ASIA - The last couple of years of military build-up and standoff between China and the United States in the South China Sea has resulted in fears of a new dangerous arms race, as smaller nations in the region rapidly bolster their defenses in order to avoid being "caught in the middle" which would result in having to be overly dependent on one side of the tensions. A new Reuters report chronicling the growth in regional missile stockpiles says China is "mass producing its DF-26, a multipurpose weapon with a range of up to 4,000 kilometres, while the United States is developing new weapons aimed at countering Beijing in the Pacific." This has resulted in other countries once on the sidelines now "buying or developing their own new missiles, driven by security concerns over China and a desire to reduce their reliance on the United States" - the report underscores. "Before the decade is out, Asia will be bristling with conventional missiles that fly farther and faster, hit harder, and are more sophisticated than ever before - a stark and dangerous change from recent years, analysts, diplomats, and military officials say," the report adds.

UK - The UK’s largest microchip factory, which has been taken over by a firm backed by Communist China, has reportedly received millions in funding from the British government, including military research grants. Newport Wafer Fab (NWF), which was forced into selling its factory to Chinese-owned Nexperia after failing to meet its debt obligations earlier this month, has been reported to have been granted large-scale contracts from the British government’s innovation agency, Innovate UK. A whistleblower told CNBC that the semiconductor firm had received around £55 million ($75 million) to develop next-generation technologies, including defence contracts. Following widespread backlash and concern expressed about Communist China taking control of what many would consider a critical technology factory, Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered a review of the sale under national security laws.

LEBANON - On the highway into Beirut the other day, we drove past a petrol queue that was more than two miles long. On and on it went, the drivers sweating and swearing in brutal heat. Some had run out of fuel while they waited, having to push their cars when the queue inched forwards. There were people on laptops working from their cars during the day-long wait. Petrol queues are an everyday fact of life in Lebanon, but this was something else. Seeing that I was a foreigner, a frustrated driver gestured at the long line ahead of him and shouted: ‘Lebanon!’ He was summing up the fury and disgust felt by the Lebanese at what has happened to their country.

USA - Our planet is going through extreme changes that are unlike anything we have ever seen before, and global weather patterns are going completely insane as a result. Last winter, record cold temperatures were being shattered all over the globe and we were witnessing snowfall totals that were absolutely crazy in many areas. Now summer has arrived in the northern hemisphere, and extreme weather events are making headlines every single day. This month alone, we have witnessed apocalyptic flooding in western Europe and China, a massive fire in Oregon has burned an area larger than the entire city of Los Angeles, and Brazil has announced to the world that it will have crop losses that are “historic” in nature. All throughout history there have been natural disasters, but these days we are faced with an endless series of droughts, floods, heat waves, mudslides, wildfires and crop failures. If you think that there is an “easy solution” to this crisis, you are just being delusional. Weather patterns are permanently shifting, and nothing will ever be the same again.

USA - Dr Martin Picard is an associate professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, specializing in both psychiatry and neurology. Together, expertise in these two fields suits one well to understanding the essence of what makes one human. Picard is particularly knowledgable about mitochondria, a structure found within nearly all cells that have a nucleus. They provide most of the chemical energy that cells use in their various biochemical tasks, and are sometimes likened to batteries.

CHINA - Xi Jinping fears the collapse of China's Communist regime as the CCP leadership is confronted with an emerging middle-class. China's leaders have growing concerns that the country's rapidly changing population could turn on the Communist Party under Xi Jinping. The Chinese Communist Party recently celebrated the centenary of the movement but according to retired Australian Army Commander Major-General Gus McLachlan, the Chinese Government has a "voracious need" to secure natural resources in order to fuel the needs of an increasingly demanding middle-class. "The leadership in China fear the unsettled nature of their own population far more than they do external forces," he added. "Clearly, they are seeking to expand their access to resources." It comes as tensions between the US and China are reported to have pushed Asian states into developing ever more powerful missiles in a dangerous regional arms race.

UK - Homes, hospitals and roads across London and the south east of England are flooded after storms brought torrential downpours. The capital has been hit particularly hard as heavy showers and thunderstorms left motorists and shoppers stranded. London Fire Brigade said it had taken more than 600 calls from people reporting flooding-related issues. Firefighters dealt with cars submerged on roads, flooded homes and streets and collapsed ceilings. Crews were scrambled to Worcester Park in Sutton to rescue five people who had been stranded in a partly submerged car. St James's Park in London was the wettest part of the UK last night, with 41.6mm of rain falling on the area. Shocked people have taken to social media to post horrific images of rising water, abandoned cars, and monsoon-like conditions. Mr Keates said the storms are being caused by a "convergence" of air currents, due to warmth in the earth's surface from the recent heatwave rising into cooler air in the atmosphere.

GERMANY - The second longest and bloodiest military mission of the Federal Republic of Germany has come to an end. After nearly twenty years of war, the last soldiers of the Bundeswehr, who left Afghanistan the night before, landed yesterday, Wednesday, at the Wunstorf Airbase near Hanover. According to the "Costs of War Project" at the Ivy League Brown University in the USA, around a quarter of a million people lost their lives in combat at the Hindu Kush, and an unknown number of victims lost their lives due to the direct consequences of the war. Nearly seven million Afghans have fled their homes; countless numbers are wounded or maimed, including tens of thousands of children. US expenditure alone for that slaughter amount to more than US $2.2 trillion; the German government puts its expenditures for the Bundeswehr mission at €12.2 billion. As the western troops withdraw, the Taliban is taking control of ever larger portions of that country. Soon the balance of power that had existed just before the war began in September 2001, will be reestablished.

BRAZIL - Google-owned YouTube is once again flexing more power than world leaders by deleting 15 videos from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s channel over claims of ‘COVID misinformation’. Videos that were removed included one that discussed the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID, as well as former health minister Eduardo Pazuello comparing coronavirus to AIDS. “Post-HIV pandemic, HIV continues to exist. There are still some who are contaminated, most are treated, and life goes on,” he stated. Some of the content was also deleted because YouTube doesn’t allow anyone to question the efficacy of masks. This is particularly bizarre given that WHO and Anthony Fauci himself said early on during the pandemic that masks were useless. Fauci wrote in a February 2020 email that a typical store-bought face mask “is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material.” As we previously highlighted, YouTube also automatically removes videos of anti-lockdown protests, even if the purpose of the video is to mock the protesters.

USA - The greatest threat to the US is the progressive left’s radical Marxism. These programs, supported by government and ‘woke’ private business, are trying to instil in children values that only bring violence, vitriol and division. This danger to our Republic and national security is exacerbated by lies about systemic racism and supposed hatred by anyone who disagrees with the left’s radical agenda, and nowhere is this agenda more apparent than in public education.

USA - I don’t want to bring my children into a world where they are supposed to loathe themselves because of the colour of their skin, be forced to endure drag queen story hours at school and be taught distorted, woke history lessons. The Western world as it is today has undergone drastic cultural changes in recent years, changes which appear to be escalating in speed and drama.

USA - During the pandemic, our politicians in Washington have been borrowing and spending money at an unprecedented rate, and this has pushed our national debt up to 28 trillion dollars. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has been pumping trillions of fresh dollars into our financial system, and this has resulted in the Fed balance sheet nearly doubling over the course of this pandemic.

Global wheat supplies short as drought/flood ravage crops and supply chain falters. Wheat crops are failing in the US, Canada, and Russia - the "breadbasket" top exporters that feed the rest of the world - as other exporters like Kazakhstan restrict their exports to protect their own people. Engineered attacks on supply chains continue from South Africa to Vietnam. Food prices are exploding as shortages can no longer be hidden, and the true crisis of global food shortages lies ahead.

USA - California Shoplifting Spree Sparks Backlash to Decriminalization of Petty Theft. Viral video of people brazenly hauling out merchandize from a TJ Maxx store in Los Angeles in broad daylight is part of an ongoing shoplifting spree in California that some say is the consequence of a referendum put in place in 2014 to make stealing items priced at $950 or less a misdemeanor. No arrests have been announced in connection with the crime. A Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson said the agency was aware of the incident and that a report was taken. The theft occurred days before Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law aimed at curbing organized retail theft, which has been costing California businesses millions of dollars annually. The revived law allows California Highway Patrol officers to help local law enforcement fight retail theft. CHP Commissioner Amanda Ray said at the press conference that the largest retail-theft bust in three years netted $8.1 million in stolen merchandise.

USA - There aren’t many companies that can say they’ve poured hundreds of millions into journalism in the last few years. Facebook has — $600 million over since 2018 — and it is promising another $1 billion in the next three years. Yet when surveying those around the journalism and media world, the jury is still out on whether and how much Facebook’s funding is helping its stakeholders — or merely buying good PR. A Wrap inquiry into the details of the $600 million found that many of those dollars are hard to track, except in the most general terms. When broken down into the main categories mostly based in the US, TheWrap could only specifically verify the expenditure of roughly $122 million — barely one-quarter of the pledged sum — begging the question: Where is the money going? In addition to donating heavily to nonprofits and paying small grants to local newspapers, Facebook pays rich licensing fees to a handful of premium publishers, like The New York Times, The Washington Post, News Corp, Bloomberg and BuzzFeed.