GERMANY - Germany is ready to “fight tonight” against Russia and will defend “every inch” of NATO territory, its air force chief has said in an exclusive interview with The Telegraph. In his first interview with a British newspaper, Lieutenant General Holger Neumann, the chief of the Luftwaffe, said his forces would launch devastating air strikes on Russia if it attacked the Western alliance. In a further warning to Moscow, he stressed there were “no different zones of security” in NATO, meaning an attack on Estonia would warrant the same response as an air raid on London. Lieutenant General Neumann said the Kola Peninsula in north-western Russia, Kaliningrad and the Black Sea would suffer the wrath of NATO if it was forced to defend itself. The Luftwaffe chief’s comments are among the strongest from a German military leader in years, and reflect a fundamental shift in Berlin towards rearmament and a greater role in European security. As Britain struggles to rebuild its military – and reels from the resignation of John Healey as Defence Secretary and Al Carns as Armed Forces minister – he pledged German air-defence support via NATO, should London request it.

MIDDLE EAST - The US and Iran have agreed a peace deal that paves the way for further talks to end the war in the Middle East. The two sides finalised a memorandum of understanding overnight, which will be signed in Switzerland on Friday. The agreement has yet to be published, raising concerns about the outcome of previous sticking points such as Iran’s nuclear programme.

MIDDLE EAST - There seems to be a tremendous amount of confusion about what has just transpired. The United States and Iran have not agreed to a permanent peace deal. What the United States and Iran have agreed to is a 60 day ceasefire extension and the beginning of a 60 day period of negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear program. This “memorandum of understanding” essentially puts us into a position that is very similar to where we were just prior to the start of the war.

EUROPE - The surge of Europe's hatred for Israel, with Jews kicked out of Spanish sauna, banned from booking German hotel and planes refused permission to land in Slovenia. Europe's growing hostility towards Israel has led to a surge in anti-Semitic incidents across the continent, making it harder for Jewish tourists to travel freely without fear of exclusion.

UK - British PM Starmer threatens Belfast anti-immigration rioters while Lowe says ‘millions must go’. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has threatened Belfast’s nighttime rioters with the “full force of the law” after they conducted arson attacks on cars and homes on Tuesday night after a brutal video went viral featuring a Sudanese man trying to behead a disabled Scottish victim.

UK - In the space of hours, Britain endured yet more random barbaric violence. A 17-year-old girl was stabbed in the neck on a quiet residential street in Burnley, Lancashire, and a 21-year-old man was murdered in Central Park, Chelmsford, Essex. These incidents form part of a relentless pattern of attacks that former Prime Minister Liz Truss directly links to mass migration policies and the deliberate undermining of British society. Truss described institutions corrupted by leftist ideology that suppress facts about the root cause — mass migration — while left-wing politicians weaponise immigration to erode the nation state itself. The public is livid. The official response under Keir Starmer has been to target those exposing the problem rather than the problem itself.

UK - "El Nino has arrived, and weather experts fear the global climate phenomenon may be primed to match a deadly event that led to the deaths of more than 50 million people. The natural climate pattern occurs when warmer-than-usual waters in the Pacific change the weather around the world for a minimum of several months. Ocean conditions have now warmed to the point where El Nino is active and will likely continue well into next year, officials declared on Thursday. A spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said: 'El Nino conditions are present and expected to strengthen into the Northern Hemisphere winter 2026-27.' The declaration means the agency has found that sea surface temperatures are at least +0.9°F above average and are expected to stay that way for the foreseeable future".

USA - "By the 1780s it starts to become possible to reconstruct the global impact of major El Niño events with some genuine statistical accuracy. This is largely because of the wealth of data gathered by the British East India Company. By far the greatest amount of information we have available relating to the droughts of the eighteenth century is of the ‘Great’ El Niño of 1790–1794. This was of particular significance on account of its strong global effects, the particular sequence of events which it manifested and the very prolonged nature of the droughts it produced, especially in South Asia but also Australia, America and Africa. The evidence of intense and prolonged global impacts suggests it may have been among the most severe in the written record."

USA - Well before it was understood, the El Niño phenomenon was leaving its marks on humanity. El Niño is the name given to powerful shifts in Pacific Ocean winds and water temperatures that can drastically transform global weather patterns. Over the centuries these natural patterns have sparked epic droughts and heat waves, and have intensified epidemics. Some academics even claim to see the fingerprints of El Niño on political and economic crises in ancient Egypt, or on the downfall of the Moche civilization in present-day Peru, more than 1,000 years ago. And in 1877 and 1878, a famine fueled by El Niño killed millions of people across the tropics, hardening inequities that, as one research paper put it, “would later be characterized as the ‘first world’ and ‘third world.’"

GERMANY - Apart from its impressive hilltop Renaissance castle, Bernburg is an unassuming sort of town. Not a place you’d expect to find signs of a looming political earthquake about to shake the German establishment. The evidence comes from a stretch of pavement set aside for Germany’s political parties to tout their wares. With Saxony-Anhalt facing a knife-edge state election on September 6, the parties have gone all in to drum up votes.

UK - Never in my lifetime has there been a bigger or more necessary shock to the defence strategy of this country than the resignations of both John Healey and his most accomplished and experienced minister of state, Al Carns. When we get past the political smoke, this double blow to the Government has existential implications for our whole nation. We are facing the very real prospect of war in the next few years, every bit as much as we did in the 1930s. And we are not ready. Healey, until yesterday the defence secretary, attacked the shortfall in terms of money.

MIDDLE EAST - At least 39 times, Donald Trump has declared that a deal between the United States and Iran is close, imminent or nearly complete. On Thursday, he stated a “great settlement” had been agreed. The skepticism was immediate. By Friday morning, both sides were publishing contradicting accounts of what had been decided, unravelling the hope that the end of the war was near. On Friday, Mr Trump furiously denied that Washington had agreed to major concessions to Tehran after Iranian state media published a draft 14-point deal. “The terms that Iran leaked out to the Fake News have NOTHING to do with the terms that were agreed to, in writing,” Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform as unease grew in Washington. The leaked draft includes demands that the US and its allies spend at least $300 billion (£224 billion) on reconstructing Iran, American forces withdraw from around Iran, and $24 billion (£18 billion) in frozen Iranian assets be released. There still appears to be a wide disconnect between both sides, raising concerns that Mr Trump’s “grand settlement” is far from being signed.

SPAIN - Repent from your evil ways or prepare to go to hell. That was the simple message from Pope Leo on Friday for people traffickers and criminal groups who deliver illegal aliens to Europe through Spain’s Canary Islands. Reuters reports on the final day ‌of a week-long tour of Spain, in which the pontiff has urged global leaders to treat migrants more humanely, Leo said he wanted to directly address those who “take advantage of peoples’ desperation (or) organise death routes.” “Stop. Repent,” the first US pope declared. “For every life lost, every family deceived… you will have to appear before divine justice.” “Repent while there is still time,” he said, invoking the Catholic belief ​that someone who did evil in life must confess their sins and make amends or be sent to eternal hell in death. On Monday the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics called for a global response to the “tragic drama” of migration and said world peace was a “true global imperative.”

EUROPE - European Fighter Jet Is No More, as Germany and France Drop Contentious Joint Project. France and Germany are much better at fighting each other than at collaborating. Throughout history, the belligerent Germans (Prussians) and the French have fought no fewer than 9 wars against each other, ever since the 1700’s. Sometimes, like in the ‘War of the Fourth Coalition’ (1806–1807), Napoleonic France defeated Prussia; sometimes, like in World War II (1939–1945), Nazi Germany invaded and occupied France. Fast forward to the second half of the 20th century, when the European Union was created around the Franco-German alliance. For decades, this alliance of former foes carried the European project – but actual bilateral collaboration is a tricky proposition. This has become quite clear this week, as the German and French leaders have ditched a project to jointly develop and build a new-generation fighter jet. The industrial rivalries were reportedly stronger than Europe’s most ambitious defense program.

MIDDLE EAST - Newly surfaced footage obtained by CNN indicates that a severe fire aboard the USS Gerald R Ford - the world's largest aircraft carrier - inflicted far more extensive damage than the Trump administration initially admitted to the public. Early in the conflict it was forced to depart Mideast regional waters and retreat West in the Mediterranean, before undergoing extensive repairs at port in Croatia. Pundits were skeptical of official explanations, which suggested an accidental fire was sparked in the laundry room aboard the giant vessel. The major blaze erupted in March at a moment Iran claimed to have directly hit US naval vessels, but the crisis was consistently downplayed by Pentagon officials at the time.