As the lead managers of the Great Barrier Reef, the Reef Authority keeps an eye on the Reef year-round — with efforts stepped up over summer, a typically high-risk period from extreme weather.

Over summer the Reef Authority releases weekly updates on how the Reef is faring with a focus on sea surface temperatures, rainfall and floods, cyclones, crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks, and coral disease.

These updates are based on forecasts, water temperature heat mapping, in-water surveys, citizen science and aerial surveys. 

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson secretly flew to Venezuela last month to conduct unofficial talks with the leader of the South American nation, Nicolas Maduro, the Sunday Times has reported. 

The meeting came amid supposed concerns from Ukraine’s Western backers that Venezuela could supply weapons to Russia. The former prime minister spent less than 24 hours in South America, having traveled by private jet from a holiday home in the nearby Dominican Republic, unnamed sources told the newspaper. 

The two politicians also reportedly discussed the normalization of relations between London and Caracas, the holding of free and fair presidential elections in Venezuela this year, and the South American country’s dispute with Guyana, a former British colony, over a 62,000 sq-mile oil and mineral-rich area around the Essequibo River.

Comments by Pope Francis about launching peace talks to end the Ukraine conflict echo the repeated calls Moscow has made for the same, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

Peskov’s remark comes after the head of the Catholic Church stated in an interview with Swiss broadcaster RSI over the weekend that it would be a display of courage from Kiev if it raised a “white flag” and entered into peace negotiations with Russia. 

“The idea that [the Pope] spoke about is quite understandable,” Peskov said. “You know that [Russian President Vladimir Putin] has repeatedly spoken about our readiness and openness to solve our problems through negotiations and this is the preferred way.” 

US President Joe Biden’s recent blunder in which he mixed up Ukraine and the Middle East sums up his poor mental state, former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev has claimed.

Biden’s gaffe came in an interview with MSNBC on Saturday, as he discussed the Israeli military campaign in Gaza with host Jonathan Capehart. The US leader said West Jerusalem should not repeat the mistakes that Washington made following the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

“America made a mistake. We went after Osama bin Laden until we got him, but we shouldn’t have gone into Ukraine,” Biden stated. He then corrected himself, saying he meant “the whole thing in Iraq and Afghanistan,” referring to the US invasions and occupation of the two Middle Eastern nations. Confusing places and people has been a recurring issue for the 81-year-old president.

EU MURDER

Russia’s ambassador to France was summoned on Friday [2022] to the French Foreign Ministry over an earlier embassy Twitter post that Paris deemed unacceptable, the foreign ministry said.

The Russian Embassy in Paris on Thursday had posted a picture depicting a body lying on a table called “Europe” with characters representing the United States and European Union jabbing needles into it.

“We made that clear today to the Russian Ambassador,” the ministry said in a statement sent to Reuters. “We are trying to maintain a demanding channel of dialogue with Russia and these actions are completely inappropriate.”

Speaking to reporters in Brussels, President Emmanuel Macron dismissed the cartoons as false propaganda.

An updated diagnosis of the most intractable problem currently facing the world economy - the simultaneous emergence of hot and homeless money, often illegal in origin, and a massive, growing, and ultimately unrepayable burden of debt incurred, often illegitimately, by the world's poor countries.

France is forming a coalition of nations that are willing to consider the possibility of deploying Western forces to Ukraine, Politico reports.

On Friday, French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné travelled to Lithuania to hold a meeting with his Baltic and Ukrainian counterparts to promote the idea that foreign forces might assist Ukraine in tasks such as de-mining.

Séjourné repeatedly mentioned mine clearance operations as a potential area of assistance, stating it "might mean having some personnel, [but] not to fight."

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called on EU member states to invest heavily in the defense industry. These efforts should see the creation of weapons that will ensure the dominance of their armies on the battlefield, she said.

Von der Leyen also equated European security with continued support for Ukraine, which she said Brussels will keep providing “for as long as it takes.”

Addressing a congress of the European People’s Party in Bucharest, Romania on Thursday, von der Leyen said that the bloc needs to “turbo charge our defense industrial capacity in the next five years.” She added that this push would “help us fill the urgent need to rebuild, replenish and modernize Member States’ armed forces.”

Gutfeld: If Biden was a Walmart greeter, he'd say hello as customers leave the store

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM0g0rjRVBo

My favorite Sesame Street character and the White House are in agreement about shrinkflation, Hope writes.

What they're saying: "C is for consumers getting ripped off. President Biden is calling on companies to put a stop to shrinkflation," the White House posted while quoting Cookie Monster, who said —

"Me hate shrinkflation! Me cookies are getting smaller."
The intrigue: Not everyone's happy about the blue monster's commentary.
"I'm shocked," Frank Oz, who worked with creator Jim Henson, wrote on X. "Muppets need to live in their own pure world."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jczt5zmxv6Y

HORRID... MAKES YOU FELL ILL... BS ON TOAST.... INSANE JOE.....

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

Recently there was an interesting piece in the South China Morning Post on “Communist Party orders cells to study Xi Jinping Thought and learn speeches” See China’s Communist Party orders cells to make Xi Jinping Thought a priority, cadres must study president’s speeches, South China Morning Post.

Right now, the very highest levels of the Deep State — the U.S.-UK empire and its dependent colonies’ collaborating aristocracies — are struggling within and against each other over what to do now that their decades-long plans and expectations of ultimately expanding to absorb into their empire every country and so to win for their billionaires collective rule over the entire planet, are collapsing into abject failure in the battlefields of Ukraine, in America’s war there to defeat Russia.

Eric Zuesse (blogs at https://theduran.com/author/eric-zuesse/)

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - US journalist Tucker Carlson on Friday called President Joe Biden's State of the Union address to Congress "possibly the darkest, most un-American speech" ever delivered by a US president, saying that it had been focused not on US's national interests, but on pouring billions of dollars into military aid to Ukraine.

"That was possibly the darkest, most un-American speech ever given by an American president," Carlson said during a broadcast published on his X account, calling Biden a "cruel and vicious demagogue."

The US journalist described the president's address as a "lie," saying that Biden "quickly explained" that his top priority "has nothing to do with America" and was related to "sending billions more to Ukraine."

US ‘will not bow down’ to Russia – Biden
The US president urged Republicans to unblock military aid to Kiev in his State of the Union address

The US will not stop supporting Ukraine during its conflict with Russia, President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address on Thursday night.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is hell-bent on “sowing chaos around Europe,” Biden claimed.

“If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop in Ukraine, I assure you he will not,” Biden told Congress. He went on to renew his appeal to House Republicans to stop blocking additional military aid to Kiev.

“Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself,” he said.

The modern world is “unfair,” but social disparities and global inequalities can be addressed by establishing a multipolar world, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the closing ceremony of the World Youth Festival (WYF) in Sochi, Putin said: “There are no equal conditions in the world for everyone. This is the main injustice of the current world order.”

The Russian leader noted that in the United States people can die “at the doorway of a hospital” if they don’t have medical insurance.

“The world is unfair, that’s for sure. And people who do not have sufficient income cannot receive a normal education or have the right to count on medical care,” Putin said.