USA - Have you noticed that the corporate media has suddenly become obsessed with rising prices over the past week or so? Day after day, mainstream news outlets are barraging us with stories about inflation, and even CNN is occasionally taking a break from bashing Republicans to cover this. Earlier today, I was directed to a CNN article entitled “Prices are rising everywhere you look”, and I decided to read it. Surprisingly, this was one CNN article that would actually pass an impartial fact check. We really are seeing very painful inflation throughout the entire economy, and this is causing many to recall the days of “stagflation” under Jimmy Carter in the 1970s.

USA - Equity markets tumbled in Asian trade Tuesday following steep losses on Wall Street as investors grow increasingly worried about a surge in inflation that could force central banks to wind back their ultra-loose monetary policies earlier than forecast. All eyes are on the release this week of crucial data on US retail sales and consumer prices, with expectations for a sharp rise as the world’s top economy reopens and vaccines allow people to return to a sense of normality. A massive miss on US jobs creation last week indicated the recovery was not going to be as smooth as thought... And there is a feeling that the issue will dog markets for some time, even as investors are confident the global economy is well on the recovery path.

RUSSIA - Russian President Vladimir Putin marked the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe with a speech warning that Nazi beliefs remain strong. Speaking to the annual military parade on Moscow’s Red Square, Putin on Sunday decried “attempts to rewrite history, to justify traitors and criminals, on whose hands lies the blood of hundreds of thousands of peaceful people.” “Unfortunately, many of the ideologies of the Nazis, those who were obsessed with the delusional theory of their exclusiveness, are again trying to be put into service,” he said, without citing specifics. The anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat, which Russia calls Victory Day, is the country’s most significant secular holiday. commemorating the Red Army’s military feats and the vast suffering of civilians. About 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians are estimated to have died in the war.

GERMANY - One of the hallmarks of totalitarian systems is the criminalization of dissent. Not just the stigmatization of dissent or the demonization of dissent, but the formal criminalization of dissent, and any other type of opposition to the official ideology of the totalitarian system. Global capitalism has been inching its way toward this step for quite some time, and now, apparently, it is ready to take it. Germany has been leading the way.

CHINA - Based on our newly updated preliminary estimates for 2019, global emissions — including emissions of all six Kyoto gases, inclusive of land-use and forests and international bunkers — reached 52 gigatons of CO2-equivalent in 2019, a 11.4% increase over the past decade. China alone contributed over 27% of total global emissions, far exceeding the US — the second highest emitter — which contributed 11% of the global total. For the first time, India edged out the EU-27 for third place, coming in at 6.6% of global emissions.

USA - Top US fuel pipeline operator Colonial Pipeline has shut its entire network, the source of nearly half of the US East Coast's fuel supply, after a cyber attack that the company said was caused by ransomware. The incident is one of the most disruptive digital ransom operations ever reported and has drawn attention to how critical US energy infrastructure is vulnerable to hackers. The shutdown has raised fears of a price spike at gasoline pumps ahead of peak summer driving season if it persists. Colonial transports 2.5 million barrels per day of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other refined products through 5,500 miles (8,850 km) of pipelines linking refiners on the Gulf Coast to the eastern and southern United States. Colonial said it shut down systems to contain the threat after learning of the attack on Friday. That action also temporarily halted operations and affected some of its IT systems, the company said.

IRAN - Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Major General Hossein Salami warned Israel “could be destroyed” in a single operation, and the Jewish state’s security was crumbling from within. “The Zionist system is breaking apart, faltering, and crumbling from within. Over the past year and a half, they tried to project a powerful image of themselves, namely inflate themselves like a balloon,” Salami told Iranian state TV on the eve of Quds Day, Iran’s day of rage against Israel. He appeared to claim responsibility for a series of attacks against Israel, most of which never happened or were part of controlled tests, including at a rocket factory and also at a Mossad outpost in Iraq. “The Israelis have tried to show a figure of authority over the past year and a half and have tried to expand the scope of their evil, while they have [experienced] tremendous damage.” He continued by saying the US could not help Israel. The US’ foreign policy is “inactive.”

IRAN - Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has blasted Israel as nothing more than a “terrorist camp” and urged the Palestinians to unite their efforts in fighting Tel Aviv. Israel has “turned occupied Palestine into a base for terrorism,” Khamenei tweeted. “Israel isn’t a county; it’s a #TerroristCamp against Palestinians & other Muslim nations,” he wrote, adding that it was “everyone’s responsibility” to fight against it. In follow-up tweets, the Iranian leader urged Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and in Gaza to “form a single unit” and “use the tools at their disposal” against Israel despite Tel Aviv signing normalization agreements with several Arab countries last year.

EUROPE - Representatives from the European Union’s 27 member states have approved Tenebrio molitor beetle larvae, also known as mealworms, as “innovative” food and suitable for human consumption. The ruling by the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (Novel Food and Toxicological Safety section) represents the next step in allowing people in the bloc to eat beetle larvae after the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) said in January that yellow mealworms were safe to eat.

SWITZERLAND - The World Economic Forum recently ran a Livestream with Interpol, Cloudflare, and a cybersecurity firm to discuss the upcoming cyber pandemic agenda, which many believe will be their next step to justify creating a Digital Citizenship to be able to even use the internet. Cloudflare’s COO advises on digital identity/citizenship for internet users. [They] want to associate everything you do on the Internet with a digital ID.

USA - A small army of top Israeli national security officials descended on Washington last week for their first in-person consultations with the Biden administration over its intention to return to the Iran nuclear deal. Israel is adamantly opposed to the agreement, arguing that in exchange for a pause in Tehran’s nuclear program, it virtually guarantees that Iran can become a nuclear-weapons threshold state by the time the deal expires in 2030, while immediately funneling billions of dollars to a revolutionary regime single-mindedly focused not just on sowing aggression and terrorism across the Middle East but on the destruction of the Jewish state itself.

EUROPE - Fourteen European Union countries including Germany and France have proposed a rapid military response force that could intervene early in international crises, a senior EU official said on Wednesday, two decades after a previous attempt. The countries say the EU should create a brigade of 5,000 soldiers, possibly with ships and aircraft, to help democratic foreign governments needing urgent help, the official said. EU defence ministers will take up the idea on Thursday at a regular meeting chaired by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who has chided the bloc for reluctance to intervene more abroad, particularly in failing states such as Libya. The 14 countries are Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain.

EUROPE - European Union defense ministers on Thursday were discussing plans to set up a military training mission in Mozambique in the coming months to help the government there take control of parts of the southern African country held by extremist rebels. The UN World Food Program recently warned that the humanitarian crisis caused by the extremist insurgency in the north of Mozambique is rapidly spiraling, with more than 950,000 people in urgent need of food aid. Such a mission in Mozambique could be launched in the second half of 2021 and the 27-nation bloc is weighing whether to supply the army there with military equipment. ...The 16-nation Southern African Development Community is also weighing whether to send more than 2,500 regional troops to Mozambique to help battle the rebels.

GERMANY - This would seem to be the moment for Germany, as a responsible neighbor, to step up and help out. But Europe’s most powerful economy is going to the polls even sooner than France: on September 26. As the 16-year tenure of Chancellor Angela Merkel comes to a close, the six parties scrambling to rule in the post-Merkel era are somewhat less than focused on goings-on beyond Germany’s borders. ...None of the five [political parties] presents a fully reassuring image to a neighbor or ally of Germany… German voters would do well to remember that their country’s wealth and power depends on the stability and security of its neighborhood. Maybe it is time to pay attention, and get a little worried. Its neighbors and allies already are.

USA - The economy still remains 8.2 million jobs short of pre-lockdown levels after the April jobs report published Friday signaled a slow, long road to recovery. Only 266,000 jobs were added last month, far below the estimated million forecasters predicted. Unemployment was expecting to go down, not up, as it did to 6.1 percent while the government continues to dole out generous benefits to incentivize Netflix and couch surfing over a paycheck.