USA - Donald Trump has threatened to cut off aid to Jordan and Egypt should they refuse to accept Palestinians from Gaza. The US president demanded the allies accept refugees to pave the way for a US-led redevelopment of the war-torn Gaza strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East”. Jordan and Egypt, both recipients of significant US military and economic assistance, have so far rejected the suggestion that Palestinians could be relocated to their countries.

GERMANY - On the face of it, Germany’s parliamentary election on February 23 looks predictable, its outcome verging on a foregone conclusion. The opinion polls have been remarkably stable for the past 12 months. Most voters appear to have made up their minds. The expectation is that they will turf out Olaf Scholz, the unpopular chancellor from the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Friedrich Merz, leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), will probably replace him, in a coalition government with either the SPD or the Green Party as junior partner.

UK - In the veritable Niagara Falls of bad news about Britain lately, one headline this week was especially alarming: only 41 per cent of 18 to 27-year-olds say they are proud to be British, down from 80 per cent in 2004. Whatever our past achievements, Generation Z think the country is not doing well, and certainly not for them. Perhaps it’s unsurprising they feel little pride. Britain has a stagnant economy, unaffordable house prices, rampant shoplifting and broken borders. Many of the country’s problems could be fixed if we improved the quality of government itself. Yet no one believes Britain’s political elite is chosen from the best and brightest. Smart young people are more likely to work in finance, law or tech than go into politics. Those who do enter public life often quickly become disillusioned.

DENMARK - A SATIRICAL petition from Denmark, which owns Greenland, racks up 200,000 signatures as Trump eyes Arctic island. Since returning to the presidency last month, Donald Trump has called for Canada to become the 51st US state, suggested he might take over the Panama Canal, floated US ownership of Gaza – and tried to buy Greenland. Now, Denmark – which owns Greenland – is clapping back.

UK - An Albanian criminal was allowed to stay in Britain partly because his son will not eat foreign chicken nuggets, The Telegraph can reveal. An immigration tribunal ruled that it would be “unduly harsh” for the 10-year-old boy to be forced to move to Albania with his father owing to his sensitivity around food. The sole example provided to the court was his distaste for the “type of chicken nuggets that are available abroad”. As a result, the judge allowed the father’s appeal against deportation as a breach of his right to a family life under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), citing the impact his removal might have on his son. The case, revealed in court documents, is among a record 34,169 outstanding asylum appeals. The number represents a five-fold increase in two years from the 6,386 appeals outstanding at the same point in 2022.

USA - Why Robby Starbuck, the anti-woke campaigner who leaves corporations terrified, believes the UK is also ripe for a pushback against super-progressive DEI ideologies. Robby Starbuck may be the most feared man in America. He’s 6ft 2in and carries a gun – but he’s not an assassin or terrorist. Some might say he is more dangerous. Starbuck is an anti-woke warrior achieving success that is astonishing – or disturbing, depending on your perspective – leading the charge in the culture wars and changing the face of the nation. His campaign has been taken up by newly elected President Trump, determined to rid the federal government of woke policies, just as Starbuck is doing on a broader scale in corporate America.

MIDDLE EAST - Hamas has announced it is suspending all Gaza hostage releases until further notice. The terrorist group blames Israel for violating the ceasefire agreement by delaying the return of displaced people and blocking aid and supplies from reaching the Gaza Strip. Announcing the cancellation of any further releases of hostages via the group’s official Telegram account on Monday, the group said: “During the past three weeks, the resistance leadership has monitored the enemy’s violations and failure to abide by the terms of the agreement.” The violations, the group claim: include “delaying the return of displaced people to the northern Gaza Strip, targeting them with shelling and gunfire in various areas of the Gaza Strip, and not allowing relief supplies of all kinds to enter as agreed upon, while the resistance has implemented all its obligations." Of the 251 hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, 73 are still held in Gaza, of which 34 are confirmed by the IDF to be dead.

USA - President Donald Trump issued an ultimatum to Hamas on Monday: it must release all of the remaining Israeli and American hostages from Gaza by noon on Saturday, or the ceasefire deal is over — and Israel can respond as it wants. “All bets are off… let hell break out,” Trump said, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office as he signed executive orders.

GERMANY - The Wumms [boom] with which Scholz promised to lead the country out of the pandemic has been more of a protracted wheeze. The average household’s income has declined by at least 3 per cent over the past five years. Industrial production has fallen 10 per cent below pre-Covid levels.

USA - Payments are being sent without categorization codes, making audits nearly impossible. There’s no required rationale for payments. The “Do-Not-Pay” list — meant to block dead people, terrorists, and fraudsters — is ignored. Worse, it can take a year just to add names to it. Now, the bombshell: $100 billion a year is flowing to recipients with no SSN or even a temporary ID. Treasury officials estimate at least HALF of that is blatant fraud — $50 billion a year, $1 billion a week, vanishing into thin air. And the Social Security database? It’s not even de-duplicated, meaning the same SSN can appear multiple times. That’s not just negligence — it’s an open door for scammers, criminals, and anyone looking to loot the system. This isn’t about politics. This is about your money being stolen in broad daylight.

UK - More than 1,000 patients a year are sent for transgender chest surgery on the NHS. Data obtained by The Telegraph show for the first time the number of referrals for taxpayer-funded “masculinising” mastectomies from specialised gender clinics. As many as 80 per cent of people using those services are females between the ages of 17 and 25. The 1,000-plus referrals could be the tip of the iceberg, because many people have transgender surgery privately to bypass long NHS waiting lists. A search on the GoFundMe platform brings up hundreds of results for “top surgery UK”, also known as chest reconstruction or chest wall surgery. The NHS faces calls to halt the surgeries. Experts warn there is no evidence that removing healthy breasts is beneficial for those with gender dysphoria – but there is evidence of harm.

EUROPE - A number of the bloc’s leaders have pushed for a common European force free from US control in recent years. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called for an alternative to NATO, arguing that Europe must take greater responsibility for its own security. Her remarks come amid growing US demands for increased defense spending among members of the US-led military bloc, uncertainty over future support for Ukraine, and fears of a potential shift in Washington’s commitment to European security. “NATO remains the foundation of our defense. But it is evident that we need a pan-European defense,” von der Leyen said in a press briefing in Lithuania on Sunday. “Modern warfare requires a scale, technology, and coordination too big for any one nation to handle alone,” she added, asking for more funding, “both public and private.” The strategy for the future of European defense will be presented to EU leaders by mid-March, she said.

EUROPE - European Right-wing leaders promised to “Make Europe Great Again” at a rally in Madrid, where they hailed Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, Marine Le Pen of France’s National Rally, Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister, and Geert Wilders, the leader of the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom, were among the headliners at the Patriots for Europe event.

USA - The level of corruption that Elon Musk and his DOGE Team are uncovering is absolutely mind blowing. Did you know that approximately $1,000,000,000 in obviously fraudulent payments flow through the US Treasury’s payment system every week? Until Elon Musk and his DOGE team stepped in, nobody in the government was doing anything about this theft. Suspiciously, the Democrats are desperately trying to get the courts to keep Elon Musk and his team out of the US Treasury’s payment system. Why is that? What are they working so hard to hide?

MIDDLE EAST - "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism." — Senior PLO official Zuheir Mohsen, interviewed by James Dorsey, Trouw, March 31, 1977