ITALY - Italy’s hard-line interior minister, Matteo Salvini, says the European parliamentary vote shows “that the rules are changing in Europe.” Salvini told supporters at party headquarters in Milan early Monday that the results of Europe’s four-day vote show that “a new Europe is born. I will say to those who have sunk the European dream, transforming it into a nightmare, that I am proud that the League participated in this new rebirth of a sunken Europe.” Salvini held a cross as he spoke, and at one point kissed it and looked upward, saying: “I thank whoever is up there, who is not helping Matteo Salvini and the League, who is helping Italy and Europe, to protect hope, pride, roots, work, security.” Salvini has faced criticism from Italy’s Catholic establishment for brandishing a rosary at rallies.

ITALY - Italian populist Interior Minister Matteo Salvini took to Twitter this weekend to comment on an Italian television programme on Swedish migrant areas, saying he did not want Italy to become like Sweden. Mr Salvini reacted to the programme Tg2, broadcast on national broadcaster RAI, that examined highly migrant-populated areas in Sweden and claimed that entire neighbourhoods were essentially ruled by Sharia. Following the airing of the programme, the Swedish embassy pushed back, claiming “There are no ‘no go zones’ in Sweden”. While the Swedish government has consistently denied the existence of no go zones, preferring to label them “vulnerable areas”, there have been reports of heavily migrant-populated neighbourhoods where local Muslim men attempt to enforce Sharia and Islamic morality codes.

USA - In this article I am going to share with you a perfect example of why so many people believe that there is so little hope for the future of America. The young adults of today are going to be the leaders of tomorrow, and generally speaking the young adults of today are not in good shape. Survey after survey has shown that Millennials reject traditional American values more than any other generation that has come before them by a very wide margin. They are selfish, rude, arrogant, boastful, proud, disrespectful, ungrateful, undisciplined, slothful and completely obsessed with themselves. In fact, one study found that they are the most narcissistic generation in American history. They feel entitled to everything, but they don’t want to work for it. They want to be treated like kings and queens, but they don’t see a problem with treating others like dirt. Of course there are plenty of young adults that are shining exceptions, but in general young adults under the age of 30 in America today are a complete mess.

EUROPE - France’s pro-EU president and the leader of Italy’s euroskeptic, far-right movement jockeyed for the role of chief powerbroker on the continent Monday after elections to the European Parliament hollowed out the traditional political middle. The four days of balloting that drew to a close Sunday across the European Union’s 28 countries ended the domination of the main center-right and center-left parties in Parliament and established the anti-EU forces on the right and the environmentalists on the left as forces to be reckoned with. Voters delivered the highest turnout in 20 years, rejecting mainstream politics in France, Germany, Britain and Italy. Steve Bannon, who helped propel Donald Trump’s populist campaign to the White House, was in Paris on Monday to celebrate the victories of like-minded parties in Europe and gird for the battle ahead. “You see the trend, and it’s definitely nationalist-versus-globalist,” he said. He predicted the far-right will prevail by grinding the European Parliament to a halt…

USA - The last 12 months have been the wettest in all of US history, and this has created absolutely horrific conditions for US farmers. Thanks to endless rain and historic flooding that has stretched on for months, many farmers have not been able to plant crops at all, and a lot of the crops that have actually been planted are deeply struggling. What this means is that US agricultural production is going to be way, way down this year. The food that each one of us eats every day is produced by our farmers, and right now our farmers are truly facing a nightmare scenario.

USA - The United States is on the verge of entering ‘uncharted territory’, experts say as the country stands on the verge of breaking an unfavorable record of tornado activity this week with more storm warnings issued. The deadly spate of weather has already killed one and injured hundreds more in the Midwest, but the slurry of volatile weather shows no signs of letting up anytime soon. Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia have already been ravaged by the barrage of gusting winds and powerful storms, but now New Jersey and New York City have been told to brace for impact. The National Weather Service has received 934 tornado reports so far this year, up from the yearly average of 743 observed tornadoes. More than 500 of those reports have come in the last 30 days.

SWITZERLAND - The elite Bilderberg group for 2019 includes 95 year-old Henry Kissinger and Jared Kushner. The two biggest topics will be the future of capitalism and the growing instability of their global order. More than a hundred of the world’s elite including Henry Kissinger, Mark Carney and the Dutch King will meet at the secretive Bilderberg summit this week. Bankers, Prime Ministers, CEOs and defence experts will meet in Montreux, Switzerland, to discuss a wide range of topics including Russia, cyber threats and Brexit. From Thursday to Sunday 130 influential men and women from 23 countries will meet under strict secrecy rules and the precise location of their venue has not been revealed. They do not vote, they do not set policy and they do not release statements, the group claim.

AUSTRALIA - Scorching temperatures in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state which includes Sydney, have forced authorities to impose water restrictions for the first time in a decade. With levels at the Warragamba Dam at barely 50 percent as a result of a prolonged period of drought, New South Wales Water Minister Melinda Pavey confirmed drastic measures were now necessary. In a statement issued today she said: “The Bureau of Meteorology’s latest forecast is predicting below-average rainfall and higher temperatures for June to August, which are key drivers of stronger water demand. Water restrictions are an important drought response because they target the outdoor water use of all households.” The Warragamba Dam supplies much of New South Wales...

USA - President Trump loves to blame China for the job losses that have devastated American workers under globalization. But the truth is that Trump is blaming the wrong party. Trump’s reckless trade war against China is misguided and amounts to a colossal charade that will not solve the actual problem. Yes, it is true that numerous American manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas to China, thereby leaving American workers jobless and suffering. But China did not steal these jobs. No. These jobs were given to China. It was all legal and legitimate. China merely accepted the gift.

USA - We haven’t seen stock prices slide like this in a long time, and if this keeps up we could soon be looking at an avalanche. Our rapidly escalating trade war with China and more bad US economic numbers pushed stocks down once again this week, and at this point the Dow Industrial Average has now fallen for five weeks in a row. We haven’t seen a losing streak this long since June 2011, and it is yet another indication that we have reached a major turning point. Some positive comments about China from President Trump on Friday helped to lift stocks a little, but it wasn’t enough to put stocks into the green for the week. Of course the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are both working on losing streaks as well. The stage is being set for the sort of global economic meltdown that we have been anticipating.

POLAND - Poland thought it had started confronting the problem of clerical abuse and its cover-up by church authorities. Then a bombshell came: A documentary with victim testimony so harrowing it has forced an unprecedented reckoning with pedophile priests in one of Europe’s most deeply Catholic societies. Poland’s bishops acknowledged this week they face a crisis and made a rare admission that they have failed to protect the young. It’s also a crisis for the country’s conservative government, which is closely aligned with the Catholic Church, putting the ruling Law and Justice party on the defensive before Sunday’s European Parliament vote in Poland… “If you are about to start a revolution, then you’d better have a plan for the aftermath,” Suszek said. “And nobody has a clear-cut idea about how to deal with the void that would inevitably come about when you remove the institutional church from the public sphere.”

USA - Having access to fluoridated drinking water that can supposedly improve your dental health sounds like a first-world luxury on the surface – but the truth is that it’s a recipe for ill health and experts are calling for this dangerous practice to be stopped. In fact, America is one of very few developed countries that fluoridates its water, with Green Med Info reporting that just 5 percent of the world’s population consumes this type of water. Most people never take the time to question where all that fluoride added to our water comes from, and the answer is shocking: It is generally pollutants captured from the phosphate fertilizer industry in Florida or chemical imports that come from China, known for a lack of regulation and adulteration. These chemicals aren’t purified before they’re added to drinking water, and it’s not at all unusual for them to contain significant amounts of heavy metals like arsenic, mercury and lead.

USA - Every single day, most Americans eagerly gobble down foods that contain ingredients that have been genetically-modified without ever considering the consequences. Most of us simply assume that the federal government would never allow us to eat GMOs if they were not safe. Unfortunately, it appears that the federal government has completely failed us. We are monkeying around with life itself, and we really have no idea what the long-term consequences will look like. Do you think that it is actually safe to eat such “food”? Sadly, the health consequences from eating GMO food may not just be temporary. In fact, one study found that the effects of eating genetically-modified food could last for a lot longer than anyone had anticipated…

USA - A bitter feud between the Philippines and Canada over a shipment of garbage made world headlines when President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to dump the waste in the North American country’s territorial waters, but this situation is in fact only the tip of the iceberg, or the garbage pile. The developed nations that are among the biggest garbage producers have turned out to be unable to safely process it. As it increasingly looks like developed countries will be forced to rely mostly on themselves in their future waste treatment they are facing an uneasy task of either drastically limiting their waste production or finding an extremely efficient way to process their garbage unless they are comfortable with the prospect of being almost literally buried in trash.

UK - Hundreds of rivers around the world from the Thames to the Tigris are awash with dangerously high levels of antibiotics, the largest global study on the subject has found. Antibiotic pollution is one of the key routes by which bacteria are able to develop resistance to the life-saving medicines, rendering them ineffective for human use. “A lot of the resistance genes we see in human pathogens originated from environmental bacteria,” said Professor William Gaze, a microbial ecologist at the University of Exeter who studies antimicrobial resistance but was not involved in the study. The rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a global health emergency that could kill 10 million people by 2050, the UN said last month.