MEXICO - Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano rumbled to life again this week, belching out towering clouds of ash that forced 11 villages to cancel school sessions. The residents weren't the only ones keeping a close eye on the towering peak. Every time there is a sigh, tic or heave in Popocatepetl, there are dozens of scientists, a network of sensors and cameras, and a roomful of powerful equipment watching its every move. The 17,797-foot volcano, known affectionately as “El Popo,” has been spewing toxic fumes, ash and lumps of incandescent rock persistently for almost 30 years, since it awakened from a long slumber in 1994.
VATICAN - A Catholic Church that continues to participate in society's reverence of military duty as the paragon of service to one's country will have a hard time being a credible voice for peace. Most people throughout the world live, to one extent or another, in militarized societies. What's most problematic about this is that many of us probably don't even realize or acknowledge it, such has the glorification of the military become so much part and parcel of our everyday culture. We have evidently become so convinced that our armed forces are the only thing keeping our nations and ways of life safe from foreign enemies that we uncritically (and probably unwittingly) participate in what has become a quasi-deification of military service. That is true even for peaceful countries in Europe like Italy... It's startling to arrive at Rome's international airport and be faced with the huge presence of soldiers walking around with machine guns in their hands.
ITALY - Italy’s government commits to re-shaping the defence budget after previous changes in government and ideology. Leading intelligence company, GlobalData, expects Italy’s return to a growing defence budget. The company forecasts a spending increase from $31.6 billion to $38.5 billion between 2024 and 2028. Incumbent Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has made it part of her agenda to overcome traditional Italian reluctance for long-term defence planning. Between 2023 and 2028, a total increase of $8.2 billion is expected.
UK - It has a huge and powerful lobby which turns with fury on its critics so I know this question will get me into loads of trouble but… does ADHD even exist? This week the BBC’s Panorama programme quite rightly exposed some very worrying private clinics. In online consultations, staff had diagnosed a BBC reporter with ADHD — attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — despite an in-person, and far longer, assessment by an NHS psychiatrist concluding that he didn’t have the condition. The ADHD lobby is huge and powerful and turns with fury on its critics. It propels legions of people into lifelong prescriptions, as it officially cannot be cured, only ‘treated’. The clinics, while charging rather plump fees, seemed to have an extremely relaxed attitude towards diagnosing this increasingly common complaint.
PORTUGAL - The Bilderberg Group, a notoriously shadowy organization with a membership roster that includes some of the world’s most powerful and influential people, are convening their annual meetings this weekend in Lisbon, Portugal. Oddly enough, there is a complete media blackout in the corporate press surrounding the upcoming conference, despite the significant geopolitical ramifications attached to its members and the agenda items being discussed. Your humble correspondent still cannot find a single story previewing the Bilderberg meetings in the corporate media.
PORTUGAL - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will attend the secretive Bilderberg Meeting, an annual gathering of over 100 political and corporate leaders from Europe and North America, which has announced AI as a key item on its agenda this year. Altman isn’t the only Big Tech figure in attendance. Other participants include Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and Google DeepMind head Demis Hassabis. The meeting will take place from 18 to 21 May in Lisbon, Portugal.
USA - Political Science Professor at Suffolk Community College Nicholas Giordano joined The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat Wednesday to break it down. “I think it's a big problem. Two weeks ago, the Department of Education released the numbers for civic proficiency within the United States and basic American history proficiency and we're seeing the lowest levels in history so it's clear the students don't have a good grasp on American history and civics, what our government is all about and what's their civic obligation within our society.,” he said.
CHINA - A dozen poor countries are facing economic instability and even collapse under the weight of hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign loans, much of them from the world’s biggest and most unforgiving government lender, China. An Associated Press analysis of a dozen countries most indebted to China — including Pakistan, Kenya, Zambia, Laos and Mongolia — found paying back that debt is consuming an ever-greater amount of the tax revenue needed to keep schools open, provide electricity and pay for food and fuel. And it’s draining foreign currency reserves these countries use to pay interest on those loans, leaving some with just months before that money is gone.
USA - The nation’s power grid is in precarious shape heading into what could be an especially hot summer, according to the regulatory authority that monitors the electricity system, with much of the country at risk for outages if it experiences scorching weather scientists say looks increasingly likely. The mid-Atlantic and southeastern states are the only areas of the country where the North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC) is not warning of the potential for outages in the event of prolonged and intense heat waves or monster storms. “The system is close to its edge,” said John Moura, director of reliability assessment and performance analysis at NERC. “More needs to be done to bolster the system’s resilience.” The warnings are becoming an annual event.
UK - Brits are among the least likely in the world to believe in God, according to a major study. Under half stated they were convinced about the existence of a higher power, compared to three-quarters four decades ago. Levels were lower in just five of the 24 nations covered in the research, led by the Policy Institute at King's College London. China was by far the lowest on just 17 per cent. By contrast 100 per cent believed in God in the Philippines, and 99 per cent in Iran, Nigeria and Morocco.
JAPAN - A letter signed by over 250 former heads of state, cabinet ministers, diplomats, and scientists urged the G7 on Wednesday to not allow nuclear arms control talks to fall victim to the current great power confrontation. “The world badly needs more nuclear arms control, not less,” said the letter, jointly organized by two nonprofits, the European Leadership Network and the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network. “In the darkest hours of the Cold War, the Soviet Union and US were able and willing to discuss and agree measures to reduce the risk of nuclear war. This statement… supports a return to this diplomacy, and protection of nuclear arms control as a global imperative.”
UKRAINE - Poland is leading a group of European nations that are secretly urging Vladimir Zelensky to find a way to settle the conflict with Russia, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh has reported, citing a “knowledgeable” American official. According to US intelligence, other EU countries that want to see an end to the fighting include Hungary, Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Hersh wrote in an article published on his Substack page on Wednesday.
USA - Former Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham has argued that the Trump-FBI report shows that the press is broken. Monday’s bombshell Durham Report shows not only that the FBI improperly launched the ‘Russiagate’ probe to prevent Donald Trump from being elected president, but also that legacy media outlets won accolades for hyping the false scandal with politically motivated lies, US Senator Lindsey Graham has claimed.
USA - In an April 17, 2023, opinion piece in STAT News, Dr Peter Lurie and Beth Ellikidis argue for the genetic engineering of food, claiming “newer technologies can make highly targeted changes at the base-pair level — one specific rung on the DNA ladder — enhancing precision and reducing the likelihood of ‘off-target effects’ in which the base pairs are unintentionally added to or deleted from the genome.”
ITALY - Shell-shocked Italians are struggling to come to terms with the 'apocalyptic' floods that have torn through their homes and killed at least eight people across northern Italy. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in the popular holiday region of Emilia-Romagna and this weekend's Italian Grand Prix in Imola was cancelled after the deadly floods turned streets into fast-moving rivers.
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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.