USA - Most physicians like myself can make a comfortable living caring for the sick. But if you really want to make big bucks, the way to do so is to convince healthy people that there is something wrong with them. Convince women that their breasts are too small, or their rear ends are misshaped. Convince men that their noses are too big. The latest market is to convince people that they were born the wrong gender. This of course is silly. If you have XY chromosomes you are a male and if you have XX chromosomes, you are a female. This applies not only to humans but to the entire mammalian kingdom.
USA - Tyson Foods, the connoisseurs of processed chicken delights, have shockingly announced a dalliance with Protix, a company that specializes in insect ingredients. It seems our beloved chicken overlords are spreading their wings into the world of bugs. In a move that promises to revolutionize the processed food industry, Tyson Foods has entered into a peculiar pact with Protix. This unholy alliance aims to propel the growth of the emerging insect ingredient sector. Brace yourselves, for soon, your favorite store-bought treats might come with an unexpected crunch.
USA - World Obesity Day was marked this week and, with over a billion people afflicted worldwide, obesity is now considered more dangerous to global health than hunger. The numbers are staggering. Sometime in the mid-20th century a cameraman captured an unforgettable black-and-white photo depicting thousands of American sunworshippers crowded onto Coney Island, New York City. What is most conspicuous about the iconic photograph, aside from the sheer number of beachgoers, is the lack of excessive cellulite packed into the assorted bathing suits and bikinis. Sadly and not a little tragically, those halcyon days are over.
USA - American billionaires are selling stocks by the boatload - sparking fears of an impending financial disaster. Jeff Bezos - the third-richest man behind Louis Vuitton's Bernard Arnaut and Elon Musk - unloaded $8.5 billion in Amazon shares this month alone. Mark Zuckerberg - the fourth-richest - sold about 1.4 million Meta shares worth roughly $638 million. Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan, shilled $150 million this past week, in his first cash-out since taking the reins at the bank nearly two decades ago. Within days, Apollo Global Management's Leon Black also enacted his first-ever sale, shedding $172.8 million in his equity firm after 34 years. Walmart's Walton family sold $1.5 billion in a week, bringing its total sale proceeds to $2.3 billion since December.
GERMANY - Germany’s gross domestic product has been falling since the third quarter of 2022, causing fears of the first 2-yearlong recession since the early 2000s. German farmers are openly protesting new climate regulations that would raise the price of diesel fuel, vital for tractors and farm machinery. This discontent is mirrored by the general public, which is opposed to higher energy costs that drag down the economy. Recent polls show a significant shift in public opinion that’s increasingly opposed to the coalition government.
ISRAEL - The defense establishment is preparing for the month of Ramadan, [which] begins on Sunday, and is trying to prevent a surge of terrorism in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and even in the heart of Israeli cities. Meanwhile, Hamas will attempt to exploit the Muslim holy month to stoke a widespread religious war against Israel and open additional fronts. "Ramadan is fertile ground for waging jihad war on the infidels," says one security official. Hamas is intensifying efforts to incite young Palestinians against the IDF, alleging Israel is impinging on religious freedoms at Al-Aqsa Mosque. There's a significant concern that any clashes that may arise in Jerusalem could spill over to the West Bank and further into Israeli cities.
HAITI - Haiti is fast descending into anarchy. Over the weekend, the violence in the capital Port-au-Prince ramped up once again. Heavily armed gangs attacked the National Palace and set part of the Interior Ministry on fire with petrol bombs. It comes after a sustained attack on the international airport, which remains closed to all flights – including one carrying Prime Minister Ariel Henry. He tried to fly back to Haiti from the United States last week, but his plane was refused permission to land. He was then turned away from the neighbouring Dominican Republic too.
HAITI - The US military has carried out an operation in Haiti to airlift non-essential embassy personnel from the country and added US forces to bolster embassy security, after dozens of heavily armed gang fighters tried to seize the political quarter of its capital, Port-au-Prince. The German foreign ministry meanwhile said its ambassador joined other EU representatives in leaving for the Dominican Republic on Sunday.
ISRAEL - Game changing developments are happening right now in Israel concerning the Third Temple. Probably the most critical missing link preventing the rebuilding of the Temple, is set to fall into place within months with crucial help from Christians. Meanwhile Hamas is watching the developments closely and have even claimed it to be a major part of their motivation for the heinous October 7 terror attack. With tensions already at boiling point across the Middle East, will we shortly see Israel take bold steps towards rebuilding the Temple? The final missing piece of the Third Temple project - the infamous ashes of a red heifer - is now only months away from falling into place. These ashes are Biblically mandated for purification in a range of situations including contact with dead bodies (see Numbers 19).
TURKEY - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan today said that his nation 'firmly backs' the leaders of Hamas and that the country speaks openly with them. He has refused to brand Hamas as a terrorist group, despite Western allies of NATO-member Turkey, including the UK, and some Arab nations, doing so. 'No one can make us qualify Hamas as a terrorist organisation,' Erdogan said in a speech in the city of Istanbul. 'Turkey is a country that speaks openly with Hamas leaders and firmly backs them.' Erdogan has been one of the most virulent critics of Israel since the start of the war in Gaza, which began after the October 7 attack on Israel where Hamas killed at least 1,160 people, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
EUROPE - European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called on EU member states to invest heavily in the defense industry. These efforts should see the creation of weapons that will ensure the dominance of their armies on the battlefield, she said. Von der Leyen also equated European security with continued support for Ukraine, which she said Brussels will keep providing “for as long as it takes.” Addressing a congress of the European People’s Party in Bucharest, Romania on Thursday, von der Leyen said that the bloc needs to “turbo charge our defense industrial capacity in the next five years.” She added that this push would “help us fill the urgent need to rebuild, replenish and modernize Member States’ armed forces.”
USA - The late James Q Wilson, professor of government at Harvard University, wrote in his book, The Marriage Problem, back in 2002, “It is not money, but the family that is the foundation of public life. As it has become weaker, every structure built upon that foundation has become weaker.” Over the past 50-plus years, we have heard a constant stream of rhetoric from secular elites that “you can have it all” — career, money, marriage, and family. The result has been sadly the opposite. You cannot “have it all,” and two of these eventually trump the other two in taking up our time and energy. Increasingly, for many Americans, it has been money and career, and our society, and we as individuals, are suffering the consequences.
UK - Hundreds of primary schools could be forced to close by the end of the decade because of a dramatic fall in the number of births. The population of young children is expected to plummet by more than half a million by 2030 – the equivalent of 17,000 classes or 1,800 schools – the latest data analysis has suggested. A baby boom in the early 2000s, partially fuelled by migration, fizzled out and births began to decline from 2010. It has meant primary schools that were once scrambling to acquire extra classrooms are now unable to fill places, which has already led to dozens facing closure in Yorkshire, Norfolk, Cumbria, Brighton, Wigan, Bristol and London.
USA - There has been increasing talk about the potential restoration of a gold standard arising from people and governments across the world seeking to protect themselves from the weaponization of the United States dollar’s world reserve currency status. How long can dollar hegemony last when the government behind the dollar is sanctioning people and governments around the world with abandon? There must be a way out of this mess, and the many centuries long history of using gold as money points to one tried-and-true path.
GERMANY - The windmills are spinning golden subsidies in the central German ‘fairy tale’ forest of Reinhardswald, but the payment is the partial destruction of the 1,000 year-old ancient wood itself. Work has started on the clearing of up to 120,000 trees in the forest, the setting for many of the Brothers Grimm mythical stories, to provide access for an initial 18 giant wind turbines around the Sababurg ‘Sleeping Beauty’ castle.
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The views expressed in this section are not our own, unless specifically stated, but are provided to highlight what may prove to be prophetically relevant material appearing in the media.