GERMANY - A potentially explosive report into the handling of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church will on Thursday be published in Germany, with former pope Benedict XVI among those in the spotlight. The report by law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW) will analyse how abuse cases were dealt with in the archdiocese of Munich and Freising between 1945 and 2019. The Munich archdiocese, which commissioned the report, said it will examine "whether those responsible complied with legal requirements... and acted appropriately in dealing with suspected cases and possible perpetrators". Ex-pope Benedict - whose civilian name is Josef Ratzinger - was the archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.

USA - During Wednesday’s edition of the “Dr Phil” show, conservative commentator Matt Walsh exposed the trans community’s pronoun nonsense. Walsh recently released an Amazon chart-topping children’s book that pushes back against the LGBTQ movement confusing kids with gender fluidity. Walsh appeared on the program to debate a non-binary married couple who have become LGBT activists.

USA - The Doomsday Clock was unveiled for the 75th time on Thursday. It stayed at 100 seconds to midnight for the third year in a row, as the world remains the "closest to apocalypse" it has ever been. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Board, the clock's keepers, said things COVID-19, climate change, disruptive technologies and threats posed by nuclear weapons were all exacerbated by "a corrupted information ecosphere that undermines rational decision making". They said the decision to keep the time the same as last year "does not, by any means, suggest that the international security situation has stabilised". In its history, the clock has been moved backwards and forwards 24 times, the farthest being 17 minutes to midnight in 1991, the nearest being today's 100 seconds.

USA - On 24 October 1962, an American nuclear chemist, Harrison Brown, started to pen a guest editorial for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists just as the Cuban missile crisis reached its climax. “I am writing on a plane en route from Los Angeles to Washington and for all I know this editorial … may never be published,” Brown said. “Never in history have people and nations been so close to death and destruction on such a vast scale. Midnight is upon us.”

USA - Over the past couple of years, we have been hit by one thing after another. Whenever it seems like things may be calming down, another crisis suddenly erupts, and as a result a lot of Americans have developed a really bad case of “crisis fatigue” at this point. According to Google, crisis fatigue is “a burnout response to prolonged exposure to unexpected and stressful events”. Perhaps you can identify with that definition because it sounds exactly like what you are experiencing. Unfortunately, the truth is that what we have been through so far is just the beginning. As I have been warning for years, as “the perfect storm” gets rolling it is just going to keep getting worse and worse. This week, I was shocked to learn that we are now facing a major agricultural nightmare in the state of Florida. According to Fox Business, it is being projected that this will be “the smallest Florida orange crop since World War II”…

FRANCE - France needs to leave NATO in order to restore its independence in military affairs, French lawmaker and leader of the La France Insoumise (or Unsubmissive France) political party Jean-Luc Melenchon, who intends to run in the April presidential election, said in an interview with the Le Monde newspaper. "We need to leave NATO," he pointed out. "I would first and foremost like to restore our military sovereignty. France, who has nuclear deterrent forces, should be independent and should not depend on the US in terms of arms production," Melenchon added. According to him, "an anti-Russian policy is not in line with France’s interests, such a course is dangerous and absurd." "Why do we have to protect Ukraine’s borders?" he said. "I want France to be free of unions and to support alternative ways of globalization," the politician added. He also called for easing global tensions. According to Melenchon, "discussions with Russia should be comprehensive."

POLAND - Despite being a close ally of the US, Poland will not join the international diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Olympic Winter Games in China, a senior Polish official told Reuters. On the contrary, the country’s president will attend the games and use the opportunity to hold bilateral talks. “Poland is a sovereign nation and decides its own politics towards China,” Jakub Kumoch, the foreign affairs adviser to President Andrzej Duda, told the news agency. “Poland is an ally of the United States but Poland also has a very friendly relationship with China.” The report said Polish officials believed that it was “no longer in Poland’s interests to continue criticizing China simply to please the Americans” due to a turn for the worse in US-Polish relations since President Joe Biden took office.

USA - Several prominent tech entrepreneurs discussed the possibility of replacing natural birth with synthetic wombs, arguing that such technology would remove the “burden” of pregnancy and allow women to work more. After Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk warned on Tuesday that society “should be much more worried about population collapse,” Musk’s fellow tech leaders came up with one solution for declining birth rates. “We should be investing in technology that makes having kids much faster/easier/cheaper/more accessible… Synthetic wombs, etc,” proposed Sahil Lavingia, the founder of digital product trading platform Gumroad.

USA - A woman who was working as a substitute teacher posted a video to social media alleging she was fired by school officials for not "identifying with" a student who "identifies as a cat" after she refused to meow back at the child in class. "I'm a sub, and the most important thing we do is take roll, so the school gets paid. I start looking on the ground, through the fourth row — everything's good. Go to the fifth row — everybody's there. Then I hear 'meow!' I'm like, 'Okay, what's up with that? Who's doing it?' And this little girl in the very front row says, 'You have to meow back at him; he identifies as a cat.' Are you kidding me?" she questions. "I said, 'Is there a litter box in here somewhere?' My sarcasm self: I probably should not have said that," the educator continues in the clip. "He gets up and he storms out of the classroom, and I'm like, 'Ruff!' Of course, the entire class is laughing. I think, 'Oh, no problem, no foul.' I go to the office — Are you ready for this? — to check out. They said, 'We no longer need your services if you can't identify with all the children in the classroom.'. And you wonder why they don't have any subs!" the teacher exclaims on video "…a typical day of subbing! can't make this up…"

USA - As we have seen all throughout human history, those that would like to impose tyranny upon a nation need at least a certain percentage of the population to go along with their plans. It doesn’t even have to be a majority. All that is required is enough “true believers” to enforce the tyrannical dictates of the elite. Many had assumed that the United States would always be immune from such a scenario because our Constitution guarantees certain liberties and freedoms. Unfortunately, things have dramatically changed in recent years. Today, a surprisingly large percentage of the US population is openly embracing authoritarianism, and that should deeply alarm all of us.

USA - Total US System Debt (gov & private) now $86 Trillion. Fed wants to raise rates. For each 1% increase in rates, total annual interest burden increases by $850 Billion per annum. Fed funds rate current 0% and inflation is 7%. They will bring down the system.

EUROPE - Natural gas reserves in Germany, which has one of the highest underground gas storage capacities in Europe, have fallen to historically low levels compared with previous years. “According to the consolidated register of gas storage facilities of the European association Gas Infrastructure Europe, Germany’s gas storage facilities are 50.6% full (as of January 11, 2022),” the German Ministry of Economy said in response to a deputy's request as quoted by RIA. “This corresponds to a theoretical working gas availability of 17.7 days,” it added. Economists are warning of energy price spikes deeper into the winter, saying that Europe is yet to find itself physically short of gas during the current gas year, which began in October. Overall, European storage facilities were 49.33% full as of January 12, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe. If the current rate of withdrawal is sustained, Europe’s reserves could be fully depleted by the end of winter delivery, it said.

JAPAN - Tokyo will not give up its claim that Russia’s southern Kuril Islands in the Pacific Ocean are rightfully Japanese, and wants to reach a deal with Moscow to resolve the dispute, its foreign minister said on Tuesday. Speaking at a press conference, Yoshimasa Hayashi responded to claims by his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov that Tokyo is refusing to recognize the results of the Second World War, when the Soviet Union took control of the Kuril Islands. The landmasses, named Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan, and Habomai, were all part of Japan before World War Two.

AFRICA - Snow has settled on the sand of the Sahara Desert after temperatures dropped below freezing. Ice blanketed the dune in the rare phenomenon in the largest desert in the world, where temperatures of 136.4F (58C) have been recorded. Overnight, the mercury in the Algerian town is currently plummeting to -2C (28F).

UK - We in Western societies naively imagine we would never descend into totalitarianism, because such systems are unmistakably evil and we are undeniably good. Not only would we immediately recognise it, but our moral goodness and inestimable courage would see to it that we stopped it before it took root. However, such systems never arise vowing to deliver evil, but always promising to do good.