MIDDLE EAST - Five of Iran’s top leaders have threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic. Why is President Donald Trump unfazed in his resolve to tighten sanctions on the Islamic Republic? On Sunday, April 28, Iran’s armed forces chief of staff General Mohammed Bagheri said: “We are not after closing the Strait of Hormuz. If our oil does not go through the strait, other countries’ oil will certainly not cross the strait too.” Unfazed by this threat, the Trump administration has not backed off from its decision to cancel the oil embargo exemptions granted to eight of Iran’s biggest oil importers, including China, India and South Korea. In fact, a new set of penalties are in store. Even the partial closure of the two energy choke points for exported Gulf oil – at the Strait of Hormuz or the Bb al-Mandeb entrance to the Red Sea – is liable to send oil prices shooting up.

SAUDI ARABIA - Najran, Saudi Arabia, played host to an invasion of nightmarish proportions when millions of swarming locusts descended over the weekend. Video footage shot by locals shows the massive plague of insects darkening the skies as they make their way to their next destination of destruction. Several videos shared online since Sunday shows the scale of the infestation which has taken over countries on either side of the Red Sea. Locust swarms contain up to 80 million insects per square mile and they can extend for hundreds of square miles. A ‘very small’ swarm of locusts, weighing about one ton, can eat the same amount of food in one day as 35,000 people. A plague can consume all crops, fruit and vegetation in their path, meaning devastating consequences for farmers and locals.

GERMANY - German ultra-nationalists believe a civil war and an eventual demise of the state will come about, and are preparing for it by training to use firearms and explosives, a local security service has warned. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, sounded the alarm over the rise of the underground far-right, according to Die Welt. An intelligence report seen by the paper calls for increased surveillance of so-called “preppers” – a loose network of ultra-nationalists who prepare for apocalyptic scenarios.

CHINA – Chinese military personnel are being trained to use Russia’s deadly S-400 Triumf missile system in another example of cooperation between the two superpowers which is likely to set alarm bells ringing in Washington. Chinese personnel will learn how to operate the state-of-the-art weaponry, according to Russian state news agency TASS. A military-diplomatic source said: "About 100 military servicemen from the People’s Liberation Army of China will undergo instruction at a Russian training centre in the operation and combat uses of the second regimental set of the S-400 system, to be provided to China in the second half of the year.” Russia’s federal service for military-technical cooperation declined to comment.  

USA - Steve Bannon pointedly reveals that the rise of China to be an existential threat to America is thanks to Wall Street and Western mega-corporations, which I have been saying for years. This is a continuation of a long trend that the West is being destroyed from within its own ranks. (TN editor)

USA - Many Americans regard paying taxes as a necessary evil. If they want to worship Satan, now the IRS has officially given them a tax-exempt place to do so. The Internal Revenue Service has granted the same non-profit status given to churches, synagogues and mosques to The Satanic Temple, an organization in Salem, Massachusetts, that calls itself America’s first devil-worshiping church. It is now protected by federal laws governing churches that operate as charities.

USA - A humbling cautionary tale lurks in complicated systems: Our very attempts to stave off disaster by introducing safety systems ultimately increase the overall complexity of the systems, ensuring that some unpredictable outcome will rear its ugly head no matter what. Complicated human-machine systems might surprise us with outcomes more favorable than we have any reason to expect. They also might shock us with catastrophe. The increasing complexity of modern human-machine systems means that, depressingly, unforeseen failures are typically large-scale and catastrophic.

USA - The Trump administration peace plan is an effort to “think out of the box and capture the imagination and hopes of both sides for a better life,” US Ambassador David Friedman told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, explaining why Washington is pressing ahead with the plan even as neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis seem overly enthusiastic.  “I don’t think there is a lack of interest; I think there is exhaustion and frustration from so many previous failed efforts,” Friedman said.

ISRAEL - Meretz leader Tamar Zandberg plans to submit a bill to cancel the law against selling leavened bread on Passover immediately after the inauguration of the 21st Knesset on April 30, she said Tuesday. “Israel is not a state run by Jewish law,” Zandberg said. “The Hametz Law has no justification in a democratic country.” The law nicknamed the Hametz Law states that businesses may not sell leavened bread products on Passover, when it is prohibited to eat or own such foods. The law elaborates that this includes “bread, rolls, pita or any other product of hametz flour.” The penalty for violating the law is a fine. Zandberg argued that, because the law was passed in 1986, it is not part of what is known as the “status quo” between religion and state in Israel.

GERMANY - Background: Deutsche Bank is the largest bank in Germany. It has been caught up in scandal after scandal…and it has (apparently) made some REALLY bad loans….Last year we were told that the collapse of Deutsche was nowhere near…and that things were basically “OK”…we were told that the Lehman failure was like “550 basis points for funding for Lehman”…

VATICAN - The European Union (EU) is “an example of what could become a supranational state,” according to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in the lead-up to a major conference against nationalism. In its full-court press for globalism and international migration, the Vatican insists on describing nationalism in exclusively negative terms, opening its “Concept Note” for its May 1-3 conference by saying that the world “is facing today a growing threat of nationalist revival,” which “leads to mutual rejection and enduring conflicts.” The Pontifical Academy has apparently decided ahead of its conference that nationalism will be treated as the enemy, rather than looking at both sides of the issue and the root causes of growing interest in national sovereignty. Facile recourse to accusations of xenophobia and racism is always easier than honest debate.

ITALY - Italian supporters of the team SS Lazio were filmed in Milan on Wednesday performing fascist salutes and hanging banners honoring fascist leader Benito Mussolini, the World Jewish Congress reported. “It is incomprehensible that in the 21st century there are still those who seek to glorify a fascist regime," said WJC CEO Robert Singer, noting that the Italian fascists "supported the Nazis in their perpetration of the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity.” The soccer fans glorified Italian fascism on April 24, a day before Italian Liberation Day from Nazi occupation. The Italian fascist regime was an ally of Nazi Germany.

GERMANY - "Get ready for the end of the EU as we know it", warns Ivan Krastev Bulgarian political scientist in this interview. Ahead of the European elections in May, the EU is in the midst of its most radical crisis ever, he says the bloc needs more courage and less German risk aversion.

UK - Theresa May is planning to bring her Brexit deal back for another vote - even as Tory MPs plan to change the rules of their party's leadership elections so they can oust her. The 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs met last night but discussions on whether a time limit banning successive leadership votes should be changed from a year to six months was said to be 'inconclusive'. The Prime Minister's party is furious that she has delayed Brexit and are angry that they have to contest EU Parliament elections on 23 May, when they will probably lose heavily to Nigel Farage's Brexit Party. If MPs did change the time limit on no confidence votes in a leader to six months, the Prime Minister could face a vote on her leadership June 12.

USA - I’ve excerpted some quotes from economist John Williams’ most recent economic commentary No. 983-B (ShadowStats.com) which is of interest to every American. It predicts financial authorities will make a formal admission that the economy is in a state of collapse and in recession on or around September 2019. Williams made this prediction in 2004! The announcement would be an admission of a financial collapse that has been ongoing since 2008 and has been hidden from public view.