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Authored by Mary Clark via The Epoch Times,

British supermarket group Asda on Wednesday urged its customers to shop considerately and not buy more than usual after new lockdown curbs were introduced across Britain to stem the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

Under England’s latest lockdown rules, people must stay at home with certain limited exceptions, only shops offering essentials such as food can open, and all hospitality venues including restaurants, apart from those offering take-away and delivery services, must close.

Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, the UK’s three devolved administrations, have enacted similar rules and, with the hospitality sector shut, there’s pressure on supermarkets to meet demand.

Asda, however, said in a statement that it “currently has strong product availability across its stores and depots,” adding that “colleagues are working around the clock to keep the shelves stocked.”

‘Shop Considerately’

Asda asked customers not to stockpile but rather to “play their part by continuing to shop considerately and not buy more than they normally would.”

The supermarket’s request comes just a day after Ocado’s online shopping website had a virtual queue of more than 10,000 people, Sainsbury’s, to manage demand, temporarily limited access to online groceries services, and Morrisons’ online booking for grocery deliveries was showing “no more slots available.”

Asda also said it saw a spike in visits to its website after the lockdown was announced.

But it’s stepping up its digital capacity to help more customers shop online during the crisis.

“We have increased our weekly delivery slots to over 800,000, so we’re already far better prepared for sudden increases in demand than we were with the first and second spikes,” a spokesperson for the group told The Epoch Times on Tuesday.

The group said its online capacity had soared by 90 percent since March 2020 and that it expected weekly slots to reach 900,000 by April this year.

It also said that, from February, it will double its partnering with Uber Eats to offer a fast 30-minute delivery service on 350 Asda-branded products provided by 200 of its stores.

Asda is Britain’s third-largest supermarket group after market leaders Tesco and Sainsbury’s, and is currently owned by U.S. giant Walmart.

However, in October the Issa brothers and private equity group TDR Capital agreed to buy a majority holding in Asda in a deal giving it an enterprise value of £6.5 billion ($8.8 billion).

The deal, under which Walmart will keep a minority stake, requires regulatory approval and is expected to complete in the first half of 2021.

To kick off the New Year, the world’s largest economies face a massive global debt overhang due to the coronavirus-downturn; some $13 trillion in debt is coming due and will need to be refinanced in an ultra-low rate environment. 

Seven top economies plus several major emerging markets economies “face the heaviest bond maturities in at least a decade, much of the borrowings to dig their economies out of the worst slump since the Great Depression,” according to Bloomberg, adding that these governments will need to roll over at least half of this debt in 2020. 

Gregory Perdon, co-chief investment officer at Arbuthnot Latham, said, “government debt ratios have exploded, but I believe that the short-term worrying over a rising debt is fruitless.”

Perdon said, “debt is leverage and assuming it’s not abused, it’s one of the most successful tools for growing wealth.”

Despite surging coronavirus infections, hospitalizations, and deaths weighing on the global recovery as the vaccination rollout is much slower than first anticipated, central banks will continue to pin interest rates near zero to keep borrowing costs low to allow these countries to roll over their pandemic debt. 

The largest government debt refinancing will be in the US, with $7.7 trillion of debt coming due, followed by Japan with $2.9 trillion. China has $577 billion coming due, Italy has $433 billion, followed by France’s $348 billion. Germany has $325 billion. 

All of the countries’ respective central banks will need to hold interest rates as low as possible for debt refinancing. No country – whatsoever – can afford to pay higher interest on debt in these challenging times. 

“The practical reality is that debt levels and rates are linked, because most of the developed world cannot afford higher interest rates,” said Steven Major, the global head of fixed-income research at HSBC Holdings Plc.

This brings us to today’s big event, the Georgia Senate run-off elections. The outcome of the election, as explained by Bank of America’s global economist Aditya Bhave will be a huge deciding factor on the amount of 2021 debt issuance. 

“If Republicans win at least one of the two seats, they will retain control of the Senate. In this case, we do not expect major additional fiscal stimulus. But if Democrats are able to win both seats and take control of the Senate, the prospects would improve for another package, including direct aid for state and local governments,” Bhave wrote. 

The bottom line: With sovereign yields plunging to record lows, it is only reasonable that governments across the world flood the market with as much debt as possible, to roll over 2020 pandemic debt, and also attempt to thwart a double-dip recession. As long as sovereign yields stay low, global debt will soar. 

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Senior Scotland Yard officials have announced the adoption of a new ‘hardline’ lockdown policy to stop and question people if they are out in the street, and to issue on the spot fines if they cannot provide a reasonable excuse for being out of their houses.

The London Telegraph reports that London’s MET police issued a statement noting that “With fewer ‘reasonable excuses’ for people to be away from their home in the regulations, Londoners can expect officers to be more inquisitive as to why they see them out and about.”

“Where officers identify people without a lawful reason to be away from home they can expect officers to move more quickly to enforcement,” the statement further noted.

The Met has outlined a stricter #Covid #coronavirus enforcement approach following the introduction of new national lockdown restrictions. https://t.co/ciKspZ691d

— Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) January 6, 2021

New lockdown laws, announced Monday by Prime Minister Boris Johnson by way of a TV briefing, are yet to be debated or voted on by parliament.

Police have the power now to issue on the spot fines of £200, which can be doubled every time a lockdown ‘breach’ is committed.

Fines of up to £10,000 can also be handed out to anyone holding gatherings or house parties.

A woman who organised a New Year’s Eve party in #Kensington has been reported for a £10,000 fine for breaching #Covid regulations.

It is up to all of us to do the right thing and officers will continue to take action against those who break the rules. https://t.co/WwHddd796X

— Kensington & Chelsea Police (@MPSKenChel) January 6, 2021

Scotland Yard says that the fines will be more readily handed out, even to those who are simply not wearing a mask.

“After ten months of this pandemic, the number of people who are genuinely not aware of the restrictions and the reasons they are in place is vanishingly small,” commented MET Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist, adding that the responsibility of police is to “preserve life”.

“We know the overwhelming majority of Londoners will do the right thing by staying at home, wearing masks and not gathering, but a small minority continue to ignore rules put in place to protect the NHS and save lives,” Twist added.

“We can no longer spend our time explaining or encouraging people to follow rules they are wilfully and dangerously breaching,” he continued, emphasising that police will no longer be lenient with those daring to leave their houses.

“Less than a month ago we launched a new digital fines system, which makes it quicker and easier for officers to issue fines on the spot,” Twist warned, adding “if people continue to break the rules, putting themselves, their families and their communities at greater risk, our officers are ready to act robustly.”

John Apter, the chairman of the Police Federation stated that policing of the third lockdown will be amped up, noting “It will be easier for police to have one consistent rule for people to follow across the whole country, which means it is easier for people to understand and comply with what is expected of them.”

Apter specifically singled out ‘anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine protesters’, saying that “we now have a hardcore element who are against the rules.”

“The majority of the public will do what is expected of them, but I think there is a real issue over the virus and lockdown fatigue. There is a real frustration and the police often deal with the sharp end of that as people are angry when challenged,” Apter added.

Evidence of the ramped up lockdown policing has already been witnessed with dozens police officers marching through Hyde Park in military fashion before stopping to demand IDs from people:

Platoon of Police patrolling Hyde Park demanding ID@JuliaHB1 @talkRADIO pic.twitter.com/MuyGNlm9RT

— Subject Access (@SubjectAccesss) January 3, 2021

In an incident at Marble Arch, cops questioned an old woman for feeding pigeons:

“A woman was fatally shot inside the U.S. Capitol after the mob breached the building. The circumstances were not clear,” The Washington Post begins in its report on the Wednesday afternoon shooting of 35-year old Ashli Babbitt. She later died of the gunshot wound at a local hospital.

The circumstances have now become much clearer with video of the shooter emerging overnight. There were police behind her – indicating they did not consider her an immediate lethal threat – at the moment she attempted to breach a barricade inside the capitol building.

Despite the security officers behind her being potentially in the line of fire, Babbitt was still shot by a Capitol police officer as she attempted to jump over a physical barrier, new video shows. 

GRAPHIC FOOTAGE: Police fatally shoot a Trump supporter inside the Capitol building. This is a sickening crime that should be prosecuted as such. pic.twitter.com/X8JK7HplJ7

— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) January 7, 2021

The shooter was an unidentified law enforcement officer on the other side of the barricade who was preparing to prevent any breach of the high secure federal building, which has been confirmed in FOX5-D.C. reporting.

“D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee confirmed late Wednesday that Babbit was shot by a Capitol police officer. An internal investigation is now underway,” FOX5 reports.

Ashli Babbitt was a San Diego native and high ranking military veteran: “The woman is Ashli Babbitt, a 14-year veteran, who served four tours with the US Air Force and was a high level security official throughout her time in service,” San Diego TV station KUSI reported.

“She was a strong supporter of President Trump,” the report added, citing her husband.

Nothing will stop us….they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours….dark to light!

— CommonAshSense (@Ashli_Babbitt) January 5, 2021

It appears she traveled by plane to the nation’s capital. Babbit posted on Tuesday in what appears to have been her last tweet:

“Nothing will stop us…. they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours….dark to light.”

Though there are no allegations that she was armed with a weapon, already many commentators online are saying she “deserved” to be shot for seeking to enter restricted federal government property while protesting.

Ashli Babbit stormed the Capitol and tried to breach the window into the Speaker’s Lobby, which is why she was killed. Peacefully protest outside, invading a federal building is terrorism. pic.twitter.com/fFBmgoiALs

— Cleavon MD (@Cleavon_MD) January 7, 2021

Here’s video showing that at the very moment Babbitt was shot with her hands below her waist as she was climbing through a broken window, also clearly posing no threat to officers as she didn’t brandish a weapon, and all the while there were actually Capitol police and security officers crouching immediately behind her:

Babbitt was shot and later died at a local hospital despite it appearing that the security officers shown in the video were a mere few meters behind here. It’s unclear if the officer who pulled the trigger was aware of the security personnel on the other side.

Yet it remains that it’s clear that those officers behind her didn’t consider Babbitt a lethal threat. 

* * *

What an irony it is that Ashley Babbit, who was shot at #CapitolHill was an airforce veteran! She spent 14 years fighting for “democracy” overseas on the orders of the state, only to be shot down by that very same state when she asked for democracy in her own country. pic.twitter.com/nbnA23vWNc

— Syrian Girl 🎗️🇸🇾 (@Partisangirl) January 7, 2021

When Pope Benedict in 2013 took the almost unprecedented action of stepping down from the papacy (given that all or most popes throughout history have served till death), rumors swirled that it was due to extreme irregularities and corruption within the Vatican’s notoriously opaque finances. Ostensibly his stepping aside which paved the way for Pope Francis was due to declining health in old age, but speculation has persisted since that it was actually his inability to clean up the mess, or the fact that he was at the helm as scandals persisted.

Since then, further scandals and irregularities at the Vatican Bank have continued to emerge, with the latest in the past weeks being the “disappearance” of a whopping $1.8 billion. Mysterious transfers which eventually totaled to that amount were flagged coming into Australia over the past six years.

The Roman Catholic Church is now denying that it knows anything about it: “The Vatican and the Australian Catholic Church have both denied knowledge of transfers worth US$1.8 billion which Australia’s financial watchdog says have been sent from Rome to Australia in the past seven years,” writes Reuters.

Even more bizarre is that a senior Vatican official who works on the city-states finances told Reuters under anonymity, “That amount of money and that number of transfers did not leave the Vatican City.” Somewhat dubiously (given the vast financial empire the Vatican oversees globally, including posh London real estate as but one example) the same church official stated: 

“It’s not our money because we don’t have that kind of money,” he said. “I am absolutely stunned.”

Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane on behalf of the Australian church also denied any awareness of the transactions: “I can assure you that no diocese or other Church entity saw any of the money,” he said. Currently both the Australian Catholic Church and the Vatican are essentially denying so much as having knowledge of the large, consistent transactions that have occurred since 2014.

The latest financial row has shaken the Vatican to the core as it’s worth 1.8 billion dollars.

Allegedly, the amount was transferred from the Vatican to Australia in the last seven years. https://t.co/c2T9hafIB9

— WION (@WIONews) January 4, 2021

Here’s what’s known of the transactions which were flagged by the official Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC):

The figures were made public in December by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) in response to a parliamentary question by Australian Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, and first reported by the newspaper The Australian.

They involved about 47,000 separate transfers, according to AUSTRAC.

And further: “AUSTRAC said the transfers ranged from yearly totals of A$71.6 million (US$55.2 million) in 2014 to A$581.3 million (US$448.0) million in 2017.”

So clearly, somebody high up in the Vatican could not have missed such large volumes of transactions at these levels, but again the official statements given to Reuters are adamant in saying things like the following:

The official in Rome said the Vatican had around 100 legal entities, including hospitals and the like, “but they don’t have that kind of money”.

What’s more: “The Vatican official said APSA had sent less than 800,000 euros (US$980,000) to Australia since 2014, mostly for payment of salaries and expenses for the Vatican embassy, as well as pensions and travel costs.”

It appears that the problems and scandals that the prior Pope Benedict seemed to have washed his hands of by stepping down in 2013 are not only persisting but once again threaten to unleash a storm of public controversy on Francis’ papacy as well.

Submitted by South Front,

The Turkish Army has been increasing its military presence in Greater Idlib despite the recent withdrawal of observation posts, which had been encircled by the Syrian Army.

Recently, the Turkish military deployed major reinforcements to Mount al-Zawiya. Turkish military convoys deployed to the area included battle tanks and BMC Kirpi armoured vehicles. Mount al-Zawiya is controlled by al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham together with its supposedly ‘moderate counterparts’ from the Turkish-created National Front for Liberation. Turkey has been reinforcing its troops in the Mount al-Zawiya region for the last two months. It has also established several permanent positions in the area.

At the same time, the Turkish military has been undertaking active steps to reinforce its positions along the M4 highway in southern Idlib. Recently, Turkish forces have even started creating watch towers additionally to the permanent observation posts that they already have there.

The situation in northern Syria also remains tense. As recently as January 3, intense clashes had broken out between Turkish proxies and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces near the town of Ain Issa. Turkish-backed militants tried to capture the villages of Hwshan and al-Khalidiyah in another attempt to block the part of the M4 highway that runs by there.

These developments came amid cries from pro-Turkish propaganda that the ‘cowardly’ Assad regime and the Russians are planning to violate the de-escalation agreement and to capture the Turkish-occupied town of al-Bab in northern Aleppo.

The SDF keeps apace with Sultan Erdogan and also shows no sign of dropping its attempts to bite off a piece of Syria. On December 30, Sinam Mohamad, a representative of the SDF political wing in Washington, called on US President-elect Joe Biden to recognize the SDF-controlled territory in northern Syria as a de-facto state. This, he claimed, will help to improve the security and humanitarian situation there. The SDF has also repeatedly declared its support for the illegal US presence in Syria and for the US occupation of Syrian energy resources on the eastern bank of the Euphrates.

Under such conditions, there is no surprise that the group’s Kurdish leadership prefers to turn a blind eye to the negative consequences of these ‘democratic actions’. For example, the state of lawlessness created by US-backed forces on territories controlled by them and the Kurdish ethnic nationalism in fact employed by the SDF as an instruction manual for relations with the Arab majority in the SDF-held areas both contribute to the growth of militancy and create conditions for the resurgence of ISIS cells.

Government-controlled territories and units of the Syrian Army on the western bank of the Euphrates regularly experience the resulting consequences of this situation in the drastic increase of ISIS attacks. On January 3, the Syrian Army and local pro-government militias once again launched a combing operation in the vast desert located between the towns of al-Mayadin and al-Bukamal. The goal of the operation is to track and neutralize ISIS cells there. Nonetheless, it is unlikely that this threat can be fully removed without the establishment of full control of the border by the Damascus government and the elimination of US-occupied ‘No-Go Zones’, which are being extensively used by terrorists.

As England and parts of Scotland have been put back into full lockdown mode in response to the recent escalation in the COVID-19 pandemic, a YouGov survey has revealed the public’s opinion on the latest countermeasures.

As Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes, a majority, 79 percent, say they support a nationwide lockdown to some degree, with a small majority, 51 percent, stating that they do so strongly.

You will find more infographics at Statista

In his announcement of the new rules, prime minister Johnson warned that the coming weeks would be the “hardest yet”. Key to the decision has been the increase in pressure on the health service in recent weeks, with record numbers of Covid-19 patients currently in UK hospitals. The lockdown is due to be in place until 15 February at the earliest.