Such confrontations at the contested holy compound, the third holiest shrine in Islam that is also the most sacred site in Judaism and referred to as the Temple Mount, have sparked deadly cross-border wars between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers in the past, the last of which was in 2021.

Videos on social media purportedly showed Israeli police officers beating Palestinians with batons and rifle butts at the mosque.Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that dozens of worshippers, who spend all the night during Ramadan praying, were injured when the police raided the mosque.

There are fears that violence in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank could escalate this month, when the Muslim holy month of Ramadan coincides with Judaism's Passover and Christian Easter. Hamas, which rules Gaza, warned on Monday that permitting Jewish sacrifice in the compound 'would fuel an already explosive situation, for which the Israeli occupation government bears full responsibility'.

Because this year, Easter has gone beyond a few hours of eggs, bonnets and hot cross buns. From seasonal decorations to springtime crackers and even Easter ‘stockings’ (in the form of baskets to be filled with goodies) being put out by children on ‘Easter Eve’ — or Holy Saturday, as it was once known — Easter has unashamedly become the new Christmas.

So much so, say experts, that it’s now worth a staggering £2 billion to British retailers — not incomparable to Christmas itself. It’s no wonder shops are cashing in. At John Lewis, which has seen a 266 per cent rise in sales of Easter decorations year on year, there are almost 100 products in its seasonal interiors category.

Easter trees are flying off the shelves, along with hand-painted glass egg ‘baubles’ (£12 for five), floral fabric bunting (from £6) and felt decorations in the shape of carrots and lambs (£6 each). You can even add tree lights. At Next, there’s a table-top light-up tree (£35), while Amazon sells a white tree (£17.49) which comes with lights, pastel eggs and wooden message tags. Though not quite on the scale of a festive fir, they’re favoured by everyone from interiors influencers to A-listers. So if you truly want to embrace the season, it seems, you’ll have to do a lot better than buying a few chocolate treats.

There is also the problem of the currency and interest rate derivatives. No one knows the risk in these instruments. The US dollar itself is declining in use as world reserve currency. Alarmed by Washington’s weaponization of the dollar with sanctions and confiscations, much of the world is arranging to abandon the dollar’s use to settle international trade accounts, but the supply of dollars is not declining. This implies a fall in the dollar’s exchange value. The offshoring of manufacturing and food production has made the US heavily dependent on imports. A loss in the dollar’s exchange value resulting from countries settling their trade balances in other currencies means a sharp rise in US inflation.

The Federal Reserve hasn’t the intelligence to think through the consequences of its higher interest rate policy. The federal government cannot comprehend the consequences of offshoring for the US trade deficit or the consequences of continuing massive US budget deficits for the Treasury market.

Washington is too arrogant to comprehend the new way in which the US is perceived abroad. The world sees the dollar-based reserve currency system as Washington’s punishment device, and the world sees dollar-based debt expanding while demand for dollars declines. The result will be a drop in the foreign exchange value of dollar denominated financial instruments such as stocks and bonds.

One avenue to crisis is the Federal Reserve’s current policy of raising interest rates. This policy follows many years of nearly zero interest rates in nominal terms, and negative interest rates in real terms. During these many years the financial assets banks accumulated on their balance sheets, such as bonds, pay a low rate of interest. When the central bank (Federal Reserve) raises interest rates, the values of the lower interest rate financial instruments fall, thus shrinking the asset side of banks’ balance sheets but not the liabilities side. Thus the central bank’s policy is pushing banks toward insolvency.

When depositors realize that their deposits could be frozen for some time or lost if over $250,000 in size, as many corporation payrolls and some individual accounts are, they withdraw their deposits. The banks cannot meet the withdrawals because their assets have shrunk in value relative to deposits and because as they sell the depreciated assets to meet the withdrawals the prices of the troubled assets fall further. Silicon Valley Bank had assets heavily weighted with low interest rate US Treasury bonds, the value of which was driven down by the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. The other two banks were victims of crypto-currency which is too volatile for a bank’s balance sheet.

The second avenue to crisis is the trillions of dollars in derivatives held by the five large US banks, which are international in their transactions. According to published reports, the five largest banks have $188 trillion in derivative exposure. This sum is vastly greater than the banks’ capital base. No one knows what the risk is in these derivatives. But the dollar amount is much higher than in 2008, so the potential for a worse crisis exists. A crisis only takes one mistake by one bond trader at a large institution to ignite a crisis.

The Chinese Communist Party, in its readouts from Hayashi’s multiple meetings in the country, appeared particularly concerned with Japan’s conservative government enacting provisions to limit China’s growing dominance in semiconductor manufacturing – namely, restricting the ability of Japanese companies to export materials used to manufacture them. On Friday, Tokyo added 23 goods to its list of products subject to export controls, including materials and equipment necessary to make semiconductors, used in high-end technology products and, American authorities fear, with the potential to be used for military purposes.

Speaking to Hayashi on Sunday, his Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister Qin Gang, urged the Japanese government not to “help a villain do evil,” referring to America. Qin accused Washington of “using bullying tactics to brutally suppress the Japanese semiconductor industry, and now it is repeating its old tricks against China.” “Japan has suffered that pain, and should not help a villain do evil. The containment will only further stimulate China’s determination to become self-reliant,” Qin said, according to the South China Morning Post.

And then today, Dave DeCamp reported that the US is rethinking their relationship with Iran and current sanctions against that country. The Biden administration has spoken with European allies and Israel about a potential interim deal with Iran that would give the Islamic Republic some sanctions relief in exchange for a freeze of some aspects of its civilian nuclear program, Axios reported Monday.

The report cited unnamed Israeli officials and Western diplomats and said the idea would be to get Iran to stop enriching uranium at 60% in exchange for some sanctions relief. The 60% enrichment is the highest level Iran has ever achieved, but it is still below the 90% needed for weapons-grade uranium. The Pentagon acknowledged in its new Nuclear Posture Review that Iran is not trying to build a nuclear weapon. So just like that, the US now admits that Iran is not trying to build a nuclear bomb. Were they ever?

With the announcement of OPEC yesterday, cracks are forming among the nations in the Anti-Russian sanctions, as Japan has decided to start purchasing oil from Russia.

Today OPEC+ woke up and chose scorched-earth war against the Fed. OPEC’s shocking shot across the Fed and Biden bow revealed its intention to keep oil prices high even as central banks push the world into a recession, and just made life for the central planners very difficult, as the sordid stench of stagflation is suddenly all over the place.

As the WSJ reports today, one of Washington’s closest allies in Asia is now buying oil at prices above the cap, in effect breaking with the sanctions regime imposed by US allies. As the note adds, Japan got the US to agree to the exception, saying it needed it to ensure access to Russian energy. The concession shows Japan’s reliance on Russia for fossil fuels, which analysts said contributed to a hesitancy in Tokyo to back Ukraine more fully in its war with Russia. It also shows why the price cap was imposed at a level where it doesn’t actually adversely impact Russian oil exports. But the current price surge means that unless the price cap is lifted, the US alliance is about to shoot itself in the leg.

“After 78 years, it is now time for the US soldiers to go home,” Dagdelen announced at a parliamentary event marking the 75th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. The US military bases act “like extraterrestrial zones where the [German] constitution does not apply,” the MP, who is also a member of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said.

Washington uses its bases in Germany to wage wars abroad and launch “lethal drone strikes,” Dagdelen said, adding that some of these actions are “in breach of international law.”

The US GDP shrank sharply in the first quarter, and the economy shrank at an annualized rate of 1.4%. It’s happening as the US is deeply in debt and doing nothing to change it. Instead, the US is looking to waste more money. The US debt is 129% of the GDP. Inflation continues to rise precipitously as the economy contracts and debt piles up. Janet Yellen keeps trying to put lipstick on the pig, claiming it’s not a problem. The Fed raised rates again, indirectly passing the debt on to the consumer. It’s not over.

Much of the world rejects the liberal globalist order the West is trying to force on the world’s populace. They are re-traditionalists. The world’s people aren’t buying into the secular, irreligious, radical policies of control by elites.

Since 1999, the global reserves have fallen from 72% to 59%. BRICS and SEO are moving the world away from DC and “from the demons in Davos, away from the bullies.” How many Americans want to move away from the “demons in Davos?” Probably millions. It’s all coming. We have years, but it’s coming. Let’s hope the demons in the swamp and in Brussels don’t start a world war to stop it. This is a national security threat since our drugs and so much else are made by the Chinese communists.

Bhagwat Karad, India’s minister of state for finance, said that the Reserve Bank of India had approved the opening of special rupee vostro accounts (SVRAs) of correspondent banks from 18 countries in 60 separate cases. The countries include Botswana, Fiji, Germany, Guyana, Israel, Kenya, Malaysia, Mauritius, Myanmar, New Zealand, Oman, Russia, Seychelles, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, and the United Kingdom.

Also, according to a senior Russian official, the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) are in the process of developing their own currency that will be presented at the organization’s upcoming summit in South Africa.

Crude prices jumped on the news, with international benchmark Brent rising more than 5.5% to $84.30 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures soared 5.6% to $79.90 a barrel as of 9:00 am GMT on Monday.

Russia already voluntarily cut oil output by 500,000 bpd back in March, in retaliation for an oil price cap introduced by the West, which it said would eventually result in scarce supply and trigger uncertainty in the global market. On Sunday, however, Moscow announced it will synchronize with OPEC in extending its cut until the end of the year.

The policy change, effective immediately, states that “benefit requestors may self-select their gender marker (in an initial filing or a subsequent change to a prior gender selection), without the need to provide supporting documentation or to match the gender listed on their identity documents.”

President Joe Biden officially proclaimed March 31 as Transgender Day of Visibility in 2021, as part of his wider push for equity and inclusivity. In his 2023 proclamation, Biden stated that “Transgender Americans shape our Nation’s soul.”

“Christianity and transgender orthodoxy are wholly incompatible theologies,” Carlson said on his show Tuesday night. “They can never be reconciled. They are on a collision course with each other.” He added that the two ideologies are diametrically opposed, making transgenderism the “natural enemy” of Christianity.

Monday’s shooting left six people dead, including three children, and Nashville police said the 28-year-old killer may have been motivated by “some resentment” about having been made to attend the Christian school when she was growing up in the area.

The movement “Back to the Mountain,” which preaches for Israel to take over control of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif complex from the hands of the Muslim Waqf authorities, offered prizes for Jews who would try sneaking a lamb into the holy site.

The fact that Ben-Gvir, who had called over the years for Jews to ascend Temple Mount, is currently responsible for Israel's police, seems to aggravate the already volatile situation. Ben-Gvir’s wife is a known Temple Mount activist.

Early last year, Russia announced that it would price oil in rubles, and Saudi Arabia also announced similar plans to move away from the US dollar in favor of the Chinese yuan. Additionally, the entire energy paradigm is shifting, as the US Department of Energy announced a breakthrough in nuclear fusion technology late last year, placing additional pressure on the petrodollar and leaving the future of the entire oil industry in doubt.

What this means is that at least half the world no longer has a use for the US dollar, beyond using it for legitimate foreign-exchange business transactions — guess where all those excess dollars are going to go? They’re going to be sent here, they’re going to come back home — causing untold levels of inflation — potentially hyperinflation.

Merco Press shared this seismic report from the World Bank:
“The United States dollar status as the world’s single reserve currency will end by 2025, according to a new report by the World Bank. By 2025, six major emerging economies — Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Russia — will account for more than half of all global growth, and the international monetary system will likely no longer be dominated by a single currency.”