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.”

MIDDLE EAST - War in the Middle East has not yet caused an economic crisis - but that could change. Recent events in the Middle East have already had a ghastly human toll and there could be much more to come. Beside such considerations, economic issues are decidedly second order. Nevertheless, there are economic aspects to this crisis and they need to be analysed. Naturally, how serious the economic consequences prove to be will depend greatly on what happens from here so our judgments are hedged about with uncertainty. The most important economic variable affected by the Middle East conflict is the price of oil. Twice in the 1970s, huge increases in the oil price caused a major spike in inflation and simultaneously sent the developed world into a recession. Both of those spikes were associated with trouble in the Middle East so, when a crisis brews up there, it is natural for people to recall what happened then and to run for cover.

VATICAN - Pope Francis has announced his intention to make 21 new cardinals on December 8, among whom is the pro-LGBT Dominican friar Timothy Radcliffe. In 2023, the pontiff chose the woke friar to open the Vatican Synod on Synodality, who began his words by confessing, “I am old, white, a Westerner, and a man! I don’t know which is worse.” “All of these aspects of my identity limit my understanding, so I ask for your forgiveness for the inadequacy of my words.” said Father Radcliffe, a leader of the Church’s progressive wing for decades, who was largely sidelined during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II but has found new life under Francis.

USA - Power restoration in Western North Carolina, Upstate South Carolina could take months — 360 substations down indefinitely. Word on the street is that it will take months to restore power, water and some kind of normalcy to everyone impacted by Hurricane Helene in North and South Carolina, which were hit hardest by the storm’s flood waters. The situation is so bad in western North Carolina especially that Reppresentative Chuck Edwards (Republican for North Carolina) issued a press release detailing the progress of emergency responders and repair crews. “More than 30 swift water and helicopter rescue crews from across North Carolina and seven nearby states have rescued more than 200 people since Thursday,” Edwards says. “Thousands of linemen from across North America, including crews from Canada, have been deployed to our community to restore power, and we’ve seen the state come together to transport dozens of trucks filled with potable water and food to our shelters.” While a valiant effort, these operations will still take a lot of time considering the scope of the damage.

USA - Still reeling from Helene, Florida braces for Hurricane Milton as it gains strength. State official urges people to prepare for ‘largest evacuation that we have seen most likely since 2017 Hurricane Irma’. More than 6.8 million people were evacuated for Irma. Florida has expanded its state of emergency as it braces for a major storm expected to pummel the state’s western peninsula by midweek, after Tropical Storm Milton gathered strength and was declared a category 1 hurricane on Sunday. The impending landfall of Milton comes days after Hurricane Helene caused devastation and destruction through large swaths of Florida and other parts of the south-east of the US including North Carolina. The death toll stands at 230 people, and is expected to rise.

GERMANY - “I am now, officially, at least according to the New Normal German authorities, a ‘hate-speech’ criminal. I’m officially a ‘hate-speech’ criminal because I compared New Normal Germany to Nazi Germany, and I challenged the official covid narrative, and I used the cover art of my book to do it,” he wrote on the day. After breaking the news to his readers, he promised to report on “all the ugly details of my day in court in a proper column sometime later this week.” Yesterday, CJ Hopkins published an article on his day in court. The judges had already decided to overturn the acquittal. The trial was largely a formality. CJ Hopkins’ attorney and statement was the only notable exceptions to the judges’ “imperious contempt and seething hostility.”

UK - Sir Keir Starmer has refused to rule out ending British control of Gibraltar and the Falklands, amid an ongoing backlash over his Chagos Islands deal. Asked on Friday to guarantee that no other British overseas territory would be signed away by the Government, the Prime Minister avoided the question, telling reporters that securing the use of the military base on Diego Garcia, a part of the Chagos Islands, was his focus. He said: “The single-most important thing was ensuring that we had a secure base, the joint US-UK base; hugely important to the US, hugely important to us.” The Prime Minister’s evasive answer raised fears about not only Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands, which are wanted by Spain and Argentina, respectively, but a series of other dependencies. It means that for the first time in more than 200 years, the sun will finally set on the British Empire.

UK - The answer should have been a clear “no”. No, the UK does not accept the advisory judgment of the court. No, the UK does not recognise Mauritian sovereignty over islands it sold in 1965 and that are more than 1,300 miles away from their country. No, the UK will not undermine its security by questioning our rights to the Chagos Islands and the jointly operated UK-US airbase. That’s what the US and France would have said. Even Spain has consistently said no to discussions over its North African enclaves. That’s what British prime ministers and foreign secretaries have said for generations and should have been said in November 2022, and again last week.

ISRAEL - October 7, 2023 should have been a calm and pleasant morning in Israel. Instead, the day became the deadliest and darkest for Jews since the Holocaust, because Hamas terrorists chose that Saturday morning to realise a heinous plan years in the making. Men, women, and children were indiscriminately slaughtered in their homes, their towns transformed into scenes of unspeakable horror by murderers delighting in all manner of depravity. Others were battered and bruised, tied up and forced kicking and screaming across the border into Gaza. Many would never return.

IRAN - Iran’s supreme leader has vowed retaliation for West Jerusalem’s incursion into Lebanon and siege of Gaza. On Friday, in his first public sermon in nearly five years, Khamenei defended the actions against Israel by the ‘axis of resistance’, which includes the Lebanese-based Hezbollah and Palestinian group Hamas. Tensions between Israel and neighboring Muslim countries have soared during the Gaza operation, with both Iran and Hezbollah supporting Hamas and Palestine. Earlier this month, the conflict entered a new stage as Israel launched a ground operation in Lebanon. In retaliation, Iran launched a massive missile attack on Israel. Khamenei stressed that the main problem in the Middle East is foreign interference, as “the countries of the region are capable of establishing security and peace” if left alone. He criticized America’s involvement and support for West Jerusalem, saying the US has never wanted peace in the Middle East, but has instead been pursuing the goal “of turning Israel into a tool to seize all the natural resources of the region and invest them in major global conflicts.”