GERMANY - Germany should contribute towards the costs of France's nuclear arsenal as the threat of nuclear war with Russia looms over Europe, German political veteran Wolfgang Schäuble said in an interview published on Saturday. "Now that Putin's accomplices are threatening a nuclear strike every day, one thing is clear to me: we need nuclear deterrence at the European level as well," Schäuble, a former finance minister who has served as a member of the German parliament for five decades, told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. France has such weapons, he said, adding: "In our own interest, we Germans must make a financial contribution to the French nuclear force in return for a joint nuclear deterrent." Russia's invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war. France - one of three NATO members with nuclear weapons, alongside the United States and Britain - has around 300 nuclear warheads in its arsenal, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

JAPAN - Japan’s central government plans to reactivate up to nine nuclear power plants in the next few months to support an expected spike in electricity demand during the upcoming winter season, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported on Friday. “We are aiming to put as many nuclear reactors as possible online,” Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio told reporters at a July 14 press conference. “We will have up to nine reactors operating this winter to secure enough sources of energy to cover about 10 percent of Japan’s overall power consumption.”

UKRAINE - Russian rockets which struck Ukrainian port city Odesa in an 'outrageous' attack just hours after a landmark food supply deal hit a grain facility, Kyiv stated. A Ukrainian military spokesman said Kalibr cruise missiles targeted a grain processing plant this morning - but claimed they 'did not cause significant damage'. Exports will continue as planned, they added. The brutal airstrikes poured cold water on the 'landmark' deal to unblock crucial grain exports stuck at three ports including Odesa, signed yesterday in Istanbul. President Zelensky wrote via Telegram: 'This proves only one thing: no matter what Russia says and promises, it will find ways not to implement it.' Russia promised Turkey it had 'nothing to do' with the airstrike, the country's defence minister said.

UK - Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss will go head-to-head to become the next leader of the Conservative Party - and prime minister of the UK - after Penny Mordaunt became the latest candidate to be knocked out of the contest. The remaining two candidates will face a summer of campaigning and hustings before a vote by the wider party membership, with a winner set to be announced on 5 September.

UK - Boris Johnson should be reinstated as Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader, a new poll of Express.co.uk readers has found. More than 7,600 Tory members have signed a petition calling for a vote on whether Mr Johnson’s resignation should be accepted. Lord Cruddas said: “The ousting of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister by a minority of MPs is deeply anti-democratic. It defies the will of the country and the Conservative Party members who elected him. “It amounts to a coup. I am ashamed that this can happen in Britain, the birthplace of modern democracy. If that's what politics has become, we're living in a nation I can barely recognise any longer.”

USA - According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, Amazon has filed a lawsuit against administrators of more than 10,000 distinct Facebook groups that were allegedly “used to coordinate fake reviews of Amazon products.” According to Amazon, the groups offer people free goods or cash in exchange for product reviews, which are then utilized to raise product ratings in the hopes that more merchandise would be sold. In addition to the United States, this practice is also prevalent in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan. Dharmesh Mehta, a vice president at Amazon, described the company’s approach of boosting reviews as “proactive legal action targeting bad actors.” Phony reviews are a problem that both Amazon and Google have had to deal with in recent years, according to the report, and they even prompted an investigation by the UK antitrust regulator into whether the corporations were doing enough to halt the fake reviews.

USA - FORTY Million in US West Without Water in 2023. Many are now aware of and justifiably concerned about Lake Mead soon becoming what is known as a “dead pool”. When this milestone is reached, the ramifications for tens of millions of Americans is beyond grave. What is not being discussed is the Lake Mead 3rd intake drain that was designed to drain every last drop from this diminishing and dying largest reservoir in the US. The remaining water will keep Las Vegas Nevada partying till the last possible moment.

SWITZERLAND - When one talks about the "global elite", one usually refers to a small group of wealthy and powerful individuals who operate beyond national borders. Through various organizations, these non-elected individuals gather in semi-secrecy to decide policies they want to see applied on a global level. The World Economic Forum (WEF) is smack dab in the middle of it all. Indeed, through its annual Davos meetings, the WEF attempts to legitimize and normalize its influence on the world's democratic nations by having a panel of world leaders attending and speaking at the event. A simple look at the list of attendees at these meetings reveals the organization's incredible reach and influence. The biggest names in media, politics, business, science, technology, and finance are represented at the WEF. If this sounds like a far-fetched conspiracy theory, keep reading. Here are the 10 most dystopian things that are being pushed by the WEF right now. This list is sorted in no particular order. Because they're all equally crazy.

CHINA - China’s CCP [Chinese Communist Party] has demanded that Joe Biden cancel a $108 million arms sale to Taiwan. China has been seriously harassing Taiwan and threatening the tiny nation for years but once Biden was elected, China took this to a new level. China sees weakness in the Biden Administration and like Russia in Ukraine, sees this point in time as their opportunity to invade the tiny island nation of Taiwan. Bradley Thayer, an expert on China said in May that China could invade Taiwan at any time. This hasn’t changed. The demand comes three days after the Pentagon announced that the US State Department had approved the “possible” multi-million dollar sale to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States. Taipei is the capital city of Taiwan.

CHINA - In a grim reminder of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, armoured tanks were seen deployed on the streets of China amidst large-scale protests by people demanding the release of their savings frozen by banks. The country's Henan province has been for the past several weeks witnessing clashes between police and depositors with the latter saying they have been prevented from withdrawing their savings from banks since April this year. After a protest in Henan's capital, Zhengzhou, turned violent, authorities say they will start releasing money in batches to depositors who have had their funds frozen by several rural banks, with the first due on 15 July. Only a handful of depositors have received the payments, posing a serious question on whether banks have anything to spare.

USA - Since the creation of the US Federal Reserve over a century ago, every major financial market collapse has been deliberately triggered for political motives by the central bank. The situation is no different today, as clearly the US Fed is acting with its interest rate weapon to crash what is the greatest speculative financial bubble in human history, a bubble it created. Global crash events always begin on the periphery, such as with the 1931 Austrian Creditanstalt or the Lehman Bros failure in September 2008. The June 15 decision by the Fed to impose the largest single rate hike in almost 30 years as financial markets are already in a meltdown, now guarantees a global depression and worse. The extent of the “cheap credit” bubble that the Fed, the ECB and Bank of Japan have engineered with buying up of bonds and maintaining unprecedented near-zero or even negative interest rates for now 14 years, is beyond imagination. Financial media cover it over with daily nonsense reporting, while the world economy is being readied, not for so-called “stagflation” or recession. What is coming now in the coming months, barring a dramatic policy reversal, is the worst economic depression in history to date.

USA - After releasing the trailer for the upcoming “Monster High: the Movie,” Nickelodeon is facing tremendous criticism for using pronouns to introduce the LGBT characters. In the sneak peek, two of the characters introduced themselves using their respective pronouns. Frankie Stein, a nonbinary, refers to herself as they/them, while Clawdeen Wolf, a lesbian character, refers to herself as she/her. This is not the first time that Nickelodeon has been criticized for its controversial and woke programming choices. The Gateway Pundit previously reported that Nickelodeon was facing backlash after releasing a video of a creepy drag queen singing about Pride in front of a trans flag. Of course, with this one, Nickelodeon went too far for many parents, one of whom asked “is this the slippery slope I was told not to worry about?”

EUROPE - If the European Union hopes to compete in global politics, it can no longer afford to allow individual member states to veto the bloc’s actions, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in an article published by the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper on Sunday. Arguing that the bloc should become a geopolitical actor, the German leader highlighted the importance of unity in Europe in light of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. He insisted it was time to put an end to the “selfish blockades” of EU decisions by individual members. “We simply can no longer afford national vetoes, for example in foreign policy, if we want to continue to be heard in a world of competing great powers,” he wrote.

USA - The killer US heat wave of 1936 spread as far north as Canada, led to the heat-related deaths of an estimated 5,000 people, sent thermometers to a record 121 degrees Fahrenheit in Steele, North Dakota, and made that July the warmest month ever recorded in the United States. The country and much of the world are currently baking in a brutal heat wave. Britain had its hottest day on record Tuesday, with temperatures hitting 104 degrees at London Heathrow Airport.

EUROPE - The EU should play a “geopolitical role” and therefore “close ranks” and step up its militarization, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz demands in an op-ed published in the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung. He promises “concrete proposals” in the next few months and is already demanding the abolition of the right to veto on foreign policy issues, which enables smaller states to protect their vital interests against the pressure of the powerful member states. A similar view was recently expressed by SPD Chair Lars Klingbeil. “After nearly 80 years” of alleged “restraint,” Germany should claim “the role of a leading power,” the SPD-Chair demanded. This would “require tough decisions by Berlin.” Klingbeil also called for massive rearmament of the Bundeswehr. Scholz and Klingbeil are worried because the developing and emerging countries are refusing, to a growing extent, to follow the old West and are pursuing their own independent policy. The call to engage in “geopolitical” activities in the future comes at a time of rapidly growing poverty in the EU.