EUROPE - After the ceremony, Merkel and UN Secretary-General Guterres gave the opening speeches at a new peace forum in Paris set up by Macron - with both warning that rising nationalism threatens the rules-based international order. "The concern I have is that blinkered nationalist views may gain ground once again," Merkel said, warning that people were calling the "European peace project" into question. Guterres warned of "many parallels with both the start of the twentieth century and the 1930s, giving us grounds to fear that an unpredictable chain of events could ensue".

USA - Paradise in California has burned to the ground and a rising death toll continues to devastate the residents of the Northern California city. So far 42 people have been killed by the massive Camp Fire inferno raging in Northern California. More than a hundred people are still unaccounted for and the death toll is expected to rise in the coming days. The whole community of Paradise has been lost in the devastating blaze, a town meant for retirement. The small town, with a population of 27,000 is completely empty of people as residents have taken shelter far away from the dangerous flames. Cal Fire has dispatched rescue crews to search for the approximately 200 people still missing but the chance of anyone being alive in the town is low. The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.

USA - Science has provided yet more clues as to why autism rates in children continue to skyrocket throughout the Western world. A groundbreaking new study recently published in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that pesticide exposure in pregnant women is directly correlated to increased autism risk in children, pointing to industrial agriculture as a major cause of brain damage in exposed children. The researchers also found that these chemicals stimulated the production of free radicals – particles that can damage the basic building blocks of cells and that have been implicated in a number of brain diseases.

GERMANY - In Germany, however, the importance of November 11 is overshadowed by a date two days earlier: November 9, 1918, when a widespread anti-government revolution reached Berlin, forcing Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate his throne and go into exile. Just hours after the monarchy was overthrown, Philipp Scheidemann and Karl Liebknecht, politicians from rival Social Democratic parties, separately announced the birth of a German republic. The political chaos of November 9 helped bring the war to an end two days later, but also laid a fragile foundation for the first German democracy, one that would be brought down by the Nazis 15 years later.

GERMANY - A majority of Germans say the level of mass migration has left them feeling “like a stranger in their own country”, according to a new study. Presented as part of this year’s Leipzig University research into “authoritarian” attitudes in the country, the figure showed a rise of 12 points since the Competence Center for Right-Wing Extremism and Democracy Research tested Germans on the same questions in 2014, with 56 per cent of Germans expressing the sentiment in 2018. ...44 per cent would support a ban on Muslim immigration… More Than Half of German Welfare Recipients Come from Migrant Backgrounds.

EUROPE - Europe should be “strong” and shoulder a larger share of the NATO defense burden, Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron agreed when they met after the US president slammed the French leader’s idea of a “real European army.” “We want a strong Europe, it’s very important to us, and whichever way we can do it, the best and more efficient would be something we both want,” Trump told journalists as he met Macron at the Elysee Palace ahead of commemorative events marking the centenary of the end of WWI. Trump finds Macron's idea of a European army for protection from 'China, Russia and even the US' insulting...

UK - Britain’s biggest employer organisation and main trade union body have sounded the alarm over the prospect of British companies implanting staff with microchips to improve security. UK firm BioTeq, which offers the implants to businesses and individuals, has already fitted 150 implants in the UK. The tiny chips, implanted in the flesh between the thumb and forefinger, are similar to those for pets. They enable people to open their front door, access their office or start their car with a wave of their hand, and can also store medical data.

UK - Addressing the issue, chief of Britain's defence staff General Sir Nicholas Carter noted earlier that the British Armed Forces were making "sensible" contingency plans for Brexit and other matters. "There are contingency plans being made, there are discussions being held behind the scenes as to what support our armed forces will do," British Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Defence People and Veterans Tobias Ellwood said on the 'Ridge on Sunday' TV show. "With the transition from Brexit, if there is a requirement to provide assistance we're looking right across the full spectrum of requirements to make sure that we are prepared," he added.

EUROPE - World leaders with the power to make war but a duty to preserve peace solemnly marked the end of World War I’s slaughter 100 years ago at commemorations Sunday that drove home the message “never again” but also exposed the globe’s new political fault lines. As Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and dozens of other heads of state and government listened in silence, French President Emmanuel Macron used the occasion, as its host, to sound a powerful and sobering warning about the fragility of peace and the dangers of nationalism and of nations that put themselves first, above the collective good. “The old demons are rising again, ready to complete their task of chaos and of death,” Macron said.

USA - Del Bigtree, founder of Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), teamed up with Robert F Kennedy Jr to take on the US government by filing a suit against the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for vaccine safety violations — and they won. This is big news for all concerned with the topic of vaccine safety. It turns out the federal agency has been neglecting their vaccine safety obligations for over 30 years. The lawsuit brought by RFK Jr is evidence that “vaccine safety” as we know it is nothing more than a sham. Government agencies charged with protecting the public are not doing their part to ensure and improve the safety of immunizations, but will they be held accountable? Will the DHHS finally be held accountable for their failure, or will the vaccine industry continue to spread its toxic injections without fear of government scrutiny?

UK - Humanity is under threat. At least according to Sir Martin Rees, one of Britain's most esteemed astronomers. In his new book, "On the Future," Rees turns his focus closer to home, examining the existential threats that face humanity over the next century. From cyberattacks to advances in biotechnology to artificial intelligence to climate change, Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal, says we are living at a critical juncture — one that could define how the human species fares.

EUROPE - The operational preparation for future military missions is influenced by a fierce power struggle between Germany and France. According to the German ministry of defense, the military union is not only aimed at reaching more "independence" from the United States, but also at advancing EU "integration," which is difficult to achieve with civilian means. The idea of forcing the unification of the empire through war, reflects far back in German history, when in 1871, Prussia forged the German Empire - through its war with France.

USA - According to officials, the fire has destroyed at least 6,713 homes, businesses and other structures, while killing multiple people. Both the property count and death toll are likely to rise as officials comb through the wreckage. This fire surpasses the damage from the previous record-holder, which was the deadly Tubbs Fire, which devastated Santa Rosa in the state's wine country just 13 months ago.  The fire now measures well over 100,000 acres in size and has been fueled by a combination of unusually dry weather and powerful, desiccating Santa Ana winds, at times blowing at hurricane force (75 miles per hour). The winds made the flames impossible to anticipate and control, giving firefighters no choice but to help residents flee, rather than beat the flames back to save the community.  

UNITED NATIONS - The “right-to-life” clause in an important UN human rights treaty must now include a right to abortion. So says a committee of experts charged with monitoring compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which most states have ratified. The committee says governments must decriminalize abortion in all circumstances and “remove existing barriers that deny effective access by women and girls to safe and legal abortion including barriers caused as a result of the exercise of conscientious objection by individual medical providers,” according to the committee that monitors the implementation of the UN treaty on civil and political rights, ratified by the United States in 1991.

USA - Voters in Alabama and West Virginia Tuesday approved “trigger” measures that could lead to state abortion bans if the US Supreme Court overturns Roe vs Wade — a possibility raised by the appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the court. Even while Roe’s constitutional right to abortion remains in place, abortion has become so hard to get in many parts of the country that an online service called Aid Access launched in the summer to provide prescription abortion pills by mail to women in the US. Founder Rebecca Gomperts, a Dutch physician and activist, has for years run Women on Web, which ships abortion pills to women in countries where abortion is illegal. Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion law firm, contends that the Aid Access model is not only unsafe, but also in violation of US postal and other regulations.