USA - For the first time in 20 years, the exchange rate between the euro (EUU) and the US dollar has reached parity - meaning the two currencies are worth the same. The euro hit $1 on Tuesday, down about 12% since the start of the year. Fears of recession on the continent abound, stoked by high inflation and energy supply uncertainty caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The European Union, which received roughly 40% of its gas through Russian pipelines before the war, is attempting to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas. At the same, Russia has throttled back gas supplies to some EU countries and recently cut the flow in the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany by 60%. Now that critical piece of gas import infrastructure in Europe, has been shut down for scheduled maintenance due to last 10 days. German officials fear that it may not be turned on again.

GERMANY - People in the German capital have complained about rising inflation and incompetent ministers. Germans, particularly retirees, are bearing the brunt of inflation, with some even having to cut back on food, according to interviews with Berliners on a Telegram channel. Some in the German capital expressed strong criticism of the way Olaf Scholz’s cabinet is handling the situation and the extent to which the country is engaged in the Ukraine conflict.

UNITED NATIONS - The world's population is expected to reach eight billion on November 15, the UN forecast Monday in a report that said India will surpass China as the most populous country on earth in 2023. That overall population milestone "is a reminder of our shared responsibility to care for our planet and a moment to reflect on where we still fall short of our commitments to one another," Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, without citing specifics. "This is an occasion to celebrate our diversity, recognize our common humanity, and marvel at advancements in health that have extended lifespans and dramatically reduced maternal and child mortality rates," he added. The forecast by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs said the world's population is growing at its slowest pace since 1950.

EUROPE - For years, the Western world saw profits in new green and renewable energy sectors and sang from their hymn book on the need to reduce carbon footprints by ditching fossil fuels, or to avoid a potential Chernobyl-style environmental catastrophe by ditching nuclear power. Western officials were going to either earbend their citizens or drag them kicking and screaming towards a new world rife with questionably executable green dreams – all in the interest of supposedly preventing Earth’s temperature from rising by 1.2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels. Good luck controlling the temperature of your own room to within a single degree for any length of time, let alone that of the entire planet. Still, officials agreed on the pretext for the green shift, however dodgy, and forged ahead with their new investments and ventures. The European Green Deal was a centerpiece of the Western strategy, with €1.8 trillion euros of investments.

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations World Health Organization is slated to update its guidance on gender to declare that “sex is not limited to male or female” and goes “beyond non-binary.” Now the organization will modify the guidance to focus on “highlighting and expanding on the concept of intersectionality.” Intersectionality “looks at how gender power dynamics interact with other hierarchies of privilege or disadvantage, resulting in inequality and differential health outcomes for different people,” the WHO website states. The WHO’s current “gender mainstreaming manual,” which was created in 2011, contends that there are many genders on a spectrum from male to female. The United States withdrew its members from the World Health Organization during the Trump administration, but immediately after taking office, Joe Biden rejoined. As the WHO and Biden administration attempt to institute a gender fluid agenda, numerous studies confirm gender dysphoria increases the likelihood of being suicidal. Research conducted by the Heritage Foundation shows minors who undergo cross-sex medical interventions are more likely to commit suicide.

CHINA - Signs of financial systems collapsing continue all across the world, which should be headline news, but the corporate media in the US gives very scant mention of most of these events, if they cover them at all. Some of the corporate outlets are starting to report about the total collapse of society in Sri Lanka, but if you go to news aggregate sites like Google News, these reports will be further down the page than what they deem to be the most important news of the day, which in most cases are political news stories, like the continuing January 6 saga sideshow. While rioting and protests for the most part have not yet started in the US, just wait. The corporate media cannot continue to suppress the financial apocalypse for too long, and make no mistake about it, it is coming. A story that barely got any mention last week, and one that I found on RT.com, of all places, even though it was from an American news source (Bloomberg), talks about the collapse of the US industrial industry due to rising energy costs.

SWITZERLAND - The World Economic Forum (WEF) released a position paper Monday that inexorably links two claimed global crises as one – “climate change” and the “decline of democracy.” It says fighting the former can save the latter as long as consumers stop burning coal, oil, and gas in exchange for green renewables. The WEF paper argues for the past 15 years, democracy has been in decline worldwide. To protect and promote freedom, “leading democracies must strengthen their economies and safeguard liberty.” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought renewed focus on this economic weakness, the WEF says.

SRI LANKA - The anarchic scenes in Sri Lanka are enough to make the blood of any world leader run cold. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s residence overrun by furious protesters. Crowds cavorting on his four-poster bed and in his swimming pool and gym. Sections of the Prime Minister’s home in flames. This burning building not only serves as a symbolic funeral pyre for Rajapaksa’s government. It is a smouldering lesson for all governments in pursuing an economically illiterate green agenda at the expense of common sense. Make no mistake: The roots of this chaos can be traced to Rajapaksa’s wrong-headed thinking on farming. In his 2019 manifesto, he pledged to transform Sri Lanka into an ‘organic’ nation within a decade – reducing and eventually banning chemical fertilisers, herbicides and insecticides.

EUROPE - The Dutch government want to reduce the NL farming sector by 30%. The UK government is paying farmers to retire. Sanctions against Russia are going to deprive us of their food exports as well. Meantime, due to being actively encouraged, mass immigration continues apace. There is going to be a massive food shortage in the West, entirely avoidable but created by deliberate policy. “They” clearly want to redesign society. This is now obvious. If you find it outlandish and unlikely, just look at the policies being enacted and I think you will conclude there is only one interpretation: they are consciously destroying our food supply. The only question is what they intend to replace it with.

UNITED NATIONS - According to the UN, assumptions attributing poverty and low-paying jobs to hunger are “nonsense” because people deprived of nourishment have stronger incentive to work. “Who would have established massive biofuel production operations in Brazil if they did not know there were thousands of hungry people desperate enough to take the awful jobs they would offer?” Kent asserts. “Who would build any sort of factory if they did not know that many people would be available to take the jobs at low-pay rates?

USA - Michigan’s radically pro-abortion Democratic governor on Wednesday reaffirmed her commitment to defending legal abortion in her state, characterizing the ability to kill unborn babies as “a great part of Michigan’s legacy.” In a July 6 interview with CNBC, Governor Gretchen Whitmer responded to questions about abortion access in her state by saying she “would love to be able to pitch Michigan as the place where every person has full civil rights, full bodily autonomy and the ability to make a good quality of life here in Michigan.” Whitmer, who imposed some of the harshest COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions in the United States during the coronavirus epidemic, said that abortion falls under the state’s commitment to “civil rights,” “bodily autonomy,” and the ability of residents to create a “great quality of life.” According to Whitmer, abortion access is “a great part of our legacy, and it’s got to be a part of our future.”

IRELAND - Ireland is to significantly expand its participation in EU military co-operation projects, including in the areas of cybersecurity and special forces training. Although a member of the Permanent Structured Co-operation (Pesco) initiative since 2017, Ireland has played a minimal role in the project which has been characterised in some political quarters as a prelude to an EU army. The Government views it as a way of increasing interoperability between Irish and EU militaries in support of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy, which it says is vital for future participation in peacekeeping operations.

CHINA - Chinese authorities on Sunday violently dispersed a peaceful protest by hundreds of depositors, who sought in vain to demand their life savings back from banks that have run into a deepening cash crisis. Since April, four rural banks in China’s central Henan province have frozen millions of dollars worth of deposits, threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of customers in an economy already battered by draconian Covid lockdowns. Anguished depositors have staged several demonstrations in the city of Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan, over the past two months, but their demands have invariably fallen on deaf ears. Last month, Zhengzhou authorities even resorted to tampering with the country’s digital Covid health-code system to restrict the movements of depositors and thwart their planned protest, sparking a nationwide outcry.

USA - Texas’ electricity regulator warned residents and businesses to reduce the amount of power they use on Monday as the heat index was forecast to soar above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, putting a strain on the state’s grid and potentially leading to rolling blackouts across the state. Thermostats should be turned up at least one degree Fahrenheit, and major appliances should not be used from 2 pm to 8 pm Central time on Monday, according to an alert from the regulator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages about 90 percent of the state’s electric load. The alert is one step before an Energy Emergency Level 1, which would allow the regulator to tap electricity from other grids nearby when reserves are dangerously low. If the situation worsens, ERCOT can order transmission companies to cut off power to industrial customers and residential consumers. Local news reports have suggested that the power grid in Texas, which has failed in previous heat waves and natural disasters, could be at its breaking point.

USA - In the days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a host of countries announced momentous hikes in military spending. Canada and the United States both released plans for new military expenditures. So did Australia. So far, 29 European states have pledged more than a combined $209 billion in new defense funding — a figure that will almost certainly rise. The European Commission has declared that “investments will be needed to replenish the depleted stocks of military equipment,” and Josep Borrell, the EU’s top foreign policy official, has called for the bloc “to spend together, more, and better” on its armed forces.