USA - Rockefeller Foundation President Rajiv Shah told Bloomberg Television's David Westin a "massive, immediate food crisis" is on the horizon. Shah provides what could be a timeline for the next global food crisis that could begin "in the next six months." He said global fertilizer supply disruptions caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine would have an "even worse" impact on the crisis, slashing crop yields worldwide.

UK - Scientists have issued a terrifying warning and have said the world could be left starving without any food in just over two decades, according to a chilling doomsday countdown. The world will run out of food in 27 years, scientists have warned. They have launched a doomsday countdown and say we have exactly 27 years and 251 days left as of Sunday ( April 24). Sociobiologist Edward Wilson explained we would need two planet Earths to feed the current need, adding: “There are limits to Earth’s capacity to feed humanity. Even if everyone on the planet agreed to become vegetarian, the world’s farmland could not support the need. The world population will be too big to feed itself. By then, there will be almost 10 billion people on the planet and the food demand will have increased by 70% compared to what we needed in 2017. Experts warn the food crisis needs to be taken more seriously.

INDONESIA - Indonesia will start restricting exports of palm oil this week, a move that could make the global food crisis worse and push up the prices of hundreds of consumer products. President Joko Widodo announced Friday that Indonesia would suspend exports of cooking oil, and the raw materials used to make it, "until further notice," in a bid to secure local supplies. The ban takes effect on Thursday. The Southeast Asian country is the world's biggest palm oil producer, and Friday's announcement sent prices of the commodity "berserk," said James Fry, chairman of consultancy LMC International. Crude palm oil futures in Malaysia, a global benchmark, jumped nearly 7%. Palm oil is a common ingredient found in many of the world's food, cosmetics and household items. WWF estimates that it's used in nearly 50% of all packaged products in supermarkets.

USA - If you buy your produce from Walmart, this recall might affect you. The Tristate is a part of an urgent recall that involves vegetables grown in California sold in 18 other states including Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a recall that includes organic zucchini. The recall involves Organic Marketside Zucchini which was sold by World Variety Produce of Los Angeles, CA at Walmart stores. According to the FDA press release, the reason for the recall is related to the organic zucchini that "…has the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella, an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems." Organic Marketside Zucchini were sold through some Walmart stores in Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin.

USA - Firefighters across the country are battling growing wildfires as tinder-dry conditions and high winds whip up flames from Arizona to Florida — including a wildfire in rural southwestern Nebraska that has killed one person, injured at least 15 firefighters and destroyed at least six homes, an official said. Nearly a dozen new large fires were reported over the weekend across the nation — four in New Mexico, three in Colorado and one each in Florida, Nebraska, South Dakota and Texas. With more than 1,350 square miles burned so far this year, officials at the National Interagency Fire Center said the amount of land singed so far is outpacing the 10-year average by about 30%. Hotter, drier weather has combined with a persistent drought to worsen fire danger across many parts of the West, where decades of fire suppression have resulted in overgrown and unhealthy forests and increasing development have put more communities at risk.

EUROPE - “A democratically non-legitimized body, into which the richest of the super-rich buy their way through donations, is to decide in the future whether a pandemic situation exists, in order to then directly take over governmental power.” MEP Christine Anderson (AfD) warns citizens that an intergovernmental task force is revising a treaty between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Union member states. The revised agreement aims to give the Marxist-led WHO de facto governing power over its member states in the event of a pandemic, without involvement or consultation with national governments or national parliaments.

UK - Farmers are warning of a food crisis sparked by shortages and spiralling wholesale prices – amid fears rationing could spread beyond cooking oil. Major supermarkets are already limiting how much sunflower oil, which is largely sourced from Ukraine, customers can buy. And other shortages and punishing price rises are being felt in the food chain, with an inevitable knock-on effect on choice and household budgets. Farmers’ leaders warned the Environment Secretary George Eustice about the crisis at emergency talks last week. Shortages and higher prices will affect the shelf prices of everything from bread, pasta and beer to chicken and sausages. National Farmers’ Union leader Minette Batters warned: ‘It is the most serious situation for food production since the Second World War.’

FRANCE - Emmanuel Macron's presidential election victory could see the EU move a step closer to creating a bloc-wide army, with one MEP supporter saying the event marks a "historic opportunity". Express.co.uk explores the incumbent's military ambitions for Europe. Among the topics Mr Macron has hinted at focusing on in recent years is the creation of an EU army. After Brexit, France remains the EU's only major military power.

WALES, UK - Parents are taking legal action against the Welsh Government over plans for compulsory relationship and sex education in schools. The non-party political group Public Child Protection Wales is taking legal action against the government to remove Relationship and Sex Education from the curriculum and to prevent it from being compulsory in schools.

USA - California Governor Gavin Newsom this week claimed he was taking major action to address the drought affecting California and the West. More than 90% of California is in severe drought, up from 65% just one year ago. He said he had created an agreement that was a win-win-win for residents, farmers, and conservationists. In truth, Newsom is starving California of both water and energy. We are in the worst energy crisis in 50 years and yet Newsom is planning to shut down the largest single source of energy in California, Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. Meanwhile, he has failed to build a single new large water project, despite the fact that California voters in 2014 passed a $2.7 billion water bond to pay for them.

USA - Under just three of the emergency bailout programs offered by the Fed to Wall Street, units of the megabank JPMorgan Chase tapped over $6 trillion in cumulative (term-adjusted) loans from September 17, 2019 through the first quarter of 2020. That figure will definitely go higher as the Fed is releasing the names of the banks and the amounts they borrowed on a quarterly basis for its repo loan program. A significant chunk of that money was borrowed at interest rates as low as 0.10 percent. While JPMorgan Chase, which has admitted to five criminal felony counts since 2014, was getting these sweetheart deals from the Fed, it was charging Americans who were struggling from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as much as 17 percent on their credit cards.

USA - Evangelical pastor Franklin Graham has blasted Disney for having its morals 'in the gutter' while backing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in his battle with the firm. Writing on Facebook Saturday, the hardline Christian told his 10 million followers he was glad the entertainment firm's power and finances were being pounded after it came out against DeSantis's so-called 'Don't Say Gay' law. Graham said: “What has happened at Disney is moral failure. Walt Disney had a vision for wholesome family entertainment. He was committed to the family. The morals of the corporate leadership of Disney today are in the gutter, and they want to redefine family counter to God’s original design and flaunt sin. LGBTQ activists are using corporations to force their agenda on the public, and companies may want to take another look at what they are allowing to happen. Disney has gone too far.”

USA - Chief advisor of Klaus Schwab and the WEF boasts: Dreams of dictators are now possible. “Dictators always dreamt about eliminating privacy, monitoring everyone, knowing everything you do, think, and feel… It is now possible.” The privacy versus security debate is as old as civilization, historian and writer Yuval Noah Harari said recently at the Athens Democracy Forum, an annual international conference in Greece. “But there is now something new: for the first time in history, it is possible to eliminate privacy completely,” said Harari, chief advisor to the World Economic Forum’s leader, Klaus Schwab. “It was not possible before,” said Harari, “It is now possible. A fundamental change has taken place. Dictators always dreamt about completely eliminating privacy, monitoring everyone all the time, and knowing everything you do, and not just everything you do but everything you think, and everything you feel.” Whether it was a tyrant in ancient Greece or Stalin, they always dreamed of it, but they could never do it because it was technically impossible. Now it’s possible, Harari told New York Times moderator Liz Alderman.

UK - Tech firms are buying up new washing machines so they can harvest their computer parts in a desperate bid to beat the global microchip shortage. Once solely used in PCs and mobile phones, semiconductors are now vital in cars, kitchen appliances, TVs, smart speakers, thermostats, smart light bulbs and even some dog collars. Microchip manufacturers are unable to meet the ever-growing demand – accelerated by families buying more computers and gadgets during lockdown – as it takes two years and billions of pounds to build each factory. When the bosses of big industrial conglomerates are reduced to scavenging like Steptoe & Son to get their hands on vital components, it’s obvious something has gone badly wrong in the global economy. The very idea that global captains of industry are ordering subordinates to dismantle domestic appliances for their semi-conductor chips shows we are in the realms of Alice In Wonderland. We had better get used to it, though. Future historians may look on the shortages and cost of living crisis we are suffering now as an ominous sign of difficult times ahead.

CHINA - International disputes should be resolved through dialogue and not by sanctions, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Thursday, while presenting his country's new Global Security Initiative. Speaking via videolink at the international forum in the province of Hainan amid the ongoing Ukrainian conflict, Xi chose not to comment on other specific international issues, highlighting instead his general vision of a global security framework. “We, humanity, are living in an indivisible security community. It has been proven time and again that the Cold War mentality would only wreck the global peace framework, that hegemonism and power politics would only endanger world peace and that bloc confrontation would only exacerbate security challenges in the 21st century,” Xi said. The Chinese leader called on the international community to remain committed to “peacefully resolving differences and disputes between countries through dialogue,” and to “oppose the wanton use of unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction.”