EUROPE - Europe must ramp up production of armaments massively and urgently, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Monday, warning that the continent now “does not live in times of peace”. Speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for Rheinmetall’s new munitions factory, Scholz said European nations must pool together orders and financing to provide the defence industry with purchase guarantees for the next decades. “This is urgently necessary because the painful reality is that we do not live in times of peace,” he said, pointing to Russia's war on Ukraine. “We must move from manufacturing to mass production of armaments,” he said, arguing that “those who want peace must be able to successfully deter aggressors”.

EUROPE - The Institut International d’Etudes Bancaires was set up in the aftermath of World War II to foster closer ties among financial institutions. For more than seven decades, a secretive and highly influential organization has been bringing together the heads of Europe’s largest banks twice a year at luxury hotels and royal palaces across the continent to discuss global policymaking among other issues, according to a report by the Financial Times on Monday.

USA - The other 12 countries that have more homeless are third-world nations.

• US – 653,104 homeless
• UK — 380,000 homeless
• Russia – 11,285 homeless
• Japan — 3,065 homeless

USA - In a recent statement posted to social media, Tucker Carlson explained succinctly his many reasons for traveling to Russia to interview President Vladimir Putin. His decision, mired in an avalanche of outrage from leftist media talking heads and a multitude of western politicians, was inspired by Carlson’s concern that Americans have been misdirected by corporate propaganda leaving the public completely uneducated on the war in Ukraine and what tensions with the East might lead to. In fact, I don’t think the majority of Americans have a clue what the real consequences of a global war with Russia and its allies would look like. Even if the conflict never resulted in shots fired and stayed confined to the realm of economic warfare, the US and most of Europe would be devastated by the effects.

ISRAEL - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military Friday to prepare a plan to evacuate Palestinian civilians from the Gaza town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, and to attack and destroy the last Hamas battalions there. Israel has said for days that it intends to attack Hamas in Rafah, the last area of the Gaza Strip that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have not struck. The town is crucial to Israeli victory: it is used by Hamas to smuggle weapons, and people in and out.

USA - Biden has a long history of gaffes. How did last night’s mix-up — in which he referred to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as the president of Mexico — compare with his broader history of speaking in public? Confusing Sisi for Andrés Manuel López Obrador is the sort of gaffe that is classic Biden. In any other setting, people might have just rolled their eyes.

ISRAEL - US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on the phone at length today to discuss the ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza and efforts to release the remaining hostages held by terrorists in the enclave. Channel 12 reports the call lasted about 45 minutes. It was the first conversation between the two leaders since Biden said Israel’s Gaza response was “over the top.” The conversation focused on three issues, according to the report: Israel’s planned offensive in Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza, increasing the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians, and stalled hostage talks that could also include a pause in fighting.

UK - Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had a mini-meltdown after being exposed during the Tucker Carlson-Vladimir Putin interview for sabotaging the Ukrainian peace deal. During the interview, Putin confirmed reporting that first emerged last year about Johnson’s role in prolonging the war. David Arahamiya, the leader of Ukraine’s ruling party, revealed that Johnson had scuppered a peace deal that would have put an end to hostilities just a few months after the Russian invasion.

SYRIA - Damascus is fully prepared to defend its territory in a potential military conflict with Israel, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said on Sunday as the regional crisis continues.Mekdad was speaking at a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Damascus, where they discussed joint support for Palestinians during Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza. Mekdad said that Syria “has been resisting” Israel since 1948, when the first full-blown war broke out between several Arab nations and the newly established Jewish state.

USA - Parts of California were hit by more than a dozen earthquakes overnight, with 13 shaking the state during a span of just 25 minutes. “Good morning Southern California! Did you feel the magnitude 4.8 earthquake about two miles north-west of El Centro at 12.36am? El Centro is a city in the Imperial Valley in the southern California border region. The rattling continued until 1.01am, when the 13th quake of the series that began less than a half hour earlier was recorded. “Several small earthquakes have occurred in El Centro in the past 15 minutes. A couple of them were felt at our office. As of 12.53 am there have been 13!” Officials said the USGS’s Shake Alert system estimated at least one of the earthquakes registered a magnitude above 5.0, triggering alerts to cell phones. The rapid cluster of earthquakes came two days after a 4.6 magnitude earthquake hit several miles north-west of Malibu on Friday.

USA - The Biden Administration has admitted to surveilling the private financial transactions of Americans for words including 'MAGA', 'Trump' and 'Kamala' following the January 6 riots. Federal investigators in the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) instructed banks to comb through records to look for 'extremists'. A letter from the Treasury Department, seen by Fox News, was sent to Senator Tim Scott on Friday which states 'Exchange events' began 'shortly after January 6 under the prior Administration'. It said it 'included terms such as "antifa," "MAGA," "Trump," "Biden," "Kamala," "Schumer," and "Pelosi."' Further, officials warned banks of 'extremism' indicators like the purchase of a bus or plane ticket 'for travel to areas with no apparent purpose' or the purchase of a religious text, like a Bible, according to documents.

UK - A host of aspiring TV stars are to lose their virginity on television with the help of sex experts, according to reports. Virgin Island, which is set to air on Channel 4 later this year, will see people jet off to a tropical island with one sole purpose. They will be joined in the idyllic location by a camera crew and producers who hope the cast will lose their virginity in front of the lens. However, if they struggle and get stage fright, they will have specialists known as 'sex surrogates' on hand to guide them. A TV insider told The Sun: 'There’s never been a TV show that pushes the boundaries quite like this — and probably never will be again.'

USA - The federal government is expected to have to spend more servicing the country’s massive national debt this year than it will spend on defense or Medicare as interest payments skyrocket, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).The US federal government is projected to spend $870 billion toward servicing its debt in fiscal year 2024. The US is projected to spend $822 billion on defense in financial year 2024 and $940 on Medicare in financial year 2025.

GERMANY - A German navy frigate set sail for the Red Sea on Thursday with the aim of protecting commercial ships from attacks by Yemeni rebels, as part of a planned European Union mission. The deployment marked “the most serious engagement of a unit of the German navy in many decades,” navy chief Jan Christian Kaack told reporters in Berlin. Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels have launched a series of attacks on ships crossing the Red Sea since November, saying their campaign was in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas. The frigate’s mission still needs to be confirmed by the German parliament and the European Union, however. The EU is currently considering a naval mission to improve security for merchant ships in the Red Sea.

EUROPE - Farmers in Italy, Spain and Poland demonstrated Friday as part of ongoing protests against European Union farming policies and to demand measures to combat production cost hikes, reduced profits and unfair competition from non-EU countries. Similar protests have taken place across the bloc in recent weeks. Farmers complain that the 27-nation EU’s policies on the environment and other matters are a financial burden and make their products more expensive than non-EU imports. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has made some concessions over the last few weeks, including shelving plans to halve the use of pesticides and other dangerous substances. Nonetheless, the protests have spread.