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

ISRAEL - Israelis were shocked Saturday at the physical condition of three emaciated hostages released by Hamas under the ongoing ceasefire deal, with many condemning the evident starvation of the Israelis after nearly 500 days in captivity. Eli Sharabi, 52, Or Levy, 34, and Ohad Ben Ami, 56 — all civilians — were released in exchange for 183 convicted Palestinian terrorists. The Times of Israel noted that Sharabi had not yet been informed that his wife and two teenage daughters had been murdered by Hamas on October 7, 2023.

UKRAINE - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Reuters on Friday that he hopes to make a deal with President Donald Trump to bring an end to the war with Russia. During his campaign for office, Trump vowed to bring peace to the world, as multiple foreign wars had been pushed during the Biden-Harris administration. In an interview with Reuters, Zelenskyy said he was open to making a deal with the US regarding Trump’s request for Ukraine to supply the US with rare earths and other minerals in exchange for continued financial aid. “These deposits are priceless, it is huge amounts of money, huge. That’s why we need to protect it,” Zelenskyy said. “If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal, we are only for it.”

GERMANY - With two weeks to go until the ‘snap elections,’ the political temperature in Germany has soared. If you only pay attention to the ‘Legacy’ (aka USAID-funded) media, you will know that yesterday (8th), there was a mass protest in Berlin and around the country against the surging right-wingers of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and immigration reform. However, if you pay closer attention, the German press itself will show us that these demonstrations are not in any way organic. There is taxpayer money funding shady groups making this happen. This is a scandal that would be bad enough to topple the failed government of Olaf Scholz, if it was not already terminally unpopular and outgoing.

USA - The US risks major defeat in the country’s next war unless it urgently reforms its outdated weapons programs, Elon Musk has warned in a stark assessment of the nation’s defense capabilities. Musk, who owns X and heads SpaceX and Tesla, has been appointed as a “special government employee” to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under US President Donald Trump, and is now among his key advisers.

UKRAINE - The War in Ukraine Is Becoming Unhinged: Drones Are Now Targeting Other Drones With Drones. Ukrainian officials have realized that a smaller military can compensate for its numerical disadvantages through innovation, advanced technology, and rapid adaptability. The war in Ukraine has sparked an unprecedented military transformation, with drone warfare redefining modern combat. In the early months of 2022, the conflict primarily involved rifles and machine guns along tree lines. However, the battlefield is currently dominated by swarms of kamikaze drones and precision strikes, with recent attacks becoming increasingly unhinged.

NORTH KOREA - As Russia continues to wage its war in Ukraine, reports have emerged suggesting North Korea and Moscow's joint drone production in 2025. North Korea will reportedly develop drones with Russia as part of their strategic defense treaty amid Moscow's ongoing war in Ukraine. According to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, undisclosed sources have revealed that Pyongyang and Moscow will begin joint drone production sometime in 2025. According to them, the newest initiative is Russian President Vladimir Putin's reciprocation to Kim Jong Un after Kim sent nearly 12,000 soldiers to the Russian frontlines to aid the Kremlin's three-year-long war in Ukraine.

USA - Is there anything more laughable than the so-called leader of the free world having to declare publicly that there are only two sexes? I wasn’t alone in cheering on the Commander-in-Chief as he signed an executive order banning transgender athletes from all women’s sports in the US, surrounded by girls in sports gear. Women’s rights activists including J K Rowling joined the chorus of approval as Trump declared: “My administration will not stand by and watch men beat and batter female athletes.” Even more insane than Trump? Treating teenage anxieties with puberty blockers and mastectomies; referring to breastfeeding mothers as “chest-feeders”; “de-gendering” life and language for a tiny proportion of the population. Like him or loathe him, what Trump has achieved in his first three weeks back in the White House has revealed the abject ridiculousness of the status quo in spectacular fashion. Maddening though it may be to Trump’s detractors, he’s finally freed the West from the folly of groupthink.