SRI LANKA - “We have run out of petrol … At the moment, we only have petrol stocks for a single day,” said newly elected Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. On Twitter, Wickremesinghe warned his fellow Sri Lankans that they would face the “most difficult” time of their lives. “The next couple of months will be the most difficult ones of our lives. I have no desire to hide the truth and to lie to the public. Although these facts are unpleasant and terrifying, this is the true situation,” wrote Wickremesinghe. Sri Lanka’s electrical grid is primarily fueled by oil, and according to Wickremesinghe, there could be rolling 15-hour blackouts every day for the country’s population of 21 million. Protests have been raging across Sri Lanka for nearly a month.

USA - From record gasoline prices to higher airfares to fears of diesel rationing ahead, America’s runaway energy market is disquieting both US travelers and the wider economy. But the chief driver isn’t high crude prices or even the rebound in demand: It’s simply too few refineries turning oil into usable fuels. More than 1 million barrels a day of the country’s oil refining capacity — or about 5% overall — has shut since the beginning of the pandemic. Elsewhere in the world, capacity has shrunk by 2.13 million additional barrels a day, energy consultancy Turner, Mason & Co estimates. And with no plans to bring new US plants online, even though refiners are reaping record profits, the supply squeeze is only going to get worse. “We are on the razor’s edge,” said John Auers, executive vice president at Turner, Mason & Co in Dallas. “We’re ripe for a potential supply crisis.”

USA - The Texas grid operator this weekend asked residents to conserve power after six generators failed. “We’re asking Texans to conserve power when they can by setting their thermostats to 78-degrees or above and avoiding the usage of large appliances (such as dishwashers, washers and dryers) during peak hours between 3 pm and 8 pm through the weekend.” Texas grid operator ERCOT said in a statement. ERCOT manages electric power to more than 26 million Texas customers and represents 90% of the state’s electric load, according to the company. Temperatures soared into the 90s with a triple-digit heat index in parts of Texas this weekend.

UKRAINE - This was my assessment in the immediate wake of the EuroMaidan Coup in February 2014: “The World is at a dangerous crossroads: The structures and composition of this proxy government installed by the West do not favor dialogue with the Russian government and military. A scenario of military escalation leading to confrontation of Russia and NATO is a distinct possibility. The Ukraine’s National Security and National Defense Committee (RNBOU) which is controlled by Neo-Nazis plays a central role in military affairs.

ZIMBABWE - Massive flocks of the red-billed quelea bird — a notorious African crop pest — have decimated grain harvests across farms in western Zimbabwe in recent weeks, causing fears of a local food shortage in the near future, the online newspaper New Zimbabwe reported Monday. “Farmers in Umguza and Bubi farming areas in Matebeleland North province are struggling to contain a massive outbreak of quelea birds which are feasting on their crops, mainly small grains,” the publication reported on May 16. Zimbabwe’s recent food shortages are noteworthy because the nation was previously known as the breadbasket of Africa before the devastating rule of Robert Mugabe, who occupied the nation’s office of the prime minister from 1980 to 1987 and the nation’s office of the presidency from 1987 to 2017. Mugabe’s nearly 40-year rule over Zimbabwe’s government was characterized by extreme mismanagement and corruption.

SWITZERLAND - “The science is clear: to maximize the health and resilience of the global ocean, at least 30% of it must be protected through a network of 'highly' and 'fully' protected Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) by 2030,” writes the World Economic Forum in an article. To achieve this goal, a new treaty for the conservation and management of marine life in the high seas must be concluded to ensure that human activities are managed to prevent significant adverse impacts, with robust oversight mechanisms and provisions to establish fully protected MPAs in the high seas.” According to the Forum, government officials who’ve joined the “Blue Leaders” campaign will meet and rally for other countries to join them at an upcoming convention in China, as well as at the UN Ocean Conference from June 27 to July 1.

SWITZERLAND - A new report from the Bank of International Settlements estimates that up to 90% of national central banks are at least in the planning stages for launching a central bank digital currency (CBDC): “Nine out of 10 central banks are exploring central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and more than half are now developing them or running concrete experiments. In particular, work on retail CBDCs has moved to more advanced stages”. This echoes a March report from the IMF, which claimed over one hundred nations are at least in the planning stages of releasing their own CBDC.

ISRAEL - Amman now claims "custodianship" of all Muslim and Christian holy places in Jerusalem, a claim that it invented out of thin air. Israel never has recognized Jordanian "custodianship"over any holy sites in Jerusalem. Israel has good reason to fear that Jordanian King Abdullah and US President Joe Biden are cooking up an attempt to impose new pro-Arab arrangements on the Temple Mount, with Biden coming to Israel in late June to ride herd on this issue.

EUROPE - Business and political leaders meeting at the World Economic Forum’s Davos gathering this month will explore the opportunities for personal and business growth in psychedelic drugs, Bloomberg reported. The psychedelic showcase is a sign of the growing interest in still-illegal substances among the architects of ‘The Great Reset.’ When world leaders and their colleagues in the business and nonprofit sectors arrive in Davos, Switzerland, next weekend, the agenda is typical of the World Economic Forum’s annual meetings.

CHINA - A Secret recording of a Chinese military meeting planning the invasion of Taiwan and the defeat of regional US forces has reportedly been uncovered. In the past week, in response to the instruction of the “Central Military Commission of the State Council” in Beijing on “transitioning to a war time system,” a meeting took place involving senior officers of the People Liberation Army’s Guangdong Military Region of the Southern Command and the principal officers in Guangdong Province administration and the regional Chinese Communist Party committee.

AUSTRALIA - A senior Taiwanese official has urged Australia and other “like-minded” countries to be wary of Chinese military ambitions in the Indo-Pacific, citing a recent security pact signed with the Solomon Islands and Beijing’s alleged creeping “authoritarianism” in the region. Speaking during an interview with Australia’s SBS News on Friday, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu argued that China had expanded its influence into Canberra’s sphere of interest, calling on local officials to devote more energy to the alleged threat.

USA - California regulators on Thursday rejected a $1.4 billion desalination plant on environmental grounds, dealing a setback to Governor Gavin Newsom, who had supported the project as a partial solution for the state's sustained drought. The California Coastal Commission voted 11-0 to reject the proposal by Poseidon Water, controlled by the infrastructure arm of Canada's Brookfield Asset Management, to build the plant on a low-lying coastal site at Huntington Beach, near the town of Costa Mesa, about 30 miles (50 km) south of Los Angeles. The plant was designed to convert Pacific Ocean water into 50 million gallons (189.3 million liters) of drinking water a day. That is enough for 400,000 people, but the plant would use a process that staff experts at the commission said would devastate marine life and expose the plant to future risk of sea level rise while producing expensive water too costly for low-income consumers.

UK - In the UK as well as Germany, food and industry leaders are sounding the alarm, warning of a looming energy crisis which will lead to serious food shortages and collapsing industries. The intransigent political pro-Ukrainian positions of European and British leaders will soon be punishing consumers severely. President Vladimir Putin has demanded that “unfriendly countries” settle their energy payments in rubles after the EU and UK called for debilitating economic sanctions against Russia. Although calls for sanctions against Russia were criticised by many opposition politicians as extremely shortsighted, European leadership has ignored them. The dire predictions are sadly coming true. In The UK, the National Farmers’ Union has warned the UK was “sleepwalking” into a food crisis. This has become inevitable with soaring energy and fertilizer costs impacting the already small margins of producers.

AUSTRALIA - Australian consumers were flabbergasted to learn that thousands of avocados were being dumped amid the highest food price inflation in years. A Queensland resident described the discarded mountains of fruit as "tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of avocados going to waste". But farmers have defended the waste, saying it was the only way to secure a profit. Jan De Lai, a resident of Atherton in far north Queensland, said the fruit were perfectly fine but left to rot on a waste dump. When asked why farmers were not lowering the price to drive up demand, he said it would not be worth it for farmers. “The cost of putting that stuff in a package, including the labour and the cost of packaging and the cost of transport is just not worthwhile.” He added: “It doesn’t pay to put the money into packing the fruit or to pay someone the freight costs to send it down to Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.”

HUNGARY - After Ukraine and Russia, two of the largest grain producers in the world, the Hungarian government has decided to ban grain exports from Hungary. Because of the rise in grain prices, the Hungarian government on Friday banned the export of grain from Hungary with immediate effect. Hungarian Minister of Agriculture István Nagy stated: “All grain exports are still prohibited by the government today because of the price increase caused by the Russian operation in Ukraine.” The reason for this is the concern expressed by Hungarian cattle breeders. Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán also commented on the challenges facing agriculture. At a congress of the Hungarian Association of Farmers’ Groups and Cooperatives, he said “the most important thing is that Hungary stays out of this war conflict”. It is about preventing “Hungarians from having to pay the price of the war”.