USA - A week ago there was a torrent of press releases from global institutions all mentioning the same exact same concern: Food shortages within the next 3 to 6 months. These statements line up very closely with my own estimates, as I have been warning regularly about impending dangers of inflation leading to food rationing and supply chain disruptions.

CHINA - China’s crackdown on covid infections has reached levels so bizarre I have to ask the question: Are their lockdowns really about covid, or are they hiding something else? The death rate of covid in China is impossible to calculate accurately because they have never released proper data that can be confirmed. However, almost everywhere else in the world we see a median infection fatality rate of 0.27% for covid; meaning, over 99.7% of people in the world on average have nothing to fear in terms of dying from the virus. But in China, the CCP is acting as if they are dealing with the Black Plague. Why?

USA - Some of the major players who have been behind the scenes in the recent past are quickly taking very public control over our future. It's time to stand up and point a spotlight on them. For the last year, we have railed against the two most powerful financial institutions in the world: BlackRock and Vanguard. And by “financial institutions,” we really have to use that label because they’ve gone far beyond simply being the biggest investment management firms with over $10 trillion between them. They now wield extreme levels of direct power over the most crucial industries in the world, including food production and distribution.

ISRAEL - In Shift, Israel Quietly Allows Jewish Prayer on Temple Mount. The change upsets a longstanding compromise aimed at staving off conflict. The “longstanding compromise,” was that non-Muslims were allowed “to visit the site for several hours each morning on the condition that they not pray there. Though no Israeli law explicitly bars Jewish prayer there, Jewish visitors who attempted to pray there have been removed or reprimanded by the [Israeli] police.”

ISRAEL - How many times have we seen the following dance?

Step 1. Ahead of Ramadan, Israeli and US officials implore Jordan’s King Abdullah to use his influence as custodian of Jerusalem’s Muslim holy sites to calm tensions on the Temple Mount.

Step 2. Youths stockpile rocks in the Al Aqsa Mosque. Violence breaks out as Palestinians clash with Israeli police, throwing rocks and firecrackers onto Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall below. Rioters then barricade themselves inside Al Aqsa. Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas whips up the Palestinians with rumors about Israel judaizing the holy site and Hamas threatens rocket fire.

NIGERIA - Nigeria has blocked 73 million phone numbers because they were not linked to the National Identity Numbers (NINs). In 2011, African countries including Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, and Nigeria, agreed to enforce SIM Registration laws to curb cybercrimes, identity theft, and scams. Nigeria rolled out a mandatory 11-digit digital identity number that requires citizens to register their personal details, photos, and biometrics. “The National Identity Number (NIN) is required to open a bank account, apply for a driver’s license, vote, get health insurance, and file tax returns,” Reuters reported. Over the past five years, the country has been postponing the deadline to link SIM cards with NINs. Earlier this month, numbers that had not been linked to NINs were blocked from making outgoing calls. Eventually, these numbers will be blocked entirely.

FRANCE - Less than a week after French President Emmanuel Macron was re-elected, he is already facing backlash after launching a digital ID for citizens. Macron signed the “Digital Identity Guarantee Service” (SGIN) into a decree on April 26, less than 48 hours after his victory over nationalist Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election. The SGIN is a project by the French government to create a mobile app that will allow French citizens to access their ID digitally. The project aims at making France “compliant” with the European Union Commission’s European Digital Identity package. Though the text of the decree specifies that the use of digital ID “is completely left to the free choice of users,” some politicians see it as a tool to usher in a Chinese-like social credit system in France.

EUROPE - Under pressure applied by both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the European Union is working to expand online censorship to an extreme Orwellian level, as well as strictly regulate speech during what authorities deem to be times of crisis (we always seem to be in the middle of a “crisis”), and remove online anonymity by forcing the public to have a digital identity. But these plans aren’t unique to the EU. They are also currently being rolled out in the UK and Africa, proving Governments worldwide are working in lockstep to bring in a digital identity and social credit system right under your nose. The UK government is also pushing ahead with its nationwide digital ID plans, despite half of the responses to its public consultation on digital identity opposing the idea. On April 6, 2022, new digital identity document verification technology (IDVT) that enables data sharing between public bodies and businesses for the purpose of identity verification was introduced. It has been made available to UK employers, landlords, and letting agents who can use it to digitally carry out pre-employment criminal record checks, right to work checks, and right to rent checks.

CHINA - Reports are now coming in that Chinese authorities are building "cages" around some homes. This week, people living in Shanghai woke up to "green fences that had been installed by authorities overnight to restrict people's movement," according to a new report by The Mirror. People with fences around their homes are not permitted to leave their properties, the report says. Shanghai has had its 25 million citizens on lockdown for weeks due to a spike in Covid cases in the country. 39 people in the city died of Covid on Sunday, April 24, when the lockdowns began in full force. Photographs of the green fencing being used to keep people in are making their rounds on social media. Meanwhile, citizens in Shanghai are already protesting and rebelling against the latest tranche of Covid lockdowns. The Mirror writes that people are "shocked" by the latest step of putting up fencing. Residents had no clue the measures would be taken until they woke up one day to see it.

USA - The vast majority of the world’s assets are owned by just two investment firms — BlackRock and the Vanguard Group. Combined, they have ownership in nearly 90% of all S&P 500 firms, and through their investment holdings they secretly wield monopoly control over all industries. By now you may be familiar with the World Economic Forum slogan, “By 2030, you will own nothing.” To that end, BlackRock and other investment firms are buying up every single-family home they can find, making cash offers of 20% to 50% above asking price.

USA - Lake Powell, the country's second-largest reservoir, is drying up. The situation is critical: if water levels at the lake were to drop another 32 feet, all hydroelectricity production would be halted at the reservoir's Glen Canyon Dam. The West's climate change-induced water crisis is now triggering a potential energy crisis for millions of people in the Southwest who rely on the dam as a power source. Over the past several years, the Glen Canyon Dam has lost about 16 percent of its capacity to generate power. The water levels at Lake Powell have dropped around 100 feet in the last three years.

USA - On Monday, US News & World Report (USNWR) became the latest corporate media outlet to run a seasonal story saying climate change is making life harder for allergy sufferers. This is likely true, but the story lacks balance and context. The USNWR’s story ignores the more important point that the allergy season is longer because the planet is greening. Earlier springs and expanded areas of more verdant plant growth is good for the Earth’s human, animal, and insect populations.

GERMANY - The German Bundeswehr will send fighter planes to combat exercises in the Asian-Pacific realm. This was confirmed by the Air Force on the occasion of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to Japan. According to the statement, six German Eurofighters will be dispatched to Australia to participate in a maneuver and from there make a short visit in Japan. Scholz’s visit serves the purpose of expanding German-Japanese cooperation, in view of the intensification of the West’s power struggle with China. On the one hand, the German government seeks to expand German-Japanese business relations, to relativize the significance of the People's Republic of China for German industry, given the fact that Japan is considered an integral part of the western alliance and “conflict-proof” – unlike the case of China, western sanctions against Japan are out of the question. On the other hand, Berlin is seeking closer cooperation in foreign and military policy. For this purpose, in November 2021, the German frigate Bayern made a stopover in Yokohama at the entrance of Tokyo Bay. Germany’s military presence in Japan is beginning to normalize.

FRANCE - “Is the Muslim vote decisive?”, the Algerian writer Kamel Daoud asked himself in the French weekly Le Point. Yes, judging by Macron's victory (85 per cent of Muslims voted for him) and seeing what had happened the week before the second round vote. Speaking with The New York Times, Éric Coquerel, an MP from Mélenchon's party who won 69 percent of the Islamic vote in the first round, said Muslim voters would benefit Macron. For Julien Talpin, sociologist at the National Center for Scientific Research, the mobilization of Muslims is "something completely new". On Friday, the Grand Mosque of Paris organized a dinner after Ramadan, the iftar, for Macron's re-election. “How can a president who never wishes a Merry Christmas to the French people, in this country of Christian origins, go to the great mosque in Paris for the end of the Ramadan fast?”, some users wondered. No bishop could have said to the faithful about him "vote for him", it would have been considered an "interference". But the Islamic vote now dominates France.

USA - Joe and Jill Biden on Wednesday hosted the Council of Chief State School Officers’ 2022 National and State Teachers of the Year in the East Room of the White House. Then Biden told the room of teachers that the children they are teaching are “not somebody else’s children.” Biden just blurted it out and said the quiet part out loud. “They’re not somebody else’s children. They’re yours when you’re in the classroom,” Biden said.

[Reader comment] “Joe Biden says to teachers about their students ‘they are not somebody else's children. They're yours when you're in the classroom.’ No, Joe, they are not ‘somebody else's children.’ They are OUR children.”