USA - The United States' updated nuclear attack guidelines were mocked for including social distancing and mask-wearing rules. One section on Ready.gov asks Americans to find the nearest building to avoid radiation. However, the government's guidelines were ragged by social media users for including Covid protocols. After seeking shelter in the nearest building, the next step tells Americans to "stay inside for 24 hours unless local authorities provide other instructions. Continue to practice social distancing by wearing a mask and by keeping a distance of at least six feet between yourself and people who are not part of your household," the website explains. Several Twitter users ripped the steps saying, "Covid will be the least of our worries."

EUROPE - It is too late to start building the European army. It will be too late five years from now, too, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine is not going to be Europe’s last security crisis. NATO has been a two-edged sword for Europe, both edges cutting the wrong way at times. American domination of NATO has provided a permission slip for European sloth and parsimony — if it’s Washington’s show, why not let Washington do the heavy lifting? — but that same American domination has in recent years been a source of deepening anxiety for Europeans who see the United States as an increasingly erratic and undependable security partner, one whose attention is focused on the Indo-Pacific rather than on the trans-Atlantic.

GERMANY - Just a few weeks ago, German media were openly asking "where is Scholz?", slamming the Social Democrat's perceived lack of leadership on pressing issues like the coronavirus pandemic and worsening Ukraine crisis. But Moscow's attack on Ukraine last week has jolted the chancellor into action, culminating in what commentators have called a "historic" speech on Sunday. Scholz, who has only been in office three months, spoke with uncharacteristic clarity when he unveiled a slew of defence and foreign policy shifts that promise to upend Germany's decades-long reluctance to raising its military profile. "The Ukraine crisis has changed the chancellor. And now he's changing our country," the top-selling Bild daily wrote.

EUROPE - NATO has come together behind stiff economic sanctions against Moscow. Finland and Sweden, after decades of neutrality, have signaled a new interest in joining the alliance while more autocratic members of the defense pact have excoriated Moscow. And in an effort to shore up Ukraine's defenses, the European Union for the first time will finance the purchase and delivery of weapons, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Sunday. In short order, Europe's leading powers have shifted into a position of heightened defensiveness toward Russia.

CHINA - Chinese President Xi Jinping said “friendship and cooperation” with Pyongyang would be strengthened. Chinese President Xi Jinping has underlined the importance of his country’s relationship with North Korea due to an unspecified “new situation,” Korean media reported on Saturday, citing Pyongyang’s state outlet KCNA. The publication shared a message from Xi to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un stating that Beijing was prepared to “develop the China-DPRK relations of friendship and cooperation” under a “new situation.” The statement offered no details and it’s unclear whether Xi was referring to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The cryptic announcement comes on the same day Beijing hit out at Washington for sending a warship through the Taiwan Strait for the first time since November, a move the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command described as “provocative” – but which the US insisted was merely a “routine” journey through international waters. Some in the US have suggested Beijing may strike to take Taiwan, which it considers its own territory, while Washington is focused on Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine.

RUSSIA - The US and its Western allies announced on Saturday a new raft of crippling sanctions on Moscow, as they promised to ban key Russian banks from the international SWIFT banking network and impose restrictions on the Russian Central Bank. They will also set up a transatlantic taskforce to go after sanctioned oligarchs, 'their yachts, luxury apartments, their money and their ability to send their kids to fancy colleges in the West,' said a senior Biden administration official. US officials said the steps were designed to send the rouble into 'free fall' and trigger soaring inflation in the Russian economy. The moves will be welcomed in Ukraine, which saw isolating Russian banks as a key way to choke off financing and punish Moscow for its invasion. Officials said cutting Russian banks off the system will stop them from conducting most of their financial transactions worldwide and effectively block Russian exports and imports.

UKRAINE - Russia and Ukraine began talks Monday at the Belarus border as the conflict between the two neighbors enters its fifth day. Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters via text message the face-to-face exchanges had begun. The Ukrainian president’s office said earlier the talks’ aim was an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine, the Independent reports.

USA - The Biden administration may believe otherwise, but the truth is that the days when the United States could dictate how everyone else in the world is going to behave have come to an end. Russia is demonstrating how weak the US has become by moving troops into Donetsk and Luhansk. And China keeps talking about a “permanent solution” in Taiwan. Now that the western world is fixated on Ukraine, the Chinese may decide that this is a perfect time to make a move. On top of everything else, a major conflict between Israel and Iran could literally erupt at any time, and the Biden administration is not going to be able to prevent it from happening.

AUSTRALIA - Record-breaking flooding in New South Wales set to worsen as 300,000 residents evacuate. Substantial flash flooding is a concern and at least 300,000 residents in New South Wales are facing evacuation warnings and this number is thought to rise as the wild weather event takes hold and travels along the coastline. These severe weather warnings follow devastating floods that submerged much of Lismore in north-eastern New South Wales, leading to hundreds needing rescuing and thousands of residents being evacuated. Further south in New South Wales along the east coast there is a growing threat of the destructive weather system that destroyed northern parts of the region, with severe rainfall and wind gusts causing flooding, making its way towards Sydney.

GERMANY - Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced plans for a massive boost in defense spending in the latest historic policy shift in Germany triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Germany will channel 100 billion euros ($113 billion) this year into a fund to modernize the military, Scholz said Sunday in a speech to a special session of the lower house of parliament. By 2024, the government will spend at least 2% of gross domestic product each year on defense, he added, in line with a NATO target that Berlin has consistently failed to meet.

GERMANY - Germany will send 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger missiles to Ukraine, marking a complete reversal in Berlin's restrictive arms export policy, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced Saturday. Why it matters: Germany has for months come under intense criticism for its response to Russia's aggression toward Ukraine. The government said its "historical responsibilities" prevented it from shipping arms to conflict zones, and had previously blocked other NATO allies from transferring German-origin weapons to Ukraine.

UKRAINE - Russia on 24 February launched a "special operation" in Donbass aimed at protecting Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR), which were recognised as independent entities by Moscow on 21 February. The Western media called the operation "an invasion" they have long warned about. The "Russia invasion" narrative wasn't the West's "prophecy" but rather a cover-up for a new attempt to return the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk republics by force to Ukraine, according to George Eliason, an American investigative journalist who lives and works in Donbass. Bringing back Donbass would have paved the way for Ukraine's NATO membership: in accordance with the alliance's rules, a country having territorial disputes cannot be admitted to the bloc.

UKRAINE - A recent festival in Kiev proudly displayed Nazi symbols and even advertised ‘White Pride’ – yet received almost no attention from Western media, who still steadfastly pretend there are no Nazis in Ukraine, neo- or otherwise. Officially, the 'Young Flame' festival celebrated Ukrainian “traditions” such as martial arts, shooting and horseback riding. The event’s website (now deleted), indicated something far more sinister than another get together popularizing a healthy lifestyle.

UKRAINE - After seven years of civil war in East Ukraine, 14 thousand casualties, broken peace deals and countless appeals by those living in the Lugansk and Donetsk Republics for independence from the Nazi-infested militias embedded in the Kiev defense forces, Russia decided to finally recognize the East Ukrainian republics as sovereign nations. A few days later, Russia unleashed a program of de-militarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine featuring targetted military strikes that (as of this writing) have annihilated over 74 military bases, US biolabs and entrenched radical neo-nazi forces that have been entrenched in the Ukrainian military since 2014. But despite this completely understandable humanitarian intervention which is provably NOT an annexation, we see endless instances of western sock puppet statesmen denouncing Russia’s imperial ambitions and antagonism to western democratic values.

UK - “LGBT+ rights” are the most important “values and hard won freedoms” distinguishing “us” from Russian President Vladimir Putin, Richard Moore, chief of MI6, the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, wrote on Friday. Moore did not specify if his use of “us” was a reference to the United Kingdom, the Anglosphere, or the broader West. He expressed his sentiments via Twitter, relating his remarks to ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. He included an acronym from “LGBT+ History Month,” with “LGBT+” for “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans +.” He wrote, “With the tragedy and destruction unfolding so distressingly in Ukraine, we should remember the values and hard won freedoms that distinguish us from Putin, none more than LGBT+ rights. So let’s resume our series of tweets to mark #LGBTHM2022.”