HABBENINGS: GLOBAL STRUGGLES, GLOBAL PROBLEMS, AND GLOBAL CONFLICTS

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Midnight Visions CIVIL WAR ... BATTLE FOR FREEDOM US CANADA

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BREAKING 🚨 Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $75 million to sexual abuse victims of Jeffrey Epstein to settle a lawsuit filed last year in Manhattan, according to the lawyers for the victims. The settlement, which must be approved by a federal judge, would resolve a proposed class-action suit that alleged the bank had helped enable the disgraced financier’s sex trafficking of young women by missing warning signs in Mr. Epstein’s accounts that he was engaged in wrongdoing. (NYT)

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Epstein Didn't Kill Himself

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Iraqi transit project aims to one day rival Suez

Iraq launched a $17 billion project on Saturday to link a major commodities port on its southern coast by rail and roads to the border with Turkey, in a move designed to transform the country's economy after decades of war and crisis.

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The race to replace NATO's chief

By Alexandra Sharp

After almost a decade calling the shots, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is ready to pass the torch. The bloc’s chief met with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday, in part to discuss the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in July—as well as who will be leading it. “The plan was to be here for four years; I have been there for nine years,” Stoltenberg told PBS. “So I think the good thing for everyone is now to have another person at the helm of the alliance.”

But who that might be is still up in the air. Currently, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is reportedly the front-runner. As the youngest prime minister in Denmark’s history, Frederiksen has made waves curtailing transportation emissions and enacting a far-right immigration policy. If Frederiksen becomes secretary-general—a position that is decided via diplomatic channels, not a public vote—she would be the first woman leader in NATO’s almost 75-year history.

However, not every bloc member is enthusiastic about Frederiksen. A Danish secretary-general would be the alliance’s third successive Nordic leader, something some members—such as France, Britain, and countries in southern Europe—feel is an unfair advantage for the northern region. Denmark has also failed to meet NATO’s 2 percent minimum defense spending requirement, which some European officials are using to dissuade Frederiksen’s appointment. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak encouraged Biden last week to support U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace for the position. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas have also been discussed as potential options—but none seem to have the same momentum or buzz as Frederiksen at this point.

Stoltenberg is the second-longest-running NATO chief in the alliance’s history, having extended his tenure three times since beginning in October 2014. His achievements include balancing an increasingly isolationist United States under former U.S. President Donald Trump with European desires for greater cooperation, overseeing NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, welcoming Finland into the alliance, and coordinating the bloc’s response to Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.