EUROPE - The Brexit Party’s MEPs have been compared to Nazis because they turned their backs on the European Union’s ‘national anthem’ at the opening of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. “I’m just surprised that the Brexit party so shamelessly copied the Nazi party in turning its back in an elected assembly. At least we now know what we are up against.” This is just the kind of accusation you would expect from an ex-BBC journalist turned university chancellor: fatuous, woke — and utterly wrong-headed.

ISRAEL - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday accused Iran of “lying this whole time” and taking a “significant step” toward producing a nuclear weapon after news that Tehran had violated the terms set under the 2015 nuclear deal and exceeded its enriched uranium limit. “When we exposed the secret Iranian nuclear archive [in April 2018], we proved that any nuclear agreement with Iran is built on one big lie. Now even Iran acknowledges this,” Netanyahu said at an event honoring Israeli reservists. “Soon will be revealed additional proofs that Iran has been lying this whole time.”

USA - Congress is weighing up a bipartisan bill to crack down on the sharing of child porn on Defense Department computers after a watchdog group found the Pentagon’s network ranked among the top US ISPs for sharing the vile content. “The notion that the Department of Defense’s network and Pentagon-issued computers may be used to view, create, or circulate such horrifying images is a shameful disgrace, and one we must fight head on,” Abigail Spanberger (Democrat for Virginia) said in a statement on Tuesday. The bill also integrates DCIS into a “multi-jurisdictional task force” with “federal, state, and local law enforcement,” social services, and child protection groups to help victims of child sexual exploitation – and to roll back the tide of filth engulfing Defense Department networks. Congress has known for at least a decade that child porn trading on Defense Department computers was a problem.

USA - In 2013, police in Grants Pass, Oregon, got a tip that a man named Curtis W Croft had been illegally growing marijuana in his backyard. So they checked Google Earth. Indeed, the four-month-old satellite image showed neat rows of plants growing on Croft’s property. The cops raided his place and seized 94 plants. In 2018, Brazilian police in the state of Amapá used real-time satellite imagery to detect a spot where trees had been ripped out of the ground. When they showed up, they discovered that the site was being used to illegally produce charcoal, and arrested eight people in connection with the scheme.

USA - A new trend where people tamper with food, licking it or half consuming it before putting it back in the container, is going viral. Yes, really. Last week, a woman in the city of Lufkin, eastern Texas, was filmed in a branch of Walmart opening an ice cream tub, licking it and then placing it back in the freezer. Police said they had identified the woman via surveillance camera footage and she now faces a second-degree felony charge of tampering with a consumer product, with a punishment of up to 20 years in jail.

GERMANY - Yesterday, following fierce power struggles, the EU heads of states and governments nominated Germany's Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen to become the next President of the EU Commission. The most influential position in Brussels' bureaucracy would thus be going to a German politician. Prior to this nomination, also high-ranking politicians from other EU countries had remarked that it is "difficult to explain" that a German should head the Commission, "given the power" Germany exercises in the EU. In fact, not only is EU policy increasingly being shaped by Berlin, but Germans also preside in a growing number of leadership positions within EU administrations, particularly those in the field of finance, but also in the EU-parliament - especially where legislative work is coordinated - and in the field of foreign policy. According to a renowned French EU expert, Germany remains "European" oriented, "because it has created a 'German Europe' solely serving German interests."

GERMANY - At first glance, the affable 60-year-old minister with a camera-ready smile looks to be a perfect fit, with the requisite experience, political pedigree and personality to handle the EU’s toughest job. And yet a nagging question remains: Is she too good to be true? In the German capital, the answer is clear. “Von der Leyen is our weakest minister. That’s apparently enough to become Commission president,” former European Parliament President Martin Schulz seethed in a tweet Tuesday evening. Though Schulz is a Social Democrat, his analysis of the minister’s record is shared by many of von der Leyen’s fellow Christian Democrats, though most are reluctant to criticize her publicly. Instead, they point to the state of the German military. “The Bundeswehr’s condition is catastrophic," Rupert Scholz, who served as defense minister under Helmut Kohl, wrote last week before von der Leyen was nominated to the EU’s top post.

EUROPE - European Union chiefs could soon find themselves in hot water as parliamentary opposition grows against their plans to replace Jean-Claude Juncker. Much of the criticism centred around the abandonment of the so-called lead candidate (spitzenkandidat) process, which is designed to give a democratic mandate to the Commission presidency. Instead, leaders held a series of closed-door meetings across three days as they frantically scrambled to fill Mr Juncker’s role before he is scheduled to step down at the end of October. MEPs are expected to vote on Ms von der Leyen’s appointment in two weeks time, which could prove a tricky process for the German. She requires an absolute majority, according to the Parliament's rules, and if she fails EU leaders must propose another candidate "within a month's time".

EUROPE - Europe’s political old guard is unwilling to accept the changing mood across the continent and has found itself splintered and weakened as a result, insiders have warned. Angela Merkel’s centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and its centre-left counterpart, the Party of European Socialists — both longterm mainstays of the EU political system — lost 70 seats between them in the elections while the liberals, Greens and populists gained a combined 99 seats. But many conservatives will not accept the changes in the ever more fragmented bloc even though the centre-right and centre-left are no longer in a position to call the shots and are still trying to balance political affiliations and the varying interests of different regions.

EUROPE - Anti-establishment forces had major gains in the EU elections because voters are tired of parties refusing to challenge Brussels, analysts told RT, saying the results also show that migration is still a top issue. Euroskeptic parties made considerable gains in the European Parliament elections, leaving the bloc’s establishment parties badly battered and searching for answers. Ultimately, analysts told RT, it illustrates how Europeans have run out of patience for politics as usual. In the past, whenever the EU found itself in trouble, Brussels would always remedy the crisis by calling for more European integration, Dr Werner Patzelt, a political science professor at the Technical University of Dresden, noted. And until now, Brussels always got its way. “This time it was different,” Patzelt told RT. Across the bloc, many people “have a feeling that there is too much integration in Europe, that there is too much government by Brussels.”

EUROPE - European Council President Donald Tusk announced the chosen ones for the four top jobs on Twitter: a German defense minister, a French IMF chief, a Belgian prime minister, and a Spanish foreign minister. Is there any doubt about where power lies in the EU and who it really serves? The brief furore over the fake ‘European Commission Security Council’ was the perfect demonstration of how bloated and disconnected the EU really is from the citizens it is supposed to serve.

EUROPE - The European Council has agreed on nominations for the future leadership of four top EU bodies after three days of intense negotiations. The results were posted on Twitter by current Council President Donald Tusk. The European Council has agreed on the future leadership of the EU institutions.

USA - Why are top officials in both the United States and Russia suddenly being pulled into emergency meetings? At this moment rumors are flying all over the Internet, and we have very little solid information about what is really going on. In this article I will share what we know so far, but as we learn more the picture will inevitably become a lot clearer. On Tuesday President Trump didn’t have any public events scheduled, and that was a bit strange, but Vice President Mike Pence was supposed to appear at an event in New Hampshire. Unfortunately, that trip was suddenly canceled after Pence had already boarded the plane, and Pence was ordered to return to the White House…

BAHRAIN - President Donald Trump’s senior advisor, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner has been working in secret with Middle East leaders for more than a year. This week, in Bahrain, he unveiled his plan, while I was in the room. With high-security arrangements, and without official Israeli and Palestinian representatives, the “Peace To Prosperity Workshop” was held on Tuesday in Manama. It was Kushner’s attempt to secure buy-in from Arab leaders with a plan to supply $50 billion in development aid to the Palestinians — the largest amount ever proposed by the US government. Surprisingly, it worked. If Kushner succeeds in getting his vision adopted, it will mark a true turning point in Middle East affairs. Ahead lies the challenge of winning over the governments of Israel and Palestine. But, in the room in Manama, Arab and Jewish leaders were excited for the first time in a very long time.

USA - Reddit has been bought by Big Media. They use bots to upvote their content and proceed to control the views of users through headlines. Let's state two things first: More and more people are relying on headlines to get all the information. According to this Forbes Article "A recent study confirmed this phenomenon isn’t in our heads; in fact, 59 percent of all links shared on social networks aren’t actually clicked on at all, implying the majority of article shares aren’t based on actual reading". This DataIsBeautiful post shows over 98% of reddit users do not post or comment, which means a lot of people will not click on the article or even look at comments that converse what the article is about. More and more users on the internet rely on headlines, and that's a problem.