GERMANY - Europe's new right could take a page out of US President Donald Trump 's populist playbook when it comes to winning support ahead of this month's European elections, says the co-leader of the Alternative for Germany party. Alice Weidel, a 40-year-old economist known for her stinging attacks on the European Union, and is at the vanguard of a movement that's challenging Europe's post-war consensus of ever-greater political cooperation.

USA - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cancelled a visit to Germany on Tuesday, just hours before he was due to arrive in Berlin for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  "Unfortunately, we must reschedule the Berlin meetings due to pressing issues," a State Department official said in a statement posted by the US Embassy in Berlin.  "We look forward to rescheduling this important set of meetings," the statement added. The United States' top diplomat was scheduled to meet with Merkel and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.  Later on Tuesday night, reports emerged that Pompeo traveled to Iraq on an unannounced visit. The US Secretary is also scheduled to travel to the UK on Wednesday for talks with British Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. The US Embassy in London said that the meeting "is still going ahead." Pompeo is also due to give a speech on the special relationship between the US and the UK.

USA - A new report alleges that Facebook has thousands of foreign contract workers to manually read status updates and other content posted to the social media platform raising concerns over user privacy yet again. Reuters reports that over the past year, Facebook has employed a team of as many as 260 contract workers in Hyderabad, India, to comb through millions of Facebook posts and photos shared to the platform since 2014. Facebook stated that this is done in order to determine the type of content that is being posted to the social network and how it’s changing. Facebook stated that this can help the tech firm to gain a better understanding of its audience and develop new features for the platform. The details of the operation were provided to Reuters by multiple employees from the outsourcing firm Wipro Ltd.

USA - If negotiations between the Trump administration and the Chinese government do not produce a trade deal by Friday, it is going to be absolutely catastrophic for Wall Street.  On Tuesday, trade fears pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 473 points. But most of the experts are assuring investors that a trade deal with China will be finalized before Trump’s new tariffs go into effect on Friday. But what if it doesn’t happen after all?

IRAQ - Iraq has promised to guarantee the safety of US interests from Iran, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday as he paid a surprise trip to Baghdad where he accused Tehran of planning "imminent" attacks. Pompeo abruptly cancelled talks in Germany and made a lengthy detour from a European tour to spend four hours in Iraq, where he met both President Barham Saleh and Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi. Pompeo said he made the trip because Iranian forces are "escalating their activity" and said the threat of attacks were "very specific". He declined to go into further detail on the alleged plot, which has been met with scepticism in numerous quarters, with leading Democratic lawmakers fearing that President Donald Trump's administration is seeking to spark a war with Iran.

USA - This is the closest that the US has been to a war with Iran in decades, and yet most Americans are either clueless or they don’t seem to believe that it could actually happen.  And I certainly don’t think that President Trump wants a war, but he is surrounded by war hawks that have been pushing an extremely aggressive “get tough” policy with Iran.  The Trump administration just canceled the waivers that were allowing other nations to continue purchasing Iranian oil, and the goal of that move is to reduce Iranian exports to zero. 

ISRAEL - Paradoxically, while formal relations between the governments of Israel and the US appear to be at a high, anti-Israel political movements have also been getting stronger as the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement has inched closer to normalization in American progressive and to some extent liberal politics.

ISRAEL - Israel plans to construct the world’s longest underwater gas pipeline together with Cyprus and Greece to carry Eastern Mediterranean gas on to Italy and the EU southern states. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has just endorsed the project. It will run smack up against a competing Turkish-Russian gas pipeline, Turk Stream, against a potential Qatari-Iran-Syria pipeline, as well as de facto undercut the Washington attempt to get more US LNG gas to the EU to reduce Russian dependency.

GERMANY - Bavarian State Premier Markus Söder has promised that his southern German state will pay a quarter of the €85 million ($95 million) foreseen to maintain the former Nazi party rally grounds ("Reichsparteitagsgelände") in Nuremberg over the next decade. Last year, the federal government decided to carry half the cost — €42.5 million — for the parade field and to stabilize the decaying stonework of the "Zeppelin" grandstand, which Nuremberg's mayor Ulrich Maly insists is needed to keep the solemn "place of learning" for future generations.

UK - The world could amazingly be running out of sand and the risk of losing the vital construction material has sparked the birth of criminal gangs seeking to stock up on the mineral, an activist has warned. Sand is a crucial material used in construction and the telecommunication industry but experts have warned excessive mining is putting the world on the verge of running out.

USA - Thousands of farmers in the Midwest have been waiting for a very long time for floodwaters to recede so that they can finally plant some crops, but instead more rain just keeps on coming. It is being reported that the Mississippi River has now been at major flood stage for 41 days in a row, and a lot more rain is coming this week. Meteorologists are warning us that major flooding may extend into June, and that means that many farmers will not be able to plant crops at all this year.

USA - In an earlier report, our analysis of federal data showed the number of farmers across the Midwest filing for bankruptcy soared to its highest level in a decade. Now it seems some of those farmers are closing up shop, liquidating machinery and land, all to stem financial pressure, a dozen or so farm-equipment auction houses told Reuters. The farming crisis unravelling in the Midwest has created a monstrous boon for auction houses, which reported that their collective business activity jumped 30% in the past six months, compared to the same period a year earlier. An agricultural recession is around the corner. The most recent farm crisis occurred during the 1980s, and before that, a farm crisis was observed leading up to the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Could the rhythms of history be unfolding before our own very eyes today?

GERMANY - Rebuilding the country’s military would be just the start. When US Vice President Mike Pence declared in a speech marking NATO’s 70th anniversary that “too many” alliance members have failed to increase spending on their militaries, he singled out one by name. “Germany must do more,” he said, adding that “it is simply unacceptable for Europe’s largest economy to neglect its own self-defense and our common defense at such a level.” 

FRANCE - President Macron’s party has been overtaken by Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in the latest poll with just weeks to go until the European elections. Mr Macron has in recent months faced fierce criticism over his handling of the yellow vests movement which sprung up in November in protest over his polices which were seen as favouring the rich. French voters will head to the ballot box on May 26 and the chances of Mr Macron winning their support with his pro-European agenda is shrinking fast. Ms Le Pen is a close ally of Italy’s interior minister Matteo Salvini and Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban.  Mr Macron, 41, is facing a tough challenge from Ms Le Pen, who is urging voters to get behind far-right parties to “change Europe from the inside”. 

TURKEY - Turkey on Sunday dismissed US sanction threats and said it would not renege on a pledge to Moscow to purchase its advanced missile systems. Washington has previously told its NATO ally that Ankara’s adoption of Russian S-400 missile technology alongside US F-35 fighters would endanger Western defence. The S-400 is the latest generation surface-to-air defense system developed by Russia as a rival for America’s own Patriot weaponry, and is considered by NATO countries to pose a threat to their combined air operations. Although the US has already delivered two warplanes under an agreement to sell F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, Congress ordered a delay in future deliveries late last year. Turkey had planned to buy 100 F-35A fighter jets, with pilots already training in the United States.