IRAN - Iranian officials now speak openly about something long denied by Tehran as it enriches uranium at its closest-ever levels to weapons-grade material: The Islamic Republic is ready to build an atomic weapon at will. The remarks could be bluster to force more bargaining-table concessions from the US without planning to seek the bomb. Or, as analysts warn, Iran could reach a point like North Korea did some 20 years ago where it decides having the ultimate weapon outweighs any further international sanctions. All this could be put to the test Thursday as Iran, the US and the European Union prepare for a snap summit that appears to be a last-ditch effort in Vienna to revive Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal amid the new pressure. That includes one Iranian video online suggesting the country’s ballistic missiles could “turn New York into a heap of rubble from hell.” Hyperbole aside, the language taken as a whole marks a distinct verbal escalation from Tehran.

GERMANY - German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, who is quadruple vaxxed and a strong proponent of face masks, has tested positive for COVID-19. The German Health Ministry said in a statement that Lauterbach is displaying mild symptoms and is currently working from self-isolation at home. “Lauterbach, 59 and a Social Democrat member, has received four doses of the COVID vaccine,” reports Deutsche Welle. 100 per cent safe and effective! The ministry responded by asserting that Lauterbach being infected “shows that with the highly contagious omicron variant, infection cannot be completely ruled out, even with extreme caution.” Or in other words, the vaccine is completely useless at stopping the spread of the virus, which has now weakened to become less troublesome than the common cold, but get your booster anyway because Pfizer has profit margins to reach. Now we await the obligatory statement from Lauterbach reacting to his COVID diagnosis by thanking the efficacy of the vaccine. As we previously highlighted, despite winter being months away, Germany has already announced it will re-introduce COVID restrictions anyway.

USA - Infowars leader Alex Jones got some bad news yesterday when he was ordered to pay $4.11 million in defamation damages to the parents of a child killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. But in true Jones style, he used the platform of the trial to expose many truths. This entire debacle acts as a lens into the fallacy of our entire legal system. Throughout the trial, Jones noted how unfairly he was being treated by the judge in the case, and this particular piece of testimony highlights parts of the problem. While Jones is being forced to pay millions of dollars for making statements, there are powerful men in the world today who have paid no money nor faced any justice for participating in the sexual abuse of children. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell have faced different levels of justice, but what about their client list? What about Bill Clinton? How much has he had to pay his victims? How much time has he had to spend in jail? We’re living in a society in which the truth is labeled “disinformation” while actual lies are heralded as facts.

CHINA - China could force Taiwan to surrender through an "economic boycott" that would be much "harder to defend against" because foreign forces would struggle to intervene, a former US defence secretary has said. Former US Assistant deputy defence secretary Jim Townsend told Times Radio that China has more than just military invasion in their arsenal in terms of ways in which they could overrun Taiwan. Mr Townsend claimed China could “slowly squeeze” the island nation through a “blockade”, beginning with taking a few of the “small Taiwanese islands” in the surrounding Strait. It comes as China cut ties with Washington in a number of areas by way of retaliation to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan earlier this week.

USA - In the Klamath National Forest in Northern California, where the McKinney Fire has killed four people, residents have been confronted by a raging inferno and flooding rain. On Tuesday night, slow-moving severe thunderstorms unleashed downpours near the McKinney Fire, which has consumed more than 57,000 acres and is California’s largest fire of 2022. The heavy rains helped slow the growth of the blaze but triggered flooding and mudslides in parts of the burned area. As barren ground absorbs less water and rainwater can easily pick up soil and sediments, charred areas are especially prone to debris flows and mudslides. In the past week, wildfires in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and western Nebraska have forced evacuations and threatened or destroyed structures.

GERMANY - The German government has outlined its Covid-19 restrictions for the coming fall and winter seasons, including masking requirements in hospitals and other public spaces, while authorizing local officials to take stronger action. Announced by the Health and Justice ministries on Wednesday, the draft plan mandates masks in healthcare settings such as hospitals and nursing homes, as well as for those making long-distance trips by bus or train. With exceptions for the vaccinated, visitors at hospitals and similar facilities will also be required to present a negative coronavirus test to gain access. Additional restrictions will depend on the severity of local outbreaks, with Germany’s 16 states authorized to impose a variety of “more extensive” regulations. Those include masking rules on public transit, indoor public events and in schools for students fifth grade and older, as well as compulsory testing at certain public places.

USA - Latest figure is statistically similar to previous high of 70% in 2021. Weekly churchgoers remain the primary opponents. When Gallup first polled about same-sex marriage in 1996, barely a quarter of the public (27%) supported legalizing such unions. It would take another 15 years, until 2011, for support to reach the majority level. Then in 2015, just one month before the US Supreme Court's Obergefell v Hodges decision, public support for legalizing gay marriage cracked the 60% level, and last year it reached the 70% mark for the first time. Rising national support for legal same-sex marriage reflects steady increases among most subgroups of the population, even those who have traditionally been the most resistant to gay marriage. Americans who report that they attend church weekly remain the primary demographic holdout against gay marriage, with 40% in favor and 58% opposed. Analyzing Gallup's trends since 2004, Americans who seldom or never attend church have always been mostly supportive of same-sex couples getting legally married.

UK - The UK will collapse into a year-long recession by the end of 2022 - its longest since the 2008 financial crisis and as deep as the one in the 1990s - with inflation peaking at more than 13% stoked by the soaring price of gas and fuel this winter, the Bank of England revealed in a doomsday warning. Britain's big squeeze also got even worse after the Bank raised interest rates by 0.5 per cent to 1.75 per cent - the highest single rise since 1997 - adding £1,000-a-year or more to the average non-fixed mortgage in a new 'world of pain' for homeowners. Food, fuel, gas and numerous other items are rocketing in price following the pandemic and the war in Ukraine - hitting record levels - but some economists have claimed that the BofE has been too slow to act as Britain careers towards recession. Officials on the monetary policy committee (MPC) raised the base interest rate from 1.25 per cent to 1.75 per cent as experts warned inflation could be heading for 15 per cent. The Bank predicts it will be 13 per cent.

CHINA - The eruption of war between China and Taiwan would be a global catastrophe on a scale far greater than the Ukraine crisis. Yet again Chinese military jets invaded Taiwanese airspace this week, this time following American politician Nancy Pelosi’s provocative visit to the sovereign island off the Communist mainland. Beijing staged live-fire exercises close to Taiwan, effectively blocking those regions to traffic. Meanwhile, the secretary general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, warned that the world was ‘just one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation’. No one is more aware of the dangers of that miscalculation than the Chinese leadership. President Xi Jinping knows that if he takes a gamble and loses, the repercussions could destroy China’s economy or might even bring down the Communist Party that has ruled since 1949. We would see a worldwide recession, on a scale not seen in our lifetime. But the epicentre would be China. And with a social security network hopelessly ill-equipped to support its 1.4 billion people, if the Chinese economy collapses, untold millions would face unemployment, poverty and worse.

CHINA - Beijing has canceled an upcoming meeting between the Chinese and Japanese foreign ministers, over a statement on Taiwan made by the G7 group, the Chinese foreign ministry announced on Thursday. The talks between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi, which were planned to be held on the sidelines of the ongoing ASEAN events in Cambodia, won’t be taking place, the ministry’s spokeswoman Hua Chunying said during a briefing. According to Ha, Beijing has been “strongly displeased” by the joint statement of the G7 group, which includes Japan, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the US, on the events around the visit of US House speaker Nancy Pelosi to the self-governed island of Taiwan. Tokyo has no right to make “irresponsible remarks” on the Taiwan issue, the spokeswoman insisted. Pelosi, who is third in line to the US presidency, landed in Taipei late on Tuesday and left the next day, becoming the highest-ranking American official to come to the island since 1997.

JAPAN - Five Chinese ballistic missiles have landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone, Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi claimed on Thursday. China had earlier scrapped a high-level diplomatic meeting with Japan, and fired a salvo of missiles into waters near Taiwan. Kishi told Kyodo News that the incident marks the first time that a Chinese ballistic missile touched down in Japanese waters. “This is a grave issue that concerns our country’s national security and the safety of the people,” Kishi said, adding that Tokyo had lodged a formal diplomatic protest with the Chinese government. Japan has not remained neutral in the showdown. Along with the rest of the G7 group, Tokyo signed a declaration on Wednesday condemning Beijing’s flexing of its military muscle.

ICELAND - A volcano in Iceland erupted on Wednesday after a series of earthquakes hit the island, the Icelandic Met Office (IMO) reported on Wednesday. Iceland recorded a 4.6 earthquake on Wednesday morning on the eastern side of the Fagradalsfjall volcano, raising concerns about volcanic action. An hour later, the volcano began erupting. Ein­ar Hjör­leifs­son, a specialist in Natural hazards with IMO, confirmed that there had been a volcanic eruption in a 100m crack down Merardalir by Fagranesfjall. IMO warned people not to go close to the volcano, which is about 20 miles south of Iceland's capital and nearby the Keflavik airport.

GERMANY - In a demonstration of the failure of Germany’s pursuit of so-called “green energy” and its policy of relying on Russian gas in the meantime, a coal-fired power plant will be reconnected to the nation’s electricity grid. While the economic powerhouse of Europe — so called — scrambles to secure energy sources before the winter months, the previously shuttered Mehrum coal power plant in Lower Saxony will become the first to once again be connected to Germany’s grid. On Monday, the manager of the Czech-owned EGH operating company, Kathrin Voelkner said: “We have declared the return to the electricity market. We assume that we will return to the grid in the short term,” according to the Frankfurter Neue Presse newspaper. Economy Minister Robert Habeck, a leading member of the German Greens, has described the decision to turn back on coal plants as “bitter” but a necessary evil.

GERMANY - Our civilization is built upon fossil fuels and the powers that be are turning them off. Winter is coming. And Germany is set to be very cold. The German economy is based on highly innovative production which requires a great deal of energy that they no longer produce. And so running out of fuel will quickly collapse the German economy. Which will cause a tsunami of economic destruction throughout the EU. And the German government is letting it happen. They could leave some nuclear plants online and begin the process of turning more on. But they still plan on shutting it all down by the end of this year. To stay green. This new green deal is a complete lie. It’s just another part of the creepy elite’s Great Reset. These elite bloodlines want a new cashless society. But more like the Middle Ages. Which for these spoiled inbreds is the good old days. And if they succeed it looks like Germany will get there first. And in the midst of all this chaos the German government is focused on allowing children age 14 and older to change their gender and first names, without parental permission, once a year, for as often as they want.

USA - The science fiction of today is the scientific fact of tomorrow. A good example is Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, predicting today’s nuclear-powered submarines. Another would be H G Wells sci-fi/horror piece, The Island of Dr Moreau which examines a world filled with human-animal hybrids. So when we discuss the future of transhumanism, you need to keep this in mind. For though it may seem far-fetched today, it is where we are headed. Transhumanism is the “revision” of humanity and the fundamental transformation of the human race into something else. It’s the transformation of humanity into a “thing” that cannot be readily identified. The transhumanist proponents want to cure disease, end hunger, and enable human beings to reach their maximum potential – physically and mentally – evolving into a “new” being by augmenting their bodies mechanically or biologically. It can also mean placing their consciousnesses into artificial, robotic bodies with the goal of potential immortality.