Under the plans, recruits would undergo more rigorous training, including the type used by US forces. They will also be instructed on how to operate more powerful weapons, including Stinger anti-air missiles. While on duty, draftees will guard infrastructure facilities, allowing more experienced troops to mount a quick response in case of an incursion.

Tsai blamed China’s “intimidation and threats against Taiwan,” which are “getting more obvious” for the decision. She said that under the circumstances, the current military system, including training reservists, is not sufficient. As things stand, the island has 170,000 active military personnel, with another 1.5 million in reserve. According to Taiwanese law, all males between the ages of 18 and 36 must serve in the military unless they are exempted.

“The question is not if it happens, but when,” the minister stressed. Tanner also claimed, without providing evidence, that for Russian President Vladimir Putin “hacker attacks” on the Western energy grid are a form of “hybrid warfare.”

“We shouldn’t pretend that this is just a theory. We have to prepare for blackouts in Austria and in Europe,” the minister stated. In late November, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova insisted that EU policymakers have only themselves to blame for their ongoing energy crunch.

This is actually happening, and if this plan is successfully implemented in Europe it will be just a matter of time before a similar plan is pushed through in the United States. The following comes from a Dutch article that has been translated into English…

Last night, after long negotiations, the bullet went through the church: residents of the European Union must pay for the greenhouse gases they emit. This means that every time you refuel and if the heating is switched on, you have to pay because of the harmful substances that are released as a result. Of course they are starting small in an attempt to minimize opposition. Once this plan goes into effect, the cost of a liter of gasoline will only go up by about 10 cents…

Unfortunately, other draconian measures that are designed to reduce carbon emissions are going full speed ahead right now. For example, countless farms are currently being permanently shut down all over Europe. The government in the Netherlands is planning to conduct forced buyouts of 3,000 Dutch farms with the intention of closing them down to cut nitrogen emissions in half to meet the country’s climate goals. This is literally insane. For years, I have been warning that a global food crisis would be coming, and now it is here.

The Saudi Solution was published on 8 June 2022 in the Saudi Government-controlled Al Arabiya News. Its author - Ali Shihabi – advises Saudi Arabia’s King-designate, Crown Prince and Prime Minister - Mohammed Bin Salman - on the development of Neom – a new $500 billion mega city the size of Israel.

The Saudi Solution calls for the merger of Jordan, Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria (aka 'West Bank') into one territorial entity to be called The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine – having its capital in Amman – not Jerusalem. It supersedes the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative - spawned by Saudi Arabia and embraced by the UN - which calls for: “the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

The UN stands to become totally irrelevant if it continues to refuse to discuss the Saudi Solution following Danny Danon - Israel's former ambassador to the United Nations – claiming at the first Abraham Accords Global Leadership Summit - that Saudi Arabia may be one of the next nations to normalize relations with Israel.

Footage from Jordan's most-visited tourist attraction 150 miles south of Jerusalem shows a river of water pouring into the gorge into the entrance of the Petra temple as panicked tourists flee. Although the remains of their UNESCO World Heritage Site seem vast, more than 90 per cent of it is invisible, buried beneath the desert sands. So far this year, more than one and a half million tourists have visited Petra.

To stay up to speed with all that is happening within the invite-only doors of the ruling class confab, the WEF recommends following along through a handful of social media sites. They include the US-based narrative-compliant Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, along with the Chinese social media apps TikTok WeChat, and Weibo. Twitter, which has freed itself from the grasp of the WEF-endorsed censorship-compliant social apps, is no longer included.

Through its founder Klaus Schwab and partner organizations, the WEF has a very cozy relationship with the Chinese government. Davos recently revealed that their China office now has 40 full time staffers. Moreover, every year in Beijing, the WEF hosts its “Annual Meeting of the New Champions,” which facilitates partnerships between international businesses and the Chinese Community Party. In 2018, the CCP awarded Klaus Schwab with its China Reform Friendship Medal, a medal for non-Chinese people who do the CCP’s bidding overseas.

The statement went on to claim that, in pursuit of its own interests, the US on multiple occasions has “either waged wars against other countries or created conflicts, causing massive casualties and displacement of innocent civilians.”

The $858-billion US military budget for fiscal year 2023, which authorized $10 billion in security assistance and fast-tracked weapons procurement for Taiwan, is yet another in a series of provocative moves that “seriously jeopardize the peace and stability in Taiwan Strait and increase the risk of China-US military confrontation.”

One such target, he said, is “Israel’s nuclear warhead production site in Dimona. The second wave would leave Dimona “practically destroyed” and Tel Aviv will be “razed to the ground,” Shadlou claimed. ...Nonproliferation experts have warned in recent months that Iran now has enough 60%-enriched uranium to reprocess into fuel for at least one nuclear bomb.

The current International Missions, commonly defined OFCN (Outside National Borders) are 36, below are just some of the most important missions currently in progress: – Africa: Libya (MIASIT), Somalia (EUTM), Djibouti (BMIS), Egypt (MFO), Niger (MISIN) and Malt (EUTM); – Europe: Safe Mediterranean, Kosovo (KFOR), Bulgaria (EVA), Latvia (EFP), Hungary (EVA) and STANDING NAVAL FORCES NATO (SNMG2 – SNMCMG2), EUNAVFOR MED; – Asia and Middle East: Lebanon (UNIFIL – MIBIL), Iraq – Kuwait (PRIMA PARTHICA), Palestine (MIADIT 14)

While only one Mission is active on the National Territory defined with the name of “Safe Roads”. Overall, the numbers of personnel employed to meet all the needs of the various contingents are over 8,000 men and women of the Armed Forces, Police Forces of military and civil order.

He added that Serbian President Vučić had also ordered the special forces to be increased from the current 1,500 to 5,000. Interior Minister Bratislav Gašić said he had ordered the police and other security forces to “full combat readiness” and put them under the command of the army chief of staff according to a “battle plan”.

Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence and has long engaged in a “show of force” against the now independent Kosovo, where ongoing tensions remain a potential flashpoint. So far, mediation efforts by Western countries to resolve the issue have failed.

The UK government has admitted that once you have been double-vaccinated, you will never again be able to acquire full natural immunity to Covid variants… or possibly any other virus. Do we now get a “real” pandemic? In its Week 42 “COVID-19 Vaccine Surveillance Report”, the UK Department of Health admits on page 23, that “N antibody levels appear to be lower in people who become infected after two doses of vaccination.”

It goes on to say that this drop in antibodies is essentially permanent. What does this mean? We know that vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission of the virus (indeed, the report elsewhere shows that vaccinated adults are now much more likely to be infected than unvaccinated ones). The Brits now find that the vaccine interferes with the body’s ability to make antibodies after infection not only against the spike protein but also against other parts of the virus.

The court allegedly justified its ruling as follows: The side effects of the experimental vaccine are published and the deceased could not claim to have known nothing about it when he voluntarily took the vaccine. There is no law or mandate in France that compelled him to be vaccinated. Hence his death is essentially suicide.

What are the benefits of broccoli? They contain sulforaphane which helps reduce the risk of some types of cancer. They contain carotenoids, lutein and zeaxanthin which reduce age-related eye disorders and in particular macular degeneration and cataracts. They provide beta-carotene which our body converts into vitamin A whose deficiency leads to night blindness. They possess indole-3-carbinol (I3C), which reduces the risk of breast cancer. They are rich in sulfur and are good for intestinal health.

Some scientific research has shown that sulforaphane helps reduce blood sugar levels. In addition, this same substance helps prevent or slow down osteoarthritis. The carotenoids found in it protect against heart disease and strengthen the immune system.

It was also the year of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which blew away any lingering illusions about everlasting peace and prosperity in the post-Cold War era. Indeed, as we watched the appalling images of slaughter and destruction — as well as the inspirational scenes of Ukrainian heroism against overwhelming odds — it often felt as if we’d been catapulted back to the early 1940s, when another brutal dictator sought to bend Europe to his will.

If the past year has taught us anything, though, it’s that only a fool dares to predict the twists and turns of the Westminster rollercoaster. Today’s headlines belong to Ukraine, energy, strikes and inflation. And tomorrow’s? The only honest answer is that nobody knows.

According to Bob Gripentog, one of the owners of the Lake Mead Marina, where swarms of ducks like to overwinter, the docks keep needing to be moved farther out as the lake’s level drops. But beneath the trade-conference technicalities flowed an undercurrent of panic. Panelists used words like “desperate” and “brutal” and “day of reckoning.” In the conference’s opening remarks, Brenda Burman, the former commissioner of the US Bureau of Reclamation, noted that the current drought is the worst the world has seen in twelve hundred years.This year marks the centennial of the Colorado River Compact, a 1922 agreement that divvied up the river’s water between the seven basin states: California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Nevada. The compact’s authors hoped to create water policies that would foster development in the Southwest, and they were wildly successful. Populations in the region have boomed; Phoenix, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles all use Colorado River water. The river generates hydroelectric power for millions of households and irrigates farms in Southern California’s Imperial Valley, where two-thirds of the country’s winter vegetables are grown.

Lake Mead and its sister reservoir, Lake Powell, are approaching critical levels. According to the Bureau of Reclamation’s most recent five-year hydrology projection, there is a ten-per-cent chance that Lake Powell will sink to what’s called minimum-power pool, the level at which it will no longer generate hydroelectric power, in 2023. After minimum-power pool comes dead pool, a water level so low that no water can flow out of the dams, effectively cutting off the supply to Nevada, California, Arizona, and Mexico. According to some recent predictions, this could happen by 2025.