UK - New NHS figures show that thousands of people injured in household accidents were admitted to English hospitals during Covid-19 lockdowns. The 2020/21 figures for England were obtained by the PA news agency and found accidents fell in many categories as people spent more time indoors. But numerous incidents, including eight people over the age of 90 who needed hospital treatment after falling from playground equipment, were recorded.

EUROPE - The German government is to support France in the goal of making the European Union “more sovereign”, according to the country’s new foreign minister. Annalena Baerbock, the foreign minister of Germany’s new left-led coalition government, has pledged that her country will support France in making “a more sovereign Europe” — that is, one with more power over its member-states’ national governments. The declaration comes as France assumes the European Union’s rotating presidency for the next six months. “Our French friends can count on our support from the first to the last day to lay the right foundations within the EU: for a sustainable economic recovery, in the fight against the climate crisis, in digitization and for a more sovereign Europe in the world,” Baerbock said, according to AFP. “We want to get… a powerful Europe in the world, fully sovereign, free to make its choices and master of its own destiny,” Macron said according to an Associated Press report.

USA - It’s important to see the principle of Ordo ab Chao at work. This occult latin term translates as “Order out of Chaos” and hints at modern globalization’s theory of “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Under the cover of chaos, Technocracy thrived during 2020-2021 at spreading its net of control and social engineering. Without chaos, virtually none of Technocracy’s initiatives would have ever gotten off the ground. The point is this: Technocracy thrives on order, structure and predictability but uses chaos to get there. Technocrats are masters of social engineering. This should surprise no one because their own magazine, The Technocrat, clearly defined their objectives in 1938: “Technocracy is the science of social engineering, the scientific operation of the entire social mechanism to produce and distribute goods and services to the entire population… For the first time in human history it will be done as a scientific, technical, engineering problem.”

ISRAEL - Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly warned Defense Minister Benny Gantz that while he was committed to stopping violence in the West Bank, he was concerned that changes to the religious status quo on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem could lead to an “unstoppable” escalation, Hebrew media reported Wednesday.

USA - Abortion was the leading cause of death globally in 2021, with nearly 43 million unborn babies killed in the womb, according to data provided by Worldometer. As of noon on December 31, 2021, there were 42.6 million abortions performed in the course of the year, Worldometer revealed, while 8.2 million people died from cancer, 5 million from smoking, 1.7 million of HIV/AIDS, 1.3 million from traffic fatalities, and 1 million from suicide. Totalling all the deaths in the world from causes other than abortion reveals a figure of 58.7 million, meaning that abortions accounted for just over 42 percent of all human deaths in 2021. By comparison, worldwide deaths from coronavirus in 2021 totaled around 3.5 million, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

TAIWAN - Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has vowed to continue defending the island’s independence against Beijing. In a New Year’s speech, she said the differences with communist mainland China cannot be resolved by force. “Taiwan’s consistent position has been that we will neither bow to pressure nor act rashly when we have support,” Tsai said in a New Year’s speech streamed on Saturday. “We want to remind the Beijing authorities that they should not misjudge the situation, and that they should stop the spread of military adventurism within their ranks,” she said. Beijing claims Taiwan, a self-proclaimed independent island country with close ties to the US, as its own territory. The issue of Taiwan remained at the center of wider US-Chinese tensions throughout 2021.

USA - “Mass formation psychosis.” No, it doesn’t refer to a screwed-up flock of geese flying south for the winter. In a Christmas Day article titled COVID Has Been Overtaken by a Secondary Pandemic — and It’s Real, I discussed Illness Anxiety Disorder, or “health anxiety.” Specifically COVID-related Illness Anxiety Disorder. As defined by Mayo Clinic, Illness Anxiety, in part, is needlessly worrying about becoming seriously ill. Illness Anxiety Disorder, sometimes called hypochondriasis or health anxiety, is worrying excessively that you are or may become seriously ill.

USA - Wouldn’t it be great if we could have a year without any major pestilences? 2019 seems like it was so long ago, and we may never see another year like it. All of the measures that global authorities have imposed to try to end the COVID pandemic have failed, and now we are being told that we are just going to have to live with COVID on a permanent basis. And Omicron has shown us that a new variant can sweep across the entire globe in just a matter of weeks. Meanwhile, there are several new “outbreaks” that are unrelated to COVID that I am going to be keeping a very close eye on as we enter 2022. For example, we are being told that there is a “massive bird flu outbreak” in Israel right now. Here in the United States, officials are deeply concerned about a widespread outbreak of an “undiagnosed respiratory illness” in northern Ohio… On the other side of the globe, a different mystery disease has killed close to 100 people in South Sudan…The COVID pandemic has clearly demonstrated how vulnerable we are, and scientists assure us that it is just a matter of time before we are hit by even more pestilences.

CHINA - The Commerce Department imposed sanctions on Chinese technology companies and announced last week that China’s military is engaged in dangerous work related to “brain control” warfare research. “War has started to shift from the pursuit of destroying bodies to paralyzing and controlling the opponent,” said the report headlined, “The Future of the Concept of Military Supremacy.” “The focus is to attack the enemy’s will to resist, not physical destruction,” it stated. Brain science is being used to extend warfare in the sphere of human consciousness “causing the brain to become the main target of offense and defense of new concept weapons,” the report added. “To win without fighting is no longer far-fetched,” it stated, quoting ancient strategist Sun Tzu’s maxim.

SYRIA - Satellite imagery The War Zone obtained from Planet Labs shows the aftermath of yesterday’s Israeli airstrike on the Syrian port of Latakia, which reportedly targeted a shipment of “arms and munitions.” The air raid, apparently launched by Israeli Air Force aircraft over the Mediterranean, resulted in a huge blaze at the port facility, which took firefighters many hours to bring under control. The satellite image shows damage to multiple shipping containers, seemingly as the result of four separate weapons impacts in different parts of the facility. With Israel having struck the port of Latakia twice this month, with the first such raid on December 7, the country continues to tackle the issue of suspected Iranian arms shipments head-on. It also is a reminder that Israel is ready and willing to take direct actions to stop Iran from establishing a larger military foothold in Syria and to degrade its ability to continue to bolster Hezbollah's arms stockpiles in Lebanon.

UK - This is a golden age of Anglo-Israeli relations. In November, Parliament voted to proscribe Hamas in its entirety, rather than just its military wing, something for which Israeli governments have been lobbying for decades. With the latest round of nuclear negotiations with Iran in Vienna, Britain is leaning towards Israel in this fight. It seems unbelievable, but when it comes to Iran, this country is now more sympathetic to Israel than the US. This profound sea change started with the Abraham Accords, the set of peace deals between Israel and several Arab states. Until that point, the Foreign Office had to balance closeness with Israel against valuable relations with important Arab states. The benefits are obvious. Israel has been a world leader in terms of the fight against Covid. In terms of high-tech, Israel is now, relative to population, the most successful country in the world. It hosts 10% of the world's "unicorns," a new private company with a valuation of a billion dollars or more; not bad for a country smaller than Wales that is beset by enemies.

USA - Twitter on Wednesday banned the inventor of mRNA vaccine technology, Dr Robert W Malone. Dr Malone had over 500k followers and is perhaps the most influential doctor in the country outside the government. The ban came just hours after the AP posted a "fact check" from some "misinformation reporter" named Josh Kelety claiming Malone "misled" people by claiming the vaccines are failing against the Omicron variant.

USA - The metaverse, one of the most buzzy terms of the tech industry, could be many things. It could be a virtual world where imagination is the only limit. Or it could be a less fantastical place for holding business meetings without leaving home. For the tech titans getting behind this big idea, the metaverse could be something more tangible: the next great way to make piles of money. After 15 years of riding a boom in mobile computing that has turned tech’s biggest companies into giants worth trillions of dollars, the power brokers of the industry believe that controlling the doors into the metaverse and virtual reality could be the centerpiece of a new business, like smartphones and apps or personal computers and web browsers in the 1990s. “This is the evolution of the internet,” said Alex Kipman, who has spent more than a decade shepherding this kind of technology at Microsoft. “If you are a company like Microsoft, you want to participate.”

AUSTRALIA - Local authorities Down Under are looking to isolate cats – not due to some kind of new virus, but rather their outstanding hunting talents. A nationwide 24/7 lockdown for cats is just around the corner in Australia, officials believe, as figures reveal that billions of unique native animals fall prey to feline hunters annually. “The latest statistics show that every year they [pet cats] predate more than 180 native animals; that's just one pet cat,” Dean Huxley, an operations director at a wildlife hospital in Perth, told ABC. The total number of kills for one feral cat stands at over 740 per year, according to the 2019 book ‘Cats in Australia: Companion and Killer’, which combined hundreds of studies on the issue. This means that some three million mammals, two million reptiles, and one million marsupials become victims of cats every single day in Australia. And, according to Huxley, the death toll will only keep growing if something isn’t done.

USA - A wildfire has destroyed half a thousand homes in just one afternoon in Colorado as winds have been driving flames "from one house to another." Local authorities have asked more than 32,000 people to evacuate as what is already known as the Marshall fire has massacred land and houses since Thursday morning (11am local time). Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said at a news conference that an estimated 580 homes have currently been lost to the flames or damaged. Sheriff Pelle said no fatalities have yet been reported, but given the speed and scope of the fire, “it wouldn't surprise us if we did find a casualty.” He added: "My county is on fire." The intense Colorado winds boosted the fire to the extent that by 3pm, the smoke turned daylight into dusk. Winds of up to 110 mph helped the fire reach several buildings, including an apartment complex under construction that was fully engulfed, according to a report by CBS Denver.