GERMANY - In a significant development for the German Armed Forces, sensor specialist HENSOLDT has been contracted to supply six cutting-edge TRML-4D radars as part of Diehl Defence's IRIS-T SLM air defense missile system. The multimillion-euro order will address a critical capability gap and pave the way for the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI). The Bundeswehr is set to receive the first system next year. The TRML-4D radar, utilizing state-of-the-art digital technology, will play a vital role in detecting, tracking, and classifying various aerial targets. It places emphasis on rapidly identifying small, fast-moving, low-flying, and maneuvering cruise missiles, aircraft, and helicopters. The system boasts an impressive capability to detect and track up to 1,500 targets within a 250 km radius. Multiple TRML-4D systems are slated to equip the Ukrainian air defense under a separate agreement.

ETHIOPIA - The nation of Ethiopia has announced it will make the transition to mandatory digital IDs for all citizens, with the chief enforcement tool being the major banks. Using a World Bank-supported digital ID system with standards also approved by an eight-nation working group within the United Nations, all citizens of Ethiopia will need to have a digital ID in order to use banking services in the country by 2025. This is just the latest evidence that banks are driving the digital identity agenda. So if you want a bank account or wish to access government benefits, you will need a digital ID in Ethiopia. This is the plan for all nations. Eventually, you will need the digital ID to buy and sell and log onto the internet. Ethiopia follows Canada, Nigeria, China, Finland, Germany, Japan, Norway, Sweden, South Korea, and a host of other countries that have already rolled out biometric digital identities, some mandatory and some still voluntary.

USA - The veteran US diplomat Henry Kissinger has met China’s defence minister in Beijing. According to a readout on Tuesday from the Chinese defence ministry, Li Shangfu said “friendly communication” between China and the US had been “destroyed” because “some people in the United States did not meet China halfway”. Kissinger said he was a “friend of China”, according to the readout. “Neither the United States nor China can afford to treat the other as an adversary. If the two countries go to war, it will not lead to any meaningful results for the two peoples,” the Chinese statement reported Kissinger as saying. Kissinger’s visit, which had not been publicised, is outside the official roster of meetings. It is almost exactly 52 years since his secret visit to Beijing in July 1971, which paved the way for Richard Nixon, the US president at the time, to normalise relations between the US and China.

UK - 'Give me a child until he is seven years old,' said the Jesuit priest St Ignatius Loyola, 'and I will show you the man.' The Collins Dictionary of Quotations cites a more chilling version of those words, as an old English proverb: 'Give me a child for the first seven years and he is mine forever.' Inspirational message — or a warning against indoctrination? The question has renewed relevance this week after a Church of England diocese revealed it is teaching a controversial 'pyramid of white supremacy' in its primary schools. Children's minds are uniquely impressionable.

SOUTH KOREA - The death toll from devastating floods following South Korea’s heaviest rains in a decade has risen to 40, after four additional bodies were recovered from a highway underpass near the central city of Cheongju. There were also at least nine people still missing as of Monday, and dozens more were injured by landslides and other effects of the flooding rains, according to the South Korean Interior Ministry. President Yoon Suk-yeol, who returned to Seoul on Monday following a surprise visit to Ukraine, said the disaster was worsened by his government’s failure to follow disaster-response policies in the most vulnerable areas. More than 600 millimeters (24 inches) of rain has fallen in the past week in parts of South Korea. More heavy rains were predicted, falling at rates of up to 40 millimeters per hour, in some of the hardest-hit areas.

GERMANY - Chancellor Olaf Scholz is struggling to persuade Germans he can handle the litany of troubles looming over the country he has led since 2021. With his coalition government beset by squabbling, the shadow of a recession lingering, and the industrial base underpinning its economic model under threat, the Social Democrat who won office after a hapless campaign by the Christian Democrat Union is on the back foot again. The sense of drift has opened the door to a surge in far-right support, eroding a political consensus underpinning almost eight decades of prosperity since World War II. The country led by Scholz finds itself in one of its most unsettling moments since reunification in 1989.

INDIA - The BRICS alliance with Brazil, Russia, India, China & South Africa is planning to float a new currency to settle international trade payments to challenge the global reserve status of the US dollar. The bloc of the five nations is likely to jointly decide on floating a new BRICS currency during its next summit in August, 2023 to be held at Johannesburg in South Africa. Although all other countries constituting BRICS, including Brazil, Russia, China, and South Africa seem to be on the side of issuance of a common BRICS currency, India seems to be the only country that has not shown interest in the plans to launch a new currency.

ISRAEL - Former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid has reportedly warned that his country’s relations with the US have deteriorated so much under the leadership of his successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, that Washington is “no longer our closest ally.” Lapid made the comments on Monday at a faction meeting of his Yesh Atid opposition party, according to the Times of Israel. He argued that Netanyahu’s government is destroying the alliance with the US by trying to pass controversial judicial reforms.

USA - A massive swarm of grasshoppers has invaded Tooele, Utah, causing significant damage to crops. The plague-like surge was captured by weather radar systems of the National Weather Service on the evening of June 21 as it headed northeast toward the Great Salt Lake. Farmers in the region have been left devastated as the grasshoppers devoured their crops, leaving behind barren fields. Michael Dow, a rancher in Tooele, shared his dismay. “Every bit of alfalfa that’s in my fields is gone. It was bare dirt within a matter of hours,” he said. Reports of insect-related troubles have been emerging from the area over the past few weeks.

RUSSIA - The Russian government is pushing to ban sex change operations as well as gender changes on identity cards in an effort to promote ‘traditional values’ across Russian society. The legislation is set for a second reading of three on Thursday, having obtained initial approval in the lower house of parliament last month. Only surgical operations to treat intersex “congenital physiological anomalies” among children will be permitted, provided approval is obtained from special medical commissions or public health care institutions. “We are preserving Russia for posterity, with its cultural and family values, traditional foundations, and putting up a barrier to the penetration of Western anti-family ideology,” announced deputy chairman of the lower house, Pyotr Tolstoy, after the approval of the first reading. This is the latest move by the Russian government targeting LGBT activism, which “Putin seeks to portray as evidence of moral decay in Western countries,” reports Reuters.

CANADA - Prepare for another round of toxic smoke. BC is burning up! This is the worst year for fires on record for the province of BC. It has been very dry and the winds are expected to pick up late this week. Eastern Canada and the US could soon be blanketed in smoke again. The situation is dire! British Columbia is in the midst of one of its worst wildfire seasons ever. Currently, there are 374 fires burning across the province, including 22 wildfires of note. A wildfire of note means it is highly visible or poses a threat to communities and residents. At a recent press conference, Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness Bowinn Ma said 1,034 fires have burned more than 1.2 million hectares of land since April 1.

UNITED NATIONS - With talks of G20 finance ministers in India stalling on the subject of debt relief, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has raised the alarm about the plight of developing countries. This follows last week’s UN report about the catastrophic levels of public debt affecting almost half the globe. G20 representatives met on Monday in Gandhinagar, Gujarat but made little to no progress in discussions about restructuring the debt held by developing nations, AP reported.

GERMANY - The AfD, which is currently polling in second ahead of the next EU elections, has made a big anti-EU move which will worry Brussels. Germany’s second most popular party, the Alternative for Germany, is pushing to make the ‘controlled dissolution of the EU’ one of its key manifesto policies at the upcoming European elections. Voters across the bloc will head for the polls next June, for what could be an historic EU election that sees a “historic realignment”. Germany’s AfD has now called for a “controlled dissolution” of the “overbearing EU”. Co-leader of the party, Tino Chrupalla, said: “We’re demanding a reset for Europe so that we can use the potential of nation-states and rebuild the bridge to the east”.

NATO - In case you hadn’t heard, there was a big NATO summit this week. Each year, NATO holds a summit in rotating cities across the alliance to bring together its leaders, and each year NATO tends to market these summits as “the most important one yet.” But this year may have actually really been the most important one yet.

CHINA - NATO is “the real troublemaker” that has fully embraced “Cold War thinking and ideological prejudice,” China’s permanent representative to the UN has claimed. In a statement on Thursday, Zhang Jun hit back at a communique issued by NATO members at the Vilnius summit earlier this week, which accused China of pursuing “coercive policies” that challenge the bloc’s interests. It also claimed that Beijing uses a wide array of tools to increase its global footprint and undermine the security of NATO members.