USA - The phrase “too big to fail” originally described banks so large and so entangled with the rest of the economy that governments felt they had no choice but to bail them out rather than let them collapse and take everything down with them. Medicine now sits in a similar position: so much wealth, so many careers, and so large a share of the market are tied to the existing system that almost no one with the power to change it can afford to, and so, rather than fix the corruption, everyone involved has every incentive to keep it running. In parallel, the FDA (the agency responsible for catching trial manipulation), is itself financially dependent on the industry it regulates. In short we effectively have a “too big to fail” scenario where no one can afford to rock the boat by challenging the premises it rests upon (but can get rich through insider trading). As such, while small attempts are made to reform things, as the years go by, things become more and more corrupt and the American people ultimately pay the price by becoming sicker and sicker from what the “health” agencies give to us.

EUROPE - When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, he triggered an energy shortage and a cost of living crisis that dealt a blow to Europe’s zeal for net zero. Just this week, new data shows that Europe is struggling to wean itself off Russian gas. In the invasion’s wake, populist politicians have increasingly questioned whether Europe needs to race to climate neutrality at top speed and at all costs. Beleaguered businesses, meanwhile, reeling from soaring energy bills and cut-price Chinese imports, are begging to be spared from yet more red tape and higher climate-related costs. Brussels has been unable to ignore the backlash. In the past 18 to 24 months, it has taken the pruning shears to its thicket of green rules. The European Commission’s rhetoric, from president Ursula von der Leyen down, has focused less on fighting climate change and more on the cost of energy and the security of supply. The electrification plan is shaping up as a litmus test of the EU’s changing mood.

MIDDLE EAST - The war in the Gulf that everyone thought had ended has been revived, with more than 100 US strikes on targets inside Iran over the weekend. They were a response to a blatant breach by Tehran of the agreed 60-day ceasefire with attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This critical waterway has become pivotal to the entire conflict with Iran using their geographical proximity effectively to force its closure. Last month, Washington and Tehran signed a memorandum of understanding under which the Strait would be reopened and shipping restored. Some 500 vessels have used the route since then. But they have largely done so on sufferance from Iran which is dictating “approved” routes for ships. Those that follow an unsanctioned course are being hit by missiles.

USA - The Federal Reserve could be forced to step in and bail out Wall Street in the event of a stock market meltdown, an executive at the banking giant ING has said. Bob Homan, global chief investment officer, said the US central bank could mimic efforts by the Japanese government in 2002 and 2009 when it took stakes in failing financial institutions during banking crises. Stock markets have endured sharp corrections this year as a result of the Iran war and concerns about surging valuations among AI-linked companies. The benchmark S&P 500 on Wall Street dropped nearly 8 percent following the outbreak of the Middle East conflict but has climbed 19 percent since then as tech stocks have rocketed. Many analysts have raised concerns that stocks linked to AI are beginning to show signs of entering bubble territory, echoing the era before the dotcom crash in the early 2000s.

UK - The ritual for an incoming prime minister, unchanged for decades, has never been so fraught with significance. Soon after Andy Burnham enters No 10, he will be taken to a secure room where Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the Chief of the Defence Staff, will brief him on how to authorise a British nuclear strike. At that moment, Burnham will join the handful of world leaders with the individual power to inflict a greater measure of destruction than has ever been wrought before. Burnham will be inducted into the dreadful prime ministerial function of overseeing Britain’s ultimate deterrent and deciding this country’s nuclear policy. That responsibility is heavier and perhaps more bleakly consequential today than ever before. The reasons go beyond the simple fact that Vladimir Putin is now waging Europe’s bloodiest war since 1945 on the battlefields of Ukraine.

GERMANY - Volkswagen (VW), Europe’s biggest auto-maker, and once the proud symbol of Germany’s industrial strength, is finally taking the bold action needed to try and save the company. The carmaker will halve the number of models, and, if it can secure the agreement of the unions, it will cut 100,000 jobs from its workforce. Yet it is surely too little, too late. The only rescue plan worth considering is breaking the business up into VW, Audi, Porsche and Skoda and letting each one sink or swim. Every other plan leaves it on the road to complete ruin. Volkswagen has been in decline for years, but the crunch now appears to have finally arrived.

ETHIOPIA - Leaders of northern Ethiopia’s breakaway Tigray region say the peace deal that ended a civil war in 2022 has collapsed and they are preparing “to fight the coming disaster”. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the main political party and militia in Ethiopia’s northernmost state, fought a two-year civil war beginning in 2020 against the federal government, led by Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister. The Tigray war is considered one of the deadliest of the 21st century, with as many as 600,000 people — mostly civilians — believed to have died from the violence and an ensuing humanitarian crisis, including famine. The conflict was officially ended by the Pretoria Peace Agreement, brokered by the African Union, though implementation of the deal has been contested.

USA - This thing is honestly pretty wild. MIT engineers built a robot inspired by the Atlantic puffin. The same wings let it fly through the air… then paddle and move through the water. Most drones are built for one environment. This one switches between both. The part that caught my attention is what happened during testing. The robot took off directly from Lake Geneva without catapults, boosters, or any outside help. It lifted itself out of the water using the same flapping wings. That has been one of the biggest challenges for hybrid drones. Water is dense. Air isn’t. Designing one set of wings that works well in both has been a huge engineering problem. Now imagine where this goes next. Ocean research is the obvious answer. Military surveillance is another. A drone that can disappear beneath the surface, then pop into the air and keep flying creates a very different kind of reconnaissance platform. That’s probably why defense companies are already paying attention. It may look like a robotic bird. But it feels more like the first step toward a whole new class of drones.

MIDDLE EAST - The US has launched its third round of strikes in a week on Iran after the regime said it had closed the Strait of Hormuz “⁠until further notice and until the end of US interference” in the region. US Central Command (Centcom) said it had begun a new wave of strikes hours after Iran’s navy “blatantly attacked” M/V GFS Galaxy, a Cyprus-flagged container ship travelling through the waterway. The attack caused a fire and “significant damage” to the vessel’s engine room, forcing the ship to halt in the waterway, Centcom said. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre (UKMTO) said the crew had abandoned ship and was currently in a lifeboat. Centcom had earlier claimed a civilian crew member was missing. Centcom wrote on X: “Iran was provided yet another opportunity to demonstrate adherence to the Memorandum of Understanding after being held accountable for earlier attacks on commercial vessels but has again failed. In response, the United States is imposing a heavy cost by continuing to degrade Iran’s ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships freely transiting the strait.”

IRAN - A mafia system without a godfather doesn’t immediately collapse: it fractures into infighting as rival oligarchic clans, once kept in line by a single strongman, turn on one another in a struggle for power and resources. That is Iran today, in the aftermath of the war. Much of the media in the West wants you to believe the Islamic Republic has emerged “stronger” from the Iran War – but that conclusion is not correct.