The last week has brought more reports about Iran’s establishment in Syria – the deployment of Shiite militias, the presence of military experts, soldiers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as plans to build bases and weapons factories. First The New York Times published a detailed map showing the Iranian reinforcement, now Fox News reports that the new base near Damascus includes big hangars, that could house missiles capable of hitting anywhere in Israel.

These reports follow a number of other developments, one being Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unusual speech last week at the International Security Conference in Munich, Germany, on February 18. There for the first time he threatened a direct hit on Iran and military action against the Assad regime. Another is Netanyahu’s anticipated meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington… and when a group of senators returned home from visiting Israel, they stated that the new threats by Iran require the administration to reconsider giving Israel more military aid.

In other words, in light of the Fox News report, it's fair to assume that the countdown has started for another aerial clash in the Syrian skies. Even with the parties stating that they do not want war, it will take extraordinary navigational skills to prevent matters from spiraling out of control.

However, because the ‘Most Favoured Nation’ rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) require tariffs to be levied at the same rate for all third-party countries, these charges will also apply to European Union countries, including Britain. This could be avoided by a free trade agreement, but the EU has failed to negotiate one with the US, and Brussels does not allow individual member-states to negotiate their own trade deals.

The European Union has taken a hostile line in response, threatening a “trade war”. “The Commission will bring forward in the next few days a proposal for World Trade Organization-compatible countermeasures against the US to rebalance the situation,” vowed Jean-Claude Juncker, who heads the unelected European Commission. “The EU has been a close security ally of the US for decades. We will not sit idly while our industry is hit with unfair measures that put thousands of European jobs at risk. I had the occasion to say that the EU would react adequately and that’s what we will do,” he said.

The British government is also prevented from favouring British steel for public contracts by EU competition and tendering rules — so much so that even the scaffolding around the Elizabeth Tower which houses Big Ben uses foreign steel. It is likely that Continental producers will focus on the British market even more if a new tariff regime impacts their competitiveness outside Europe, which could put British industry in jeopardy.

Britain is already down to its last aluminium smelter, and the steel industry — which enjoyed a mild recovery after the EU referendum due to the fall in sterling boosting competitiveness — remains vulnerable.

In those circumstances, countries try to steal growth from trading partners by cheapening their currencies to promote exports and create export-related jobs. The problem with currency wars is that they are zero-sum or negative-sum games. It is true that countries can obtain short-term relief by cheapening their currencies, but sooner than later, their trading partners also cheapen their currencies to regain the export advantage.

This process of tit-for-tat devaluations feeds on itself with the pendulum of short-term trade advantage swinging back and forth and no one getting any further ahead. After a few years, the futility of currency wars becomes apparent, and countries resort to trade wars. This consists of punitive tariffs, export subsidies and nontariff barriers to trade.

The dynamic is the same as in a currency war. The first country to impose tariffs gets a short-term advantage, but retaliation is not long in coming and the initial advantage is eliminated as trading partners impose tariffs in response. Despite the illusion of short-term advantage, in the long-run everyone is worse off. The original condition of too much debt and too little growth never goes away.

Finally, tensions rise, rival blocs are formed and a shooting war begins. The shooting wars often have a not-so-hidden economic grievance or rationale behind them.

Much of this trend is due to historical illiteracy and a failure to teach an entire generation about the destruction that has been perpetrated by previous communist regimes. At the same time, they are uninformed about the failures and desperations experienced in current communist countries, such as Venezuela and Cuba.

Today’s millennials are hard-pressed to even define socialism and communism. They feel at odds with capitalism and simply feel any alternative would be better, although many haven’t started working or become a part of the workforce thanks to the pro wall street policies practiced by the Federal Reserve.

One of the lures of socialism is the same one proselytized by Karl Marx: the division of wealth. High earners and inherited wealth are seen as unfairly depriving the rest of the population of their “fair share,” although most millennials are unable to elaborate clearly on the concept. A mere third of millennials can even correctly define socialism. Only half can identify capitalism as the free market economic system that lured millions of their ancestors to American shores.

For those who thought the Cold War is at an end, these trends are a disturbing wakeup call. This time, however, the chill is not across the Atlantic. Socialism is on the rise as a threat to America, but the threat is coming from America’s own newest generation of voters, who weren’t even born when the Berlin Wall magnificently collapsed to the cheer of millions. They were, ironically, raised during one of history’s most prosperous periods while being indoctrinated into ideologies their grandparents died to obliterate.

German MEP Hans-Olaf Henkel told Express.co.uk: “The majority of Italian Election results are critical toward the EU, even against the euro! All politicians promised the moon to the Italian voters. The results will mean even higher debts than those 130 percent of state debt today, further deterioration of competitiveness of Italian industry and more unemployment.

"But Italian president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, will print even more money. In the end, the eurozone will be the ideal transfer mechanism from the north to the south. That’s why Germany must get out of the euro now!”

Germany is said to have already saved the euro from a full-on crash in the wake of the eurosceptic results in the Italian Election. Carlo Alberto De Casa, chief analyst at ActivTrades said in no uncertain terms, the Italian election has results in a relatively ungovernable country.

With 75% of ballots counted, the Five-Star Movement led by 31-year-old Luigi Di Maio was easily the biggest single party. It is credited with a whopping 32% of the vote, making it an unavoidable force in the intense horsetrading that will follow this inconclusive vote.

"The March 4 vote yielded a result that Europe was afraid of and Italy perhaps did not expect on this scale," columnist Marcello Sorgi wrote in La Stampa daily on Monday. "Defeated everywhere else in Europe, populism won here,” he added. “Either it can govern or it will block the system."

As the scale of the mainstream parties’ defeat became apparent, Eurosceptics across the continent tweeted jubilantly. Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage congratulated the Five-Star Movement, his allies in the European Parliament, "for topping the poll" as Italy's biggest single party. "The European Union is going to have a bad night," added Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's far-right National Front and a close ally of Lega leader Matteo Salvini.

Ostensibly in Rome as an “observer” of Sunday’s historic elections, Mr Bannon says he feels “the same pre-Trump climate” that reigned in the United States in the lead-up to the 2016 election. Europe, he said, is now “the vanguard of populism,” with strong nationalist movements emerging in virtually every nation in the 28-member bloc of the European Union.

Among these nations, Italy holds a “crucial” place, Bannon asserts, and Sunday’s elections provide a “fundamental test case of the power of sovereignty.” Armed with recent data and statistics, Bannon notes that some 65 percent of the Italian population is now aligned with anti-establishment parties and movements, a radical shift from just a decade ago, when the leftist Democratic Party (PD) governed virtually without opposition.

Short and sweet from Google. I wrote to them (using their appeal form) last Thursday evening, asking for an explanation for the deletion of my channel. I was polite but firm and asked for a contact, a name, someone who I could speak with, just for the record mind as I know their subscriber interaction is run by AI now. Stop and think about that for a minute.

A machine decided to delete the channel. I am then reduced to appealing to the same machine to have my intellectual property restored to me. We're now living Blade Runner, Judge Dredd, Demolition Man and any other sci-fi flick about a dystopian future.

Malema told his supporters in 2016 he was “not calling for the slaughter of white people — at least for now.” Supporters of the motion issued harsh statements; News24 reported Malema saying before the vote was taken, "The time for reconciliation is over. Now is the time for justice."

Gugile Nkwinti, minister of water affairs, echoed, "The ANC (African National Congress) unequivocally supports the principle of land expropriation without compensation. There is no doubt about it, land shall be expropriated without compensation."

The motion, which will still need the approval of the South African Parliament’s Constitutional Review Committee before an amendment can even be drafted, has once again stoked fears among the country’s white farmers of a violent and disastrous land redistribution akin to that which crippled Zimbabwe in the 2000s.

The online petition calls on Trump to “take the steps necessary to initiate an emergency immigration plan allowing white Boers to come to the United States.” Boer is the term used to describe South Africans of Dutch, German or Huguenot descent, who are also commonly referred to as Afrikaners.

The petition suggests that Trump should stop admitting refugees from Somalia and the Middle East, claiming they “cannot be properly vetted,” and allow white South Africans into the country instead. A similar petition, calling on European Union President Jean-Claude Juncker, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May to allow white South Africans into EU countries, has gained nearly 17,000 signatures.

Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican for South Carolina) tried to sum that up in two words – “worth it.” The notoriously bellicose senator insisted that the disastrous number of deaths would definitely be worth it to the US government as a boost in “long-term stability.”

At least more stability for the survivors. North Korea has always had a retaliatory capability to wipe out much of South Korea, and the development of nuclear weapons only risks making the consequences of a US attack on North Korea that much greater, and more calamitous.

Graham’s position on the deaths of literal millions isn’t necessarily shared broadly among US politicians, though President Trump has long favored a narrative suggesting that he is on the verge of launching such an attack, and that has necessarily kept Graham’s hopes up.

Bannon says: “What we’re seeing today is China, Persia, and Turkey — three ancient civilizations — coming together to form a new axis. It’s confronting the Christian West and also a big part of Islam that is tied to the West. You’re starting to see this form every day like in the 1930s. You’re starting to see it crystallize more and more.”

We’re going to have our hands full right now with China, Iran, and Turkey. Turkey’s supposed to be an ally.