Welcome back to New World next week.

I'm James Corbett of Corporate Report.com.

I'm James Uppinpilato of Mediamonarchy.com.

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Plus, creepy Joe Biden wants to touch your heart.

But first, EU signs

defense pact in decades-long quest. This from Reuters, France and Germany edged toward achieving a

70-year-old ambition to integrate European defenses just this past Monday, signing a pact with 21

other EU governments to fund, develop, and deploy armed forces after Britain's decision to quit the block.

First proposed back in the 1950s and long resisted by Britain, European defense planning operations and weapons development now stands its best chance in years as London steps aside and the United States pushes Europe to pay more for its security.

Foreign and defense ministers gathered at a signing ceremony in Brussels, of course, to represent

23 EU governments joining the pact, paving the way for EU leaders to sign it in December.

Those governments will, for the first time, legally bind themselves into joint projects,

as well as pledging to

increase defense spending and contribute to rapid deployments. James, this seems like a vaguely

important news story. Why isn't this on the front page of my newspapers? Yeah, I wonder. That's a

good question. Well, I mean, firstly, it isn't a done deal yet. And even if it is a done deal, it's still a question

to what extent it will be done. Because people might know there's been a European defense

agency for 13 years on paper, but it doesn't actually do very much at this point. So there is

thankfully a lot of skepticism, even amongst the Euro, the raw-Raw-EU crowd about whether this will really take off, whether this will really happen, or whether it's just a lot of political gum-flapping.

So, thankfully, even if this is signed and done and dusted, next month is it that they're looking to sign this?

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