USA - With Wall Street titans, tech moguls, and other members of the global financial and political elite set to gather in Davos, Switzerland this week for the annual World Economic Forum, a report published late Sunday found that the planet's richest people saw their fortunes soar by $2.5 billion per day last year as the world's poorest lost wealth. "The economy we have today is fundamentally inhuman." said Paul O'Brien, Oxfam America. Titled "Private Good or Public Wealth?" and conducted by Oxfam, the new analysis found that 26 billionaires now own as much wealth as the world's poorest 3.8 billion people combined. According to Oxfam, the number of billionaires has doubled since the global financial crisis of 2008, even as average families have struggled mightily to recover.

NIGERIA - Jihadists, mainly members of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL)-linked Boko Haram, have killed more than 100 soldiers and seized a “huge stock of weapons” during clashes in northeast Nigeria raging since December 26, a coalition of United Nations-affiliated aid agencies reported Friday. Although the ISIS-linked Boko Haram is the most prominent terrorist group in Nigeria, the Muslim Fulani herdsmen have been wreaking havoc in recent months, killing hundreds of people, primarily Christian farmers in the African country’s Middle Belt region. Boko Haram has killed about 30,000 people and forced about two million people to flee their homes since the insurgency began in 2009.

ISRAEL - Amid fears of escalation, hours after Israeli airstrikes destroyed Iranian installations and reportedly killed military personnel in Syria, Iran’s air force chief said Monday the country’s youths were “impatient” to fight a war for “Israel’s disappearance.” “We’re ready for the decisive war that will bring about Israel’s disappearance from the earth. Our young airmen are prepared for the day when Israel will be destroyed,” Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh said, according to an Iranian news site. A former fighter pilot, Nasirzadeh was named Iran’s air chief by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in August after serving as the acting commander for several months. Israel has long accused Iran of seeking to establish a military presence in Syria that could threaten Israeli security, and attempting to transfer advanced weaponry to the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon.

CHILE - A strong earthquake has struck near the city of Coquimbo in central Chile resulting in at least two deaths - one in Punitaqui and one in Coquimbo. Both died after suffering heart attacks during the earthquake. It hit at a depth of 53km (33miles), meaning it was relatively shallow. The US Geological Survey said the magnitude of the shake was 6.7 on the Richter Scale. Damage has been reported at several locations, but there was no immediate news of any casualties. The quake was felt strongly in northern Chile, where buildings swayed according to social media reports. According to ONEMI Director Ricardo Toro, more than 200,000 people in the area were suffering power outages.

CANARY ISLANDS - An earthquake measuring 4.2 magnitude struck in the Atlantic between Tenerife and Gran Canaria in the early hours of today. The tectonic activity related to the fault between Tenerife and Gran Canaria is the most probable cause of this earthquake. More information about this earthquake will be provided soon.

USA - An urgent alert to all Americans: Prepare for emergency action in the 3D world. New information has come to light that indicates the “final solution” of the globalist agenda to destroy America and enslave its citizens is drawing near… the orchestrated assault on your mind, your country and your president is approaching its final chapter.

USA - As the partial government shutdown enters its [third] week over a lack of funding for key government agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, Democrats and POTUS Donald Trump appear to be as far apart on the issue that led to it — funding for a border wall — as they were when it began.

USA - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formally invited President Donald Trump to give his annual State of the Union Address before Congress in a letter on January 3. It’s a formality, really, that befalls all Speakers. The SOTU address is a constitutional requirement, but historically, presidents have delivered them in writing to Congress. On Wednesday, Pelosi wrote the president again to suggest he do just that, all but rescinding her earlier invitation. Why? Well, security concerns, of course. 

USA - Nancy Pelosi reiterated that Democrats will not agree to a border wall… They believe they can make Trump look like the bad guy here and the shutdown can be a long one indeed. They have dug in their heels and it is hard to see how they can back down now without losing face, which is what they are trying to make Trump do. The fact that the wall would be $5.7 billion and one week’s interest bill to keep rolling the debt comes in at $6.7 billion illustrates that this is now just politics and not about pretending $5.7 billion is a lot of money.

USA - It seems that socialism is like an infectious disease that everyone has to get ill of to develop immunity. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn pointed out, “For us in Russia, communism is a dead dog, while for many people in the West, it is still a living lion.” This dead dog, expelled from Russia, acquired a new life in the United States and regained vitality to become a living lion within the Democratic Party.

USA - The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) describes this insanity as “transmania,” revealing how there’s an agenda afoot that preys on vulnerable youth in order to spread the mental disease of transgenderism – and it’s now getting so bad that even extreme Leftists are taking notice of its destructive societal effects.

USA - Representative Dan Crenshaw (Republican for Texas) is serving his first term in the House after winning a seat in the 2018 midterm elections, and he added attending the annual March for Life on Friday on the National Mall to his agenda. The event is held on the anniversary of the 1973 Roe vs Wade US Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion across the land — a decision pro-lifers hope will be overturned. “Since that time, we have tragically lost over 60 million American children, little girls, and little boys, to abortion,” Mancini said. “And many mothers and fathers regret having been involved in abortion.” Crenshaw, a former Navy Seal, told Breitbart News he came to the march to show “support for the value of life at all points in the human life cycle.”

GERMANY - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that the European Union must deepen its defence cooperation, including developing shared weapons systems. “It is good that after several decades we want to develop a common defense policy… We must develop weapons systems together,” Dr Merkel said in comments on Saturday reported by Reuters.

SWITZERLAND - As the world’s financial and political elites convene here in the Swiss Alps for the World Economic Forum, their vision of ever-closer commercial and political ties is under attack – and the economic outlook is darkening. Britain’s political system has been thrown into chaos as the country negotiates a messy divorce from the European Union. Under President Donald Trump, the United States is imposing trade sanctions on friend and foe alike, and the government is paralyzed by a partial shutdown that forced Trump and a high-level US delegation to cancel the trip to Davos. French President Emmanuel Macron is sinking in the polls as he contends with “yellow vest” protesters. Nationalist political movements are gaining strength across Europe. And experts are downgrading forecasts for global growth this year.

IRAN - In Tehran on January 8 during a meeting with European envoys, Iranian officials abruptly stood up, walked out and slammed the door in an extraordinary break with protocol. The French, British, German, Danish, Dutch, and Belgian diplomats in the Iranian Foreign Ministry room had incensed the officials with a message that Europe could no longer tolerate ballistic missile tests in Iran and assassination plots on European soil, according to four EU diplomats. “There was a lot of drama, they didn’t like it, but we felt we had to convey our serious concerns,” one of the diplomats said. “It shows the relationship is becoming more tense,” a second said. An Iranian official declined to comment on the meeting. The next day, the European Union imposed its first sanctions on Iran since world powers agreed the 2015 Vienna nuclear arms control deal with Tehran.