoid offending students. The 2,000-year-old poem, Types of Women, by Semonides of Amorgos, is taught to first-year classics students at the school and makes reference to silencing women through violence. Documents obtained by The UK Daily Mail include a statement by school administrators: “The portion of the poem now omitted involved a brief reference to domestic violence,” read the statement. “That portion has subsequently been removed because, while the text as a whole is vitriolic, that part seemed unnecessarily unpleasant and (potentially) triggering.” According to the school, no student had complained about the poem. “This is beyond naive,” Jeremy Black, emeritus professor of history at the University of Exeter, told the Daily Mail. “It is positively ridiculous and has no place in academia. If we applied this same kind of censorship to the news we would end up with a most limited and ignorant view of the world,” said Black.

AFGHANISTAN - The Taliban has ordered clothes shops in Afghanistan’s Herat province to behead all mannequins because they are “idols,” according to media reports. According to The Times newspaper, the ruling was issued last week by the local office of the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which is charged with enforcing the Taliban’s reading of Sharia Law in the western province. Officials initially wanted shopkeepers to remove the dummies altogether, describing them as “statues” that were being “worshiped.” However, store owners hit out at the idea, arguing that it would have an adverse effect on their already floundering business. The Taliban relented and settled for the mere beheading of mannequins instead, with severe punishment awaiting those who run foul of the new rule.

UK - How our Universe was born from nothing or if there was something that existed before it remains a mystery, but that is not stopping some physicists from trying to figure it out. The most we can say with confidence at this stage is that physics has so far found no confirmed instances of something arising from nothing. To truly answer the question of how something could arise from nothing, we would need to explain the quantum state of the entire Universe at the beginning of the Planck epoch. All attempts to do this remain highly speculative. Some of them appeal to supernatural forces like a designer. But other candidate explanations remain within the realm of physics – such as a multiverse, which contains an infinite number of parallel universes, or cyclical models of the Universe, being born and reborn again.

CHINA - Protesters gathered outside the offices of the sinking China Evergrande Group as investors fret over whether their returns will be lost to the company's dire financial situation. The crowd congregated outside the building in Guangzhou on Tuesday, anxious about the future of their investments with the company. Around 100 people surrounded the company’s offices to chant, “Evergrande, return our money!” This echoed the demands heard when the state of Evergrande’s affairs became known last year. Shares in Evergrande dropped by almost 90 percent last year as investors became increasingly worried about the security of their investments. Evergrande was heavily embedded in the Chinese economy - the world's second-largest economy. Onlookers worry that the effect of a collapse could be similar to that of the Lehman Brothers in the US, and have a ripple effect on the property and real estate sectors which account for up to 30 percent of China's GDP.

CHINA - The new RCEP trade agreement, spanning 15 countries and nearly one-third of the world’s population, gives Beijing huge advantages in its economic competition with America. With the coming of the new year, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement came into force. Signed at the end of 2020, and ratified by at least 10 of its parties through 2021, the deal constitutes the largest free trade agreement in history, spanning 30% of the world’s GDP and bringing China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) into one bloc, where members enjoy 90% of goods tariff free. It is not surprising that China has been quick to herald the deal as a massive win for itself, coming at a time when the United States is advocating ‘decoupling’ from Beijing and adopting a protectionist stance. China sees itself becoming more prominent in the global economy, trading more and using its giant market, while the US has decided to sit on the sidelines, engage in sabotage, cry foul, and still demand it should be able to dictate the flow of the game it refuses to play in. Who do you think is going to come out of all this best?

CHINA - After joining the world’s most powerful nations in pledging to work together on disarmament and avoid nuclear war, China is continuing to overhaul its stash of atomic weapons, and calling on others to reduce their stockpiles. "China has always adopted the no first use policy and we maintain our nuclear capabilities at the minimal level required for our national security,” Fu Cong, the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s top arms control director, told reporters on Tuesday, according to AFP. "China will continue to modernize its nuclear arsenal for reliability and safety issues," he added. Along with the US, UK, Russia, and France, China on Monday signed a statement declaring that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” The five nuclear powers also agreed to work together on “bilateral and multilateral non-proliferation, disarmament, and arms control agreements and commitments,” and not to leave their nuclear weapons targeted at each other.