USA - As the Pentagon’s top acquisition official Ellen Lord said recently, “We have an amazing amount of dependency on China.” Lord called the findings of a forthcoming report on the defense industrial base “quite alarming,” and noted that China is America’s “sole source for rare earth minerals.”  According to the United States Geological Survey, the United States relies on Chinese imports for at least 20 minerals and has little or no capacity to mine, refine, and process its own minerals from start to finish. As a recent executive order on critical minerals makes clear, this “strategic vulnerability” poses a significant national security risk. Without a dramatic change in minerals policies, the United States will not be able to minimize the economic damage that will come when China decides to leverage its minerals monopolies against us.

ISRAEL - On Monday, at the promenade in Armon Hanatziv overlooking the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a group of Kohanim (Jewish men of the priestly caste descended from the Biblical figure Aaron) recreated the ritual of the first fruits as it was performed in the Temple. The event was organized by the Mikdash (Temple) Educational Center, the United Temple Movements and the nascent Sanhedrin, an initiative to reinstate the Biblically mandated court of 71 elders. Rabbi Baruch Kahane led a group of four priests dressed in the Biblically mandated garments required for the Temple Service. Rabbi Kahane has played a central role in educating Kohanim in all aspects of the Temple service. The re-enactment was intended as part of this essential stage of preparing for the future when the Third Temple will be built and these rituals will again be performed.

USA - “...if we don’t reassert the centrality of the Bible as the wisdom text in American life, America is over,” Prager said, “not because God will punish us but that we will have punished ourselves by depriving ourselves of this wisdom.” To remove the Bible and its wisdom from the heart of American culture is an exercise in self-annihilation, he suggested, as life on modern college campuses attests.

USA - President Donald Trump famously said, “Trade wars are good, and easy to win.” The early results of the last few weeks of negotiations with China suggest that may have been overly optimistic.

USA - The fall of the Toys “R” Us chain, with more than 700 US stores, shows how much retail real estate has changed in just the last decade. While it’s not going out of business like the toy seller, J Crew Group Inc, which leases its locations, says it’s closing a net of nine stores this fiscal year, after shuttering a net 41 in 2017. Walmart Inc's Sam’s Club in January said it will close 63 locations, about 10 percent of its total. At last count, US store closures announced this year reached a staggering 77 million square feet, according to data on national and regional chains compiled by CoStar Group Inc. That means retailers are well on their way to surpassing the record 105 million square feet announced for closure in all of 2017.

GERMANY - On Friday the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party announced that they have taken out a lawsuit against chancellor Angela Merkel over her decision to open Germany’s borders to refugees in 2015. Members of the AfD motivated the party’s action against Merkel and in a press conference [said], “The Federal Government is bound by law and order. This is completely clear; this is the division of power. The Federal Government cannot say, now we find that one law is convenient, and the other less convenient. No, there’s no dictator chancelloress; she cannot exist, according to the law. The chancellor has to follow law and order, and essential decisions, essential decisions that concern our community, have to be decided in the Parliament.”

USA - The Pentagon plans to invest more than $20 billion in munitions in its next budget. But whether the industrial base will be there to support such massive buys in the future is up in the air — at a time when America is expending munitions at increasingly intense rates. The annual Industrial Capabilities report, put out by the Pentagon’s Office of Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy, has concluded that the industrial base of the munitions sector is particularly strained, something the report blames on the start-and-stop nature of munitions procurement over the last 20 years, as well as the lack of new designs being internally developed. Some suppliers have dropped out entirely, leaving no option for replacing vital materials. Other key suppliers are foreign-owned, with no indigenous capability to produce vital parts and materials ― setting up the risk that a conflict with China could rely on Chinese-made parts.

AUSTRALIA - “For goodness sake, this is social engineering gone crazy... Leave kids alone to be kids. Stop trying to destroy kids’ childhoods…" That is an example of the furious reaction from parents in Victoria, Australia where the local city council has announced plans to audit children’s books and toys with a plan to ban them from kindergartens, schools and libraries if they don’t meet strict gender guidelines. The Herald Sun reports that the local government's justice warriors were inspired by research from the Australian National University that showed children were influenced by gender stereotyping, and urged a ban on the terms 'boy' and 'girl'. The research suggests educators should “minimise the extent to which gender is labelled” and avoid telling children what girls and boys should do.

USA - Tehran will struggle to “keep its economy alive” if it does not comply with a list of 12 US demands, including Iranian withdrawal from Syria, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowed on Monday. Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing Washington think tank, Pompeo laid out a list of 12 “basic requirements” for Iran. The demands call on Iran to withdraw from Syria, "release all US citizens," end support for Houthi rebels in Yemen, stop “enrichment" of uranium, and promise never to process plutonium. Iran must also allow "unqualified access to all nuclear sites throughout the country," Pompeo said. He promised that the US would impose the "strongest sanctions in history" if Iran failed to comply with these demands.

IRAN - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has rejected demands made of Tehran by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, vowing to continue “our path,” insisting that the era when the US could “decide for the world” is over. The US government has regressed 15 years, back to “Bush Jr's era” and is once again trying to dictate its will on the entire world, Rouhani said as he rejected Washington's Monday ultimatum. Pompeo’s speech signaled a huge step back for the whole foreign policy of the US, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said on his Twitter page. “US diplomacy sham is merely a regression to old habits: imprisoned by delusions & failed policies — dictated by corrupt Special Interest — it repeats the same wrong choices and will thus reap the same ill rewards. Iran, meanwhile, is working with partners for post-US JCPOA solutions,” Iran’s top diplomat tweeted.

RUSSIA - President Donald Trump has already pulled the US out of the landmark deal earlier this month. A new deal should be drawn up, Pompeo asserted, while laying out 12 “basic requirements.” Many of those were predictable, such as requiring Tehran to “stop enrichment of uranium and never preprocess plutonium” – because obviously, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is not good enough to hold Iran to its word. One major point used as a bargaining chip is, however, entirely unrelated to the Iranian nuclear program. It reads: “Iran must withdraw all forces under Iranian command from Syria.” The demand conveniently ignores the fact that Iranian troops were invited by the Syrian government and have been helping fight Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) on the ground – while the US troops, stuck in Syria indefinitely, were not.

GERMANY - The vast majority of Germans believe the US is not a reliable partner for Berlin when it comes to political cooperation, according to a new poll. It comes after Chancellor Merkel said that Europe can no longer rely on Washington. The survey, commissioned by public service TV provider ZDF, found that 82 percent of Germans believe the US is not a reliable partner, with only 14 percent believing it is. The remaining four percent were unsure. It comes after German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated earlier this month that Europe "needs to take its fate into its own hands," noting that "it's no longer the case that the United States will simply just protect us."

ITALY - Coalition partner party leaders will go to the Quirinal Palace Monday evening to meet with Sergio Mattarella, the Italian President, to officially form a populist, Eurosceptic government which has prompted panicked headlines across the continent. The emergence of the League (‘La Lega’, northern Italy, tax-reforming, anti-mass migration) and Five Star (southern Italy, anti-establishment) coalition follows months of hard-fought negotiations since the national elections in early March. League leader Matteo Salvini is also to take a ministry representing an area of key interest for his voters as he is tipped to take the Immigration office. Before the election, his party promised to deport some 500,000 illegal and irregular migrants from the country, a move which will almost certainly bring Italy into serious conflict with the European Union.

MIDDLE EAST - The Palestinian president’s condition has seen a “clear improvement” after he was taken to hospital with a fever, an Arab lawmaker in Israel’s parliament with close ties to Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday. Abbas was hospitalized on Sunday with a fever, just days after undergoing ear surgery. The 83-year-old leader has endured a series of recent health scares which have revived anxiety over a potentially chaotic, and even bloody, succession battle that could further weaken the Palestinian cause.

USA - Israel, Saudi Arabia and elements of the US want to see regime change in Tehran and this is a “risky situation,” a former spokesman for Iran’s nuclear negotiations team Seyed Hossein Mousavian has warned. “Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia, they are after regime change, they are after creating a war with Iran,” he told BBC Hardtalk’s Stephen Sackur. “They are after dragging the US and the international community into a new war in the region,” he added.