Ten years after Tony Blair's contentious British ID card scheme was binned, the former PM says a digital version is urgently needed so that people can prove their Covid-19 "disease status" as the world transitions out of lockdown.

Speaking at the Virtual CogX technology conference on Tuesday, Blair argued that it's only when citizens can easily show they're coronavirus-free that sectors such as international travel will be able to restart. The former UK Labour prime minister insisted that such a system would operate alongside the government's track-and-trace program as the economy is rebooted.

"It's a natural evolution of the way that we're going to use technology in any event to transact daily life, and this Covid crisis gives an additional reason for doing that."

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which has been making a range of coronavirus response recommendations to leaders around the world, published a paper on Tuesday calling for a digital health 'passport'.

Under the proposals, people would download a digital wallet app secured with either a fingerprint scan or facial recognition. This would allow them access to their personal health data, such as a test proving they're Covid-19 free.

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." — George Santayana

Watch and see: this debate over police brutality and accountability is about to get politicized into an election-year referendum on who should occupy the White House.

Don't fall for it.

The Deep State, the powers-that-be, want us to turn this into a race war, but this is about so much more than systemic racism. This is the oldest con game in the books, the magician's sleight of hand that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.

It's the Reichstag Fire all over again.

It was February 1933, a month before national elections in Germany, and the Nazis weren't expected to win. So they engineered a way to win: they began by infiltrating the police and granting police powers to their allies; then Hitler brought in stormtroopers to act as auxiliary police; by the time an arsonist (who claimed to be working for the Communists in the hopes of starting an armed revolt) set fire to the Reichstag, the German parliamentary building, the people were eager for a return to law and order.

That was all it took: Hitler used the attempted "coup" as an excuse to declare martial law and seize absolute power in Germany, establishing himself as a dictator with the support of the German people.

Fast forward to the present day, and what do we have? The nation in turmoil after months of pandemic fear-mongering and regional lockdowns, a national election looming, a president with falling poll numbers, and a police state that wants to stay in power at all costs.

Note the similarities?

It's entirely possible that Americans have finally reached a tipping point over police brutality after decades of abuse. After all, until recently, the legislatures and the courts have marched in lockstep with the police state, repeatedly rebuffing efforts to hold police accountable for official misconduct.

Then again, it's also equally possible that the architects of the police state have every intention of manipulating this outrage for their own purposes.

It works the same in every age.

The new sanctions by Washington targeting Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline are "absolutely unacceptable," Klaus Ernst, chairman of the Bundestag Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy, told RT.

He explained that sanctions could stop the completion of the project, and if the pipeline is not finished, "this will increase gas prices in the EU."

"The US is trying to accomplish its economic interests through illegal extraterritorial sanctions, which it directs at their partners and allies. I assume this as an assault on Europe's sovereignty. These actions are seriously damaging the transatlantic relationship," explained Ernst.

The new North Stream 2 pipeline "doesn't imperil either European or US-American security," Ernst said, adding: "It's of as little danger as car imports from Germany are to the US, which the Trump administration called a threat to US security last year."

During the military-to-military dialogue on Saturday, China refused to even discuss its intrusions into the Galwan River valley, instead claiming ownership over the entire area.

Three days after Indian and Chinese military commanders met on Saturday at Chushul, in Ladakh, to discuss the crisis caused by the occupation by thousands of Chinese soldiers of territory traditionally patrolled by both armies, top army sources in India sought to portray a rapidly improving situation.

Claiming that both sides - the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the Indian Army - have "retreated a bit" after the Saturday meeting, the army sources revealed that another Sino-Indian meeting would be held on Wednesday at a more junior level.

However, sources on the ground paint a far bleaker picture of Chinese intransigence along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). They say that during the talks, the PLA interlocutors flatly rejected the Indian demand for Chinese troops to withdraw from areas they occupied in May and restore the status quo that prevailed in April.

NI's health minister decided not to make public the best-case scenario laid out in pandemic modelling, a BBC Spotlight investigation has revealed.

A leaked executive document showed that Robin Swann chose to keep the scenario secret to try to ensure public adherence to the lockdown.

On 1 April, Mr Swann shared some of what new scientific modelling of the pandemic said.

It said 3,000 people could die in a "reasonable worst-case scenario".

What Mr Swann did not say was that the modellers put the best-case scenario at just 250 deaths.

The London Mayor is forming a new body to look over the capital's landmarks to ensure they "reflect the city's diversity," in his latest attempt to pander to woke causes, following a weekend of violence in the city.

Seemingly inspired by the people's remodelling of Bristol over the weekend, Sadiq Khan has leapt at the opportunity to engage in a bit of cultural iconoclasm in Old London Town. The formation of the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm was announced this morning and will focus on "increasing representation among Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, women, the LGBTQ+ community and disability groups."

Further explaining his decision, Chairman Khan added: "Our capital's diversity is our greatest strength, yet our statues, road names and public spaces reflect a bygone era. It's an uncomfortable truth that our nation and city owes a large part of its wealth to its role in the slave trade."

It's good to know the mayor has got his priorities in order. He's presiding over a city that's in the middle of a pandemic, has witnessed days of violent protest, has seen huge increases in knife crime, is so expensive that those with above-average incomes can't dream of owning a home here, and has witnessed three successful and several foiled terror attacks in less than three years. But, yes - "racist" statues are the real plague of the capital.

After seizing control over the coastal enclave in 2007, the Islamist group has improved its attack capabilities, says a former security officer who witnessed the bloody events that paved the way for Hamas' control, adding that getting rid of the organisation, deemed terrorist by Israel, will be a mission impossible.

Mohammed Ibrahim will never forget that hot summer day in mid-June when Hamas, an Islamist group deemed terrorist by Israel, took control of Gaza, ousting the Fatah officials that had governed the enclave since 1993.

Back then, Mohammed, who is now 36, was serving as a police officer in the headquarters of the National Security, located in the heart of Gaza, when he heard a loud noise and a series of shots.

Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation (DBR) has announced that prosecutors consider former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko a suspect in a case about the alleged illegal transfer of valuable paintings across the border.

The DBR announced on June 10 after meeting with Poroshenko that the former president was officially served with a document informing him that his status was changed from witness to suspect in the case.

However, one of Poroshenko's lawyers, Ilya Novikov, rejected the DBR's announcement, saying that his client cannot be officially considered as a suspect in the case as the document informing him of his status was handed over with procedural violations.

"There was no questioning, because there was no plan to hold questioning to start with. In fact, the whole idea was to hand Petro Poroshenko the document recognizing him as a suspect in the case," Novikov said.

According to Novikov, in cases similar to that in question, Prosecutor-General Iryna Venedyktova must personally announce that a person is a suspect in a criminal case.

The past few weeks have seen many changes on the ground in Libya.

In order to give a good explanation of what is happening on the ground in Libya, I must return to the beginning of the destruction of the sovereign country of Libya by NATO, Clinton, Obama, the UN and others in 2011. The destruction of Libya was created by a false flag operation, there was no revolution in Libya. What there were was 250,000 terrorist mercenaries brought into Libya by NATO to cause chaos using crimes against humanity and war crimes all of which were conveniently blamed on the great Libyan leader, Moammer Ghadafi. NATO used its unfettered force against Libya and her people against the UN resolution and against all international laws, creating draconian war crimes against the Libyan people and their country. The 60,000 bombing sorties against Libya destroyed not only over a trillion dollars of infrastructure but also destroyed water supplies, power supplies, agricultural areas and more. All of this bombing in civilian areas is against the Geneva convention and the NATO embargo of food, medicine, water and gasoline to Tripoli is considered of the highest war crimes.

After NATO destroyed the country, the democratically elected House of Representatives and the General Secretariat of the Tribes (2 houses making up the Libyan government) was destroyed and NATO/UN installed their radical Islamic criminal puppet regimes. These regimes were made up of radicals, NOT supported by the Libyan people (less than 4% of the Libyan population is radical). Nevertheless, this regime was forced upon the remaining Libyans as over 2.5 million had fled Libya to save their lives. These regimes were held in place by so called "militias". Militias in Tripoli are gangs of weapon carrying thugs who roam the streets, taking what they wish from any person, raping the women, killing people, torturing and imprisoning those they do not like (a bit like the old west).

Iran has passed a law aimed at protecting children from violence days after the gruesome killing of a teenager allegedly by her father.

The legislation, which had been stalled for more than a decade, was ratified on June 7 by the hard-line watchdog Guardians Council, which must approve all bills passed by parliament to make sure they're consistent with the country's constitution and Islamic law.

The move comes following nationwide outrage over last month's beheading of 14-year old Romina Ashrafi allegedly by her father, the latest apparent case of so called "honor killings."

The killing renewed debate about the need for legal protection for children and women against violence and abuse, resulting in a call by President Hassan Rohani for the speedy passage of relevant legislation.

Some local media suggested that if the child-protection law had passed earlier, it could have saved the life of Romina, who was detained by police and sent home to her father, considered to be her legal guardian, five days after running away with a 28-year-old man.

Under Iran's Islamic penal code, Romina's father faces a maximum jail sentence of 10 years if convicted because fathers are considered guardians and, unlike mothers, are exempt from capital punishment for murdering their children.