USA - It takes a lot of rosy assumptions to get to President Trump’s 97% chance of success. How good is America’s homeland ballistic-missile defense? If a war broke out tomorrow, could it stop an attack from North Korea? The short answer, despite many assurances from Defense Department officials, is that no one knows. Ballistic-missile defense, or BMD, is a stunningly ambitious and complex undertaking, unforgiving of the smallest problems. An attacker has many built-in advantages, and it is only because of North Korea’s supposed technological backwardness — a doubtful, increasingly out-of-date notion — that the existing defensive system has enjoyed any credence at all.

VATICAN - Pedophilia has become a huge topic of discussion over recent weeks as not only have sexual abuse outings been taking place in Hollywood, but the exposure of pedophilia in Hollywood and amongst the elite is becoming more common. The reality of child molestation by the Roman Catholic Church has surfaced time and time again, and yet, somehow, it continues to happen. According to Jack and Diane Ruhl of the National Catholic Reporter, who decided to research this particular topic, since 1950, the Vatican has spent $3,994,797,060.10. That’s nearly $4 billion to keep the issue hush hush.

USA - Dr Annie Fairbanks, a holistic doctor practicing out of Arizona, was found shot dead in her home with husband Jason Fairbanks, 3 year old daughter and 9 month old son. This makes the 77th holistic doctor to have been found dead in this way over the past couple of years. Sergeant Ben Hoster, a spokesman for the Scottsdale Police Department, stated that the police do not believe any other parties are involved. This essentially means there are no suspects and that this is likely a murder-suicide. Even the local paper is calling it that. Oddly, this statement and conclusion was made just hours after the incident took place, hardly giving anyone enough time to make a call like that.

USA - A stark warning to humanity has been issued by experts and signed by an astonishing 15,000 scientists around the globe who all agree the end is nigh. The message is an update on the 1992 caution sent out by the Union of Concerned Scientists which was backed by more than 1,700 experts who all said our future was bleak. But with little to no action being taken, the prediction has escalated and more scientists are backing the warning.

VATICAN - North Korea is set for a World War 3 showdown with an unlikely source: Pope Francis. North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un has faced opposition to his reckless nuclear programme in countries across the globe - now including the world’s smallest. 

EUROPE - Brussels signs off military plan and hails historic day without UK. Brussels has moved even closer to an EU Army after 23 states signed off on a key military agreement today - a move a high-ranking eurocrat hailed as a "historic day". Germany and France are leading the charge for a new defence union, which aims to cement EU unity after Brexit. The campaign for a European defence union stretches back to the 1950s, although the movement has stuttered in the decades since. One unnamed official quoted by Reuters news agency said today: “We've never come this far before. We are in a new situation.”

USA - The national security subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Oversight Committee held a congressional hearing Wednesday, chaired by Representative Ron DeSantis (Republican for Florida), with testimony about whether the United States should move its Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

USA - The United States would struggle to win if a war broke out with North Korea, as tensions over the country's nuclear ambitions continue to mount on the peninsula. That’s according to a retired US general with years of experience in the region. Now retired, Lieutenant General Jan-Marc Jouas gave his views on a possible conflict with North Korea in a letter to Representatives Ted Lieu (Democrat for California), Ruben Gallego (Democrat for Arizona), and Senator Tammy Duckworth (Democrat for Illinois) earlier this week. Jouas, formerly deputy commander of US Forces Korea, said the near 30,000-strong US forces stationed in the neighboring South would struggle to counter the North Korean Army, which the country claims almost 5 million people have volunteered for.

USA - What would you do if authorities ordered your church to stop feeding the homeless?  And what would you do if your 5-year-old daughter was ordered to get government permission before setting up a lemonade stand?  Well, these things are actually happening in America today.  With each passing day, America goes further down the road toward becoming a police state. 

USA - Millions of people saw their computers shut down by ransomware, with demands for payments in digital currency to have their access restored. Tens of thousands of employees at Mondelez International, the maker of Oreo cookies, had their data completely wiped. FedEx reported that an attack on a European subsidiary had halted deliveries and cost $300 million.

USA - The cost of America’s global war on terror has yet to be reckoned with, and there’s a very good reason for that. By and large, the US has not been paying for all of these wars, but rather has been borrowing to pay for the conflict. In the long run that’s going to be expensive. Paying off the war is going to mean not only paying the prices of the conflict but the massive interest accrued in borrowing the cost of those wars. A new report suggests that just the interest on all that debt will, over the course of decades of servicing it, cost an estimated $8 trillion. So far, they say, the US has paid $534 billion in overseas contingency operations interest.

LEBANON - In Beirut’s southern suburbs, where buildings scarred with wars of old blend with posters of the latest dead, talk of another conflict has taken hold. A fight on a scale not seen before may be brewing, say locals like Hussein Khaireddine, a barber who says he and his family in the Shia suburb of Dahiyeh have grown used to tensions over decades. “This one’s different,” he said. “It could lead to every valley and mountain top. And if it starts, it may not stop.”

MIDDLE EAST - It’s easy to get lost in all things Middle East, especially concerning the chaotic events that unfolded over the weekend in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Three days after the most stunning purge in recent Saudi history - which was really a counter coup, that led to the arrest of dozens of Saudi Arabian royals, ministers and businessmen to further the control of the Kingdom - Saudi Arabia called Yemen’s missile launch on Riyadh an ‘act of war’ by Iran, and also played victim by saying Lebanon has declared war against the Kingdom. How to make sense of this all? The outlook for Saudi Arabia is bleak and in our view, the conditions are perfect for a civil war. The probability of an expansionist war also increases as the kingdom has Iran and Lebanon in its crosshairs.

MIDDLE EAST - US President Donald Trump’s administration has begun drafting an Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal based on a two-state solution, officials and analysts quoted by The New York Times said on Saturday. A senior White House adviser said Trump’s Mideast peace plan will attempt to tackle hot-button issues such as the status of Jerusalem and West Bank settlements. “Our goal is to facilitate, not dictate, a lasting peace agreement to improve the lives of Israelis and Palestinians and security across the region”.

SYRIA - Iran is building a permanent military base in Syria just south of Damascus, the BBC reported Friday, citing a Western intelligence official. The British broadcaster commissioned a series of satellite pictures that indicate widespread construction at the site. Israel has long warned that Iran is trying to establish a permanent  presence in Syria as part of its efforts to control a land corridor from Iran through to the Mediterranean Sea as it attempts to expand its influence across the Middle East. According to the BBC report, the base is situated at a site used by the Syrian army near El-Kiswah, 14 km (8 miles) south of Damascus, and 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Israeli border.