ISRAEL - The head of the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, has insisted that after his country's incursion into Lebanon concludes, any ceasefire will be contingent on the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, according to the Walla news agency, citing a senior US official. Dadi Barnea, head of Mossad, recently relayed the demand to CIA Director William Burns, Walla reported on Wednesday. According to the unnamed American official and another informed source, Barnea told Burns that Israel and the US should only agree to a truce in Lebanon if Hamas frees the captives. The Mossad chief allegedly believes that it would be possible to make the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Iran and “other elements in the region” put pressure on Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to meet the terms, the report said.

GERMANY - Germany needs to reintroduce the draft and buy more drones and military equipment right away, Markus Soeder, leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU) party and head of the state of Bavaria, has said. Soeder spoke to the outlet Bild on the eve of his party conference in Augusburg, where the CSU and its national sister party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), will plot to unseat the current “traffic light” coalition government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “What is needed is money for the Bundeswehr, clear [funding] structures, drones... and of course conscription. As quickly as possible,” Soeder told the outlet. “Otherwise, the ability [of Germany] to defend itself cannot be guaranteed in the long term.”

IRAN - An earthquake-like tremor has sparked speculation that it was more than seismic, perhaps an underground explosion. In the late evening of October 5, seismic tremors of a magnitude of 4.6 on the Richter Scale were detected in Iran’s Semnan region. Although they could be felt even in the capital Tehran, over a hundred kilometers away from the epicenter, as earthquakes go this was not a major event: It was not terribly strong and caused no casualties. And yet it has attracted global attention. The reason is that we are not sure that it really was an earthquake.

USA - Monster storm Hurricane Milton has landed in Florida with the first casualties reported as the state is battered by 'catastrophic' flooding and 120mph winds. The National Weather Service said flash flooding was occurring in the Tampa Bay area, including St Petersburg, where over 16 inches of rain has fallen so far. More than 1.5 million homes and businesses were without power Wednesday night in Florida, while about 125 homes were destroyed. Meanwhile, the Sheriff of Florida's St Lucie County revealed there have been 'multiple fatalities' after the area was ravaged by a tornado before the hurricane even made landfall.

USA - Many citizens want more government control of the economy to curb rising prices. It is the worst strategy imaginable. Interventionist governments never reduce consumer prices because they benefit from inflation, dissolving their political spending commitments in a constantly depreciated currency. Inflation is the perfect hidden tax. The government makes the currency less valuable by issuing more units of fiat money, partially dissolves its debt in real terms, collects more taxes, and presents itself as the solution to rising prices with subsidies in an increasingly worthless currency. That is why socialism and hyperinflation go hand in hand.

USA - The State Department said Tuesday that it doesn’t want to see a ceasefire in Lebanon and supports the heavy Israeli bombardment of the country to “degrade Hezbollah.” State Department spokesman Matt Miller was asked about comments from Hezbollah Deputy Sheikh Naim Qassem, who said the group supports efforts by Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to reach a ceasefire without mentioning that it must also include a ceasefire in Gaza. "Now that Hezbollah is on the back foot and is getting battered, suddenly, they’ve changed their tune and want a ceasefire,” Miller told reporters. “What we want to see come out of this situation ultimately is Lebanon able to break the grip Hezbollah has had on the country” Miller said.

LEBANON - Hezbollah said Tuesday it is now ready to engage in cease-fire talks with Israel, after suffering serious blows to its leadership and ranks in recent months. The terror group in Lebanon made the announcement after firing more than 100 rockets at the Jewish state hours earlier. Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general, Naim Qassem, publicly endorsed a truce with Israel, the first such time the terror group has proposed a cease-fire not conditioned on the war in Gaza. “We support the political efforts led by [Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih] Berri under the banner of achieving a cease-fire,” Qassem said, according to a CNN translation. “Once the cease-fire is firmly established and diplomacy can reach it, all other details will be discussed and decisions will be made collaboratively,” he added.

UK - All birdkeepers, regardless of the size of their flock, will be required to officially register their birds under new measures announced by Defra (The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). The threshold for mandatory registration will be reduced from 50 birds to 1, which means all poultry and captive bird keepers will be legally required to register their birds. Poultry keepers will be required to review their poultry register entry annually to ensure their details are up to date. The requirement for all poultry keepers to register will come into force [from 1 October 2024], with the requirement for an annual review to be introduced 12 months later. The government said the changes would help manage potential disease outbreaks, such as avian influenza and Newcastle disease, and limit any spread.

USA - Thousands of people are scrambling to flee Florida as catastrophic Hurricane Milton threatens a once-in-a-century direct hit on Tampa and St Petersburg, engulfing the region with towering storm surges. Terrified Floridians are rushing to safety after local officials issued a stark warning overnight advising residents to 'flee or die' before the monster storm packs furious winds and gushes walls of water inland tomorrow.

RUSSIA - In January, BRICS welcomed four new members into its ranks – Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, with Saudi Arabia currently finalizing the accession process. The inclusion of two more African nations, Egypt and Ethiopia, in the group has significantly amplified their influence on the continent while giving them a global platform to shape not only regional but also international policies. Both of them are regional leaders with diversified economies and significant population, and thus their membership works both ways by providing other member countries wider access to African markets.

USA - During trying times like these, with many storms upon us (literally and figuratively), no book provides greater comfort than the Bible. Yet how many actually read it? Two years ago, Christianity Today noted: “The data said roughly 26 million people had mostly or completely stopped reading the Bible in the last year.” Meanwhile, as of this writing, the education department of the state of Oklahoma is planning to purchase 55,000 Bibles for the public schools. I’m sure the left is gnashing their teeth over such a plan.

UK - They say "demography is destiny". Well, Britain's demographic is in the process of changing, quite dramatically. It's time we paid more attention to it. Consider the figures released by the Office for National Statistics today which provide the latest update of the UK population. They show that the overall level of the population rose to 68.3 million by the middle of 2023. But the really important detail here is to be found beneath the surface.

UK - A British scientist known as the “Godfather of AI” has won the Nobel Prize for physics – but has regrets about his invention. Professor Geoffrey Hinton, who was born in London and studied at the University of Cambridge, shared the honour with Professor John Hopfield of Princeton University. The 76-year-old was staying in a “cheap hotel in California” when he received the early morning phone call informing him of his award, while Chicago-born Professor Hopfield, 91, was in a thatched cottage in England. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences recognised their work using “fundamental concepts” to design artificial neural networks. The work, carried out in the 1980s, which involved inventing a method that can autonomously find properties in data and identify specific elements in pictures, was foundational to the modern AI increasingly dominating the world today.

USA - Tech Billionaire Elon Musk is endorsing the theory that UFOs are a ‘new weapons program [ie secret] hidden within the US government’s vast black budget’ – I would only add that they sometimes belong to other nations as well. Musk told Tucker Carlson that he believes ‘we are the aliens’ because ‘he has never seen extraterrestrial life’ in his time running SpaceX. He also promised to be ‘the first person’ to expose extraterrestrial life. He said that he will post whatever he uncovers on X at the very moment he finds it. SpaceX has more than 6,000 Starlink satellites in the orbit of planet Earth and ‘not once have we had to maneuver around an alien spacecraft.’

MIDDLE EAST - The jihadist terrorist group Hamas – and fellow Iran-backed outfits such as Hezbollah – celebrated the one-year mark since the atrocities committed against civilians in the Hamas siege of Israel on October 7, 2023, calling for the extermination of the Israeli people and heralding Iran for its support. While a somber day to honor the fallen in Israel, Hamas leaders used the occasion to celebrate the slaughter. “Al-Aqsa Flood returned the occupation [Israel] to square zero and threatened its existence,” Hamas “political” chief Khaled Mashal said in a statement on Monday, referring to the October 7 massacre by the jihadi name for it, the “al-Aqsa Flood.”