USA - Recently, we looked at a new idea governments are looking at — programmable digital currency. It’s all digital, issued by government, constantly trackable, and can’t be spent on items not approved by government (or only with penalties). The Federal Reserve Board (the United States’ central bank) explains, bureaucratically, potential benefits of the ‘digital cash’ model using programmable UTXOs are the ability to specify spending constraints on any discrete amount of value and a greater facility to trace the provenance of any particular ‘virtual banknote.’

GERMANY - Germany plans to buy up to 35 US-made F-35 fighter jets and 15 Eurofighter jets, a parliamentary source said Monday, as part of a major push to modernize the armed forces in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The F-35 jets made by Lockheed Martin would help replace Germany’s decades-old Tornado fleet, according to media reports confirmed by the source. Tornados are the only jets capable of carrying US nuclear bombs stationed in Germany that are a key part of NATO deterrence. Lockheed’s F-35 stealth jets are considered the most modern combat aircraft in the world, and their unique shape and coating make them harder to detect by enemy radar. The additional Eurofighter jets Germany plans to purchase, made by a consortium that includes Airbus, would reportedly be used for other operations, including electronic warfare and escort missions.

EUROPE - Guy Verhofstadt has called for a "united EU military" as the bloc looks to confront the growing threat of Vladimir Putin's Russia. MEP Guy Verhofstadt has voiced support for the European Union to form a "united EU military" in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine. Mr Verhofstadt told LBC that the crisis in Ukraine has highlighted a "lack of unity" between member states on military matters and the MEP called for the creation of a European Defence Union. Mr Verhofstadt told LBC: "The war in Ukraine shows very well, the weakness of Europe and the European Union and the lack of unity certainly in the military. Because we have not to forget that Europe is more or less spending 240 billion euro a year on military, the Russians 60 billion euro a year on the military. So we are spending four times more but that's not what you see in reality.

RUSSIA - Russia issued sanctions today against top current and former US government officials, plus Hunter Biden. The list of people sanctioned by Russia include Anthony Blinken, Lloyd Austin, Mark Milley, Jake Sullivan, and Jen Psaki. Hillary Clinton even made the list. It’s conspicuous that it’s only Democrats on the list. Is Russia trying to imply that they support Republicans?

RUSSIA - Russia has asked its ally China for military assistance in its invasion of Ukraine according to US officials. How big are Russia and China’s militaries? According to World Population Review, China has an astounding four million military personnel. Russia is not far behind, with about 3.5 million military members in total. In Beijing last month, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping proclaimed their partnership as having “no limits”, in another sign that the two were tightening their relationship.

UKRAINE - Russia and Ukraine have now entered into their fourth round of negotiations to bring an end to the ongoing war. But what exactly do Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky both want? Ukraine has said it is willing to negotiate, but not to surrender or accept any ultimatums. Ukrainian negotiator and presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said: "Russia is already beginning to talk constructively. I think that we will achieve some results literally in a matter of days." RIA news agency quoted a Russian delegate, Leonid Slutsky, as saying recent talks had made “substantial progress”.

RUSSIA - Vladimir Putin is actively preparing to face a coup following the humiliation that Russia has suffered in Ukraine, according to an investigative journalist with key sources inside the Russian secret services. Mr Soldatov revealed earlier this week that President Putin had placed the head of the FSB's foreign service under house arrest as Kremlin blame-game began. It appeared that President Putin blamed the FSB, the post-Soviet successor to the KGB, for giving him false projections of how the war in Ukraine would go. The FSB security service had apparently told the Russian President that Ukraine was weak and would give up easily if invaded. The investigative journalist said that the military officials in Ukraine were too afraid to tell President Putin the truth. He continued: "He believes he is the most informed politician in the world. So it is difficult to tell him something he doesn't want to hear.

USA - The media is refusing to report that America is heading for major food shortages as Russia's invasion of Ukraine impacts global supply chains, an expert is warning. The world is rapidly moving toward a food crisis that could affect millions of people. Major shortages are already being reported by farmers and spillover of the crisis could soon spark agricultural mayhem in the United States. Russia and Ukraine are known as the "breadbasket of the world" for their farming exports. Both countries are responsible for a quarter of the international wheat trade, about a fifth of corn, and 12% of all calories traded globally. The curtailment of agricultural exports from Russia and Ukraine will have significant knock-on effects on global food supplies. Another major problem is access to fertilizers, as Russia has banned exports of the nutrients, according to ZeroHedge. It's not whether or not there will be a food crisis, however, it's how big that crisis will be.

USA - Since Joe Biden entered the White House, the deterioration of Chinese relations with the United States has accelerated. Meanwhile, Chinese relations with Russia have tightened, and that should deeply alarm all of us. Because now that war has started, many are deeply concerned that the US could eventually find itself in a direct conflict with a Russian-Chinese alliance. Jake Sullivan and other foreign policy officials in the Biden administration desperately want China to denounce the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to participate in economic sanctions against Russia. But neither of those things is going to happen, and this is making Biden’s foreign security minions very angry.

MIDDLE EAST - The world seems to have got a lot more dangerous since Joe Biden took office last January. It wasn’t long after his inauguration that Russian President Vladimir Putin started massing troops on Ukraine’s border. The Kremlin believes that its American opponent is old and weak, and began testing him as soon as he took office. Now war has come to the European continent once again. Last night it was the turn of the Iranians to test Washington. According to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) at around 1:30 am, 12 missiles struck near a new US consulate under construction in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. ‘The attacks resulted in no casualties, and the missiles were launched from outside of Kurdistan and Iraq,’ the KRG’s anti-terror units reported.

USA - As information professionals, Nicole stressed that we need to give people tools and strategies to use in order to keep an open mind, and this applies to us as well, as librarians and educators. She stressed that we need to move away from using the phrase "fake news" because it's politicized, polarizing, and a way to really shut down a conversation. She suggests we start using the terms misinformation and disinformation rather than fake news. "Fake news" is inadequate to capture the complex problem of disinformation. It is also misleading because it has been appropriated by people who use the term to dismiss coverage that they find disagreeable.

USA - As President Joe Biden cozies up to nations such as Venezuela in his hunt to bring down sky-high gasoline prices, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy has a different partnership in mind — one with Americans. “President Biden is searching for oil anywhere on the planet except at home,” Dunleavy told Fox News on Wednesday. During remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month in Orlando, the Republican governor said the Trump era was about “opportunity and hope.” Biden’s time is filled with “cancellation and trepidation,” he said. Dunleavy followed those remarks with a statement on his website Thursday outlining how Alaska, if let off the Biden leash, could address America’s energy woes. “Alaska is awash in energy, but not able to capitalize on it,” Dunleavy wrote. “Mr President, we know you can help with this.”

USA - From free speech to "spheres of influence" to our passion for endless war, we've become the doublethinkers '1984' predicted. This weekend I re-read '1984', a book I tend to reach for when I get Defcon-1 depressed about the state of the world. Deep in the novel, Winston ponders the intricacies of doublethink: “To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them… To forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again… that was the ultimate subtlety.”

USA - A massive homeless encampment in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, known as the "Zone," raises eyebrows as the shelter's population swells to more than 900 people. The Zone is located on 9th Avenue, Jackson Street, 13th Avenue, and Jefferson Street in Phoenix, down the street from the Arizona State Capitol complex. Vice News points out, "the camp more than doubling in size over two years may be a testament to how bad Phoenix's housing crisis has become." According to Schwabenlender, the tent city had a population of 200 people last summer. By the end of 2021, the population climbed to 500, then 700, and in the last three weeks, the number jumped to 900 unsheltered people. The rapid increase coincides with a massive boom in Arizona's residential real estate market, where rents and housing prices skyrocketed during the virus pandemic, thanks to rock bottom interest rates and low inventory. "With rising rents and lack of affordable housing — which was a crisis a few years ago and still is — we're going to continue to see rises in homelessness," the shelter's CEO Lisa Glow said.

RUSSIA - Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have unleashed his fury on Germany by suspending westbound gas flowing through a key pipeline. Worrying data from the Poland-Germany border appears to show that Moscow is suspending gas flowing through the Yamal-Europe pipeline. The 2.500-mile-long pipe connects Russia with Poland and Germany, through Belarus. According to the data, gas supplies fell to just 939,809 kilowatt-hours per hour (kWh/h) from around 11.5 million kWh/h. Last week Russia threatened to cut natural gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline as part of its response to sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that the Kremlin had the ight to take actions that “mirror” the penalties imposed on the Russian economy. Mr Scholz admitted that Germany would not be able to cope without Russian gas.