USA - Persisting transatlantic disagreements cast a shadow over the purported unity between the USA and Western Europe celebrated at the Munich Security Conference (MSC). At the conference, which, due to the ongoing pandemic had to be held in a reduced and virtual format - "Special Edition" - last Friday, US President Biden remarked, "the transatlantic alliance is back." Angela Merkel declared Germany stands "ready for a new chapter in transatlantic relations."

RUSSIA - The Russian Foreign Ministry has issued a statement lambasting the United States government under Joe Biden for the “ongoing persecution campaign” taking place “against anybody at all who does not agree with the results of the latest presidential election.” In the statement, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova delivered a scathing assessment of the human rights situation in the United States under President Joe Biden. Zakharova described the ongoing crackdown against Trump loyalists in the United States:

USA - Despite all of the craziness that is going on out there, many pundits are trying to convince us that life will soon “return to normal” and that great days are just around the corner. They are telling us this despite the fact that the state of Texas has been in a state of collapse this week, the real economy continues to implode, the unemployment numbers are going up, civil unrest continues to rage in our streets on a nightly basis, and our entire planet continues to become even more unstable. Those that believe that happy days are here again have a fundamental misunderstanding of the times in which we live. This isn’t a period of time when America is going to “build back better”. Rather, this is a time when America is going to go even deeper into “the perfect storm”. The truth is that we are in an economic depression, and there is no end in sight. At the same time, communities all over the US continue to be plagued by civil unrest and crime. Just look at what just took place in Texas. A single wave of cold weather plunged the state into a nightmare scenario.

AFRICA - Last year, an unprecedented plague of locusts devastated crops in eastern Africa, across the Middle East and throughout much of Asia. Many were hoping that it would just be a one year phenomenon, but now the locusts have returned and one British news source is using the world “biblical” to describe this second wave. At this moment, the Horn of Africa is being hit the hardest, and the UN is warning that this new infestation “threatens the livelihoods of more than 39 million people”…

USA - We are getting a very short preview of what will eventually happen to the United States as a whole. America’s infrastructure is aging and crumbling. Our power grids were never intended to support so many people, our water systems are a complete joke, and it has become utterly apparent that we would be completely lost if a major long-term national emergency ever struck. Texas has immense wealth and vast energy resources, but now it is being called a “failed state”. If it can’t even handle a few days of cold weather, what is the rest of America going to look like when things really start to get chaotic in this country?

GERMANY - While the hunt is on for Trump supporters in the US, Europe leads the way as far as political persecution of conservatives and suppression of free speech. A German Member of Parliament was attacked on the street by 20 violent Antifa thugs on Saturday and government truth commissions now want to censor online news content.

AFRICA - A bubonic plague outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has seen several dozen people succumb to the long-feared disease, which caused Europe’s Black Death pandemic in the 14th century. Multiple cases of the plague were identified in the Biringi area of Ituri Province in northeastern DR Congo between November 15 and December 13, Anne Laudisoit of New York-based NGO, Ecohealth Alliance, told AFP. At least 520 people have become ill and “more than 31” of them have died, Ituri Health Minister Patrick Karamura told the outlet. The vast majority of cases involved bubonic plague, with the exception of five instances of pneumonic plague and two instances of septicemic plague, which occur when the disease spreads to the lungs or blood, respectively. Younger people were most affected, with the average age of patients being only 13. Among those infected was a three-month-old baby, according to Laudisoit.

EUROPE - Mount Etna has erupted for the fifth time in a matter of days with dramatic pictures of the erupting Sicilian volcano showing jets of molten rock spewing up to 1km into the sky. As of Tuesday morning, the 3,350m-tall (10,991ft) volcano is still showing worrying signs of activity and the eruption is ongoing. Boris Behncke, a volcanologist with the INGV-Osservatorio Etneo in Catania, Sicily, said last night's blast was much stronger than Etna's last eruption. He tweeted: "Did I call the February 20 to 21 paroxysm of #Etna 'incredibly powerful'? "Well, its successor, in the night of February 22 to 23, was MUCH more powerful. By about 12.30am, the eruptive episode reached its peak phase with lava jets 1km high. A column of ash and steam surpassed the lava, however, reaching up to 10km in height.

USA - President Biden tried to reassure US allies Friday that he is turning the page on his predecessor's "America first" approach, and restoring a foreign policy that values cooperation with the world's major democracies to tackle global challenges. In two virtual appearances before world leaders, his first as president, Biden emphasized that he would be restoring and building upon the Obama administration's diplomatic achievements, including the 2015 multination nuclear deal with Iran and the 2016 Paris climate accord, and would be seeking to work collaboratively to contain threats from Russia and China.

USA - This morning the Supreme Court threw out a series of remaining challenges to election processes and election results in several states left over from the recent presidential election cycle.

USA - Sidney Powell, the attorney who was distanced from the US president’s legal team because she pushed election-related conspiracies, was said to have submitted a lawsuit that “breathed more lies” than most cases seen in court, after she challenged Michigan’s election results. Issuing a response to Ms Powell’s lawsuit on Thursday, lawyers for the City of Detroit said the lawsuit contained “warped logic”, and dismissed claims that vote machines had been tampered with, among other conspiracy theories.

RUSSIA - Gold made up 23% of central bank’s stockpile as of end of June. Putin has made ‘de-dollarization’ a key policy amid sanctions. A multi-year drive to reduce exposure to US assets has pushed the share of gold in Russia’s $583 billion international reserves above dollars for the first time on record. Gold made up 23% of the central bank’s stockpile as of the end of June 2020, the latest date for which data on the breakdown is available, according to a report published late Monday. The share of dollar assets dropped to 22%, down from more than 40% in 2018.

GERMANY - The Eurozone came into existence thanks to former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who, in his own words, "acted like a dictator" and refused to hold a referendum on the adoption of the single currency in his country. As many wonder whether the gloomy outlook could mean the unravelling of the eurozone, an interview with former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, which sheds light on the "single currency's undemocratic beginnings", has resurfaced. Germany's longest-serving post-war Chancellor admitted he would never have won a referendum on the adoption of the euro in his country and said he acted "like a dictator" to see it introduced. "We would have lost a referendum on the introduction of the euro. That's quite clear. I would have lost and by seven to three." The interview was conducted by Jens Peter Paul, a German journalist in 2002 – the year when the Deutsche Mark was replaced by euro notes and coins – but only published in 2013.

INDIA - China and India were close to a full blown war when the Indian Army occupied the strategic Kailash range heights in late August, a top army commander has said. Lieutenant General Y K Joshi said India’s move to occupy the area was a turning point in the disengagement talks with China. The Indian Army’s top commander explained how the Chinese People’s Liberation Army also moved tanks up the heights as well as Indian soldiers who brought rocket launchers. His comments come as India and China completed the pull-back of troops from the Pangong Tso Lake area on Saturday. Both sides have said they will work to decrease tensions on other parts of the disputed Line of Actual Control. China and India announced their intentions to withdraw troops from the area earlier this month.

EUROPE - For decades, critics of the EU warned that the bloc would one day fall apart under the weight of its own contradictions. For years, British Remainers countered that our stability, like that of every country in Europe, depended on EU membership. Well, now the EU is fracturing at a rate that even the most extreme eurosceptic would hardly have dared to predict.