GERMANY - Germany, which has been high-and-mighty within the European Union and has imposed austerity against weaker European economies such as in Greece, Spain, Italy, and Portugal, is now demanding that other EU member nations bail Germans out of what will soon inevitably be an energy emergency that results from Germany’s having complied with America’s demand to not only join with America’s sanctions against Russia, but to even terminate Germany’s Nord Stream 2 Russian gas pipeline that was supposed to be increasing — instead of (as now will be the case) decreasing — Russia’s natural-gas supplies to Europe. Germany was, until recently, the industrial motor of the EU, and therefore has the most to lose from reduced and far costlier energy supplies; but this has now happened, and will escalate in the coming winter. As those energy supplies get reduced, energy prices will rise, then soar, and Germany’s economy will get crushed. Something will have to give, probably the EU itself, because the resultant rapidly escalating internal hostilities between EU nations — especially between Germany and the nations that it now expects to bail it out of this crisis — could blow the EU itself irrevocably apart.

UNITED NATIONS - The escalating regulatory attack on agricultural producers from Holland and the United States to Sri Lanka and beyond is closely tied to the United Nations’ “Agenda 2030” Sustainable Development Goals and the UN’s partners at the World Economic Forum (WEF), numerous experts told The Epoch Times. Indeed, several of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are directly implicated in policies that are squeezing farmers, ranchers, and food supplies around the world. High-level Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members within the UN system helped create the SDGs and are currently helping lead the organization’s implementation of the global plan... If left unchecked, multiple experts said, the UN backed sustainability policies on agriculture and food production would lead to economic devastation, shortages of critical goods, widespread famine, and a dramatic loss of individual freedoms. Already, millions of people worldwide are facing dangerous food shortages, and officials around the world say those are set to get worse as the year goes on.

USA - Food pantries and food banks are a key economic indicator for tracking poverty levels and financial instability in the US, and in the past few months they have been ringing alarm bells. Stagflationary pressures have all but wiped out the savings of the average American and driven up credit card debt to historic highs. Only in the past month have credit spending and debt levels begun to slide, but this is more a sign that consumers are tapped out rather than a sign of a return to normalcy. High prices are slowly but surely overwhelming lower wage workers in particular. The average living wage across most US states is around $16 an hour; over 30% of American workers make less than $15 an hour.

USA - Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that as the third most senior official in the US government, Nancy Pelosi is free to make her own decisions and travel plans, warning China not to escalate tensions if the House of Representatives Speaker ends up visiting Taiwan. “The speaker will make her own decisions about whether or not to visit Taiwan. Congress is an independent, coequal branch of government. The decision is entirely the speaker’s,” Blinken told reporters… US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby has also emphasized that the Biden administration has no control over Pelosi’s possible visit, given that Congress is an independent branch of government, and that her trip would not reflect any change in US policy.

THE BALKANS - Church bells and air raid sirens went off in parts of Kosovo inhabited by ethnic Serbs on Sunday, as heavily armed special police answering to the ethnic Albanian government in Pristina showed up at the administrative crossings with Serbia. In Belgrade, President Aleksandar Vucic said Serbia wants peace, but will not allow persecution of its citizens. Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti cited a 2011 agreement with Belgrade to declare all Serbian documents and license plates invalid as of August 1, and announced an operation to apply “law and justice” to all territories claimed by his government. The province of Serbia, occupied by NATO in 1999, declared independence in 2008 with US support – but was not recognized by Belgrade.

USA - San Francisco Kink & Fetish Festival to press on despite Monkeypox emergency declaration. The government barred us from saying goodbye to loved ones in nursing homes and hospitals during the Covid pandemic. The government didn’t allow us to have funerals for loved ones during the Covid pandemic. But the kink and fetish festival for gay men dubbed “Up Your Alley” is a go this weekend despite monkeypox spreading like wildfire in the gay community in San Francisco. Per CDC, monkeypox is transmitted by symptomatic individuals through close contact with lesions, bodily fluids, or respiratory secretions and objects that have had contact with lesion crusts or bodily fluids, face-to-face contact, or during intimate physical contact, such as kissing, cuddling, or sex. A site promoting the event said, “Up Your Alley is only for real players – and not for the faint of heart – You won’t find a filthier event in the States. If you’re into it, there’s a scene for you. So, don’t get left out.”.

USA - In April of this year, the US government started the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s history. The fires were set by the US Forest Service (USFS) — ironically to reduce wildfire risk — but having the opposite of their intended effect. Thanks to several acts of incompetence, neglect, and ignorance, the controlled burn morphed into a catastrophic blaze that engulfed over 530 square miles of mostly privately owned forests and meadows, while destroying 432 homes as well. Now, after burning down their homes and land, the state is demanding the victims pay for the damage themselves — despite previous reassurances that they would be given support. FEMA has so far granted $4.2 million to the 1,164 fire survivors, marking an average payout of $3,600. To one of the hundreds of folks who lost their home, this is a kick in the teeth.

USA - BlackRock is the largest asset management firm on the planet. It’s essentially a shadow bank. BlackRock literally has more assets than the gross domestic products (GDP) of every single country except China and the US. So picture India with their 1.4 billion people. BlackRock has more than their annual GDP! It’s ridiculous. BlackRock holds somewhere around 9 trillion dollars. That’s a tenth of the whole world’s yearly economic activity. BlackRock is enormous! And BlackRock is by far the biggest wealth fund or shadow bank in the world. “The grand total of the sovereign wealth funds managed by over 91 such funds across the world is projected to be worth approximately 8.2 Trillion US Dollars.”

USA - Catherine Austin Fitts (CAF), Publisher of The Solari Report and former Assistant Secretary of Housing (Bush 41 Admin.), says we are at war with the Deep State globalists that want nothing short of total control over all of mankind. Central bankers want a financial system that is a lawless criminal control syndicate where it’s legal for them to do whatever they want. It is simply a choice between tyranny and sovereignty, freedom or slavery ..they are inserting sovereign immunity from all laws and literally trying to create a civilization under the law where they are free to do whatever they want ...one of the top central bankers in Europe told him they are planning on chipping all of us. CAF says central bankers will ignore the US Constitution, steal all of our assets like cash and gold but especially the land.

ISRAEL - Exemptions for private citizens are in place, which allows for exchanges of up to $4,360 in cash. In addition, charitable organizations and those trading with Palestinians who are not citizens of Israel are also exempt for a limited time. Israeli officials have claimed that the new cash limit is to combat criminal organizations that rely solely on cash trades. “We want the public to reduce the use of cash money. The goal is to reduce cash fluidity in the market, mainly because crime organizations tend to rely on cash. By limiting the use of it, criminal activity is much harder to carry out,” said Israel’s Tax Authority head Tamar Bracha. The intended effect of the new law is to reduce the amount of physical cash on the market. It’s clear that a precedent has been set, and Israel and the Western world are edging closer toward a cashless digital surveillance state from which there may be no return.

USA - Community organizer and left-wing social activist Saul Alinsky wrote, in his 1971 book “Rules for Radicals,” that “he who controls the language controls the masses.” Alinsky, whose work profoundly influenced at least one notable fellow Chicagoan, Barack Obama, was in that quip channeling George Orwell’s famous dystopian novel, “1984.” “Newspeak,” the language of Orwell’s fictional single-political party superstate, was a tool devised for monitoring the people’s communications, prosecuting “thoughtcrimes,” and ultimately controlling and dictating the people’s very beliefs. Conservatives have taken pleasure in poking fun at the modern Left’s “Orwellian” tendencies — perhaps too much, actually, as overuse of the accusation has had the effect of limiting its potency. But as the woke ideology metastasizes within the American Left like the cancer it is, and as censors increasingly clamp down on anything sniffing of dissent to the regime’s orthodoxy, it is now clear that we are in a new age of Orwellianism. In this new age, the regime and its enforcers pursue the suffusion of its orthodoxy at any cost, gaslighting dissenters into not believing their own lying eyes.

USA - The entire Las Vegas strip, which houses some of the world’s most famous casinos and hotels, was devastated by a massive flood Thursday night. The city issued a flash flood and severe thunderstorm warning as heavy rain poured into parking lots, airports and casinos. Sin City is known to be one of the driest major cities in the United States and typically gets only 4 inches of rain a year.

USA - The death toll rose to at least 26 on Sunday in Kentucky after major flooding that left residents trapped on rooftops and entire communities under water. Dozens of roads are blocked by debris, hundreds of people have been rescued and search efforts were ongoing. Water was still rising there this morning, putting pressure on the Panbowl Lake Dam.

MIDDLE EAST - Seven Asian expatriates have been found dead in the United Arab Emirates following recent floods across the country, the UAE's interior ministry said on Friday. The ministry said on Twitter it was updating an earlier death toll, after an Asian expatriate who had been missing was found dead. The ministry said that field units are still carrying out evacuations in the emirates of Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah and Fujairah, the worst affected by floods that followed torrential rainfall.

USA - She is actually going to do it. Nancy Pelosi is going to Taiwan, and she is going to take a bunch of other Congress critters with her. The Chinese are absolutely furious, and they are promising to respond very strongly when it happens. I really hope that the Chinese show some restraint, because one of the options being discussed is the implementation of a no-fly zone over Taiwan. That would be an act of war, and the Biden administration would inevitably feel compelled to escalate matters even more. If that happens, we will be off and running and nothing will ever be the same again.