USA - Donald Trump has said the German chancellor should fix his “broken country” before criticising the US. On Thursday, Mr Trump posted online that Friedrich Merz had been “ineffective” in ending the war in Ukraine and claimed Germany was “broken” because of its migration and energy policies. The president made the comments hours after he announced that he may soon withdraw American troops from Germany, where they are stationed as a deterrent against Russia. Mr Trump said on Truth Social: “The chancellor of Germany should spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!), and fixing his broken country, especially immigration and energy, and less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran nuclear threat, thereby making the world, including Germany, a safer place!” The post may have been prompted by a comment about the Iran war Mr Merz had made earlier on Thursday. In it, he called for a “reliable” partnership with the US, saying: “Our compass remains clearly set on a strong NATO and a reliable transatlantic partnership.”

USA - The MSM will falsely claim the Secretary of the Navy was fired because of Battleships. Throughout the Biden administration, and later during DOGE’s audit work, I translated every major spending bill into a unit every American can actually visualize: one nuclear aircraft carrier.

MIDDLE EAST - Imagine a dystopian reality: a world where the most extreme and barbaric terrorist organizations are sustained by astronomical budgets exceeding a billion dollars a month. This windfall is bankrolled entirely by oil revenues and transit tolls extorted by Iran at the Strait of Hormuz. Reflect on the atrocities of October 7 at the Israel-Gaza border – one of the most savage manifestations of evil in the modern era. If Islamic terrorism could engineer such carnage on a Qatari stipend of $30 million a year, envision the scale of future assaults on Western societies. Picture Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Shi'ite militias in Iraq armed with a budget more than 300 times that size, funneled to them month after month by an Iranian cryptocurrency empire.

RUSSIA - The scaling down of the May 9 Victory Day parade in Red Square is extraordinary, so much so that it demands serious attention. What was once a massive display of military power now appears reduced to something closer to a token event. This, remember, is meant to honour the sacrifice of some 26 million Russians during what they call the Great Patriotic War, known elsewhere as the Second World War. To cut it back so dramatically – reportedly due to an inability to defend Moscow from Ukrainian attack – is not just embarrassing; it is strategically revealing. For Vladimir Putin, it raises uncomfortable questions.

USA - Every single day that the Strait of Hormuz is closed, the damage that is being done to the global economy is getting even worse. But the full consequences of the global oil crisis that we are facing will not be felt for a while because nations all over the globe are still running through their strategic oil reserves. And the full consequences of the global fertilizer crisis that we are facing will not be felt until harvest season. So don’t judge the severity of this emergency by what we are experiencing at this moment, because the truth is that what we are experiencing at this moment is just the very small tip of a very large iceberg.

USA - Even in the country, you see the same corporate slop. Every town in America now has the same fast food restaurants, the same chain restaurants, the same hotels. Different area, same everything. This is not a country anymore, but a functional economic zone that you are meant to contribute to until your life ends. And maybe if you're lucky, every year or two, you can take a vacation to actually live for once somewhere else in the world. The irony, they’re really essentially all one big company under different names. As of recent data, chain restaurants make up roughly 40% of US restaurants nationally. That number jumps to over 60% in some towns. I personally find it very annoying to travel to different parts of America and see the same restaurants, the same stores in the mall, the same everything. It makes travel feel pointless. Any average American can attest that you can drive through huge stretches of the country and never really feel like you arrived anywhere new. The signs change, the exits change, and the accents may even be different, but the commercial landscape often looks identical. Same fast food. Same chain restaurants. Same hotels. Same pharmacies. Same shopping plazas. Same everything, really.

USA - In the wake of comments from Germany’s chancellor that America was being “humiliated by the Iranian leadership,” President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced the possibility of reducing the number of US troops in the European nation. Trump said on Truth Social: “The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” According to USAFacts, “The top five countries with the highest number of active-duty US troops are: Japan (54,288), Germany (36,436), South Korea (23,495) Italy (12,662), United Kingdom (10,156).” On Monday, Merz told German students the US was being “humiliated by the Iranian leadership” for having an American delegation travel to Pakistan for peace talks, only to depart without a deal.

UK - All population growth over the next decade will be driven by migration as fertility rates fall, according to the Office for National Statistics. Britain is at a population “turning point” as deaths will outnumber births for the first time this year, according to projections by the Office for National Statistics. More Britons will die than be born between now and 2034, the agency found, and small annual population increases are expected to be solely due to migration. The overall population is expected to grow at a slower rate over the next few decades than previously reported due to a significant fall in net migration and Britain will go into population decline in the mid-2050s. Charlie McCurdy, a senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said the latest projections put Britain at a “demographic turning point”.

EUROPE - NATO members scrambling to rearm for a potential war with Russia face “empty shelves” after three decades of neglect in the defence industry, the alliance’s former top military officer has warned. Armed forces face “unacceptable” waits of up to seven years for tanks, fighter jets and Patriot air defence missiles, Admiral Rob Bauer told The Times after the Kyiv Security Forum last week. Bauer, a former commander of the Dutch armed forces, stepped down as chairman of NATO’s military committee last year. He said President Trump had been a “blessing” for renewed investment, pushing all NATO members to hit the decade-old target of spending 2 per cent of national income on defence and to agree to raise it to 3.5 per cent by 2035. But manufacturing cannot keep pace with the extra funding, he said. “Defence production capacity is now the biggest challenge within the alliance,” Bauer said. “We actually have the money, we know what we need to buy, but we can’t buy it because there are empty shelves. There’s more than €800 billion floating around in Europe now waiting to be spent.”

UK - The British ambassador to Washington said America’s special relationship was “probably” with Israel in leaked remarks published before the King met President Trump at the White House. Sir Christian Turner, who took up his post in February, held a question-and-answer session the same month with visiting sixth-form pupils shortly before the US went to war with Iran, a decision that created tensions between the White House and No 10.