MIDDLE EAST - A recent poll published in the United Arab Emirates over the weekend shows that there is growing support for establishing ties with Israel in some Arab countries. The poll, conducted by US-based Zogby Analytics, has found that in four out of five Arab states and entities there is majority support for normalization with Israel and that the driving force behind this shift is a desire to stabilize the political and military situation in the Middle East. According to the survey, 59% of Jordanians and Saudis, along with 58% of Egyptians and 56% of the residents of the UAE support normalization with Israel, while 61% of Palestinians oppose it.

JAPAN - Nearly a decade after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan's government has decided to release over one million tonnes of contaminated water into the sea, media reports said on Friday, with a formal announcement expected to be made later this month. The decision is expected to rankle neighbouring countries like South Korea, which has already stepped up radiation tests of food from Japan, and further devastate the fishing industry in Fukushima that has battled against such a move for years. The disposal of contaminated water at the Fukushima Daiichi plant has been a longstanding problem for Japan as it proceeds with a decades-long decommissioning project. Nearly 1.2 million tonnes of contaminated water are currently stored in huge tanks at the facility. The plant, run by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc, suffered multiple nuclear meltdowns after a 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

USA - The founder of the Church of Satan Anton LaVey is reputed to once have said of Halloween, “I’m glad Christians let their kids worship the Devil at least one night out of the year.” This year’s Halloween comes at an unprecedented time in our nation’s history. Lockdowns implemented from March to June prevented the majority of churches across the nation from physically gathering during that time, and many aspects of church life such as Bible study, youth groups, church retreats, and other means of congregating crucial to Christian life have been curtailed or even shut down indefinitely since the pandemic’s onset in March.

GERMANY - Within the framework of the so-called Nuclear Sharing, the German Air Force is practising the various stages German pilots need to go through to drop US nuclear bombs. "Steadfast Noon" takes place every fall. This year's exercise also includes the Nörvenich Air Base near Cologne, which is intended to serve as an alternative site for the 20 nuclear bombs stored at the Büchel Air Base (Eifel). At the same time a second manoeuvre is taking place in Büchel, aimed at "protecting important infrastructure against airborne threats." The nuclear bombs in Büchel, as well as the fighter jets capable of dropping them, are to be modernized costing billions of euros. The new B61-12 nuclear bombs can also be deployed with low-yield warheads, lowering the threshold to nuclear war.

EUROPE - Some 15 years ago, European Commission President Romano Prodi proposed a vision of Europe surrounded by “a ring of friends.” His words did not age well. Today, instead, the Continent finds itself encircled by czars, sultans and emperors, ruthlessly playing the EU. Another standoff with Russian President Vladimir Putin looms. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is redrawing the map of the eastern Mediterranean. Chinese President Xi Jinping is expanding his influence in the Balkans. Then there’s Donald Trump, who calls the EU “almost as bad as China, just smaller.” The EU’s response has been a reboot of its 70-year-old consensus based on peace, rules and trade — but also a recognition that it needs to become a global player. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has dubbed her Commission “geopolitical.” EU High Representative Josep Borrell has urged Europe to learn “the language of power.” European Council President Michel has said: “Europe needs to be a player, not a playing field.”

USA - After an ambitious expansion of the safety net in the spring saved millions of people from poverty, the aid is now largely exhausted and poverty has returned to levels higher than before the coronavirus crisis, two new studies have found. The number of poor people has grown by eight million since May, according to researchers at Columbia University, after falling by four million at the pandemic’s start as a result of a $2 trillion emergency package known as the Cares Act. Using a different definition of poverty, researchers from the University of Chicago and Notre Dame found that poverty has grown by six million people in the past three months, with circumstances worsening most for Black people and children. “These numbers are very concerning,” said Bruce D Meyer, an economist at the University of Chicago and an author of the study. “They tell us people are having a lot more trouble paying their bills, paying their rent, putting food on the table.”

CHINA - China recently conducted a test involving a swarm of loitering munitions, also often referred to as suicide drones, deployed from a box-like array of tubular launchers on a light tactical vehicle and from helicopters. This underscores how the drone swarm threat, broadly, is becoming ever-more real and will present increasingly serious challenges for military forces around the world in future conflicts. Swarms are inherently difficult for opponents to defend against and one of their most obvious applications is to blind, confuse, and overwhelm enemy air defenses. The idea that a single truck could deploy 48 drones in a matter of seconds, which could swarm a target area over the horizon, is a reminder that there is no defense for such an attack at this time.

GERMANY - Germany's Rheinmetall will deliver 1,000 trucks worth 398 million euro in 2021 and 2022. The German Army is accelerating the updating of its truck fleet. The European Security & Defence website said it has learned that Rheinmetall will deliver 150 HX2 trucks in the 5-tonne payload class with a 6×6 chassis, and 850 HX2 trucks in the 15-tonne payload class with an 8×8 chassis. The trucks are said to be scheduled to be delivered under a €398 million contract in 2021 and 2022. An additional 1,000 trucks can be ordered under the 2017 framework agreement with Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles designed to cover 2,271 vehicles, of which 1,870 have already been ordered and over 1,000 have been delivered. The new trucks will replace ones whose procurement dates as far back as the 1970s. The vehicles will thus be ready in time for deployment with NATO’s rapid reaction force, VJTF (Very High Readiness Joint Task Force), in 2023.

JAPAN - First it was the Fed, then the ECB, and now the BOJ: the world's central banks are quietly preparing to unleash digital currencies on an unsuspecting population in one final last-ditch attempt to spark inflation and do away with the current monetary orthodoxy which has failed to push living conditions for the masses higher (but most importantly, has failed to inflate away a growing mountain of insurmountable global debt). On Friday, the Bank of Japan joined the Fed and ECB when it said it would begin experimenting on how to operate its own digital currency, rather than confining itself to conceptual research as it has to date. The bank explained that it might provide general purpose CBDC [Central Bank Digital Currency] if cash in circulation drops "significantly" and private digital money is not sufficient to substitute the functions of cash, while promising to supply physical cash as long as there is public demand for it.

USA - Even the World Health Organization is coming out against lockdowns. Dr David Nabarro, the WHO’s special envoy on COVID-19, says: “We really do appeal to all world leaders: stop using lockdown as your primary control method… We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus. The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.” We destroyed the world’s greatest economy for no good reason.

USA - The key for either party to win the presidential election is to target specific battleground states. There are several swing states, that over recent elections have gone both ways. They hold the key to winning the election. This year North Carolina, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona could all be decisive in the election's outcome. They are all states which Mr Trump won narrowly against Mrs Clinton in 2016, helping him secure his electoral college victory. Retaining them is crucial to his re-election hopes. If the polls are to be trusted, Mr Biden holds a competitive edge over Mr Trump in all of them.

UK - Super-confident rats are invading UK homes through toilets and letterboxes after breeding soared and food became scarce in lockdown. Pest control company Rentokil said that the lockdown period from March to June caused rats to become more confident. They have seen a 22 per cent increase in call-outs for services, the Evening Standard reports, compared to the average summer number over the past six years. The creatures have been entering homes in the UK through toilets and, in one case, through a letterbox, the company said.

GERMANY - Inspired by Germany's notorious hate-speech law, more countries seek to impose steep penalties on platforms that don't comply with their censorship whims. Even as the world wrestles with a pandemic and overbearing public health measures, some legislative bodies are taking the opportunity to tighten the screws on speech they don't like. Several bills have passed, others are pending… It's no surprise when countries like Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela emulate intrusive legislation from elsewhere — they don't need much encouragement. But we've already seen that French legislators followed in Germany's lead, and lawmakers in the UK are poised to do the same. Last week, British lawmakers debated the very broad powers that the government seeks. Their proposals "introduce a new concept into law — 'legal but harmful' for online speech," cautions Ruth Smeeth of Index on Censorship. "It's conflating what is already illegal, such as incitement and threat, with speech which we may disagree with, but in a free society is, and should be, legal."

UK - The Bank of England has asked commercial banks whether they are ready for negative interest rates, signaling that the central bank is moving closer to cutting its key interest rate below zero. If the benchmark rate were cut to less than zero, from the current 0.1%, commercial banks would have to pay the Bank of England to hold deposits for them. Policy makers have previously indicated that they were willing to consider negative interest rates amid the economic pressures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A negative interest rate would encourage banks to lend money out rather than leave it at the Bank of England. A negative interest rate could theoretically result in savers being charged to hold deposits in their bank accounts, but commercial considerations, such as the need to attract deposits, might prevent banks from passing on all their costs to customers. Although negative rates are unusual, the Bank of England wouldn’t be the first central bank to cut rates below zero. The European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan, among others, have cut key interest rates below zero.

USA - There was a time when preppers were relentlessly mocked, but nobody is laughing now. Today, most Americans are thinking about stockpiling food, and this massive shift in our national mindset has been sparked by concern about what is going to happen in the months ahead. Many Americans believe that another wave of the coronavirus pandemic is coming, others believe that our ongoing economic depression will get even deeper, and yet others are convinced that the upcoming election could produce widespread violence.