It comes as the US president continues to threaten a US withdrawal from the bloc. However, the report added that some officials believe Trump does not intend to make significant changes to the NATO alliance. Others are still left questioning whether Europe can trust the US under his leadership.

Bloomberg News also reported that NATO will ask Europe and Canada to boost its weapons stockpiles by 30%. Nations including the UK, Germany and France have already announced they will each increase their defence spending. It's expected that it will take Europe between five and 10 years to increase spending enough to reach a level "where they could replace most US competences".

At the heart of the group are 15 “Commonwealth Realms,” including the United Kingdom and other nations that still have King Charles as their Head of State, such as the Anglosphere nations of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, which already have close ties with the US through the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network.

Responding to the article from The Sun on Friday evening, President Trump remarked on the reported plans to invite the United States to join the Commonwealth: “I Love King Charles. Sounds good to me!” The idea of inviting the United States to join the group was first floated during Trump’s first term in the White House. However, the plans were shelved during the presidency of Joe Biden, who was often described as one of America’s most anti-British presidents in modern history.

According to the International Trade Administration: The DRC has substantial untapped gold, cobalt, and high-grade copper reserves… Cobalt, one of the key metals to produce electric vehicles, places the DRC in a strategic position for the energy transition. In 2022, the DRC was the world’s largest cobalt miner with a production of 130,000 tons, or nearly 68 percent of the world’s cobalt. The DRC was the fourth largest producer of industrial diamonds in 2022 with a production of 4.3 million carats. The DRC has globally significant lithium deposits.

In exchange for this mineral windfall, Tshisekedi is asking for something no globalist or United Nations diplomat has managed to deliver: peace through strength. Specifically, the Congolese president is requesting a formal US security pact to help repel the violent M23 rebel group — backed by Rwandan President Paul Kagame and accused of routing both Congolese troops and UN peacekeepers in eastern Congo.

According to a survey from the research institute Forsa, the Union’s support has fallen to 27 per cent, a decline of a point and a half over just the past four weeks. In comparison, the AfD’s support has risen by over two points to 23 per cent, the highest level for the party since December 2023, Welt reports.

Perhaps most concerningly for the Union — formerly led by ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel — confidence in likely incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz has declined rapidly since winning the election. According to the survey, just 34 per cent believe Merz will be a good leader of the country, a four-point decline since last month’s vote. Conversely, 58 per cent (a six-point rise) don’t have confidence in his leadership abilities.

Stephanie Mander, the school’s headteacher who wrote the letter, explained that this was because of the state school’s “respect for diversity”. She said: “By not holding specific religious celebrations, we aim to create a more inclusive atmosphere that honours and respects the beliefs of all our children and their families.”

Norwood Primary School is a mixed primary school for pupils aged between three and 11 and has no religious affiliation. The school’s website states: “Throughout the school year important celebrations in the lives of our children and school community are marked and celebrated together. These include Eid, Diwali, Christmas and Easter. At these times the school welcomes in members of the wider school community to lead assemblies and learning activities with the children to share their beliefs with them.”

“A few weeks ago, many would have thought that we couldn’t have come to an agreement. The differences were too great,” he said. “What differentiates this country from others is that we are ready, as parties of the democratic centre, to find solutions and not to leave the ground for populist extremism to blossom.”

Then came the assault on Germany and the west at the Munich security conference by Trump’s lieutenants, a week before Germans went to the polls. As John Maynard Keynes is said to have asked: “When the facts change, I change my mind – what do you do, sir?” Merz’s response is to admit that, yes, he has performed the ultimate U-turn, but in a good cause – so that Germany can modernise its economy and play its part in the reinforcement of Europe in the face of the twin threats of Trump and Vladimir Putin.

No matter how determined Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, and France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, have been, no matter how much they have coordinated their efforts, any European security strategy would have little credibility without Germany. And Germany would have little credibility unless it turned around its decades-old reluctance to arm itself properly and be prepared to use hard power for good ends.

The truth is that the Federal Reserve is a privately-owned banking cartel that has been given a perpetual monopoly over our monetary system by the US Congress. This privately-owned central bank has been destroying the value of the US dollar for decades, it has run our economy into the ground, and it has driven the US government to the brink of bankruptcy. The Federal Reserve operates in great secrecy and it acts as if it is not accountable to the American people. Yet the decisions that the Federal Reserve makes have a dramatic impact on the lives of every single American citizen.

The power of money creation and debt creation is in the hands of private banks – not the government. The Federal Reserve has claimed that it is an “entity within the government, having both public purposes and private aspects”. That sounds so reasonable, but the truth is that the Federal Reserve is a legalized banking cartel that is PRIVATELY-OWNED.

If the US government had been issuing debt-free money all this time, the US government would likely not be spending one penny on interest payments. Instead, the US government will spend OVER A TRILLION DOLLARS JUST ON INTEREST on the national debt in 2025. This is money that belongs to US taxpayers that is transferred to the US government which in turn is transferred to wealthy international bankers and other foreign governments.

The borrower is the servant of the lender, and by allowing ourselves to become enslaved to debt we have become the servants of the international banking system. Our current financial system is a complete and utter failure and we need to start over.

“I’m disappointed but not surprised,” says Kevin Craven, chief executive of UK defence industry lobby group ADS. “Are you really going to tell them to buy a worse system? And is doing something that is deleterious to European defence really worth it for the sake of a few hundred tonnes of cod?”

“It’s not Brussels that is putting [fishing] in there,” Ondarza says. “It’s very clearly France that is pushing the fisheries agenda." Still, Tusa suggests Lammy and his diplomatic colleagues should take a firm line when it comes to fish. “They should just forget Brexit, and forget fishing. I mean, what we’re talking about now is so much more important.”

1. France is getting ready to distribute a 20 page survival manual that instructs citizens what to do if a full-blown war erupts…


2. The French government is also telling their citizens to leave Iran “immediately”… The French Foreign Ministry has issued a warning to its citizens amid the release of one of its nationals who had been imprisoned in Iran for over 880 days.


3. It is being reported that military planners in the UK have ordered special forces units to get ready to be sent to Ukraine…


4. Turkey has announced that it would also be willing to deploy troops to Ukraine “if needed”… The Russians have already stated that they will never accept NATO troops on Ukrainian soil under any circumstances. So why are these nations preparing to send troops anyway?


5. Poland is preparing for a showdown with Russia by “conscripting every adult male for military training”…


6. The Baltic states are jointly constructing a massive defense line that includes six hundred bunkers, tank ditches, dragon’s teeth and rocket systems…


7. In a letter that was delivered to the Iranians, Donald Trump has given Iran only two months to reach a peace agreement…

We really are right on the verge of an apocalyptic conflict with Russia, and we really are right on the verge of an apocalyptic conflict in the Middle East. The final exit ramps for both of these conflicts are rapidly approaching, and so let us hope that global leaders make very wise decisions in the months ahead.

We are living in a time when reality is starting to converge with Hollywood doomsday scenarios. Just look at the pictures of the fireball at Heathrow. You almost expect Tom Hanks to make an appearance as Sir Keir Starmer, with Christopher Walken playing Vladimir Putin and, I don’t know, James Corden as Donald Trump.

But this is serious. Heathrow closed? This sort of scandal hasn’t occurred since the mysterious Gatwick drone incident of 2018, when 140,000 passengers were affected; and before that, the 2010 volcano eruptions in Iceland. The economic damage will be eye-watering. And I can’t be alone in worrying that this is more than a random malfunction.

Details are continuing to emerge as I write. But only yesterday, the Telegraph disclosed that Russian agents had researched fire protocols at a Berlin factory owned by the Diehl group, a German arms firm supplying Ukraine, shortly before it burst into flames last summer. Speculation might not be very helpful, but on the face of it this does seem rather pertinent.

This is the context in which the fireball at Heathrow blazes. Disaster movies are intended to offer a comfortable thrill at the security we all enjoy. But big beasts are stirring in Europe. It was entirely right to support Ukraine from the beginning, just as it is entirely right to support her now. But the light of the flickering airport blaze has exposed our basic lack of readiness. For years, we thought war in Europe was behind us. To the Kremlin, however, it wasn’t even cold.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, commissioned the review of the work of the 10 agencies that make up Australia’s national intelligence community in September 2023.

The report was handed to government in mid-2024 – before the US election in November, and the change in administration in Washington in January. “The world in which Australia seeks security and prosperity is significantly more contested, fragmented and volatile. Major-power conflict is no longer unimaginable. New security threats are prominent, many amplified by technological change.”

“That was the most useful two hours, 34 minutes of my life,” he recalls. Furlough, as it became known, was signed off by Sunak within the hour, and announced two days later, after consultation with unions and business groups. The policy marked a radical – if temporary – shift in the role of the state, as the Treasury stepped in to underwrite the salaries of millions of citizens whose jobs could otherwise have disappeared. The scheme went on to cost £70 billion.

Separate from the impact on the public finances is the direct, long-term effect of the pandemic on public services, many of which are still working through the practical consequences. For the NHS, that means the well documented struggle to deal with waiting lists, which surged as hospitals reorientated towards treating the virus and the public stayed at home.

It also means the challenge of trying to support the many thousands of people still experiencing the symptoms of long Covid – very likely to be one driver behind the surge in people unable to work. And there are myriad more subtle ongoing impacts, too, which are harder to measure – such as the dark shadow cast by the psychological impact of the anxiety and grief that accompanied the deadly outbreak.

IFS research published earlier this month collated evidence to show that the mental health of the UK population appears to have declined since the pandemic. It included the grim fact that there were 3,700, or 24%, more “deaths of despair” – from suicide, drugs or alcohol – among working age people in 2023, than there were on average in the five years pre-Covid.

1. Government spending is expanding at an exponential rate. Federal spending is now roughly 14 times higher than it was back in 1980.


2. US government debt is absolutely exploding. The United States government is 36 trillion dollars in debt. How insane is that? Our national debt is approximately 36 times larger than it was when Ronald Reagan first entered the White House.


3. The growth of our money supply is a horror show. During the pandemic, M1 went from about 4 trillion dollars to more than 20 trillion dollars. The Federal Reserve is clearly guilty of economic malpractice. Is there any way that we are going to be able to avoid paying a very serious price for all of this reckless money printing?…


4. Household debt has soared to almost unbelievable levels over the last 30 years. The sad truth is that it is not just the US government that has a massive debt problem. US households have also been accumulating debt at a staggering rate. Household debt accounts for approximately 18 trillion dollars of this total…


5. The total of all debt (government, business and consumer) in the United States is now well over 100 trillion dollars. This is a debt bubble that is absolutely unprecedented in US history…


6. More than 100 million US adults that do not have jobs are considered to be “not in the labor force”.


7. The price of gold has gone absolutely nuts, and that is not a good sign. When instability hits the financial markets, many investors flock to gold. This is especially true in inflationary times. Since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the value of the US dollar has declined by close to 99 percent. When the gold standard ended, an ounce of gold was worth 35 dollars. Today, an ounce of gold is worth more than 3,000 dollars…

But look at what has happened as a result of Elon Musk and his team making some modest cuts to government spending. A significant portion of the population is losing their minds. Our society cannot handle large spending cuts, and our society cannot handle what will come after a financial crash either. We are in far more trouble than most people realize.