RUSSIA - Leaked military documents outline Russia's doctrine for tactical nuclear weapons use, including the minimum criteria for using tactical nuclear weapons, the Financial Times (FT) reported on February 28. Russia's tactical nuclear weapons are designed for use on the battlefield in Europe and Asia, and have a more limited range compared to strategic nuclear weapons, which could reach the US. The 29 Russian military files, which date from between 2008 and 2014, indicate a threshold "lower than Russia has ever publicly admitted, according to experts who reviewed and verified the documents," the FT said.

USA - Hamas’ savage attack on Israeli civilians on October 7 sparked “woke” leftist protests at prestigious universities. The protestors sided with the terrorist’s butchers, indulged antisemitic and genocidal chants and slogans, and threatened the well-being of Jewish students. Campus “cancel culture,” the silencing of dissenting opinions and ideas, ran amok. Worse, many university administrators sided with what could only be described as “hate speech,” and refused to commit to a clear condemnation of the terrorists and their student cheerleaders. Instead, they relied on weasel words like “context” to avoid their students’ wrath. The First Amendment and academic freedom, long ailing in our premier universities, are now languishing on life-support.

CHINA - Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dictator Xi Jinping is once again urging US students to visit China, where they can be more effectively lied to and brainwashed to believe China is a socialist paradise whose government does not want to destroy America. Foreign exchange programs between American schools and Communist China can constitute a serious problem, as the CCP obviously only wants American students to see a false front of prosperity, happiness, and cultural richness. The students will not see the CCP's horrific religious, political, and ethnic persecution and mass murder. Just as the CCP establishes institutes and infiltrates institutions in America to propagandize Westerners, foreign exchange programs can merely be opportunities for the CCP to present Americans with a very one-sided view of Communist China.

ETHIOPIA - Ethiopia, one of Africa's largest countries, has always been ambitious and eager for economic development. Recently, the country has joined BRICS. BRICS membership could have a profound impact on Ethiopia and its economy. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia to the Russian Federation Uriat Cham Ugala in an exclusive interview with TV BRICS said that BRICS will allow Ethiopia to move to a new economic level: “This is an opportunity for Ethiopia to grow. The BRICS countries account for about 40 per cent of the world's population. In addition, the economies of all these countries are growing rapidly. Joining the alliance opens up for Ethiopia broad prospects for co-operation in many different areas. So our leadership has many expectations.”

USA - (The US Government Believed That About 90% Of The World Population Would Die in An Attack With Nuclear Weapons.) An engagement of a few hundred strikes, in tit-for-tat waves, over the space of a few days, targeting military installations. It would disproportionately affect Russia as the US missile defence system, while far from perfect, is more advanced and would be more successful at knocking some incoming missiles out. There would be frantic diplomatic work from neutral parties to try and de-escalate. When it fizzles out, there would be hundreds of thousands dead, predominately military personnel. Hundreds of separate wildfires in forests and grasslands would cause a slight, temporary decrease in global temperatures.

USA - Seizure fever is toxifying law enforcement across the nation. For more than thirty years, federal, state, and local government agencies have plundered citizens on practically any harebrained accusation or pretext. You could be at risk of being pilfered by officialdom anytime you sit behind a steering wheel. Between 2001 and 2014, lawmen seized more than $2.5 billion in cash from sixty thousand travelers on the nation’s highways — with no criminal charges in most cases, according to the Washington Post. Federal, state, and local law enforcement have institutionalized shakedowns on the nation’s highways to the point that “forfeiture corridors are the new speed traps,” as Mother Jones observed.

USA - Ultra-processed foods are industrially formulated with added sugar, artificial sweeteners, additives and flavorings to be highly rewarding and even addictive. They can alter the brain’s reward pathways the same way that other addictive substances do, making them challenging to consume in moderation. In fact, a body of scientific research has emerged in recent years to show that some ultra-processed foods (UPFs) can be as addictive as cigarettes and cocaine. Several major food brands were once owned by the world’s largest tobacco companies. Evidence suggests the same tactics used to formulate and market cigarettes were used in the creation of food products. Manufacturers of ultra-processed foods often seek to find the most alluring combination of salt, sugar, and fat in their products. This point of perfection is known as “the bliss point,” a term coined by American market researcher and food scientist Howard Moskowitz in the 1990s.

VATICAN - Pope Francis, who has had a mild flu in recent days, was taken to a hospital in downtown Rome on Wednesday, reviving concerns about the 87-year old pontiff’s health. The Vatican said in a statement that he had gone for “some diagnostic tests,” but did not offer details about a visit that lasted less than an hour. Francis’s health has been a source of concern. The pontiff has been hospitalized three times in two years, most recently in June, when surgeons operated on an incisional hernia, typically a consequence of previous operations, that had been causing painful intestinal blockages. He also had colon surgery in 2021, and in March last year he was hospitalized because of a respiratory infection.

WALES - It's thought to be the largest protest event in the Senedd's history. Thousands of farmers descended on the Senedd and a long line of tractors shut a major road in Cardiff in a protest over issues threatening the industry. Protests have been taking place across Wales over the last few weeks triggered by the Welsh Government's sustainable farming scheme which the government itself admits could result in 5,500 direct job losses.

EGYPT - Egypt warned on Tuesday that Israel's planned ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza would have "catastrophic repercussions" for peace in the Middle East. Foreign ministers from Arab League countries told the United Nations Human Rights Council that some nations were turning a blind eye to the suffering in Gaza. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said the extreme polarisation exposed by the Gaza war had laid bare the double standards of some members of the UN's top rights body. Israel has said a truce with Hamas would delay, not prevent, a ground invasion of Rafah on the Egyptian border, where an estimated 1.4 million Palestinian civilians have sought refuge from the war.

LEBANON - A Hezbollah official who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity said that at least two fighters were killed in the strikes, adding that an Israeli munition had struck a food storage warehouse used for civilian purposes. Another unnamed Lebanese official added that a Lebanese Army regular was also seriously wounded in the raid, and noted that the soldier’s son had also sustained injuries, without elaborating. The militia group later said it responded by firing 60 Katyusha rockets toward an Israeli Army command center in the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel seized following the Six-Day War of 1967.

MIDDLE EAST - Hamas, the Palestinian terror organization that attacked Israel on October 7, has rejected the latest framework for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages, according to reports in the Israeli media. Hamas had rejected any deal on hostages unless Israel agreed to end the war and pull all of its forces out of the Gaza Strip — a condition that would allow the terror group to claim victory in the war, and was therefore a non-starter for Israel.

MIDDLE EAST - The aerial campaign waged by Joe Biden’s DoD and his Western allies against the Shia Islamist group Ansar Allah – popularly known as Houthis – seems not to be working at all. Not only the attacks against ships in the Red Sea are intensifying, but it now arises that the Houthis are also waging war at the bottom of the sea – and we are not talking about simple underwater drones. Israeli press reports that four underwater communications cables between Saudi Arabia and Djibouti have been destroyed in recent months. The attacks are presumed to have been waged by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

LEBANON - The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claim they took out a significant Hezbollah leader, Hassan Hussein Salami, in an airstrike in southern Lebanon today. Salami's role as a brigade commander came to a dramatic end today as his vehicle was targeted while he was driving in the southern Lebanon village of Majadel. The IDF says Salami ran a regional unit in Hezbollah and led attacks against Israeli soldiers and communities in northern Israel. The recent attacks that Salami took part in included firing anti-tank missiles at Kiryat Shmona and the 769th "Hiram" Regional Brigade's base, the IDF told us. Hezbollah has confirmed his passing but didn't mention his role as a commander.

EUROPE - The Swiss and French branches are leveraging the family name in a bid to control the global wealth-management market. The Rothschild family’s Swiss and French branches are battling for dominance in the wealth management industry, which is causing tension and sparking speculation of a merger that would significantly impact the global financial landscape, Bloomberg wrote this week. The Swiss private bank, Edmond de Rothschild Group, and the smaller French lender, Rothschild & Co, are the only remaining banks with links to the family whose name has been a synonym for wealth and power for more than two centuries.