Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank, has effectively dismissed the recent German court ruling about bond purchases being against Treaty law and announced a 600 billion euro top up. The previous recovery fund announced by the Commission in May is still not agreed with the frugal states northern dragging their … Read more
The tragic story of Madeleine McCann who disappeared from a Portugal holiday villa aged three years old in 2007 has reappeared in the headlines. At the time and for years after conspiracy theories swirled about her parents being responsible. A botched Portuguese police inquiry failed to follow up other leads and eventually fizzled out … Read more
Japan has come out of the pandemic better than most with under 17,000 infections and 894 deaths mainly due to a special contact-tracing strategy, early awareness and the timely declaration of a state of emergency, though without a compulsory lockdown. The concern now is whether PM Abe can kickstart the economy which has been … Read more
Mark Zuckerberg is under attack from his own Facebook employees as well as civil right leaders for his stance over Trump’s posts advocating violence which he is refusing to take down. Twitter hid a similar post under a label saying “glorifying violence”. Zuckerberg said: “I know many people are upset that we’ve left the … Read more
Lies and slander have a Neptunian feel but when they are delivered with toxic intensity as poison-spreaders with destructive intent they are more of a Plutonic attack – a venom that lingers. Trump’s playbook was out in force this week with a slanderous reprise of an old alt-right conspiracy theory about the accidental death of … Read more
Dracula, the novel by Bram Stoker, published on May 26 1897, started a genre of gothic horror vampire books, comics and fantasy movies that still send a shiver down susceptible spines today. The original has lurid tales of blood-suckers who transform their human victims into the undead, a term Stoker at one point considered for … Read more
Actress Lori Loughlin and her husband fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli have finally pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to secure “fraudulent admission” of their two children to the University of Southern California (USC. She gets two months inside, her husband 5 months plus fines and community service. This follows actress Felicity Huffman’s two-week sentence for … Read more
Joe Rogan, the podcast king, whose chats are downloaded nearly 200 million times per month on Youtube has been persuaded to shift over to Spotify in a deal worth more than $100 million. His guests have included Elon Musk, Bernie Sanders, Jack Dorsey, Robert Downey, Jr. and alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and conspiracy theorist … Read more
Wilson Jerman, a poor North Carolina farmworker’s son, who became an indispensable and much-loved figure in the White House under eleven respective presidents, has died aged 91. He started during Dwight Eisenhower’s administration as a cleaner, was spotted later by Jackie Kennedy and promoted to butler. He had a close relationship with her according … Read more
The jury is still out about whether the Merkel-Macron recovery fund of half a trillion euros will: a) be enough to make a difference: and b) will fly in the face of opposition from the ‘frugal four’ of the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Denmark who have all held out against direct subsidies. Never mind the … Read more