GERMANY - Friedrich Merz was meant to be riding to Europe’s rescue. Instead, he has fallen flat on his face. The chancellor-in-waiting was forced to stay in waiting, after a humiliating defeat on Tuesday in a vote to elect him that should have been a formality. It is the first time in modern German history that such an election has been lost after a coalition agreement has been struck. The conservative CDU (Christian Democratic Union) leader was stabbed in the back by six MPs – either from his party, their SPD coalition allies, or a mixture of both. Victory in an unprecedented second vote after [who] knows what arm-twisting and recriminations cannot erase the damage of a defeat that exposed the unstable foundations on which Mr Merz’s leadership was built.

EUROPE - The European Union, that grand and failing dream of technocrats, is dying. Its decline is not sudden or dramatic but a slow unraveling, a bureaucratic collapse in which every policy designed to sustain it only hastens its demise. It starves itself on the thin gruel of ideology – open borders dissolving nations into contested spaces, green mandates suffocating industry under the weight of unattainable standards, and a moralizing anti-Russian fervor that has left it isolated and energy-dependent. Once, Europe was the center of empires, the birthplace of civilizations that shaped the world. Now, it is a patient refusing medicine, convinced that its sickness is a form of enlightenment, that its weakness is a new kind of strength. The architects of this experiment still speak in the language of unity, but the cracks in the foundation are too deep to ignore.

USA - Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong is back with an avalanche of problems coming to the world starting in 2025. Depressions, defaults, debt crises and wars are going to sweep the globe, according to Armstrong and his “Socrates” predictive computer program. Armstrong has called every big economic turn in the past three decades. He predicted Trump would win the 2024 Presidential Election in a landslide many months ahead of November. Armstrong called the huge stock crash of 1987 to the day. He predicted the dot com boom and bust in 2000. He was spot on calling for the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, and now, we are headed for more big turns.

VATICAN - The death of Pope Francis on April 21 immediately triggered preparations for tomorrow's conclave, which will see 133 cardinal electors enter the Sistine Chapel for a private election process that only ends when a new pontiff has been chosen. The election of a new pope is the most secretive democratic process in the world. The cardinals selected to participate in the conclave - derived from the Latin 'cum clave', or 'with key' - are sworn to silence and will be banished from the Catholic Church should they break that vow. The Vatican announced late yesterday that it would cut the phone signal within the tiny city-state from 3:00pm on Wednesday until a new pope is elected. They are sworn to secrecy and cannot take any phones, recording devices or communication equipment with them - they are effectively sealed off from the outside world.

INDIA - Two weeks after a deadly terror attack in the disputed Kashmir region, India has fired missiles into Pakistan. The Indian government claims that it carried out nine “precision strikes at terrorist camps” in Kashmir. Pakistan claims to have shot down several Indian jets and is threatening an imminent retaliation against India. The escalation of tensions is unsurprising. As soon as the April 22 terror attack took place, Indian officials deemed Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba culpable and accused the country’s authorities of complicity. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif angrily rejected these accusations and urged the US to steer India towards a course of de-escalation. These recommendations were not heeded by New Delhi. Modi appears to be determined to cut off Pakistan’s access to water resources from the Indus region. This resolve is interpreted in Islamabad as a non-negotiable act of war.

USA - The US Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump Administration’s transgender military ban to take effect. The Supreme Court stayed the lower court’s preliminary injunction on the transgender military ban pending appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The high court made the decision 6-3. Liberal Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson would have denied the application. There was no explanation included in the Supreme Court’s decision.

YEMEN - The Houthis have confirmed there will be a ceasefire in the Red Sea with the United States. The deal was mediated by Oman, and this looks like a 'mission accomplished' moment for Trump where he's ready to grasp onto a way out of the quagmire the US found itself in. Wisely, he is getting the US out, and Israel appears to be stepping up in terms of its own defense. Mideast war correspondent Elijah Magnier observes, "The US intelligently stopped the bombing on Yemen due to the lack of objectives, the empty outcome and the high cost versus no gain." Others have noted this is essentially a declare 'mission accomplished' and cut and run moment, amid no better alternatives.

USA - President Trump Issues a grave warning as radical judges shamelessly sabotage his immigration agenda and the supreme court sits on its hands. President Trump was in an understandably foul mood early Saturday morning as the radical-left judges continued to sabotage his immigration agenda. That’s because he knows America’s future is bleak if this continues and the Supreme Court continues to do nothing.

GERMANY - AfD sues German Spy agency that classified it as a ‘right-wing extremist’ party. We have been tracking the unstoppable rise in right-wing, populist, and nationalist parties all over Europe, as the native populations rebel against unchecked mass migration, transgender lunacy, the cult ‘Global Warming’ and other suicidal Globalist policies. Lately, the European Liberal-Globalist establishment has dramatically stepped up its efforts to contain these political forces through the use of the state apparatus and biased courts. The latest instance of this nefarious trend is the decision by the German domestic intelligence agency – with the misleadingly benign name of ‘Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution’ against the Alternative for Germany (AfD), party leading the opinion polls. By classifying the AfD as a right-wing extremist organization, it exposes them to a world of harassment by the new Government that is already floating the idea of banning the party – so they are fighting back.

GERMANY - The popular opposition party has been blacklisted, a big step down the slippery slope towards a total ban. To reach peak absurdity, US officials were aware from internal reporting that the victims of their campaign included Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, now absurdly targeted as enemy agents. If you have never heard about this extensive practical test of the concept of ‘militant democracy,’ guided by its intellectual godfather himself, and its extremely dark outcomes, then ask yourself why. Germany may end up prohibiting its biggest, most important opposition party – in the name of “democracy.” This would be a new milestone in the EU’s relentlessly escalating – Romania, France, even Moldova, which is not even a member yet – authoritarian campaign to bend voters to the will of radical-Centrist establishment parties that monopolize the notion of democracy and thereby undermine, even destroy whatever is left of its reality. Whether you like AfD politics or not – I do not, not at all – you should understand that the real if insidious threat to democracy comes from those waging lawfare against it.

EUROPE - After the German secret political police designated the largest oppositon party “far-right”, world leaders such as Vikor Orbán and Nayib Bukele came out in support of the Alternative for Germany (AfD). Speaking to Steven K Bannon on “The War Room”, AfD Bundestag vice-chair Beatrix von Storch said “We are very grateful for the support we’ve gotten from Marco Rubio and JD Vance.” “What the hell is going on in Germany?”, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán posted. “You can count on us, (AfD chair) Alice Weidel!” “When will all these rankings and colored maps finally stop calling Germany a full democracy?”, the President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele wrote. Italian Vice-Premier and Transportation Minister Matteo Salvini called the developments in Germany “very serious”: “After France and Romania, another theft of Democracy? Solidarity with AfD and the German people who, according to poll numbers, would elect them as their top party now.”

GERMANY - On May 2, 2025, Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) dealt a resounding blow to the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, officially classifying it as a “proven right-wing extremist” organisation, enabling the German state apparatus to conduct active surveillance, starting with the tapping of its leaders and their private communications. The image of the Stasi springs to mind. This decision marks an escalation in the German elites’ crusade against a political formation that, since its creation in 2013, has consistently upset the established order. Disturbing detail: the evidence for these allegations is not published by the BfV. In other words, the report is secret. Isn’t it a founding principle of the rule of law that accusations should be made public, so that the accused can respond to them? Here again, the methods of the Stasi come to mind.

GERMANY - Friedrich Merz, leader of the German conservatives, suffered a humiliating and unexpected setback in parliament, failing to win a majority vote to become chancellor. On Tuesday morning, German MPs held a secret ballot to elect the country’s next leader. It was largely viewed as a formality because Mr Merz had already agreed to lead a coalition government. But Mr Merz fell short of the majority required to become chancellor by just six votes, an unprecedented sign of dissent from his centre-Right CDU (Christian Democratic Union) party and its coalition allies. Mr Merz won 310 votes in the secret ballot, six short of the majority he required to lead the next German government. Shocked CDU politicians left the chamber for urgent talks after the result, amid speculation in the German media that some of their MPs had rebelled due to policy disagreements with Mr Merz. The result is a major embarrassment for Mr Merz. In a further setback, CDU sources told German media that there would be no second round of voting on Tuesday.

ISRAEL - Israel plans to seize the whole of Gaza for the first time in an operation likely to last months. The security cabinet approved an expanded military offensive in the Strip – which will force hundreds of thousands of Palestinians south – as part of a new strategy of “conquering Gaza” in order to defeat Hamas, officials said. It follows a decision to issue a widespread call-up of reservists to bolster troop numbers, in a tacit admission that the current approach was not working. The new plan – which the officials said was meant to help Israel achieve its war aims of defeating Hamas and freeing hostages – would push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into southern Gaza.

INDIA - India has begun work to boost reservoir holding capacity at two hydroelectric projects in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, after fresh tension with Pakistan led it to suspend a water-sharing pact. The work represents the first tangible step by India to operate outside agreements covered by the Indus Waters Treaty, which both countries have honoured since 1960 despite three wars and several other conflicts between the nuclear-armed rivals. Last month, however, New Delhi suspended the pact that ensures supply to 80% of Pakistani farms after it identified two of the three assailants in an attack that killed 26 people in Kashmir as Pakistani. Islamabad denied any role in the attack and has threatened international legal action over the suspension warning: "Any attempt to stop or divert the flow of water belonging to Pakistan... will be considered as an act of war."