Though the future of homeschooling looks bright in much of the world, homeschoolers from over two dozen countries met to devise a plan to ensure its future everywhere.

The U.S. Senate is set to vote on the ratification of a deeply controversial United Nations treaty on disabled people, dubbed the UN “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” (UN CRPD), which critics say represents a serious threat to American sovereignty and certain unalienable rights. After voting to consider the agreement in late November during the lame-duck session despite furious protests, a vote on whether or not to formally ratify the planetary disability scheme has been set for Tuesday, December 4.

Despite pledging on numerous occasions that the U.S. government’s occupation of Afghanistan would end in 2014 with the withdrawal of American forces, the Obama administration is now finalizing a controversial scheme to potentially keep tens of thousands of soldiers and an undisclosed number of mercenaries there for a decade or more. Critics, even among supporters of the president, are expressing outrage about the revelations.

Of course, the scandal-plagued, Western-backed regime in Kabul would have to give its “consent” to the “bilateral” plot, but analysts say it has little choice other than to agree — absent U.S. military support, “President” Hamid Karzai’s government would almost certainly implode.

The Transportation Security Administration is under heavy fire after publicly exposing the breasts of a teenage girl during its controversial “screening” procedures. Of course, passengers routinely complain of TSA abuse and molestation — some 17,000 formal complaints have been lodged against the widely ridiculed and despised unconstitutional Homeland Security agency just since 2009.

The latest scandal, however, has turned into an international firestorm for the embattled bureaucracy, largely because the then-17-year-old victim was the grandniece of Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas).

Thousands of delegates representing almost 200 governments and dictatorships are gathering in Doha, Qatar, in a desperate bid to keep climate change alarmism alive long enough to create a United Nations-run planetary carbon regime. However, as the climate hysteria continues its march toward irrelevance following the spectacular implosion of UN global warming theories and multiple scandals in recent years, delegates at this year’s Conference of the Parties (COP18) know they are in a race against time.

Among the highest priorities of climate alarmists and UN types is the extension of a deeply controversial 1997 treaty known as the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of the year.

In a move likely to further alienate the already unpopular United Nations from the American people, a top official with the global body put his ignorance about the U.S. constitutional system on full display by calling on the Obama administration to lawlessly quash recent marijuana legalization initiatives in Washington State and Colorado. Voters in both states approved the decriminalization of the controversial plant on November 6, nullifying unconstitutional federal statutes and a dubious UN narcotics agreement at the heart of the global “war on drugs.” 

While the international organization obviously has no power to enforce its dictates, UN “International Narcotics Control Board” (INCB) boss Raymond Yans said he hoped disgraced U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder would ignore state laws, the U.S. Constitution, and the will of voters by “challenging” the successful referendums.

Across Europe this week, an unprecedented and well-coordinated series of transnational mass strikes and protests led largely by Big Labor took to the streets in major European capitals and cities to demand an end to so-called “austerity” policies — mostly government spending cuts. In many cases, the massive demonstrations turned violent.

Analysts, however, say the seemingly spontaneous chaos may actually have been orchestrated by forces behind the scenes. Indeed, much of the media focus was on the relatively new phenomenon of so-called “pan-European” action, with labor leaders and activists framing the conflict as a regional European Union struggle rather than separate national efforts to influence domestic policy.

As Americans focused on the U.S. presidential election, the United Nations and a wide swath of its autocratic member regimes were drafting a plan to give a little-known UN agency control over the online world. Among the most contentious schemes: a plot to hand the International Telecommunication Union a so-called “kill switch” for the Internet that critics say would be used to smash free speech.

The ITU’s proposals to “reform” the Internet, drafted in secret and quietly published online last week, revealed a broad plan to rein in what, up until now, has been a largely unregulated tool allowing people all over the world to freely express their views at little to no financial cost.

After spending more than two decades in Congress vigorously standing up for liberty, peace, sound money, free markets, and the U.S. Constitution, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), a hero to constitutionalists and libertarians all over the world, offered a stark warning about the dark future facing the United States and the American people without dramatic changes. However, the message was not all gloom and doom. In fact, there was also a sense of hope evident in his historic farewell speech.

Still, the immediate future will be turbulent and filled with peril, Rep. Paul warned, saying we live in a “dangerous period.” Economic implosion and widespread poverty resulting from central monetary planning, never-ending wars and widespread government intervention in the market will lead to a tragedy of epic proportions, he explained. Tyranny may reign as the final vestiges of individual liberty are stripped away.

The Obama administration has thrown its support behind an upcoming United Nations-orchestrated invasion of northern Mali, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveling the region prodding assorted African regimes into supporting and supplying troops for the controversial scheme. Even as the U.S. government and assorted Muslim dictatorships openly arm Islamists in nations like Syria, the international coalition preparing to invade Mali claims the plot is aimed at quashing Islamic extremism.