SAUDI ARABIA - Saudis are keen to end their engagement in Yemen and US needs Saudi support to end Gaza conflict. US determination to keep Saudi Arabia engaged in a peace process with Israel has led Washington to give Riyadh an informal green light to try to revive a peace deal with the Houthis, the Yemen-based rebels who have been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea since November. The proposed Yemen UN roadmap for peace was agreed in outline in early December but progress was immediately frozen as the Houthis escalated their campaign of attacks in the Red Sea in what they billed as an act of solidarity with Palestine.

UK - “Protecting Our Democracy From Coercion” is the title of a report which should appear next week, by Lord Walney, the Government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption. His project is complementary to the Prime Minister’s remarks about insecurity, which he made at Policy Exchange yesterday. I am glad the word “coercion” is in the report’s title. That is what the public hate. Few want protests banned: they accept demonstrations as part of free speech. But many feel that the recent extremist protests – often large, repeated and borderline violent – have an intentionally coercive effect. The most significant example is the Gaza marches, which have been pretty much weekly in London since October, and the related campus protests.

USA - Concerns are growing among energy analysts, executives, and media outlets covering the energy space about the feasibility of the Biden administration’s efforts to subsidize an energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables into reality. Big power demands to supply electric vehicle (EV) recharging, crypto mining operations, and renewable industrial growth needs were already straining the capacities of America’s regional power grids. But now, the explosive growth of AI and its insatiable thirst for electricity threatens to overwhelm them. Grid managers and state regulators are already working to extend permits to extend the lives of these reliable baseload plants to accommodate the growth of AI-related data centers in their jurisdictions.

USA - Artificial intelligence systems are fast becoming increasingly sophisticated, with engineers and developers working to make them as “human” as possible. Unfortunately, that can also mean lying just like a person. AI platforms are reportedly learning to deceive us in ways that can have far-reaching consequences. A new study by researchers from the Center for AI Safety in San Francisco delves into the world of AI deception, exposing the risks and offering potential solutions to this growing problem. At its core, deception is the luring of false beliefs from others to achieve a goal other than telling the truth. When humans engage in deception, we can usually explain it in terms of their beliefs and desires – they want the listener to believe something false because it benefits them in some way. But can we say the same about AI systems?

UK - Britain may be forced to accept mandatory lockdowns and vaccines by power-hungry World Health Organization bureaucrats, Nigel Farage has warned. He is calling on MPs to reject a 'terrifying' WHO treaty which may allow foreign officials to impose major policy decisions on all 194 member states in any future pandemic. The former Brexit Party leader says the UK must be prepared to leave the 'failing, expensive, unelected, unaccountable' WHO to prevent it from 'running roughshod' over sovereign countries. Officials at the WHO will vote on the latest draft of the Pandemic Preparedness Treaty in Geneva next week. Republican senators in the US have also urged President Joe Biden not to sign the pandemic treaty. They said it would be 'unacceptable' to 'expand the WHO's authority over member states' during pandemics, adding that the WHO 'did lasting harm to our country' because of its failures during the pandemic.

CANADA -Officials in western Canada were bracing for “volatile wildfire activity” on Monday as an out-of-control blaze, which has already forced the evacuation of thousands, threatened to destroy a northern British Columbia town. The province’s wildfire service said the blaze was burning just 2km (1.2 miles) north-west of Fort Nelson, which has already seen about 3,500 people evacuated from there after an order to leave was issued on Friday. “We are facing some extremely challenging conditions up in the north,” BC’s emergency management minister, Bowinn Ma, told reporters on Monday. Ma said the next 48 hours will be critical for Fort Nelson, forecasted strong westerly winds and tinder-dry fuel in the forest area. Blazes in western Manitoba have forced residents near the communities of Flin Flon and The Pas to evacuate. Western fires have also prompted air quality warnings in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

USA - Does truth really matter anymore? The world’s treatment of Israel since October 7th suggests it does not. The Biden administration and European Union were equivocal from the start regarding Israel’s response to Hamas’s genocidal pogrom. Despite initially offering moral support, the Europeans immediately began exhorting Israel to respond “proportionately” while voices from the White House imperiously demanded an untenable two-state “solution.”

USA - Former Wall Street money manager Ed Dowd is a skillful financial analyst. Dowd warns the economy can fall out of bed at any time. He explains: “The economy is going to take a nosedive sometime in the next 12 months. The real economy is not doing well. The only thing that has been holding up the GDP growth is government spending. We are spending $1 trillion every 100 days. That’s adding $1 trillion to the deficit. The only job creation is government jobs, and they don’t actually add to the economy. Reports are coming out now that the low-income consumer is getting absolutely hammered. McDonald’s talked about it in their most recent earnings call. So, low-income and the middle-class are getting squeezed while the rich continue to plug along. There is a lag in the real economy, and it’s hitting right now. It’s only going to intensify as time goes on."

UK - Britain is facing some of the most dangerous few years in its history, Rishi Sunak will say on Monday in a speech intended to frame the general election as a generational tussle for the long-term future of the country. The prime minister will give a speech in central London in which he will lay out what he believes to be at stake at the next election, as he warns the UK faces threats from international conflict, migration and technology.

USA - The US is losing its influence in the region to China and Russia, according to an Al-Monitor/Premise survey. Moscow and Beijing are already playing more important roles in the Middle East and North Africa than ten years ago, and in another decade could rival Washington’s influence in the region, according to a recent opinion poll. The poll was conducted by Al-Monitor in partnership with data analytics firm Premise across Egypt, Türkiye, Iraq and Tunisia between March 4 and March 22, 2024, and questioned 2,670 respondents in the four states about their views on power dynamics in the region. When asked which of the three world leaders they viewed “most favorably,” some 44.4% chose Russian President Vladimir Putin, followed by Chinese President Xi Jinping with some 33.8%, while only 21.7% said they preferred US President Joe Biden.

INDIA - A summer storm on Tuesday damaged a floating solar plant at Madhya Pradesh’s Omkareshwar dam. The floating solar plant, situated in the backwater of the dam, is the biggest of its kind in the world. On Tuesday, summer storms with the speed of 50kmph hit the project and threw the solar panels all around the place. Greens keep telling us we can expect more frequent and extreme superstorms – so what is the point of building vulnerable floating structures?

USA - Solar storm sparks chaos as critical system 'extremely compromised' after event. A stunning aurora, caused by a severe geomagnetic storm, lit up the skies in pink, green and purple this weekend in parts of the US. A solar storm that brought the northern lights to many parts of the UK this weekend caused critical GPS equipment to become "extremely compromised". Important GPS systems and precision farming functionality in tractors and agricultural equipment was impacted during the rare phenomenon.

UK - Nutritionists have likened companies shamelessly flogging fat, sugar and salt laden products to those peddling cigarettes in the 1950s - and warned the consequences will be catastrophic. The devastation wreaked by today’s ultra-processed food diets will be greater than that of tobacco, experts warn. Cheap and industrially-made junk is now so prevalent medics said the unfolding catastrophe will only be fully appreciated in decades to come. In a grim prophecy world-renowned nutritionists likened companies flogging fat, sugar and salt laden products to those peddling cigarettes in the 1950s. We basically have an unregulated environment where the food industry has near total control over messaging, like tobacco. As many as 10 million Brits are now thought to be hooked on junk food, despite knowing it has sparked an explosion in a catalogue of killer conditions that has made the UK one of the sickest on earth.

ISRAEL - Hezbollah's missile strike sets Northern Israel ablaze, revealing weaknesses in the Iron Dome defence. Northern Israel plunged into chaos and fear as Hezbollah militants launched a devastating barrage of missiles, igniting flames that engulfed the hillsides and inflicted heavy damage on a key city. The evacuated city of Kiryat Shmona became the primary target of over 60 missiles fired by Hezbollah forces on Friday. The relentless assault left the region ablaze, overwhelming civil defence efforts to contain the spreading inferno. Dozens of homes and vehicles lay in ruins, with fires raging uncontrollably across the Kiryat Shmona area - causing huge damage to infrastructure.

USA - The Biden administration has pleaded with Benjamin Netanyahu to "hold back" on his Rafah offensive with the offer of "sensitive intelligence" to target Hamas leaders, four anonymous officials have claimed. According to the insiders, Washington has said it would provide information on the location of tunnels the militants have been using in Gaza as an incentive not to enter the city. The unnamed sources told The Washington Post that the Biden administration "is offering Israel valuable assistance if it holds back, including sensitive intelligence to help the Israeli military pinpoint the location of Hamas leaders and find the group’s hidden tunnels.” Rafah is considered to be the last outpost of Hamas fighters left following the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023.