UK - Theresa May is facing the most serious cabinet revolt of her premiership next week, with as many as 25 members of the government ready to vote for a Brexit delay unless she rules out “no deal” – in a move that will challenge her to sack them. Rebel Conservatives believe there are now enough MPs across the House of Commons to pass an amendment that would require May to extend article 50 rather than allow the UK to leave without a deal.
TAIWAN - President Trump's at times warm, at times contentious relationship with his Chinese counterpart has been an exercise in cognitive dissonance that's reflective of a broader truth about the relationship between the world's two largest economies. The veneer of economic cooperation belies deeper military tensions as China's expansionist military aims threaten US security in the Pacific.
USA - Governments have learned that laws can be used as revenue and control measures by criminalizing more and more of human activity. Indeed, in many instances the term “criminal” is now meaningless as law enforcement has become a greater threat to ordinary people than actual criminals. At an accelerating rate, western governments are criminalizing victimless trivialities for profit and control of the masses. In Denmark, the laws governing unemployment benefits are more than 36,000 pages and grow by almost seven pages daily on average. A massive 20,000 laws have been formulated to control ownership and use of guns in the US. The taxfoundation.org has shown that in order to understand and comply with US tax laws one must go through about 80,000 pages. Civil libertarians protest that prosecutors can charge any American with several crimes every day of the year because there are so many laws and regulations.
UK - The Church of England has dropped a centuries-old requirement for all churches to hold weekly Sunday services. Its general synod, meeting in London this week, formally approved a change to canon law to relax the requirement for morning and evening prayer in every parish church every Sunday. The change, which will also apply to services of Holy Communion, will mainly affect parishes with small and declining congregations in rural areas. Most rural priests have multiple benefices, with some in charge of up to 20 churches, but were required to maintain regular services even if only a handful of worshippers turned up.
UK - Parents are being warned about a sick game called the Momo challenge, where a terrifying character tells players to hurt themselves or others. The Momo challenge, also known as the ‘suicide game’ features a zombie-faced character who tells young children they will be killed if they do not follow her instructions. Users receive an invitation to message the character, who then commands children to abide to her specific demands - but if they don't, she threatens to release their private information.
USA - Actors Don Cheadle and Mark Ruffalo took to the pages of The Hill to pen an op-ed exclaiming that only “radically feminine leadership” can “save our planet.” In their op-ed, the Marvel superhero movie stars, who are now calling themselves “feminists,” insist that they want to use their “positions of privilege to support and learn from women leaders as they make history.” The actors echoed President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address point that “more women than ever now serve in Congress and state houses,” but then the pair dive right into their fears over climate change.
USA - Historian Arnold Toynbee in his 12-volume magnum opus A Study of History was an exploration of the rise and fall of 28 different civilizations. Toynbee concluded that great civilizations don’t “get murdered,” rather, they kill themselves, and all the signs of a civilization collapse are here.
USA - One day it will happen. Scientists assure us that one day the absolutely massive Yellowstone supervolcano will once again experience a Category 8 eruption, and if it happened today it would “literally tear the guts out of the United States of America”. That is why what has been happening at Yellowstone in recent months is so alarming.
RUSSIA - A staggering map of the night sky has revealed hundreds of thousands of new galaxies, shedding light on some of the universe’s biggest secrets. Some 300,000 previously unknown galaxies were charted using a powerful telescope. “This is a new window on the universe,” astronomer Cyril Tasse told AFP. “When we saw the first images we were like: ‘What is this?!’ It didn't look anything at all like what we are used to seeing.” The study saw over 200 astronomers from 18 countries come together to find the previously unseen light sources believed to be far off galaxies. The data gathered in the map is the equivalent to 10 million DVDs, and it only accounts for two percent of the sky.
VATICAN - The Pope is a phenomenon, a bona fide international ecumenist bringing about interfaith meetings and engaging in interracial dialogues wherever he goes. In the 1200s when the world was thinking of armed struggle as the only way, when Christian Crusaders’ focused goal was to recover the Holy Land through waging wars, Saint Francis was thinking of and pursuing peace. In 1219, the poverello of Assisi traveled from Italy to the Holy Land, and from there he went straight to Damietta, Egypt, boldly crossing battle lines to talk peace and love with a ferocious sultan, Malek al-Kamil. The Saint’s prayer: “Lord, make me a channel of Your peace. Where there is hatred let me bring love, where there is injury, Your pardon…” Exactly 800 years later, Pope Francis visited the United Arab Emirates, the very first papal visit to the Arabian Peninsula, to bring good tidings to our Muslim brethren.
VATICAN - The latest on the Vatican summit on dealing with sex abuse of minors: Pope Francis says that those who are constantly attacking the church are linked to the devil. Francis on Wednesday told pilgrims from southern Italy that the church's "defects" must be denounced in order to correct them. But he said that those who do so without love and spend their lives "accusing" the church are either the devil's friends or relatives.
USA - Cardinals Raymond Burke and Walter Brandmüller have written an open letter to the heads of the national bishops’ conferences meeting in the Vatican urging them to address the deeper causes of the clerical sex abuse crisis. The abuse of minors is “only part of a much greater crisis,” the cardinals contend. “The plague of the homosexual agenda has been spread within the Church, promoted by organized networks and protected by a climate of complicity and a conspiracy of silence.”
UK - There was a story that circulated during the Cold War about a Soviet judge who was seen walking back to his chambers, chuckling heartily. His colleague approached him and asked him what was so funny. Oh, just a hilarious joke I heard, the judge replied. “Well, go ahead and tell me!” his colleague replied. “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” said the Soviet judge. “I just gave someone ten years for it.”
USA - Do you remember what television news was like before the Fox News Channel came along? Everybody pretty much said the same thing, and dissenting opinions on many of the most critical issues were generally not given any air time. Of course Fox News is definitely still very much tied into the establishment, but at least they started providing a “Republican” point of view which was a stark contrast to the liberal propaganda that we were constantly being force fed by the other networks.
USA - This week, the United States national debt ticked above US$22 trillion for the first time, an amount equivalent to $67,000 per US citizen. The US federal government owes more money than any other institution in the history of human civilization. And it’s just getting worse. According to the Congressional Budget Office, in only 10 years the US debt-to-GDP ratio will be higher than any point since the Second World War. Below, a few factoids about just how eye-wateringly, bone-chillingly large the US debt has become.
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The views expressed in this section are not our own, unless specifically stated, but are provided to highlight what may prove to be prophetically relevant material appearing in the media.