GERMANY - Germany’s naval chief has said the country’s recent deployment of a warship into the South China Sea was a “teaser” intended to signal to Beijing that Berlin planned to ramp up its military presence in the disputed waters. Speaking from on board the Bayern frigate on Tuesday, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schonbach said the vessel’s foray into the contested region last week – the first such journey in nearly two decades – was a sign that Germany was “perpetuating” its activity in the region in “small steps.”

USA - The alleged sexual harassment of a woman on Meta’s virtual reality (VR) media platform has posed the question whether actual physical harassment can take place virtually, and what this might mean for the future of reality. Last week, Meta (the umbrella company formerly known as Facebook) opened access to its VR social media platform, Horizon Worlds. In Horizon Worlds, up to 20 avatars can get together at a time to explore, hang out and build within the virtual space. But not everything went according to plan. A woman beta tester reported that a stranger had groped her and that those around her did not intervene to stop it. The tool within the platform developed to create ‘Safe Zones’ – a protective bubble users can activate when feeling threatened – was not deployed. The assumption that, somehow, odious real-life behavior would not be present in virtual worlds, is naïve beyond belief. But the idea that virtual sexual harassment represents a real danger to users is even more unhinged. Confusing reality with a created reality that is not experienced physically transforms reality and our imagination of reality.

USA - The United States is no longer a constitutional republic. It is a nation in the final transition to a one-party totalitarian state, modelled after the People’s Republic of China with whom those controlling the US government are colluding. Patriotic Americans must now recognize that the federal government, as an institution, is hopelessly corrupt, that, even though we have elections, we do not have Congressional representation, and that the country is governed by a two-tiered justice system, not determined by the rule of law, but by one’s power, wealth and political beliefs. The erosion of the Constitution and the theft of our Constitutional rights have been happening incrementally and quietly over a long period of time. No matter how idealistic the foundations of the United States are or how honourable its previous history, the accumulation of excessive power in the federal government has transformed it into a dysfunctional super-state dedicated to maintaining its own power, operating completely outside of Constitutional constraints and accountability to the American people.

EUROPE - Across the world, households are experiencing an exponential rise in food inflation. This holiday season, from Brazil to China to European countries to the US, households will pay near-record prices for food, which begs the question: Are households able to afford traditional food, or will they resort to substitutes to save money?

USA - A magnitude 6.2 earthquake rattled an area near Eureka on Monday afternoon. The quake was reported at about 12:10 pm off the Pacific coast near Petrolia, a town south of Eureka in Humboldt County, according to the US Geological Survey. Jane Dexter, a manager at the Petrolia General Store, described the jolt as “big” and “scary.” She said wine and soap bottles fell off shelves and burst on the floor. There weren’t many customers inside during the earthquake, and no one was injured, she said. In Ferndale, between Eureka and Petrolia, several storefront windows were shattered along Main Street. Food and soda bottles fell on the floor of an aisle at a grocery store. Some people on Twitter said they felt the earthquake in San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area, more than 200 miles south of Petrolia.

USA - Most people have some notion of how supply chains work, but few understand how extensive, complex and vulnerable they are. If you go to the store to buy a loaf of bread, you know that the bread did not mystically appear on the shelf.

PHILIPPINES - Super Typhoon Rai has taken the lives of more than 200 people, local media in the Philippines have confirmed. The death toll in the Philippines has surpassed 200 on Monday following a 168mph typhoon — the country's strongest storm this year — on Thursday. Described as "complete carnage", it caused widespread flooding and landslides that impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of residents. The horrific typhoon, which hit the southern and central regions of the Philippines, also destroyed homes and infrastructure. According to the government, more than 300,000 residents had to evacuate their homes, and a total of about 780,000 people were affected in one way or another. The chairman of the Philippine Red Cross, Richard Gordon, said in a statement its staff were reporting "complete carnage in the coastal areas".

EUROPE - Winter infections are soaring across Europe ... Denmark became the first EU country to lift its Covid restrictions three months ago, but the emergence of the new variant has seen Europe revert back to tougher rules as cases and hospitalisations are on the rise again. The UK lifted its own lockdown restrictions earlier on July 19, but Health Secretary Sajid Javid today warned there are 'no guarantees' Christmas Day will go ahead without a lockdown as Boris Johnson desperately fends off alarming warnings from scientists. He admitted 'everything is under review' after SAGE delivered a grim assessment that the number of infections could reach two million by the end of the month without tougher restrictions - floating a 'circuit breaker' ban on households mixing and closure of non-essential shops. It came as France barred UK holidaymakers from entering the country without a 'compelling reason' this week, while Germany added Britain to its list of high-risk countries. Meanwhile, protestors clashed with police in Brussels earlier this month amid demonstrations against the tightening of restrictions across the continent.

CANADA - Just a heads up: I drive a tractor trailer out of East Coast for a company that is headquartered in Montréal QC. I travel up there 3 days a week for round trip same day runs to transport food ingredients back into the US... We were exempted from all lockdowns and border closures during the entire pandemic. This morning Canada border agents informed me that as of January 1st all commercial drivers will no longer be considered “vaccine exempt workers”, and will need to be fully vaxxed with proof to cross over the border either way (US/Canada). Just had my 10 year anniversary with this company, but ...I’ll never take it! Many truckers will refuse and this will lead to even more shortages. Told the agent that, and he just shrugged his shoulders. He said it was initiated by the US side.

USA - In the event you are unaware that insanity now encompasses the US Supreme Court, the Court ruled in 2020 with only three dissents that a person’s gender is self-declared and unrelated to biological fact. The consequences of the Supreme Court’s elevation of fiction over fact are now showing themselves. A female middle school child declared herself to be male, but the school prevented her from using the boy’s locker room. A naked girl showering with naked males was not the school’s idea of family values. However, a local court in Blue Springs, Missouri (57,000 population) ruled that as the girl said she was a boy, she had to be believed. The school had singled her out on the basis of her female genitalia and ruled that she was female and not eligible for the boys’ locker room. This decision based on biological fact the jury decided was discrimination and awarded the girl $4 million dollars. This is a good example of what I mean when I say that in the US facts no longer matter.

USA - Just because most people have eyes does not mean that they are able to see. We live at a time when global events are going haywire all around us, but the vast majority of the population is still asleep. Even though our world is being rocked by pestilence, economic troubles, wars and rumors of wars, widespread civil unrest and great natural disasters, most people simply assume that life will eventually return to “normal” at some point. Sadly, that isn’t going to happen. I am entirely convinced that global events will continue to accelerate as we head into 2022, and most people will be absolutely blind-sided by what is coming because they just didn’t want to believe that things could ever get so bad. ...most of the population still wants to believe that someday we will all wake up and everything will be back to normal.

CHINA - Chinese imports, particularly food scandals by pollution, have made big news -- until Big Tech took control of the internet. They are in bed with them – literally. From deadly melamine in milk products to harmful honey, China has long allowed toxic food products (and other dangerous exports) to leave its borders.

GERMANY - With the new left-Green German government, a coalition of parties has come to power in Berlin with a checkered history as regards US ally Israel, to put it kindly. The founding generation of the Greens around former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and ‘60s radicals like Dieter Kunzelmann were present at the founding of the PLO and PFLP in 1968/69, and maintained ties to Palestinian terrorists through the Red Army Faction offensive of the 1970s all the way to the current-day NGOs.

USA - The US military must start making preparations for another "insurrection" after the 2024 election, according to a trio of retired military generals. An op-ed published by the Washington Post on Friday called for action amid growing concern among former senior officials about the "potential for lethal chaos inside our military" in a flash of violence that could eclipse the Capitol riot on January 6. Multiple courses of action were advised by Paul Eaton, a retired US Army major general and a senior adviser to VoteVets, Antonio Taguba, a retired Army major general with 34 years of active duty service, and Steven Anderson, a retired brigadier general who served in the Army for 31 years. They warned of the possibility of "civil war" resulting from a "military breakdown" due to splits in loyalty. "First, everything must be done to prevent another insurrection. Not a single leader who inspired it has been held to account. Meanwhile, more than 700 people have been arrested and charged with crimes associated with the siege of Congress."

EUROPE - The global power potential of the EU and its member countries is eroding and cannot keep up with that of the United States and China, as confirmed by data in "Power Atlas," recently published by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). Not only the German and the EU's relative economic power is systematically declining, Germany is also losing ground in terms of its share of major corporations with global influence. According to the ECFR, the "main battlefield," on which the great powers are currently fighting their power struggles is not a military but rather an economic one. The economic "weapons" fielded to attempt to gain the upper hand, range from free trade agreements, and punitive tariffs all the way to economic sanctions. As the ECFR notes, other states are increasingly resorting to the use of sanctions against the EU and its member states - alongside Russia and China, which have imposed counter-sanctions, also Turkey had temporarily called for a boycott of French commodities.