USA - After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, with cesium 137 contamination in Sweden, Norway and to a lesser extent, Finland, all faced a marketing disaster for their food industry (especially for reindeer meat) from the increased radioactive contamination, over and above previous Russian atmospheric nuclear testing.
MIDDLE EAST - Palestinian authority president Mahmoud Abbas announced his intention to sue the British state for its part in helping to establish the Israeli regime and its subsequent crimes against the Palestinian people. The statement was made at the Arab League Summit this week in Mauritania by Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki in Abbas' absence, Ria Novosti reported.
ZIMBABWE - When the presidential motorcade tears through the posh Borrowdale suburb where Robert Mugabe resides in Harare, all traffic still pulls onto the verge in reluctant deference to the despot. At 92 he is plainly bent on staying in power for as long as he lives. But nowadays the vendors hawking newspapers at the roadside, with Zimbabwean flags draped around their shoulders like superhero capes, are selling a different story. “Writing on the wall for Mugabe,” blares one independent newspaper’s headline. In the past few weeks a string of setbacks for the old man has increased the chances that his luck may finally be running out, even before he dies.
GERMANY - Four attacks in a week have left Germany anxious. On July 18, a teenage refugee attacked passengers on a train near Würzburg with an axe and a knife. Three days later, an 18-year-old shot and killed nine people in Munich. And two days after that, a Syrian refugee killed his girlfriend and co-worker at a kebab shop in Reutlingen, a few hours before another Syrian refugee detonated a bomb in Ansbach, killing himself and wounding 15.
GERMANY - At an extraordinary press conference on Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a nine-point plan beefing up internal security. It will include more money and more personnel for the security authorities; closer collaboration with European and international secret services; joint exercises of the police and Bundeswehr (Armed Forces); the introduction of a national entry and exit register as well as the expedited deportation of asylum seekers.
GERMANY - Merkel's premiership is hanging by a thread today as thousands gathered to call for her resignation while a key political ally dramatically withdrew his support over immigration policy.
RUSSIA - Russian President Vladimir Putin seemingly cannot believe his luck as he watches NATO cause near irreparable harm to itself from the sidelines. NATO has been a major force in reigning in Putin's revanchist vision for Russia, with the alliance holding a series of military exercises and basing troops in vulnerable nations throughout Eastern Europe and the Baltics as a check on Russian aggression following the annexation of Crimea.
TURKEY - A crowd has been protesting near the Incirlik military base in Adana, Turkey. The facility houses US and NATO forces. The demonstrators are calling for the closure of the base, where arrests and searches were made in connection with the failed coup. Regional television has been broadcasting the rally. The base has made the headlines recently in connection with the failed coup in Turkey, and searches have been conducted at the facility by Turkish prosecutors and police. The air base commander, General Bekir Ercan Van, has been detained at Incirlik by the Turkish authorities along with over a dozen lower ranking officers, all accused of complicity in the attempted coup. Incirlik is used by NATO and stores US tactical nuclear weapons. Washington has been using the base in its campaign against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in neighboring Syria and Iraq.
UK - July will be remembered as a month that continuously stunned the public with shocking events at home and abroad. Tragedy hit Dallas with the sniper shootings that killed five police officers. The Bastille Day terror attack in Nice soon followed, leaving 84 dead and dozens injured. And the world watched in fear as the unsuccessful attempted military coup in Turkey unfolded. In the UK we saw David Cameron leave Downing Street after six years in office, and we got our second female Prime Minister as well as a new government. And let's not forget Trump's month...
USA - Most Americans have absolutely no idea, but a very dark philosophy is spreading like wildfire among the global elite. This philosophy is an obsessive belief that humanity has become a cancer that is destroying the earth. There are now large numbers of global leaders that are convinced that the exploding population of the world has become like a virus or a plague, and that it must be combated as such.
UK - Thirty years from now [2018], Americans, Japanese, Europeans, and people in many other rich countries, and some relatively poor ones will probably be paying for their shopping with the same currency. Prices will be quoted not in dollars, yen or D-marks but in, let’s say, the phoenix. The phoenix will be favoured by companies and shoppers because it will be more convenient than today’s national currencies, which by then will seem a quaint cause of much disruption to economic life in the latter twentieth century.
USA - There was a huge trend change in US gold investment in May. Something quite extraordinary took place which hasn’t happened for several decades. How much gold? A lot. The Swiss exported 50 times more gold in May than their monthly average (0.4 metric tons) since 2015.
KENYA - Doctors in Kenya have accused UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation of secretly trying to sterilise millions of women in Africa via a tetanus vaccine program.
USA - As the Obama Administration continues to shift the focus of the Pentagon to the Pacific regions, the US plans to station long-range bombers in Guam, roughly 2,000 miles from the South China Sea. For the first time in nearly 10 years, the Air Force will deploy a squadron of long-range B-1 Lancer bombers to Guam, a US territory in Micronesia.
USA - Americans appear to be increasingly pessimistic about the future of America. According to a Real Clear Politics average of recent polls, 68.9 percent of Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track, and only 23.1 percent of Americans believe that we are headed in the right direction.