VATICAN - Pope Francis on Tuesday publicly acknowledged the scandal of priests and bishops sexually abusing nuns and vowed to do more to fight the problem, the latest sign that there is no end in sight to the Catholic Church’s abuse crisis — and that it now has a reckoning from the #MeToo movement. Francis admitted to the problem for the first time in public during a news conference while returning to Rome from the United Arab Emirates. The acknowledgment comes just two weeks before he hosts an unprecedented gathering of bishops to craft a global response to the scandal of priestly predators who target children and the superiors who covered up the crimes.

EUROPE - Led by an appallingly incompetent German management, the European Union will most probably come out terminally fractured after next May’s parliamentary elections. The political forces already at work in a number of countries will go back to nation states and a free-trading area, abandoning the pipe dream of a European statehood and sovereignty. That may not scuttle the euro because such a free-trading area needs a common currency to be a genuine customs union and a homogeneous single market. Britain's idea of a united Europe has never been more than a free-trading area. London has in effect restated the fundamental question of what is a European project: A Europe of sovereign nation states, or a federal European super-state.

GERMANY - In Tokyo today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will conclude a statement of principles on intelligence service cooperation with Japan more closely linking Germany to espionage structures directed against China. According to reports, the agreement will initially regulate the exchange of intelligence information, along the lines of similar agreements Japan has concluded also with the USA, Australia, India, and NATO. Berlin and Tokyo are thereby drawing closer to the US-led "Five Eyes" intelligence network, which launched an international campaign against Beijing last summer. As the Western campaign against China gains momentum, the German government, together with Japan, is also seeking to make a stand against the USA, staking its claim to an independent global policy. Therefore, Berlin is taking joint action, not only with Japan, but with Beijing as well against the Trump administration's punitive tariffs, as Norbert Röttgen, CDU foreign policy maker explained.

VATICAN - Pope Francis is seeking to turn a page in Christian-Muslim relations while also ministering to a unique, thriving island of Catholicism as he embarks on the first-ever papal trip to the Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam.  While Francis is building on two of his priorities with his Sunday-Tuesday visit to the United Arab Emirates — promoting interfaith dialogue and visiting the Catholic peripheries — diplomatic protocol will likely dictate that he leaves other concerns behind.  The Emirates’ support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, which has caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and the UAE’s problematic record on human rights and labor violations at home will likely get a pass — at least in public.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - Pope Francis offered the 'blessings of peace' but was greeted by an extravagant military ceremony as he began his historic visit to the United Arab Emirates today. The 82-year-old pontiff was greeted by horse-mounted guards, an artillery salute and a military flyover trailing the yellow and white smoke of the Vatican flag as he arrived at the presidential palace in Abu Dhabi. His 40-hour visit to the Emirates is the first papal trip to the Arabian peninsula, with 135,000 followers set to celebrate a papal Mass on Tuesday in a rare display of Christian worship in the Muslim-majority region.  In a message to the prince, written in the palace book of honour, Francis offered the people of the UAE his prayers and 'the divine blessings of peace and fraternal solidarity.'  

USA - Now that she controls the House Financial Services Committee, Congresswoman Maxine Waters is preparing to finally make good on her threats to subpoena Deutsche Bank to get the "full story" on President Trump's financial relationship with the only major bank that would lend to him following a series of Trump company bankruptcies during the 1990s. And as Waters prepares to let the subpoeanas fly, what better way to alert the broader financial industry that she is not playing around than to sit for an interview with CNBC's chief political correspondent John Harwood?

ISRAEL - Work begins on a new barrier along the Gaza border - PM Netanyahu says 6-meter-high fence will stop terrorists in Strip ‘from penetrating into our territory on the ground’. The Defense Ministry announces it has begun work on a new barrier along the border with the Gaza Strip. Construction began Thursday on the barrier, which the ministry says is some six meters (19.5 feet) high and will stretch for 65 kilometers (40 miles) along the border from Kerem Shalom in the south to the new sea barrier in the north of the Strip meant to guard against infiltration from the Mediterranean. The new fence will be constructed along the path of an underground barrier being built to block cross-border attack tunnels dug from the Palestinian territory, which emerged as a threat during the 2014 Gaza war. “

CANADA - A principal inventor of AI (artificial intelligence), Bengio says “This is the 1984 Big Brother scenario”. Bengio and his fellow Technocrat scientists should have thought about this way before now, but it reflects their Pollyanna-ish view of humanity. Yoshua Bengio, a Canadian computer scientist who helped pioneer the techniques underpinning much of the current excitement around artificial intelligence, is worried about China’s use of AI for surveillance and political control. Bengio, who is also a co-founder of Montreal-based AI software company Element AI, said he was concerned about the technology he helped create being used for controlling people’s behavior and influencing their minds. “This is the 1984 Big Brother scenario,” he said in an interview. “I think it’s becoming more and more scary.”

USA - I, Garry Leech, declare myself president of the United States of America. There I did it. I am now the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. “By what right?” you ask. By the right of the new democratic political process recently implemented in Venezuela and endorsed by the US government. This is how I am restoring democracy in the United States. In the same manner that the new self-declared president of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, with the backing of the US government, is restoring democracy in Venezuela: through the ouster of a democratically elected leader.

VENEZUELA - A Venezuelan air force general became the latest high-ranking military member to renounce his support for socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, declaring in a video this weekend that he recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the country’s legitimate president.

USA - Federal workers need to be prepared for more pain. If President Trump and Congress cannot make a deal, there will probably be another very painful government shutdown in just a couple of weeks. Even though he agreed to temporarily reopen the government, President Trump made it abundantly clear that there would be no long-term deal without wall funding, and that wall funding is supposed to be part of the current negotiation process in Congress.

USA - Executives at General Motors (GM) announced Friday that about 4,250 white-collar workers would be laid off, the vast majority of whom are in the United States, as the multinational corporation continues shifting production overseas and to Mexico. The Monday layoffs of thousands of GM’s white-collar American workers in Michigan and Ohio is just the latest component of the corporation’s laying off of 14,700 workers in North America — including at least 3,300 American factory workers

USA - The debt crisis in the United States of America has reached apocalyptic proportions.  A new and horrifying report out details the reason why 63 of America’s largest cities are completely broke: debt and overspending. According to a recent analysis of the 75 most populous cities in the United States, 63 of them can’t pay their bills and the total amount of unfunded debt among them is nearly $330 billion. 

UK - Innocent people are increasingly being denied access to their money without any explanation from their banks. Figures obtained by Telegraph Money show the number of complaints from customers locked out of accounts rose by a fifth in just 12 months. The steep rise comes as banks face intense scrutiny of their ability to combat the rising threat of transfer fraud. Banks are allowed to close down an account without notice or explanation if there are concerns it is being used for fraud or financial crimes, such as money laundering. These systems are designed to protect victims by freezing all payments going in or out of an account. However, banks often refuse to tell customers why their accounts have been closed!

CHINA - China’s state-run Global Times on Friday applauded the launch of a European system to evade US sanctions on Iran, pleased by the damage it could inflict upon US sanctions against China, Venezuela, North Korea, and other countries. The Chinese saluted France, Germany, and Britain for moving toward a day when the US dollar is no longer the world’s dominant currency and perhaps Chinese money will take its place. The Global Times gave the French, Germans, and British a pat on the back for exercising “economic sovereignty” against “Washington’s imposition of its foreign policy on other countries,” noting that Chinese interests have also felt American pressure.