RUSSIA – Russia has warned relations with the West are “almost at boiling point” as tensions mount over migrants at the Poland-Belarus border. With NATO and Russian forces playing cat and mouse games, Vladimir Putin has said he would “simply destroy” any country that encroached on his country’s territory. Recent days have seen US officials warn Russia may be plotting an imminent invasion of Ukraine, with the Kremlin massing 100,000 troops on their border. And Vladimir Putin's regime has been accused of stoking the unfolding migrant crisis between Belarus and Poland and even sent nuclear bombers into the area. Europe's last dictatorship has been accused of "weaponising" migration against the EU - sparking a tense stand-off along the Belarusian and Polish border with troops on both sides.

CHINA - Global wealth tripled over the last two decades, with China leading the way and overtaking the US for the top spot worldwide. Net worth worldwide rose to $514 trillion in 2020, from $156 trillion in 2000, according to the study. China accounted for almost one-third of the increase. Its wealth skyrocketed to $120 trillion from a mere $7 trillion in 2000, the year before it joined the World Trade Organization, speeding its economic ascent. The US, held back by more muted increases in property prices, saw its net worth more than double over the period, to $90 trillion.

USA - The level of lawlessness that we are now witnessing in the United States of America is absolutely breathtaking. On average, thieves are stealing more than 100 million dollars worth of merchandise from our retailers every single day. Just think about that. I have written extensively about the shoplifting epidemic that is plaguing this country, but even I didn’t know that things had gotten that bad. Sadly, much of the thievery is being committed by highly organized gangs of looters. These professional looters seem to have no fear of being confronted. And that is probably because they know that even if they are caught they will never be charged with a felony. Many states have changed their laws to be more lenient on shoplifters in recent years, and this appears to be helping to fuel an enormous boom in organized retail theft…

USA - The pieces of the puzzle may fit together in ways that you do not expect. For years, the global elite have been openly telling us that one day we will all own nothing, we will have no privacy, and we will be extremely happy with our new socialist utopia. But exactly how do they intend to transition to such a society? Are they going to come and take all of your stuff? Needless to say, there are millions upon millions of very angry people out there that aren’t just going to hand over their stuff to a bunch of socialists. So how are they going to overcome that obstacle?

UK - The Conference of the parties has been an almighty failure, regardless of how they try to spin it. It has proven to be nothing more than a talking shop, while reaching an agreement not worth the paper it is written on. Moreover, the world’s leaders have been exposed as hypocrites prepared to lecture us mere mortals on how we should be living, while not practicing an iota of what they preach.

USA - When the sheriff in Suffolk County, New York, requested $700,000 from the US government for an artificial intelligence system to eavesdrop on prison phone conversations, his office called it a key tool in fighting gang-related and violent crime. But the county jail ended up listening to calls involving a much wider range of subjects - scanning as many as 600,000 minutes per month, according to public records from the county obtained by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Beginning in 2019, Suffolk County was an early pilot site for the Verus AI-scanning system sold by California-based LEO Technologies, which uses Amazon speech-to-text technology to transcribe phone calls flagged by key word searches. The company and law enforcement officials say it is a crucial tool to keep prisons and jails safe, and fight crime, but critics say such systems trample the privacy rights of prisoners and other people, like family members, on the outside.

UK - Last week I was cancelled - by a doctor who puts politics above the dying. Over the years, I have developed a thick skin after receiving abuse and facing physical threats. But the vindictiveness of the cancel culture mob knows no limits. This latest case not only proves how a sickness is increasingly infecting a large part of British culture and shows no sign of abating, but how it is damaging society’s most vulnerable.

POLISH-BELARUS BORDER - Border police have been blinded with lasers and strobe lights as they struggle to shore up Europe’s eastern frontier defences against the flow of migrants unleashed by Belarus. Polish authorities say soldiers loyal to Alexander Lukashenko, the despotic ruler of the former Soviet republic, have been arming refugees with tear gas as he steps up his so-called ‘hybrid war’ on Europe. The latest escalation of this crisis started on Friday night as Belarus troops ripped down posts next to barbed-wire barriers that the Polish government has installed along 120 miles of the 250-mile border between the two nations. They released video footage showing border guards targeted by strong lasers and bright strobe lighting. A spokesman for the Polish Border Force said about 100 migrants were armed with tear gas, which was used against their guards.

RUSSIA - Fears of a Russian invasion into Ukraine are growing by the day after the size of Moscow's forces was exposed. There are more troops from Russia deployed to its eastern border with Ukraine than there are in the entire British Army. Rohit Kachroo, ITV's Global Security Editor, said that the latest images showed tens of thousands of ground military forces, tanks and armoured personnel carriers. The latest analysis from the Ukrainian government showed nearly 100,000 Russian soldiers near Ukraine's border - compared to the 82,230 regular full-time personnel in the British Army. This comes amid news that the UK is ready to deploy British troops in the region if the conflict escalates into an armed conflict. A British defence source said: “The anxiety is because we don't know what's going to happen. It is an unpredictable situation.”

USA - Biden’s radical nominees continue to show their true colors. Biden’s Marxist currency nominee Saule Omarova said that all private bank accounts should be taken over and controlled by the Federal Reserve. In September President Joe Biden nominated Saule Omarova to become comptroller of the currency at the Department of Treasury. If confirmed, Omarova would be in charge of overseeing banking in the United States. Biden on September 23 nominated Saul Omarova, a law school professor at Cornell University, for the office responsible with the regulation and supervision of all national banks. Omarova’s nomination drew immediate pushback from powerful voices who criticized her background and past comments that indicated a favor for the policies of the USSR. Omarova was born in the Soviet Union in what is now called Kazakhstan and graduated from Moscow State University in 1989. She has pointed to the USSR’s practices as recently as 2019, when she tweeted about the gender pay gap, citing the USSR as a better model.

USA - Politicians face violence and threats from voters — and each other. Are we nearing a civil war? The signs give cause for concern. America suffers from societal and political conditions that predispose it to violence, and the list seems to be growing. Last week, an anonymous caller told a Republican congressman who voted with Democrats in favor of the infrastructure bill, that he and his staff should die. On Monday, Twitter added a warning label to a cartoon video shared by a different Republican congressman in which he assassinated a colleague from across the aisle. On Wednesday, a Black Lives Matter organizer threatened “bloodshed” if New York’s mayor-elect reinstated a controversial anti-crime police unit.

AUSTRIA - Austria will impose new curbs on the unvaccinated starting from Monday. The measure aims to ease pressure on hospitals and ICUs. The lockdown will come into effect at midnight and will apply to people aged 12 and older who have not been vaccinated and have not recently recovered from Covid-19. “This step was not easy to take, but it is necessary,” Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said. “The risk for the unvaccinated people is much higher. Therefore, we are forced to take this difficult step to reduce the number of contacts.” Interior Minister Karl Nehammer earlier said lockdown violators would face hefty fines. Customers may be punished with a fine of up to €500 ($573) for flouting restrictions while businesses may be slapped with a penalty of up to €30,000 ($34,354).

VATICAN - Pope Francis took time over the weekend to praise the “mission” of journalists, and thank them for exposing the church’s sex scandals and helping to keep them from being “swept under the carpet.” During a Saturday ceremony honoring two correspondents who have long covered the Vatican, the Pope directly approached the Catholic Church’s history with clerical sexual abuse scandals. He thanked the journalists for “what you tell us about what is wrong in the church” and for the “voice” given to abuse victims. Sexual abuse scandals within the church were first exposed on a widescale level by The Boston Globe in a series of stories in 2002, detailing alleged acts of sexual abuse as well as efforts to conceal those acts from the public.

EUROPE - Fears are growing of an imminent conflict in eastern Europe as Russia and Belarus carry out snap military drills close to where a migrant crisis is playing out on Poland's border, while Washington warns Putin is preparing to invade eastern Ukraine. The incursion comes with Europe at battle stations: Vladimir Putin is backing a 'hybrid war' using migrants to sow chaos at Poland's border while sending tens of thousands of troops to the frontier with Ukraine for a possible invasion. Russian nuclear bombers were also flying over Belarus for a third day running as Putin remained firmly behind Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko who is accused of 'weaponising migrants' by the West.

ISRAEL - Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) unveiled a family of new electronic warfare (EW) systems on Thursday which can combat a range of threats, including UAVs, ships, missiles and radar systems.The Scorpius family of systems scans the entire surrounding area for targets and deploys narrowly focused beams to interfere with multiple threats across the electromagnetic spectrum. The system effectively disrupts the operation of electromagnetic systems, including radar, electronic sensors, navigation and data communications. Scorpius has unprecedented receiver sensitivity and transmission power, allowing it to detect and address multiple threats of different kinds simultaneously from much farther distances than it was able to do in the past. The system can be installed on fighter and mission aircraft for escort and stand-off jamming missions or on military transport aircraft. It operates automatically and can provide protection against all types of Air-to-Air and Surface-to-Air threats.