EUROPE - The European Union will need to do “less better” and undergo a “radical rethink” in order to survive, warned professor of European studies Stefan Auer. “I think what the EU needs is a radical rethink. It needs to do less, better.” As a consequence, the EU expert said he is “deeply sceptical” about Emmanuel Macron’s ambitions to turn Europe into a “quasi-federation” – insisting “Europe needs to do less and better”.

EUROPE - The unannounced move by the US State Department, which has not previously been reported, downgraded the EU delegation's diplomatic status in Washington from member state to international organization. "We don't exactly know when they did it, because they conveniently forgot to notify us," an EU official who is familiar with the matter told DW in an interview. "I can confirm that this has not been well received in Brussels," the person said, adding that the issue and an official EU response was still being discussed. After the delegation noticed that the EU's Washington ambassador had not been invited to certain events late last year, officials organizing the state funeral for President George HW Bush provided final confirmation to EU diplomats that the status of the representation had in fact been downgraded. Diplomats believe the downgrade must have been implemented in late October or early November.

GERMANY - German factory orders dropped in November, dragged down by a fall in demand from other eurozone countries. The Economy Ministry said Monday that overall orders were 1 percent lower than in the previous month following a slight 0.2 percent gain in October. The figure includes an 11.6 percent drop in orders from elsewhere in the 19-nation eurozone, which more than cancelled out a 7.4 percent gain a month earlier. Orders from inside Germany were up 2.4 percent, and those from outside the eurozone rose 2.3 percent.

VATICAN - Pope Francis warned on Monday against a resurgence of nationalist and populist movements and criticized countries that try to solve the migration crisis with unilateral or isolationist actions. The pope, speaking to diplomats in an annual speech known informally as his “state of the world” address, suggested such movements and closed-door policies were turning the clock back 100 years to the dangerous period between the world wars. Relationships within the international community “are experiencing a period of difficulty, with the resurgence of nationalistic tendencies,” he said, making dialogue between countries difficult and hurting the most vulnerable members of society, including migrants. Populist anti-immigrant parties made gains in a number of countries last year, including Italy, France, the Netherlands, Hungary, Brazil and Poland.

USA - Socialism is becoming more normalized among Americans who identify as Democrats, according to a recent poll, as their approval of capitalism falls at the same time. A recent Gallup poll showed that 57 percent of Democrats view socialism positively, while 47 percent of Democrats view capitalism positively. Across the aisle, only 16 percent of Republicans view socialism in a positive light, a number still frighteningly high among those who identify as conservative. Socialists — running for office as democrats — are indeed getting elected, as they promise to provide young Americans with free services, which they will make other generations pay for. The late American economist Milton Friedman once said: “a society which is socialist cannot also be democratic, in the sense of guaranteeing individual freedom.”

ISRAEL - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made his first public appeal for the United States to officially recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. “The Golan Heights is tremendously important for our security,” Netanyahu said in Jerusalem, alongside US National Security Adviser John Bolton on Sunday night, adding Israel “will never leave the Golan Heights,” and stressed the gravity of all countries recognizing the region as Israeli territory. Netanyahu also acknowledged he has previously raised the matter behind closed doors with President Trump, who reportedly supported the idea. But Trump was concerned by a possible rebuke from Russia, the leading international authority and staunch supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which mandates Israel is Syrian territory.

USA - Actually, most flu cases are “bacteria cases,” “fungal cases,” or “pollution cases,” or “tainted food” cases, or “eating GMO cases,” or “weak immune system” cases, or something else. But they aren’t the flu. Here’s the exact quote from Peter Doshi’s BMJ review, “Influenza: marketing vaccines by marketing disease” (BMJ 2013; 346:f3037): “…even the ideal influenza vaccine, matched perfectly to circulating strains of wild influenza and capable of stopping all influenza viruses, can only deal with a small part of the ‘flu’ problem because most ‘flu’ appears to have nothing to do with influenza. Every year, hundreds of thousands of respiratory specimens are tested across the US. Of those tested, on average 16% are found to be influenza positive.”

USA - “Have you ever been depressed as a physician?” I asked 220 doctors. Ninety percent stated yes. Yet few seek professional help. Here’s what depressed doctors do (when nobody’s looking). Some drink alcohol, exercise obsessively, even steal psychiatric meds. Still more shocking - I discovered that 75% of med students (and new doctors) are now on psychiatric medications. “I was told by the psychologist at my med school’s campus assistance program, that 75% of the class of 175 people were on antidepressants,” shares psychiatrist Dr Jaya V Nair. “He wasn’t joking. How broken is the system, that doctors have to be pushed into illness in order to be trained to do their job?”

USA - More people died from abortions in 2018 than any other cause of death in the world. According to LifeNews, data compiled by Worldometers reveal that approximately 42 million abortions occurred around the world last year, making it the leading cause of death. Deaths from abortion exceeded those from cancer, HIV/Aids, suicide, and car accidents. Those 42 million abortion deaths are not included in the total death count worldwide, which was 59 million. Therefore, the correct total number of deaths worldwide in 2018 is approximately 101 million. In the United States, abortion rates have been declining for several years but it is still one of the leading causes of death in the US. An estimated 1 million babies are aborted each year in the US.

EUROPE - Civil unrest has broken out in France as a global economic downturn is just getting underway. The significance of this warning sign should not be underestimated. The Yellow Vest Protests in France (les gilets jaunes) were never about a fuel tax. This was made clear when Macron caved in to their initial demands and cancelled it. Nor is this merely an expression of Macron’s unpopularity (though a 25% approval rating certainly doesn’t help).

EUROPE - Right-wing populist parties in Europe have been gaining strength for years. Now, they hope to use European Parliament elections in May as a springboard for gaining greater influence in the EU. Surveys indicate they may be successful.

UK - A group of Remainer MPs will attempt to stop a no deal Brexit by starving the Treasury of funds which could lead to “total paralysis” of the Government. The MPs are set to vote on two amendments to the Finance Bill, which grants funds to the Treasury to spend on implementing no deal arrangements, on Tuesday. Labour’s Yvette Cooper MP, who leads the group that includes former Tory ministers Nicky Morgan, Oliver Letwin, and Nick Boles, said, “Our amendment would block some of the Treasury’s no-deal powers unless parliament has explicitly voted for no deal or unless the government has requested an extension of article 50.” Tory MP Peter Bone told Sky News, “There was no question, that I remember, on the referendum about a ‘deal’ or not; it was ‘leave’ or ‘remain.’ And the way you leave is to come out on the 29th of March.”

USA - President Donald Trump gave a long-overdue lesson to the White House press corps about the Constitution’s limits on executive power — limits the media largely ignored under President Barack Obama, because they agreed with Obama’s policies and wished to see him succeed politically.

AFRICA - Back in 1885, to much fanfare, the General Act of the Berlin Conference launched the Scramble for Africa which saw the partition of the continent, formerly a loose aggregation of various tribes, into the countries that currently make up the southern continent, by the dominant superpowers (all of them European) of the day. Subsequently Africa was pillaged, plundered, and in most places, left for dead. And so the continent languished…  until 2012 when what we then dubbed as the "Beijing Conference" quietly took place, and to which only Goldman Sachs, which too has been quietly but very aggressively expanding in Africa, was invited.

MIDDLE EAST - For far too long, Arab nations and Iran have not been called to account for their role in forcing hundreds of thousands of Jews to flee their homes in Arab countries, mostly without enough time to take their possessions or sell their property, following the founding of the Jewish state in 1948.