GERMANY - On the last Saturday in February, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gathered with his top advisers in his vast, glass-walled office and read aloud a speech condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — remarks that would transform his nation’s security and defense policy. When aides presented the chancellor with the question of arming Ukraine directly or simply releasing German-made weapons purchased by partner nations, a request being weighed the same day, he approved both — assessing that sufficient support existed within his government and party to jettison Germany’s long-standing aversion to exporting weapons into conflict zones.

YEMEN - Having failed to stay in power over the course of a seven-year-long civil war, Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi has resigned, handing full authority to an eight-member council led by the country’s former interior minister, Rashad al-Alimi. “I irreversibly delegate to the Presidential Leadership Council my full powers, in accordance with the constitution and the Gulf Initiative and its executive mechanism,” Yemen’s former leader declared on Thursday.

SOUTH AFRICA - South Africa is experiencing its biggest infestation of brown locusts in decades with heavy rains allowing the crop-eating insects to multiply rapidly. The infestation, which started in September, has spread to three provinces – the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape and Western Cape – and R80 million ($5.4 million) has already been spent combating it with insecticide, the agriculture department said in a statement on Thursday. “Due to the amount of rainfall received, the outbreak tends to escalate” allowing the locusts to quickly breed, the department said. “The wind is also playing a role in migrating the swarms to the areas where the locusts haven’t been seen before, including citrus farms in the Eastern Cape,” it said. South Africa has had an exceptionally wet rainy season driven by the La Nina weather phenomenon, which usually results in above normal rainfall in Southern Africa. In December many districts in the country had their heaviest rain since records began in 1921.

UK - Tiny polymer particles infiltrate the human body to an unforeseen extent. Researchers in the UK have discovered microplastics in live lung tissue for the first time, which adds to growing evidence that humans breathe these extremely small particles. The study was published last month in Science of the Total Environment. Microplastics are trace particles measured at under 0.2 millimeters in diameter and often invisible to the naked eye. Earlier studies had already discovered microplastic particles in all parts of the body, including the lungs. But that research was accomplished using tissue gathered from cadavers. This time, scientists were able to observe the widespread pollutant in live tissue gathered from live patients in the course of routine surgery. They found 39 microplastics in 11 of the 13 lung tissue samples tested – much higher levels than previous laboratory tests had yielded.

SOUTH KOREA - A delegation representing South Korean President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol met with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in Washington on Tuesday. Among the topics of discussion was South Korea’s desire for more American “strategic assets” to be deployed for “strengthening extended deterrence” as tensions with North Korea grow.

FRANCE - French voters are casting their ballots in the opening round of a presidential race that could become a cliffhanger. Emmanuel Macron has a fight on his hands from far-right challenger Marine Le Pen, who has been galvanised by a slick election campaign. Forty-nine million people are eligible to decide which two of 12 candidates should take part in the run-off vote. The president spent little time on the race, focusing instead on Europe's reaction to Russia's war in Ukraine. One issue more than any other has predominated this election: the spiralling cost of living in energy bills and shopping baskets. When he came to power with a new party in 2017, Emmanuel Macron swept away the old allegiances, and the two big parties are still nursing their wounds. Socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo has struggled to be heard, while on the right Valérie Pécresse has failed to excite the Republicans. Now, the main challenge to Mr Macron, 44, is coming from Ms Le Pen on the far right and Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the far left. Some are even predicting the president could lose.

VATICAN - Pope Francis said Wednesday that the ongoing atrocities in Ukraine demonstrate the “impotence” of the United Nations to curb violence and protect the innocent. “Today we often hear about ‘geopolitics,’” the pontiff told the crowd gathered for his weekly general audience in the Vatican. “But unfortunately, the dominant logic are the strategies of the most powerful countries to affirm their own interests, extending their area of economic influence, or ideological influence, and/or military influence.” “We are seeing this with the war,” Francis continued, while decrying “the colonization of the most powerful” over their weaker neighbors.

ISRAEL - World Economic Forum member and professor of history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Yuval Noah Harari, has posited that within a decade or two, algorithms could be used to determine if teenagers are unknowingly homosexual. During a 2018 presentation at the annual World Economic Forum meet, titled, Will the Future Be Human? Harari said the coming merger of info-tech and bio-tech will provide the ability to “hack human beings.” According to Harari, once the merger provides enough biometric information coupled with the necessary computing power, algorithms can be created that know the person better than they know themselves. “We don’t really know ourselves,” Harari said. “To give an example, when I was 21, I finally realized that I was gay after living several years in denial. And this is not exceptional. A lot of gay men live in denial for many years. They don’t know something very important about themselves. Now, imagine a situation, in 10 or 20 years, when an algorithm can tell any teenager exactly where he or she is on the gay-straight spectrum.”

WALES, UK - Schools across Wales and the rest of the UK are warning parents to watch out for an inappropriate video circulating on YouTube and TikTok which has left children deeply traumatised. The 'Huggy Wuggy' video, which features a killer teddy bear, has reportedly slipped through parental filters and has since been re-enacted by pupils in the playground. Headteachers in some parts of the country have sent emails to parents urging them to be extra vigilant and check that their child is not accessing this video or any other inappropriate content. The animated character goes by the friendly name of Huggy Wuggy which leads parents and children to believe the videos are aimed at youngsters and contain no inappropriate material. But the blue bear-like creature, who has has long arms and rows of razor sharp teeth, chases and threatens other characters in nightmarish scenarios.

USA - Texas is in the worst drought conditions since 2011, when 95% of the state was in drought. Eleven years ago, parched conditions caused over $7 billion in crop and livestock losses, sparked wildfires, pushed power grids to the limit and reduced reservoirs to dangerously low levels, according to the University of Texas at Austin. As of March 29, 88% of Texas was in drought conditions, affecting an estimated 18.2 million Texans, according to the US Drought Monitor. About 42% of the state is seeing extreme or exceptional drought. Monday’s storms improved conditions in North Texas, experts say, and East Texas is expected to get more rain in the coming weeks. Conditions in West Texas, however, are expected to worsen with little rainfall.

UK - Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he does not believe transgender women should compete in female sporting events, a view he said was "sensible" but possibly "controversial". Transgender athletes competing in sport has been in the headlines of late after transgender cyclist Emily Bridges was ruled ineligible to compete in her first elite women's race by cycling's world governing body. Issues cited around the issue in general have been inclusion, sporting fairness and safety. Johnson was speaking on a range of issues, including the UK Government's approach to the ban on so-called conversion therapy, before telling Sky News: "I don't think biological males should be competing in female sporting events. I also happen to think that women should have spaces - whether it's in hospitals, prison or changing rooms - which are dedicated to women. That's as far as my thinking has developed on this issue. If that puts me in conflict with some others, then we have got to work it all out.”

UK - A Bishop in the UK has described the process of becoming transgender as a ‘sacred journey’ in a letter urging the nation’s government to ban trans ‘conversion therapy’. One UK Bishop has demanded that the UK government implement a ban on trans “conversion therapy”, describing the process in which people become transgender as a “sacred journey”.

USA - The Federal Reserve's fight against inflation will spark a recession in the United States that begins late next year, Deutsche Bank warned on Tuesday. The recession call - the first from a major bank - reflects growing concern that the Fed will hit the brakes on the economy so hard that it will inadvertently end the recovery that began just two years ago. "We no longer see the Fed achieving a soft landing. Instead, we anticipate that a more aggressive tightening of monetary policy will push the economy into a recession," Deutsche Bank economists led by Matthew Luzzetti wrote in the report. That forecast is driven by red-hot inflation, with consumer prices rising at the fastest pace in 40 years. Hopes that inflation would rapidly cool off have been dashed, in part because of the war in Ukraine. Inflationary pressures have broadened out, raising concern that the Fed will have to rapidly raise interest rates to get prices under control. Deutsche Bank pointed to how energy and food commodity prices have spiked since Russia invaded Ukraine.

JAPAN - Japanese Minister of Defense Nobuo Kishi declared on Monday that his ministry might request a larger budget for the next fiscal year to bolster Tokyo’s ability to stand up to a possible military threat coming from any regional power. The Asian nation’s new desire to level up its military might comes despite Japan’s allegiance to an exclusively defense-oriented policy under the country’s constitution. “The defense budget is a major indicator that shows the nation’s will. We want to ensure a budget that is enough to strengthen our defense capabilities drastically,” said Kishi in an interview with the Kyodo news outlet. The defense minister has argued that Japan needs to prop up its army due to an increasingly severe regional security environment. In particular, he has cautioned against China's intensifying military assertiveness and North Korea's nuclear threat. Japan’s fears over North Korea are growing as Pyongyang is testing new intercontinental ballistic missiles. Tokyo is also increasingly concerned with Beijing’s claims of sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands, an uninhabited Japanese archipelago in the East China Sea.

USA - The drumbeats of war are picking up the pace of inflation. Inflation, as I’ve argued here for some time, was certain to rise for months to come; but you’ll see in the various inflation notes below that sanctions made in response to the war are increasing inflation even more, as could be expected, and shortages due to the war are driving up costs as well. Some is from the war, itself; some is from our responses to it. What follows is a broad picture of the most notable areas where either background inflation (rising producer costs) or consumer inflation is rising significantly: (Producer costs, of course, eventually get passed on to consumers, so they are the CPI jolts of tomorrow.)