TAIWAN - A former US senator and two former US deputy secretaries of state have arrived in Taiwan, leading the first unofficial delegation dispatched by President Biden, amid heightened tensions with Beijing over the future of the self-ruling island. Christopher J Dodd, a former Democratic senator from Connecticut, and former senior State Department officials Richard Armitage and James Steinberg touched down in Taipei on Wednesday afternoon local time, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said.

USA - The US government’s budget deficit surged to an all-time high of $1.7 trillion for the first six months of this budget year, nearly double the previous record, as another round of economic-support checks added billions of dollars to spending last month. In its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Monday that the deficit for the first half of the budget year — from October through March — was up from a shortfall of $743.5 billion in the same period a year ago. The deficit has been driven higher by trillions of dollars in support Congress has passed in successive economic rescue packages since the pandemic struck in early March 2020. The latest round came in a $1.9 trillion measure that President Joe Biden pushed through Congress last month. The Treasury report Monday showed that through the first six months of the current budget year, interest payments on the debt total $229 billion...

JAPAN - Japan on Tuesday proposed holding a naval drill with Germany when a German frigate visits Asia later this year, the Japanese government said, as Tokyo aims to bolster security ties with other democracies in the face of China’s maritime expansion. The proposal was made during the first security dialogue between the foreign and defence ministers of Japan and Germany, and the two sides agreed to look into the matter further, a Japanese government statement said. Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi held the talks with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer via video conferencing.

USA - A Black Lives Matter co-founder and self-professed 'trained Marxist' has raised eyebrows by purchasing a $1.4 million Los Angeles home, in a largely white district. Patrisse Cullors, a 37-year-old 'artist, organizer, and freedom fighter', has bought a three bedroom, three bathroom house in Topanga Canyon, complete with a separate guest house and expansive back yard. The realtors write that the large back yard is 'ideal for entertaining or quietly contemplating cross-canyon vistas framed by mature trees'. The AP reported that Black Lives Matter took in $90 million in donations last year. It's not clear if or how Cullors is paid by the organization, as its finances are opaque. In her new zip code, 88 per cent of residents are white and 1.8 per cent black, according to the census. Some critics argued that living in a million-dollar home was at odds with her social justice mission.

USA - A new bill in Texas seeks to protect children from getting sex change procedures that they may regret later in life by criminalizing parents who do so. Obtaining these treatments for children would be considered child abuse under the legislation. The Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs held a hearing over the bill on Monday. “Children are unable to give informed consent. This bill gives children a chance to get to adulthood with intact bodies,” Republican Executive Committee Member Jill Glover testified.

AUSTRALIA - Schools in Melbourne, Australia, have been called upon to abandon using words such as ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ in favour of more so-called gender-inclusive language. As a part of the North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network’s #SpeakingUpSpeaksVolumes campaign, which aims to support ‘LGBTQI+’ children in schools, the advocacy group has suggested that schools in Melbourne fly rainbow flags, scrap single-sex bathrooms, and introduce non-gendered sports teams. The campaign has also called for teachers, as well as pupils, to refrain from using words such as ‘boyfriend’, which they say should be replaced with “partner”. The group said that parental pronouns such as mum and dad should also be abandoned for the more inclusive “parent”, the Daily Mail reported. The CEO of the North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network, Chris Carter, said that the #SpeakingUpSpeaksVolumes campaign aims to increase support for LGBTQI+ children.

CHINA - A hard-hitting report by a Chinese group has slammed the US for its history of “humanitarian disasters” under the guise of human rights. The accusation fuels an escalating war of words between Beijing and Washington. A Chinese organization has published a report slamming the United States as responsible for a “History of Humanitarian Disasters” citing what it described as “American aggression” and highlighting the destructive consequences of US-led wars, most often under the guise of “humanitarian interventions” or “human rights.”

USA - Warmongers are now firmly in control in Washington, and they are pushing us toward war a little bit more each day. A military conflict with Russia, China or Iran would be a nightmare scenario, but there is also a possibility that we could end up fighting all three of them simultaneously. Such an outcome would have been unthinkable under the Trump administration, but times have changed.

USA - "We need to close the book on a 20-year war," is how a US official put it when he broke the news on Tuesday that the last US troops would be out of Afghanistan by 11 September. Two decades on, what does this "book" say about the country that some 10,000 US-led NATO forces will soon leave behind? It's a dramatically different country than the shattered land and pariah state of the Taliban toppled in the US-led invasion of 2001 after the 9/11 attacks.

CHINA - America is China’s top supplier of corn so far in 2021, Chinese media noted Sunday, with corn prices in China at record highs. Corn is used in China for feeding pigs — pork is the nation’s most popular meat — making it an indispensable crop. Increased demand for corn follows not just a devastating African swine flu outbreak that sent pork prices soaring, but torrential floods that destroyed much of China’s 2020 crop yield and raised concerns of food shortages in the world’s most populous nation.

JAPAN - While Japan last month marked the 10th anniversary of the devastating 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami with solemn ceremonies, the government has also been stressing the successes of its recovery efforts in the country’s northeast. In truth, however, the country is still coping with the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, which has already cost Japan trillions of yen and whose exclusion zone will require up to 40 more years to fully rehabilitate. And with contaminated water continuing to build up at the ruined Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga says that the government must finally begin dumping it into the Pacific Ocean. With nuclear waste and fuel rods still contaminating the area, over one million tons of radioactive waste water continue to seep from the facility, according to The Japan Times, forcing authorities into what Suga describes as the “unavoidable” position of having to dump the water. But while Japanese officials say that the water will be safe, it remains an open question whether people will trust their word.

RUSSIA - Max Keiser interviews Egon von Greyerz of GoldSwitzerland.com about the impossibility of price discovery because of the paper gold market, in which $70 trillion is traded every year against $213 billion annual mine production. The BIS (Bank for International Settlements) and the bullion banks are constantly manipulating and intervening in the market, Greyerz says. “They have total immunity against any prosecution. They interfere in the gold market and, in my view, that’s because central banks don’t have the gold that they say they have,” he explains. “They have to constantly trade to pretend that there is still gold around.” He says that “in the old days,” gold was lent by central banks to bullion banks and kept in London while still belonging to central banks. Since then, everything has changed. “So, in my view, all of this massive trading activity is to basically disguise this fact that there isn’t enough physical gold around.”

UK - Scientists at Oxford University have suggested that people may need to have a coronavirus vaccination not once, not twice, but every time they want to travel out of their home country. The scientists published a report in the Royal Society Journal last week that acknowledged there is little data on how efficient or long lasting the current vaccines are, and so it is likely that countries will require a recent vaccination. Having endless vaccinations when there is no indication of how effective they are, or what long term side effects there may be sounds absolutely mental, but that is what is being suggested.

USA - Since Biden’s inauspicious rise to power, the world has become littered with hotspots from Ukraine to China where a major conflict could erupt at any time. Is the US deep state desperate to make up for four warless years? Coincidence or otherwise, the world feels like a much more dangerous place since Joe Biden formally entered the White House on January 20. Now that the ‘Make America Great Again’ bumper sticker has been removed from the US juggernaut, early indicators point to a global joyride riddled with dangerous standoffs and even full-blown hostilities that could spark the mother of all conflagrations.

IRAN - The power failure was described by Iran as “nuclear terrorism” as talks were underway in Vienna to restore the 2015 nuclear deal. A power failure that appeared to have been caused by a deliberately planned explosion struck Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment site on Sunday, in what Iranian officials called an act of sabotage that they suggested had been carried out by Israel. The blackout injected new uncertainty into diplomatic efforts that began last week to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal repudiated by the Trump administration. Iran did not say precisely what had caused the blackout at the heavily fortified site, which has been a target of previous sabotage, and Israel publicly declined to confirm or deny any responsibility. But American and Israeli intelligence officials said there had been an Israeli role. Two intelligence officials briefed on the damage said it had been caused by a large explosion that completely destroyed the independent — and heavily protected — internal power system that supplies the underground centrifuges that enrich uranium.