Today is 19 January 2025, the day Tik Tok is to go dark. On its death bed, a new tribe is born: Tik Tok refugees. And what a huge tribe it is, all 170 million of them in the US alone. This is the first time so many Americans wear such a strange label and political identity. The irony is super bitter. America, the traditional haven of the persecuted, is now condemning people to seek refuge from an unjust law, setting a dangerous precedent for censorship in the process.

The LA fires are a primal scream from planet Earth. It feels like the end of the world. It's hard to know where a natural disaster begins, and a horrible human catastrophe ends.

In a week's time, America will swear in its next president. Lame duck Biden has disappeared into the woodwork. Never has an incumbent been so totally overshadowed by his incoming replacement. These days, Trump is everywhere. He dominates the airwaves. He is lapping up all the attention and adulation. He is dictating the global narrative.

Little Panama is suddenly big news, east and west, because Trump needs a big build-up to his coronation on 20 January. He needs a big splash as a prelude to his presidency. Little minnow Panama is perfect as a pawn in his geopolitical chess game. The mere threat of another invasion gives Trump an instant aura of imperial power that cows and conquers all. The bigger the noise, the more awe-filled the upcoming ceremony. Free to rant and rave, Trump is hooked on spectacles. This time, there are no personal consequences to him, only shattered egos for others.

The Canadian penny has dropped. After weeks of agony, Justin Trudeau has finally thrown in the towel, announcing his decision to resign. Once the poster boy of liberal politics, Trudeau is now better known for "government by gimmicks", mischaracterized as the end of the Modern Progressive Experiment. His administration has long suffered from a lack of creative ideas of governance, feeding people only cheap and flashy slogans. There was never any carefully curated experiment, only political gambles that have misfired.

While most of the world is giddily embracing the new year, Gazans are facing extinction. At least the war in Ukraine is not an asymmetric fight or a one-sided killing spree. In Gaza, nothing is off-limits. One of its last functioning hospitals is forced to shut after its injured director has been thrown into Israel's most notorious prison. This man has kept it running for 80 days despite devastating attacks. Nearly 1,100 healthcare workers have been killed since the Hamas massacre, with 300 others tortured, detained without charge or trial and subjected to sexual violence.

MI5 talks up the trumped-up Chinese spy case in Britain as its major triumph. I see it as a case of utter disgrace. There is more than meets the eye and less than meets the eye. Let me explain.

How MI5 turns Prince Andrew into 007! Out of the blue, Prince Andrew, a walking corpse since the Jeffrey Epstein sex scandal broke, has come roaring back to life. He is reincarnated as the latest edition of 007. His perfect foil is a starstruck Chinese businessman named Yang Tengbo who wakes up to find himself fingered as a spy, comedically referred to as H6. A spy is not a spy without a code name.

A friend of mine, a smart lawyer with a sharp mind, wants an answer to this sharp question: why did nearly all Korean presidents come to such a sorry Shakespearean end—from being jailed, assassinated, exiled and overthrown to committing suicide? Why is the K-presidency such a deadly curse? The answer may lie in Korea's revenge culture. 

The Korean presidency is a poisoned chalice. Few occupants of that top post have survived intact: they are either assassinated, jailed, overthrown, exiled, or scarred by scandal. In the latest episode, the incumbent has added another layer of intrigue as a doting husband. Under him, K-drama has come roaring back. The whole world is waiting for the next instalment. This storyline has everything: a potent cocktail of sex, fraud, money and power.

The verb on every leader's lip following Trump's electoral victory is "brace", as in airplane passengers bracing for a crash landing. In nearly every corner of an uneasy world, everyone is busy bracing for Trump's ridiculous resumption of power. The BRIC's are bracing for it, with Trump threatening to slap them with a 100% tariff if they dare to boycott the greenback in trade.

One by one, justice is being meted out to the agitators in Hong Kong's unrest. Their day of reckoning is here. A sad and sordid chapter in Hong Kong's history is finally closing.

Thanks to Trump, half the world is flat on the psychiatrist's couch with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Every decent human being with a pulse is plunged into despair. The world needs its head examined. America needs its head examined. How can the US put a "shidiot" twice in the White House? Trump has hit the jackpot.

Yes, it has happened. Trump has won. The buffoon is back in a big way, to no one's surprise. But many are plunged into clinical depression, not because Trump is a rapist, or a racist, or a pathological liar, or a serial tax cheat, or a wrecking ball, or an unprincipled bully or anti-science and pro-Hitler. But because he is "all of the above". That's why his second victory feels like the end-of-the-world: the lawless as leader, and rule-breakers as royalty.

Jews, we are told, are the chosen people. But Gaza has redefined them as the chosen devil. They turn their zero-sum game into a blood debt too horrible to be settled. Through Gaza, Israel announces to the world: America is not the global superpower. It is just a supporting cast in its mass murder. Israel is the hyper-power.