Astrology of Today’s News

‘The Arduous March’ is Kim Jong Un’s euphemistic description of the approaching famine he has flagged up in North Korea, similar he said to the 1990s years of starvation which killed several million people. The 1994-98 disaster years were caused by economic mismanagement and the loss of Soviet support after the collapse of the USSR. This time round trade with China has come to a standstill with the borders shut due to coronavirus and international sanctions are still in place. All offers of external aid have been rejected and he’s still lashing money out on new missiles. Same old crazy but his poor people are the ones suffering, not the elite.

  The Kim Jong Un leadership chart, 29 December 2011 11.57am, which is the one which is verified, has the erratic tr Uranus square tr Saturn hitting on the financial Venus this year; but it is 2022/23 when the problems mount with a hardship/deprived tough slog of tr Pluto square the Saturn in 2022/2023 and an explosive, disruptive Solar Arc Mars opposition Uranus in 2023 and an undermining, directionless tr Neptune square the Midheaven by 2024.

 The North Korea, 9 September 1948 chart, looks depressed and stuck this year with Solar Arc Sun square the Saturn and a financially disappointing tr Neptune square Jupiter; tr Uranus squares the Pluto for a considerable upheaval or revolution in 2022; then tr Uranus bumps across the bleak Saturn Pluto midpoints before forming a high-tension, unstable square to the Saturn in 2025. There’s also a raft of truly difficult and damaging Solar Arcs across 2025/2026 as the Solar Arc Uranus is conjunct the Sun for an upheaval/rebellion, and there’s a completely log-jammed and dangerous 2026 with Solar Arc Pluto conjunct Mars and Solar Arc Saturn square the Pluto – so not much in the way of sunshine ahead.

  When the mid 1990s famine struck tr Saturn was in Pisces (as it will be 2023-25), the Solar Arc Uranus was conjunct the NK Pluto, the Solar Arc Sun was conjunct the NK Mars; and tr Pluto was crossing the Midheaven for a break down. Some similarities.

Khloe Kardashian suffered a cataclysmic misfortune when unedited and un-air-brushed bikini photographs of her appeared on the net. She then wailed about how difficult it is to live up to fans’ demand for perfection without clearly stopping to consider how much she and her ilk have contributed to distorting young women’s idea of what femininity looks like. The celebrity influencer culture is fighting with claw and manicured fingernails to remain relevant with two of the other Kardashians having now unbelievably achieved billionaire status on the back of beauty and fashion businesses. 

  What often strikes me about such women’s charts is how truly difficult they are – most often with afflicted Mars or heavy Pluto. And yet they project this flawless outer image like a polished vase with – one suspects either nothing inside or harbouring a churning cess-pit of dark feelings.

  She has a charming Sun Venus Mercury in Cancer in her performing 5^th house opposition Neptune Jupiter  – ethereal, head-in-the-clouds. Yet her Sun Mars Mercury also trines Saturn Mars in Scorpio which is a seriously compacted reservoir of resentment and fear.

  Her older sister Kourtney has Pluto in the 8^th opposition Mars, with Mars quincunx Saturn. Next sister Kim has a Sun Pluto conjunction with Mars sextile Saturn and semi-sextile Pluto and a raft of hard-edged midpoints. Half-sister Kendall has Mars square Saturn; and Kylie Mars opposition Saturn. Mars Saturn certainly instils discipline but it does not engender a natural and spontaneous approach to life.

For previous post on Kim Kardashian see January 6 2021.

Pic: By Eric Longden – Vimeo  

Boris Johnson is still benefiting in the popularity polls from the vaccine bounce and the unaccountable failure of Keir Starmer, the Opposition leader, to sparkle into gear. This despite his Government chart wilting with the undermining tr Neptune square the Sun since late last month, which suggests there is more uncertainty and dither behind the scenes than the graphs suggest.

  There’s not much to add to previous posts except that he is heading to become the PM to risk the break-up of the UK with Scotland in full Braveheart-mode, but also to – unthinkably – be the cause of wrecking the Good Friday Agreement as violence mounts in Northern Ireland. On the latter – his true-believers blame the trouble on the EU’s intransigence when in reality it is the logical consequence of a gung-ho, screw-the-details Brexit, which dismissed Ireland as a tedious irritation, not worthy of consideration.

  What’s intriguing – though this is a touch astro-obscure – is that his relationship charts with the UK, The Good Friday Agreement and the Scotland Act of Union 1707 all contain Yods. Yods amongst other things tend to bring fated changes of direction which can be abrupt and stressed. When Yods appear in a relationship dynamic it suggests unforeseen and extreme shifts in direction for both sides involved and marks their path irrevocably for good or for ill in the aftermath of their coming together. It’s especially marked with the Good Friday Agreement where the highly sensitive ‘reaction’ point in the Yod –  the planet opposition the focal point is Uranus, being disrupted through last year and this by tr Pluto in sextile.

  His relationship chart with the UK has a Yod reaction point of Mars in Taurus, which is being rattled in 2023 by tr Uranus conjunct and also by the Eclipses through 2022 as well. This might well be when a future Scottish Independence Referendum is held – though it would have to be said that Sturgeon looks totally blocked/enraged and Salmond completely deflated by then.  

  I was wondering – comments gratefully received – quite what in the UK chart pointed to the need for a political wrecking-ball like Johnson to upset the applecart at this point. Boris always did feel like a mini-Trump figure – in Kissinger’s example of the sort that turns up at the end of an era.  Pluto in Capricorn’s last karmic payback for past sins; with Uranus in Taurus adding a dollop of financial woes post Brexit, the details of the extensive damage having been obscured so far by the pandemic. It may be almost the end of this decade before the new what-used-to-be-UK entity arises from the ashes.

See previous posts : 5 March 2021 (Brexit a not so merry go round) and 21 February 2021 (Ireland Peace threatened by blundering politicos) and 21 March 2019 (Good Friday Agreement under extreme strain)

Pretty Woman, the Julia Roberts movie disneyfied prostitution, with a happy-ever-after ending which was repeated decades earlier by girls of Madame Claude, infamous as the most powerful and exclusive pimp in the world. Her indentured employees were famed for their beauty and sophistication, trained like geishas to fit into elite social circles and often sent for plastic surgery. Netflix is now showing an original French film about the procuress whom JFK, Marlon Brando, Charles de Gaulle and the Shah of Iran amongst many others turned to for their illicit escorts who could mingle with duchesses and never be spotted and some even made it up the altar.

Her client list allegedly spanned kings, presidents, government ministers, ambassadors, and leaders of industry and at her peak she even became an agent of the French state and worked for the CIA in a ‘morale-boosting’ operation. When public distaste for state use of high-level prostitution surfaced she was finally done for tax evasion. Despite subsequent skirmishes with the law she evaded prison time.

  One of her girls said she hated men. ‘She used them strictly to make money and saw them as nothing more than wallets.’ Another likened her to a ‘slave driver on a plantation in the American South.’ She took 30% of their fees as well as any monies spent on their improvement. At her peak she had 200 girls on her books and was charging $5000 a day for their services.

  Born 6 July 1923 9am Angers, France, her earlier years are wreathed in mystery though it was hardly a comfortable or reassuring childhood. She had her Aries Moon in the 8^th opposition Saturn in the financial 2^nd squaring onto a controlling Sun Pluto in Cancer – not a bundle of compassion, for sure – ego-centric, dominating, cold, hard.

  Her Sun Pluto was also in a self-protective Water Grand Trine to Jupiter in money-making Scorpio trine Uranus, formed into a Kite with Uranus (on cusp of 8^th house of sexuality) opposition the Virgo North Node – so definitely out of step with the conventional morals of the society. She also had Mars in Cancer trine Uranus. A Water Grand Trine can be healing but it can also be a fantasist, locked into its own bubble of reality.

  She also had a Yod of Saturn sextile Neptune inconjunct Uranus – which would certainly mark her out for a unique path in life. She would be rebellious, wilful, a trailblazer, uncaring about convention, even lawless. Evidently she is credited with having created the term ‘call girl’ since her clients had to book by telephone.

 She had a daughter who she sent back to be raised by her mother and barely knew.

Sun Pluto in Cancer tied into Saturn and the Moon has echoes of the worst kind of Terrible Mother ever.

Matt Gaetz, the headline-grabbing Florida Republican congressman, a rabid pro-Trumper and eager conspiracy theorist, is embroiled in a sex scandal that carries real legal jeopardy. It started with reports of sexual relations with a 17-year-old girl and paying for her to cross state lines. (Interstate trafficking of underage children for sex is a federal offence.) And since then has spiralled into a larger inquiry into sex trafficking, started under the approval of AG William Barr, that has led to the indictment of a Gaetz friend and local Florida politician, Joel Greenberg. It hinges round ‘sugar daddy’ websites where women exchange sex for gifts and money.

  Evidently Gaetz showed nude photographs of his conquests around the house and opposed a bill to outlaw revenge porn. Given that he has been one of Trump’s most vocal defenders, the controversy has become the latest proxy battle over the former president’s legacy and ongoing influence. Gaetz has adopted the Trumpian policy of aggressive denials, conceding nothing and hurling accusations at his critics. He is supported by local Florida Republicans who have written the allegations off as fake news so he may not be out on his ear as quickly as many hope.

  Born 7 May 1982 he’s an indulgent and stubborn Sun Taurus with an intense and can-be-sexualised Moon in Scorpio. He’s also got Venus in upfront Aries opposition Mars in Libra, which Sakoian & Acker describe thus: “ Generates relationship problems of an emotional nature often involving sex. The natives are likely to use the opposite sex for sexual gratification without consideration for their feelings.” Not favourable for marriage because of its tendency to create emotional and sexual incompatibility.  And he has a third opposition of an outspoken Mercury in Gemini opposition Uranus – so on a constant see-saw attempting to find balance.

  He’s up and down ahead with late April/early May looking both good and disruptive. Mid June to early July will be panicked and not progressive and his problems will mount throughout July to mid August and again in December which looks like career losses. 2022 from mid year catches tr Uranus conjunct his Sun for an upheaval and he’ll hit a swamp by 2023 as his Progressed Sun opposes his Neptune.

  Just out of idle curiosity I had a flip through his harmonic charts and the three most notable are the 5H, 11H and 15H which on Vendla’s numerology associations are:

5H: Always on-the-go. Inventive, freedom-lover, fast-thinking, “sexy”. Also: Lack of concentration, irresponsibility, sensationalistic, self-indulgent, deceitful, “the player”.

11H: A difficult number to live up to. The positive aspect of number 11 is idealistic and inspired imagination. The negative aspects are fanaticism and unreasonableness, also dishonesty, greed, self-indulgence and even perversion.

15H: It rules magicians, alchemy, black magic, need for erotic experiences, actors and eloquent speakers. It is a “tricky” number, not always lucky.

  These harmonics are also notable with Harvey Weinstein, Jimmy Savile and the 11H with Jeffrey Epstein. Most of these are without birth times so the other harmonics could be connected into the chart axis. See previous post December 14 2019.

Philip Roth, one of the greats in American literature, is catching the wrath of the current zeitgeist for his out-of-date attitudes to women and sex. Brickbats are being thrown despite him dying three years back, as a weighty new biography details his creative and amorous progress through 31 books, a Pulitzer and numerous other awards, and a string of liaisons.

  Evidently he preferred his sex with a minimum of commitment, domesticity without encumbrance. He cherished privacy and to break the monotony some sexual adventuring. He expected his girlfriends to act like wives and his wives to act like girlfriends.

 Always a controversialist, he hit the big time with his novel Portnoy’s Complaint about extreme masturbation, was notorious in the Jewish community for the shaming and defaming of Jews, for which he was labelled an anti-Semite and a self-hating Jew.

  One reviewer wrote: “No one can accuse Roth of ever hiding who he was: American, Jewish, obsessed with sex, obsessed with death, funny, angry, wise, profane, imaginative, cruel.”

  Born 19 March 1933 1am Newark, New Jersey, with an insurance broker father, he excelled at university and latterly taught creative writing.

  He had a charming and intelligent 3^rd house Sun, Venus in Pisces with Mercury in Aries also in the 3^rd and Jupiter, Neptune, Mars in Virgo in the 9^th – both the 3^rd and 9^th are the communication houses and the 9^th especially would point to a published career. He had an unsettled Uranus in his domestic 4^th square a trapped/controlling though influential 8^th house Pluto. His Capricorn Moon was square Mercury – perhaps a hint of why he brought so much autobiographical material into his novels. His Moon was also in an angry-against-women trine to Mars and evasive Neptune.

  It’s a curiously untogether chart, perhaps why his emotional life was so disjointed.  Though it pulls together in his creative 5^th and 7^th Harmonics; and even more so in his Writers’ 21^st harmonic which is exceptionally strong.

  He did have an unaspected Saturn in can-be-chilly Aquarius – which would give him an aptitude for solitude, though dent his capacity for self-discipline and organization in certain areas of his life, and lend him a tendency to drift through life without set guidelines.

 His first marriage was short-lived, as was his second to actress Claire Bloom, though he’d had a long live-in relationship with her prior to making a legal commitment. After it split she described him as a mysogynist and control freak, though its unclear what the attraction was. She was born 15 February 1931 and was a Sun and probably Moon in Aquarius with not much in common barring her Venus in Capricorn being conjunct his Moon and her Jupiter in his 7th.

Jordan, usually one of the quieter Middle Eastern monarchies, is having a spasm of crisis, with Prince Hamzah, the former Crown Prince being put under house arrest for reasons of ‘security and stability’ after an alleged coup threat. He in turn accused the country’s leaders of corruption, incompetence and harassment.

   There are indications of a gathering storm on the three key charts. Jordan, 25 May 1946 12 am Amman, looks discouraged and logjammed at the moment, not surprisingly with the Covid problem looming large and the country also sheltering one million Syrian refugees from the recent ongoing conflict. The tr Uranus square tr Saturn is also disrupting the Jordan Mars Pluto in Leo this year and even more so in 2022. With further shocks and setbacks mid 2022 from Solar Arc Sun conjunct Mars; and rising uncertainty and panic in 2022/23 with Solar Arc Saturn conjunct the financial 8^th house Neptune.

  King Abdullah 11’s accession chart, 7 February 1999 3.30 pm is blocked this year with Solar Arc Sun square Pluto; with conflicted push n’ pull influences from tr Uranus square tr Saturn tugging on the Uranus then Sun Mercury this year and next. With a really tough uphill slog from tr Pluto square the 10^th house Saturn in 2022/23 – and more upheavals and alarm towards 2024/5/6.

  King Abdullah 11, 30 January 1962 5.23am (from memory) Amman, Jordan, has his Sun and four other planets in Aquarius as well as Neptune and possibly Moon in Scorpio and Uranus in Leo – a very Fixed chart so he doesn’t bend easily. But the next three years with tr Saturn and tr Uranus in hard aspect to his Fixed planets will test his mettle, especially with tr Saturn heading downwards into his less successful first quadrant now for several years ahead. His Solar Arc Pluto is approaching a road-blocked square to his Sun in 2022 and that is when tr Pluto picks up the trapped, high-risk and acutely frustrating conjunction to his Mars extending through 2023 as well.  This crisis has been brewing for some months through last year and has only now burst into the open and is nowhere at its worst.   

There are strenuous denials from Saudi Arabia of any involvement but I wonder? MBS, the ambitious Crown Prince, 31 August 1985, has his control-freak Pluto sitting conjunct Abdullah’s Midheaven and his Saturn conjunct Abdullah’s 10^th Moon; with MBS’s Virgo Sun and Mars in Leo conjunct Abdullah’s 8^th house Pluto and Uranus.  MBS’s superficially charming Venus opposition Jupiter falls across Abdullah’s 7^th/1^st so he will sugar-coat his smiles, but that is a potent, explosive and power-struggling mix.

Emmanuel Macron has managed to top the domestic unpopularity polls of EU leaders which is no mean achievement given the carnage of reputations of the leading players – Merkel, Rutte, van der Leyen etc.

  Macron’s Sun King/Superman/Jupiterian image has not stood up well to his botched management of the Covid crisis with daily cases now nearing 60,000 compared to the UK’s 4000. Unlike Merkel he appears incapable of owning up to mistakes and broken promises. His fanboy ministers describe him as an expert in epidemiology as he blithely disregards the advice of scientists and doctors, which has only added fuel to the hostility of a disgruntled electorate.  This has pushed the far-right Marine Le Pen to record highs in the polls for next year’s Presidential election, a shift from ‘the unthinkable to the merely improbable’, as one analyst put it.

  Macron was never going to do well given tr Saturn heading downhill on his chart now into his less-successful and lower profile First Quadrant. The uber-ambitious can push on despite the tide running the wrong way but it always leads to misjudgements, banana skins and setbacks for several years ahead. His bombastic Sagittarius Sun Mercury opposition Jupiter doesn’t catch the undermining tr Neptune square until 2024 but before then and exactly over the 2022 election he catches tr Uranus conjunct his Taurus Moon and opposition his Uranus exactly – which does suggest a considerable disruption to his life, domestic and other. Tr Pluto will be sitting exactly on his Ascendant then.

  It doesn’t mean he couldn’t squeak through since the voters will be stuck between a president they loathe and Le Pen who despite having softened her party’s racist image in recent years would be an international embarrassment. Unless there is a third more palatable candidate. But Macron does look unlikely – his relationship chart with France has strongly separative aspects in April 2022 with tr Uranus opposition the composite Sun over the election.

   Le Pen and France don’t look exactly sympatico over the election either with a tough, depressed tr Pluto square the composite Saturn and the composite Mars having been stressed beforehand.

 And her chart is caught between a blocked-in Solar Arc Mars conjunct her Pluto from late 2021 through the election and tr Pluto opposition her 10^th house Mars picking up in 2023.  Plus an unsettled tr Uranus square her Sun across the election.

  It’ll help the UK if Macron is despatched since his obvious dislike and hectoring competitiveness with all things Albion will be a serious problem ahead if he stays. Macron’s relationship chart with the UK has a hostile, power-struggling Mars opposition Pluto Mercury which is being undercut by a smoke-screening and scandal-mongering tr Neptune square this year and the next two. He gets on with Boris Johnson every bit as badly, no surprises for two super-competitive egos and that relationship chart is again sagging badly under a Neptunian assault through the next three or four years.

 France itself is feeling the strain throughout 2022 with the restrictive tr Saturn conjunct the France Pluto, opposition the Uranus and square the Mars. It’ll face the French revolutionary spirit with a few hard truths. There’s also a devastating and confused tr Pluto square the Neptune in 2022/23, exact at the April election; and a jangled tr Uranus conjunct the Solar Arc Sun due for the July. With immense pressure on the France financial Venus as it catches the Solar Arc Pluto opposition Uranus. And by 2024 tr Neptune will oppose the France Virgo Sun, in place exactly for the Paris Olympics which doesn’t suggest a rapturous celebration. Costing gzillions they don’t have.

  A few years ahead to take the shine off the feather-bedded French way of life.

Brazil is being ravaged by the pandemic which President Bolsonaro underplayed resulting in the country having a quarter of all Covid-19 deaths in the world last week. The national health system is on the verge of collapse with intensive care units across the country overstretched and one study estimated in April/May the death toll could reach 5000 a day.

In a further fit of misplaced dictatorial panic, Bolsonaro fired his Foreign and Defence Ministers precipitating the resignation of the three military chiefs. An Opposition leader called for his removal from office to prevent his “coup-mongering, authoritarian delusions” becoming a reality. It’s not clear why the military who brought him to power in 2016 have withdrawn their support, perhaps because of his calamitous handling of the coronavirus outbreak or fear of an authoritarian move to take on dictatorial powers.

 The Brazil 7 September 1822 4.08 pm Piranga chart does hint at a crisis coming exactly now till April 20^th.  The stressed Yod of Pluto sextile Jupiter Moon inconjunct Mars in Scorpio, is tied into Saturn in Taurus from the opposition to Mars – the midpoint opposition of a Yod is a particularly sensitive point and tr Uranus will be conjunct for the next three weeks.

  In an odd way, Bolsonaro, 21 March 1955 2.45pm Sao Paulo, is a mirror image for the country since he also has a Mars in Taurus opposition Saturn in Scorpio which sits across the Brazil MC/IC axis.  His Saturn on the Brazil midheaven could have made for a serious partnership, favourable for administration but instead tipped into Saturn’s shadow side of lust for financial gain and personal advantage.

  On his personal chart tr Uranus is poised to cross his Midheaven at 10 degrees Taurus in May so it could bring a sudden, radical change of career direction. He looks confused, devastatingly so, in 2022/23 with shocks and setbacks bringing high insecurity and perhaps reckless reactions.

  His Swearing In chart, 1 January 2019 4.50 pm, is pressured exactly now but would indicate as 2022 as the more likely exit point as tr Pluto squares the Uranus. It was always an ominous Term chart with a dirty-dealings Sun Saturn and Pluto in the 8^th.

  Bolsonaro is an Aries like Rodrigo Duterte, the assassinating President of the Philippines – both pro-Trumpers.

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