USA - Life as depicted in George Orwell’s 1984 “could come to pass in 2024” if lawmakers don’t protect the public against artificial intelligence, Microsoft’s president has warned. Speaking to BBC's Panorama, Brad Smith said it will be "difficult to catch up” with the rapidly advancing technology. The programme explores China’s increasing use of AI to monitor its citizens. Critics fear the state's dominance in the area could threaten democracy. “I’m constantly reminded of George Orwell’s lessons in his book 1984. You know the fundamental story …was about a government who could see everything that everyone did and hear everything that everyone said all the time. Well, that didn’t come to pass in 1984, but if we’re not careful that could come to pass in 2024.” In certain parts of the world, reality is increasingly catching up with that view of science fiction, he added.

USA - America’s gold reserves would be audited for the first time in more than 60 years if a measure introduced yesterday by US Representative Alex Mooney (Republican for West Virginia) becomes law. The Gold Reserve Transparency Act of 2021 – HR 3526 – backed by the Sound Money Defense League, Money Metals Exchange, and free-market activists – calls for the first true audit of United States gold reserves since the Eisenhower administration.

USA - The US military has deteriorated to the point that the only way it could win a simulated war game in which it was called on to defend Taiwan from a ‘Chinese invasion’ force was by inventing capabilities it does not yet possess. In 2018 and 2019, the US Air Force conducted detailed simulated war games that had its forces square off against those of China. On both occasions, the US was decisively defeated, the first time challenging the Chinese in the South China Sea, and the second time defending Taiwan – which China sees as an integral part of its territory – against a Chinese invasion. In 2020, the US repeated the Taiwan scenario, and won – but only barely. The difference? In both 2018 and 2019, it played with the resources it had on hand. Last year, it gave itself a host of new technologies and capabilities that are either not in production or aren’t even planned for development. In short, the exercise was as far removed from reality as it could get. The fact is the US can only successfully defend Taiwan from a full-scale Chinese invasion in its dreams.

USA - Signs of impending economic doom continue to grow all around us. For years, highly respected experts have been warning about the steady destruction of our standard of living and the death of the US dollar. Perhaps you didn’t listen to those voices at first, and that is understandable. Most Americans have their hands full making a living and taking care of their families. But then housing prices started to go absolutely nuts, health costs continued to spiral out of control and a trip to the grocery store just kept getting more painful. At this point, nobody can honestly deny that inflation has become a major problem.

GERMANY - Luke Holland’s film, which chronicles the complicity of ordinary Germans in the crimes of the Third Reich, is a reminder that it’s easy to label our enemies as Nazis…but the true search for evil should begin in the mirror. ‘Final Account’ is a collection of interviews with elderly, ordinary Germans recounting their experiences of life under the collective madness of the Nazi regime and their connection to, or complicity with, the Holocaust. The film opens with a quote from Primo Levi. “Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”

TURKEY - Fueled by Washington’s anti-Muslim attitude after 9/11, Islamophobia is “spreading like cancer” in the West, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has claimed, adding that those who used to target Jews have now turned on Muslims. “The US administration’s strategy to demonize Muslims post-9/11 has served as a means to further trigger anti-Muslim sentiment that already existed in the cultural structure of many Western societies,” Erdogan said in a speech at the International Symposium on Media and Islamophobia in Ankara on Tuesday. The rise of anti-Muslim sentiment has become a serious problem due to the inaction of governments in the EU and the US to challenge it, Erdogan added. Now, right-wing groups which were long considered marginal, have instead become mainstream political forces in many European countries, and those who used to target the Jewish community have turned against Muslims.

AUSTRALIA - Australia's out-of-control mouse plague could last for up to two years if urgent action is not taken to kill millions of the rodents, a farmer's association has warned. Xavier Martin, the vice president of NSW Farmers, said growers are now abandoning paddocks to the mouse hoard, fearing that crops sown there over the winter will be devoured before they can be harvested. 'Without a concerted baiting effort in the next few weeks, this could easily turn into a two-year plague event,' Mr Martin warned as the government revealed it is ready to hand out one of the world's deadliest poisons for free, as soon as states approve it. The chemical - bromadiolone, an anti-coagulant which causes animals to bleed to death - is controversial because of effects it could have on the wider environment.

USA - Turning childhood favorite toys gay is all the rage, so why not make a gay cereal for children? The answer is because it’s gay cereal for children but in this woke environment it’s never too early to indoctrinate kids in the ways of sodomy and homosexuality. Kellogg’s has taken a leadership roll in this plan to swishify the nation’s children by releasing a gay-themed breakfast cereal.

USA - The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) and the US Geological Survey (USGS) have issued a ‘red warning’ to aviation as the Great Sitkin volcano erupts, spewing an ash plume to 15,000ft (4,600m). In a statement on Wednesday morning, the USGS said volcanic activity on Great Sitkin Island had been confirmed by geophysical data. It had issued a joint ‘red warning’ to aviation with the AVO after observations suggested the ash plume was as high as 15,000ft (4,600m). Great Sitkin is one of the Aleutian Islands, most of which belong to the US state of Alaska, while some belong to the Russian federal subject of Kamchatka Krai.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO - The Democratic Republic of Congo has initiated evacuation measures in the eastern city of Goma, which sits dangerously close to the erupting Mount Nyiragongo. The flowing lava has been destroying roads and houses on its path. “The evacuation plan for the city of Goma has been activated,” Communications Minister Patrick Muyaya announced on Saturday as red-hot lava was making its way towards the eastern city of 670,000. The volcano, which is located around 10km (6 miles) north of Goma, started to erupt at around 7pm local time on Saturday.

USA - In a debate over Taiwan, experts differed over whether the US should pursue a policy built around defending the island nation from China. What was not debated was the current viability of that option, which is zero. What emerged from the debate, once the smoke of the hyperbole cleared, was that the world was entering a new phase of history, where the once-uncontested domination of the Pacific by the US was no longer a reality.

USA - Today, the Biden administration committed more than $5 million to rebuilding Gaza after Israeli bombing left swathes of the territory in ruins, with medical facilities, homes, and roads destroyed or damaged by the aerial attack that killed at least 248 people this month. But even as the administration takes steps to aid Gaza, its State Department has approved a $735-million sale of bombs to Israel, bypassing congressional opposition.

USA - Proliferation of military drones crisscrossing the region’s skies in unprecedented numbers. They target oil facilities, militant hideouts, Israeli and Palestinian territory and even US bases in the region. “These small and medium-sized drones present a new and complex threat to our forces and those of our partners and allies,” General Kenneth F McKenzie Jr, the top US commander in the Middle East, told Congress last month. “For the first time since the Korean War, we are operating without complete air superiority.” Even cheaper nonmilitary drones and parts are widely available from China and other sources and can be easily fitted with explosives, turning them into crude but potentially effective single-use weapons, the US officials say.

USA - A series of attacks on Jews in the United States in recent days, linked to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, has increased pressure on law enforcement officials, lawmakers and the Biden administration to take more steps to quell antisemitic violence. Since May 10, at least 26 instances of antisemitism have been reported across the United States, from Los Angeles to New York, according to the Anti-Defamation League and news reports. The cases range from protest signs calling Zionists “Nazis” to several physical attacks. There have also been at least four reported instances of vandalism at synagogues and Jewish community centers. Experts said that conflict in the Middle East has often sparked violence in the United States, but they are worried that the recent attacks were evidence of a worrisome trend that has been accelerated by the fighting in Israel and Gaza. “This does feel quite different,” Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, said in an interview Sunday.

INDIA - India’s east coast states are making preparations for Cyclone Yaas, which is due to make landfall on Wednesday morning, with authorities pooling rescue and relief teams just one week after a deadly cyclone hit Gujarat. In a post on Monday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) described the weather system in the Bay of Bengal as a “very severe cyclonic storm.” More than 16,000 homes were destroyed last week when Cyclone Tauktae swept through Gujarat.