VENEZUELA - Venezuela’s government is planning to move to a fully digital economy as hyperinflation has made worthless bolivar notes practically disappear, and dollarization expands through the local financial system. The US dollar has operated as an escape valve for Venezuela amid US sanctions and collapsing oil revenues, President Nicolas Maduro said in a televised interview with Telesur on Friday. Venezuela’s currency has lost 99% of its value during three years of hyperinflation, forcing the country to issue higher-denomination notes that in turn become useless in record time. Inflation soared 5,790% in the last 12 months, according to Bloomberg News’s Cafe con Leche Index. The largest note now in circulation, 50,000 bolivars, is worth about $0.04. The government has delayed plans to issue a 100,000 bolivar bill, which currently would be worth less than $0.10.

INDIA - India is fighting to dispel rumors that two newly-approved coronavirus vaccines can cause erectile dysfunction, but the country’s drug regulator may have overdone it by insisting that the jabs are more than 100-percent safe. On Sunday, India officially gave the green light to Covishield, a drug developed by the Pune-based Serum Institute based on the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, as well as Covaxin, created by Indian pharmaceutical Bharat Biotech.

IRELAND - Dr Dolores Cahill, PhD, is a Molecular Biologist/Immunologist and Professor at the University College of Dublin in Ireland. She has more than 20 years of expertise in high-throughput protein & antibody array, proteomics technology development, automation & biomedical applications in biomarker discovery, diagnostics & personalized medicine. “The cytokine storm is when you put RNA genes, mRNA vaccine injected into your body, you bypass all of the natural immune response, which would (normally) build an immune response to prevent the vaccine from actually entering your body. But when you inject it, this mRNA, why it’s so deadly, is that it now goes into your genes, and starts expressing. And it starts stimulating the immune response from inside your body, and you can’t get rid of it because of the source of the viral protein. You now have become like a genetically modified organism.” If this sounds fantastic to you, please understand that Dr Cahill is not the only one explaining how these mRNA vaccines work. Many other doctors and scientists are saying the same thing…

USA - The Texas Senator is joined by several of his Republican colleagues who noted in a statement that “voter fraud has posed a persistent challenge in our elections, although its breadth and scope are disputed.” The move appears to be taking a leaf of out of the left’s playbook. The notion of an electoral commission for the election was first mooted by the far-left Transition Integrity Project as reported upon by The National Pulse earlier this year. As a result, the group is also expected to demand an emergency audit, with a statement reading: “In 1877, Congress did not ignore those allegations, nor did the media simply dismiss those raising them as radicals trying to undermine democracy. Instead, Congress appointed an Electoral Commission-consisting of five Senators, five House Members, and five Supreme Court Justices-to consider and resolve the disputed returns. We should follow that precedent.”

USA - “The election of 2020, like the election of 2016, was hard fought and, in many swing states, narrowly decided. The 2020 election, however, featured unprecedented allegations of voter fraud, violations and lax enforcement of election law, and other voting irregularities. “Voter fraud has posed a persistent challenge in our elections, although its breadth and scope are disputed. By any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes.

TAIWAN - Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen has called on China to "promote meaningful dialogue" and de-escalate tensions in the disputed South China Sea amid fears of a conflict erupting in the contested waters. During her New Year’s Day speech on Friday, Ms Tsai denounced Beijing’s frequent patrols in the disputed region. Ms Tsai also invited China to resume communication which was cut off when she took office for a second term in 2016. She said: "I want to reiterate, that when it comes to cross-strait relations we will not advance rashly and will stick to our principles." As long as the Beijing authorities are determined to defuse antagonism and improve cross-strait relations, in line with the principles of reciprocity and dignity, we are willing to jointly promote meaningful dialogue.” Ms Tsai’s speech came as China issued a warning to the US after two American warships transited the Taiwan Strait amid mounting tensions.

CHINA - China has dismissed Taiwan's offer of peace talks as "cheap tricks" after the latter appeared to offer an olive branch in a new year's message. Tsai Ing-wen, President of Taiwan, referred to ongoing tensions in the Taiwan Strait between the two countries in a national address on January 1. She said Taiwan would be “willing to facilitate meaningful dialogue” with Beijing, provided China shared its interest in improving relations. It comes after a year in which Chinese military aircraft have repeatedly been spotted entering Taiwan’s air defence identification zone. Chinese officials have referred to Taiwan as “an inseparable part of Chinese territory” – though analysts say the country is effectively independent. Ms Tsai said on Friday morning: “From a global strategic standpoint, Taiwan is more important than ever. Stabilizing relations across the Taiwan Strait is no longer just an issue for the two sides. While China has blasted any independence movements within Taiwan, Beijing officials have also hit out at the country’s formal relations with the US this year. On a number of occasions this year US officials have been flown to Taipei, including Washington’s Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.

USA - Sales by the top 25 companies up 8.5 per cent; Big players active in Global South New data from SIPRI's Arms Industry Database shows that arms sales by the world's 25 largest arms-producing and military services companies (arms companies) totalled US$361 billion in 2019. This represents an 8.5 per cent increase in real terms over the arms sales of the top 25 arms companies in 2018.

GERMANY - In 2020, the German government signed off on weapons exports to countries involved in the deadly conflicts in Yemen and Libya. Germany is among the world's top five weapons exporters. The German government approved a total of €1.16 billion ($1.41 billion) in arms exports during 2020 to countries involved in both the Yemen and Libya conflicts, reported news agency dpa citing the country's Economy Ministry. Germany, by December 17, had signed off on permissions to export weapons and military equipment worth €752 million to Egypt. Permission was also granted to German arms companies for deals worth over €305.1 million to Qatar, over €51 million to the United Arab Emirates, €23.4 million for Kuwait and around €22.9 million to Turkey. Licenses were granted to Jordan totalling €1.7 million and Bahrain amounting to €1.5 million. The breakdown was provided by the ministry in response to a request from lower house parliament member Omid Nouripour from Germany's Green Party. Ties to Yemen, Libya: The countries mentioned are all involved in either or both of the years-long conflicts in Yemen and Libya.

With vaccine rollouts underway, humanity looks set to win the fight against the coronavirus. But some elites planning a post-coronavirus ‘Great Reset’ don’t want to go back to normal. Here’s what they have planned instead. Overdue liberalization, or technocratic New World Order? Opinion on the plan is divided between those who think it’s the shot in the arm the world needs, and those who think it will make Cyberpunk 2077 look like a utopian dreamworld. Whatever your opinion, here’s a look at the ‘New Normal’ that awaits in 2021 and beyond.

USA - Usually it’s a president’s first midterm election that reorders a White House’s political approach and priorities. For President-elect Joe Biden, his most defining congressional election is coming before he takes office. Two runoffs Tuesday in Georgia will decide which party controls the Senate and, thus, how far the new president can reach legislatively on issues such as the pandemic, health care, taxation, energy and the environment. For a politician who sold himself to Americans as a uniter and a seasoned legislative broker, the Georgia elections will help determine whether he’s able to live up to his billing. Both Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock must win Tuesday to split the Senate 50-50. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, as president of the Senate, would provide the tiebreaker needed to determine control.

SWITZERLAND - With global lockdowns, international stripping of freedoms, and the decimation of small businesses and the economy on the whole, it is difficult to imagine how it could get any worse. Yet the WHO is predicting that could very well be the case. The head of the WHO emergencies program, Dr Mike Ryan, said during a media briefing that “this pandemic has been very severe … it has affected every corner of this planet. But this is not necessarily the big one.” “This is a wake-up call. We are learning, now, how to do things better: science, logistics, training and governance, how to communicate better. But the planet is fragile,” Ryan added. “We live in an increasingly complex global society. The study revealed that 61 per cent of countries have used restrictions “that were concerning from a democracy and human rights perspective.” ‘These [restrictions] violated democratic standards because they were either disproportionate, illegal, indefinite or unnecessary in relation to the health threat,” the group declared in its report.

EUROPE - The European Union likes to pose as the avatar of tolerance, freedom and all civilized values. Now it has ripped off its own disguise to reveal something rather more ugly. At present, European regulations ban slaughtering animals without pre-stunning, though exceptions to this have been permitted for religious slaughter. Some European countries, however, have forbidden such exceptions and thus banned kosher and halal slaughtering practices. These countries include Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Slovenia.

UK - Prime Minister Boris Johnson has dashed hopes that 2021 will be any better than 2020 by tweeting his support of the Great Reset. “Proud that the UK is taking over the 2021 Presidency of the G7 today. Hosting both the G7 Summit and @COP26 will make this a hugely important year for Global Britain and I look forward to welcoming our friends and allies as we beat COVID and build back better from the pandemic.” — Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) January 1, 2021.

‘Build back better’ is, as Johnson is perfectly well aware, the slogan of the World Economic Forum’s deeply sinister Fourth Industrial Revolution — aka ‘the Great Reset‘ – whose aims include the deliberate crashing of the world economy, the crushing and destruction of small businesses, and the creation of a new cash-free society in which no one (save the technocratic elite) owns private property. Unfortunately for Johnson, people have started wising up to what Build Back Better actually means.

EUROPE - Britain's departure from the European Union has sparked fears of an immediate power grab by Germany and France. Smaller member states said they were already missing the UK's influence in Brussels amid signs that Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron plan to waste no time in imposing their dominance over the bloc. Angry officials said Ms Merkel had showed she was willing to flexing her muscles in Britain's absence by pushing through a trade deal with China before Germany's six-month presidency of the EU comes to an end. Brussels and Beijing have struck an investment deal which the German chancellor insists will give European companies greater access to Chinese markets and help redress unbalanced economic ties. But the treaty is already threatening to spark a rift across the EU just days after Britain finally left the bloc's orbit. “Is this the way the EU will work post-Brexit? The Brits are just out and we’re already missing their open market-oriented approach. If Germany weighs in too much, smaller EU countries have nothing to say."