CHINA - China’s mission to create an army of superhumans is expanding at a worryingly fast pace as the country rapidly invests in its controversial genetics research and development programme, a new study has revealed. It has been revealed that over the last three years at least 86 people have undergone surgery to dramatically alter their genes in the communist state.

CHINA - China's official news agency said in a commentary on Sunday that the shutdown of the US government exposed "chronic flaws" in the US political system. Funding for federal agencies ran out at midnight on Friday in Washington after lawmakers failed to agree on a stopgap funding bill. "The Western democratic system is hailed by the developed world as near perfect and the most superior political system to run a country," it said. "However, what's happening in the United States today will make more people worldwide reflect on the viability and legitimacy of such a chaotic political system," it said.

ISRAEL - In language steeped in Biblical references, US Vice President Mike Pence addressed a special session of Knesset on Monday, on the first day of his visit in Israel and announced that the US Embassy in Jerusalem will open by the end of 2019. In his remarks, Pence said America was committed to forging a "lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians" and called on the Palestinians – who are boycotting his visit – to return to the negotiating table. Pence also mentioned Iran, vowing to prevent the Islamic Republic from obtaining nuclear arms. "I have a solemn promise from me to all of Israel: the US will never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon," he said.

ALASKA - Tsunami alerts were lifted on Tuesday for the US West Coast and western Canada after a magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck in the Gulf of Alaska, sending the state’s coastal residents inland to seek shelter from possible tidal waves. In Alaska, people packed into high schools and other evacuation centers after the quake hit shortly after midnight local time (0900 GMT). Officials had warned residents as far south as San Francisco to be ready to evacuate coastal areas but by 5:15 am PST (1315 GMT) the US National Weather Service had lifted all tsunami advisories, watches and warnings for California, Oregon Washington and Alaska.

SWITZERLAND - The world financial system is as dangerously stretched today as it was at the peak of the last bubble but this time the authorities are caught in a ‘policy trap’ with few defences left, a veteran central banker has warned. Nine years of emergency money has had a string of perverse effects and lured emerging markets into debt dependency, without addressing the structural causes of the global disorder.

USA - America’s government is set to reopen on Monday afternoon after Democratic senators “blinked" first and agreed to end a three-day shutdown. The country’s opposition party had been demanding an explicit pledge to protect young undocumented migrants but settled for a promise of new legislation instead. The Senate voted 81 to 18 to fund the government until February 8, allowing hundreds of thousands of federal workers to get back to work on Tuesday.  However it is only a stop-gap measure, with Republicans and Democrats having 16 days to find an agreement on spending and immigration before another shutdown takes place.

UK - Workers looking forward to enjoying a long and leisurely retirement after years of toil, may need to think again. New research shows that brain function declines rapidly as soon as people stop work and put their feet up.  A major British study which tracked 3,400 retired civil servants found that short-term memory declines nearly 40 per cent faster once employees become pensioners.  It appears that the lack of regular stimulation takes a heavy toll on cognitive function and speeds up memory loss and dementia, researchers warned. The results, published online in the European Journal of Epidemiology, found verbal memory - which declines naturally with age - deteriorated 38 per cent faster once volunteers had retired.

VENEZUELA - Amid desperate food shortages Venezuelans are picking up new survival skills. On the night of 9 January, for example, a hungry mob took just 30 minutes to pick clean a grocery store in the eastern city of Puerto Ordaz. By the time owner Luis Felipe Anatael arrived at the bodega he’d opened five months earlier, the looters had hauled away everything from cold cuts to ketchup to the cash registers.

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USA - When real estate investors get this confident, money manager James Stack gets nervous. US home prices are surging to new records. Homebuilder stocks last year outperformed all other groups. And bears? They’re now an endangered species.

UK - The world financial system is as dangerously stretched today as it was at the peak of the last bubble but this time the authorities are caught in a ‘policy trap’ with few defences left, a veteran central banker has warned. Nine years of emergency money has had a string of perverse effects and lured emerging markets into debt dependency, without addressing the structural causes of the global disorder. “All the market indicators right now look very similar to what we saw before the Lehman crisis, but the lesson has somehow been forgotten,” said William White, the Swiss-based head of the OECD’s review board and ex-chief economist for the Bank for International Settlements.

GERMANY - Germany’s Social Democrats backed formal coalition talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel after a divisive party convention, marking a potential breakthrough toward her fourth term and an easing of political uncertainty in Europe’s biggest economy. A narrow majority of the 600 SPD delegates gathered in Bonn voted in favour of negotiations to renew the “grand coalition” with Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union-led bloc. The ballot followed pleas by party and labour leaders to move forward with a joint policy outline reached on January 12, rather than walk away from government. “If we can achieve something good for people in this country, if we can achieve something good for the peoples of Europe, then we should do it,” SPD Chairman Martin Schulz said in his closing appeal before the ballot.

JORDAN - The US vice president has said that he and King Abdullah II of Jordan have “agreed to disagree” over the impact of the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Mike Pence met with the monarch in the Jordanian capital of Amman Sunday as part of his three-country Middle East tour. Speaking at a media conference, Abdullah told Pence that he looked to Washington to build “trust and confidence,” but added that Jordan viewed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a “potential major source of instability” in the region. Pence said he wanted to maintain Jordan’s role as custodians of Jerusalem’s holy sites and reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to a two-state solution. "We take no position on boundaries and final status. Those are subject to negotiation," Pence said.

USA - President Donald Trump continued to challenge Democrats for shutting down the government over amnesty demands for illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children. “The Democrats are turning down services and security for citizens in favor of services and security for non-citizens,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Monday. “Not good!” Since the Government shutdown began on Saturday, the White House has repeatedly challenged Democrats for failing American citizens in favor of illegal immigrants. Trump added that Democrats were “powerless” to resist left-wing activists in their party. “Democrats have shut down our government in the interests of their far left base,” he wrote. “They don’t want to do it but are powerless!”

USA - In a desperate maneuver to deflect attacks, Silicon Valley is attempting to blame such attacks on the so-called ‘Alt-Right’, which they say is fueled by racists, neo-Nazis and Fascists, and lump all other critics in with these groups. This could not be further from the truth as rank-and-file conservatives from all walks of life are the real protestors against Silicon Valley over-reach. ⁃ TN Editor