AUSTRALIA - A former Australian Major General has warned of a "very big war" between the US and China in the event that Beijing decides to take back Taiwan by force. He also conceded that Washington is "not convinced" that it could win any such military conflict and that Australia could face "collateral attacks" from China. Speculation has been rife about China's intentions towards Taipei, with one US Navy officer predicting Beijing could annex Taiwan within the next six years. Those fears have been stoked by China's increasingly aggressive behaviour towards its neighbour, coupled with ever more belligerent rhetoric. In April, China's Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng insisted that Beijing "will never allow Taiwan to be independent. In order to do it they have to take down Guam… and they have to negate US bases in Japan. To me that sounds like a very big war."

USA - You probably don’t need me to tell you that society is coming apart at the seams all around us. If you live in a major city, you can just walk outside and watch it happen right in front of you. Prior to 2020, social decay was steadily eating away at our society, but once the pandemic hit many of our societal problems greatly accelerated. Even while the Federal Reserve was making sure that wealthy Wall Street investors were being taken care of well, poverty and homelessness were absolutely exploding in major cities all over the nation. Meanwhile, an increasing number of Americans have been turning to drugs to cope with their problems, and this has particularly been true in our urban areas.

ISRAEL - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief political rival formally declared Wednesday night that he had put together a governing coalition with sufficient parliamentary backing to dislodge Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving leader. The news amounted to a political earthquake in Israel, where the 71-year-old prime minister has been a commanding political presence for a generation, but the new government will not be sworn in until later this month, which could mean a tense interlude for the country.

MIDDLE EAST - The Palestinian people are fed up, and are refusing to have their capabilities shackled by the decisions of an aging president, while seeing their land usurped even as the same president's "sacred" security cooperation with the Israeli occupation authorities continues. Thousands of Palestinian individuals have thus signed a petition, the contents of which reflects the conscience of the people. The text is as follows: “We, the undersigned Palestinian intellectuals, academics and public figures, address the Palestinian people including all of its active and struggling forces with this petition in order to strip what remains of the legitimacy of President Mahmoud Abbas, and demand his resignation or immediate dismissal from all his leadership positions: the Presidency of the Palestinian Authority, the presidency of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and the presidency of the Fatah movement. We call on them to support the national campaign to rebuild the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and the election of an alternative leadership for the Palestinian people.”

USA - There is no question that large corporations absolutely dominate our society today. They control what we eat, they control what we watch on television, they own most of the stores that we shop at, they provide the energy that our nation depends upon, and they make almost all of the products that we use. Tens of millions of Americans make a living by serving these colossal firms, and at this point some of the biggest corporations are larger than many small countries. But of course the corporations aren’t the top of the food chain. They have owners, and there are 3 giant financial companies that the global elite use to control 88 percent of the corporations that are currently listed on the S&P 500.

USA - If there are things that you need to stock up on, you should do it right away. For weeks, I have been writing articles about the rampant inflation that we are witnessing right now. We haven’t seen anything like this since the Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s, and many are warning that it is going to get even worse in the months ahead. So that means that prices are never going to be lower than they are at this moment. Even more importantly, we are also being warned that the widespread shortages in our economy are about to get even worse. In fact, the largest meatpacker in the entire world was just hit by a cyberattack, and this has forced it to stop activity “at its plants in several US states”…

UK - British prime minister Boris Johnson was allowed marry Carrie Symonds, also Catholic, in Westminster Cathedral on Saturday as his two previous marriages were not seen as valid by the Catholic Church. The Archdiocese of Westminster said that, while they did not comment on specific situations, “in general terms, a baptised Catholic who has contracted a marriage recognised in civil law but without observing the requirements of Catholic canon law is not recognised as validly married in the eyes of the Catholic Church.” Mr Johnson, who is Britain’s first Catholic prime minister, and his wife “are both parishioners of the Westminster Cathedral parish and baptised Catholics,” an archdiocese spokesperson said, and that “all necessary steps were taken, in both Church and civil law, and all formalities completed before the wedding.” Mr Johnson had been married twice before with his first marriage annulled and the second ending in divorce. Neither marriage took place in a Catholic setting. Ms Symonds is a practising Catholic and their son Wilfred, born in April 2020, was baptised in the Catholic Church.

GERMANY - Angela Merkel is bracing for a bitter showdown with Joe Biden over a project with Russia as the US President is set to meet Vladimir Putin face-to-face this month. The US-Russia crisis has reached a crucial juncture with the leaders of each nation due to meet in a few weeks. The White House hopes the face-to-face meeting will bring some predictability and stability to the fraught relationship between the countries after tensions have escalated amid his first months in office. But amid the soured relationship between Moscow and Washington, the German Chancellor has sent aides for emergency talks with the US President about the future of the Nord Stream 2 project. Geopolitical experts believe the move was made as a way to shore up relations between the US and Germany, rather than the US and Russia. The Nord Stream 2 is a new export gas pipeline running from Russia to Europe across the Baltic Sea. This month, Mr Biden and Mr Putin will meet in Switzerland face-to-face.

USA - President Biden recently described in a nutshell the entire Middle East peace process: "Let's get something straight here. Until the region says unequivocally, they acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as an independent Jewish state, there will be no peace." He articulated a principle that is too often overlooked: Achieving peace will require a sincere and genuine internalization by everyone in the region, including the Palestinian national movement, of Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state. But many Palestinians seem to see themselves as having the exclusive right to the land. Hence, they do not want to compromise. In an interview with Israel Radio in 2017, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres casually mentioned that it is "completely clear that the Temple that the Romans destroyed in Jerusalem was a Jewish temple." Shortly thereafter, the Palestinian Minister for Jerusalem Affairs said Guterres "must issue an apology to the Palestinian people." Simply recognizing that Israel is strong may be enough for a truce, but not for genuine peace. The day Palestinians accept Israel's right to exist as the legitimate homeland of the Jewish people, a real peace process will begin.

USA - One way to get people to believe what you want them to believe is to tell them only what you want them to hear. “It’s all Israel’s fault. It’s all Israel’s fault. It’s all Israel’s fault.” Repeatedly. “It’s all Israel’s fault. It’s all Israel’s fault. It’s all monstrous Israel’s fault.” Since May 10, as Israeli civilians were under attack by Hamas rockets and Jews around the world were being harassed and assaulted, the New York Times opinion editors published 9 anti-Israel Guest Essays, 3 evenhanded Guest Essays, and not a single Guest Essay that was primarily critical of Hamas or Palestinian behavior in the conflict.

ISRAEL - Once again, in the wake of the Guardians of the Walls operation in Gaza, there is the widely expressed lament that, while Israel prevails militarily, it inevitably loses in the court of world opinion. Israel is perceived as the bullying aggressor; Israel is incapable of generating sympathy for its cause, even when indiscriminate rockets are raining down non-stop upon its cities and towns day after day. As these critics note, the Palestinian Arabs weave tales of unspeakable oppression, featuring dead or crying children and Israeli criminality, featuring destroyed buildings. The international community cheers them on and buys into their narrative, lock, stock and barrel. By contrast, rocket fire on civilians notwithstanding, Israel appears as the soul-less military juggernaut. The unmistakable conclusion is that the quest for world sympathy is a fool’s errand. At the end of the day, Israel has, and Israelis know it has, an exquisitely moral and humane compass, never seeking to start a conflict, but never shying away from one, when confronted with it.

USA - US embassies and consulates worldwide displayed the flag of Black Lives Matter (BLM) — an organization founded by a self-avowed “trained Marxist” — on Tuesday to mark the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd, a black American who died while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota last May. The US State Department authorized the BLM flag’s display at all US “Diplomatic and Consular posts” on May 25 through a leaked memo published by Human Events. The US State Department’s authorization of the BLM flag’s display at official US missions in May “and beyond” comes after the department authorized US embassies to raise the LGBT pride flag on the same pole as the US national flag during the month of June, which is considered “pride month” by the LGBT community. “The flags can be hung before May 17, International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, and stay up through the end of Pride Month,” a US State Department cable instructed in April.

USA - UFO mania has taken over the mainstream spotlight thanks to a looming report into unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) penned by US intelligence agencies. Former astronaut Chris Hadfield has now opened up about what he thinks is really going on. The US Pentagon is expected to publish its anticipated UFO report before Congress in June. The report will shed some new light on a spate of recently leaked videos, all of which appear to show mysterious craft near US military assets. To some, the Pentagon report will be an official vindication of more than 50 years of research into the UFO phenomena. To others, the report is an opportunity to separate the wheat from the chaff and prove once and for all UFOs are real, but they're not piloted by little green men.

UK - Two Tory men with a reputation for challenging political correctness and opposing divisive identity politics have won seats on Westminster's Women and Equalities committee. Lee Anderson and Philip Davies will shake up what has been described as “parliament’s wokest committee”. Ashfield MP Mr Anderson said their appointments represented a “real coup”. He described Shipley MP Mr Davies and himself as “sensible equality champions who will be the voice of everybody, not just a certain few”. Mr Anderson wants the body renamed the “Men, Women and Equalities committee” and is fiercely opposed to “cancel culture”, under which people can be ostracised or sacked for expressing opinions others consider offensive. He said: “We cannot have a society where we are having to worry about every single word that drops out of our mouths. We are entitled to free speech, we should encourage free speech... We’re living in this cancel culture where we’re worrying about what we can say. That’s nonsense.”

GERMANY - A German soldier, a faked Syrian identity and a loaded gun in an airport bathroom crack the door open to a network of far-right extremists inside the German military and the police. It’s a story about a changing national identity — and the backlash against it — raising a question that democracies across the world are waking up to: What happens when the threat is coming from within? The story of Franco A, the military officer who faked his identity, was widely publicized in the German press. Then reports emerged that he wasn’t alone — that soldiers and police officers across the country were organizing via encrypted messages. They were preparing for the day they believed democracy would collapse, a day they called Day X.