USA - President Trump has spoken of how supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which has grown online in the US, appear to like him very much. Mr Trump told journalists that he didn't know much about the movement, but added that he'd heard that "these were people who love our country." So what is QAnon and who believes in it? At its heart, QAnon is a wide-ranging, unfounded conspiracy theory that says that President Trump is waging a secret war against elite Satan-worshipping paedophiles in government, business and the media. QAnon believers have speculated that this fight will lead to a day of reckoning where prominent people such as former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will be arrested and executed. That's the basic story, but there are so many offshoots, detours and internal debates that the total list of QAnon claims is enormous - and often contradictory. Adherents draw in news events, historical facts and numerology to develop their own far-fetched conclusions.

EUROPE - The politicization of the central banks. The new Fed strategy is the strongest sign that the central banks are taking on more and more tasks for which politicians are responsible, such as fighting unemployment. The ECB, which intends to present its new strategy in 2021, will follow in the Fed's footsteps. We are witnessing the end of independent central banks. Eurozone member states are growing at radically different speeds. Germany could tolerate inflation rates of 3 to 4 percent, if only to reduce its export surplus. But that would practically be the death knell for Italian competitiveness. The eurozone does not have a finance minister or an economics minister because there is no political union. This is the birth defect of monetary union.

USA - The United States military on Wednesday announced that it would be reducing its presence in Iraq from 5,200 to 3,000 troops this month, formalizing a move that had been long expected. Last month, Reuters reported that the United States was expected to reduce the troop presence in Iraq by about a third. The United States has around 5,200 troops that were deployed in Iraq to fight the Islamic State militant group. Officials in the US-led coalition say Iraqi forces are now mostly able to handle the remnants of Islamic State on their own.

AFRICA - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the pinnacle of funding for global vaccination programs, including polio vaccines in Africa. It has been finally admitted that the polio vaccine itself has sparked a new polio outbreak. Countries affected include Angola, Congo, Nigeria and Zambia, among others. Thirty-eight countries have suspended the vaccine. This is the same Bill Gates who is desperately pushing for mandated coronavirus vaccines in the United States as well as around the world. However, there has never been a successful virus vaccine and even Dr Anthony Fauci says it may only be 40% effective when it arrives.

UK - Global animal, bird and fish populations have plummeted more than two-thirds in less than 50 years due to rampant over-consumption, experts said Thursday in a stark warning to save nature in order to save ourselves. Human activity has severely degraded three quarters of all land and 40 percent of Earth's oceans, and our quickening destruction of nature is likely to have untold consequences on our health and livelihoods. The Living Planet Index, which tracks more than 4,000 species of vertebrates, warned that increasing deforestation and agricultural expansion were the key drivers behind a 68 percent average decline in populations between 1970 and 2016. It warned that continued natural habitat loss increased the risk of future pandemics as humans expand their presence into ever closer contact with wild animals.

USA - An ammo shortage is being witnessed nationwide as Americans react to civil unrest by buying up firearms and the ammunition needed to use them for self-defense. Gun store shelves in Arizona, long covered with box upon box of ammunition for sale, now host but a smattering of ammunition, and at a much higher price because of the product’s scarcity. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports the same shortage is evident throughout Minnesota. Oakdale gun store owner David Bean said, “Manufacturers can’t keep up with the demand anymore. The industry’s never been hit this hard before.” And Stock & Barrel Gun Club executive vice president Kevin Vick observed, “[People] have seen firsthand that law enforcement is not always going to be there to protect them.”

ISRAEL - For more than 50 years, diplomatic geniuses kept telling the world that "the key to peace in the Middle East is to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." The convenient corollary was that the solution was in Israel's hands, which kept the Jewish state constantly on the receiving end of global condemnation. This camouflaged the plain truth that the deepest ills of the region have absolutely nothing to do with Israel or the Palestinian conflict. The decision of the UAE to go public with its open relationship with Israel represents a paradigm shift as the dreaded Zionist enemy was publicly legitimized and validated by a powerful Arab nation. The Zionist state is suddenly turning into a source for solutions and hope rather than hatred. How can anti-Zionist groups like the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement continue to undermine Israel if Arab countries announce that it's good for the health of their societies to do business with the Zionist state?

USA - The extreme weather that has hammered California with runaway wildfires and hit Louisiana with its most powerful hurricane in 160 years may be about to get even worse. La Nina -- a phenomenon that occurs when the surface of the Pacific Ocean cools -- has officially formed, the US Climate Prediction Center said Thursday. It triggers an atmospheric chain reaction that stands to roil weather around the globe, often turning the western US into a tinder box, fueling more powerful hurricanes in the Atlantic and flooding parts of Australia and South America.

USA - Many of us have been waiting to see what surprises the month of September would bring, and it appears that a stock market crash may be one of them. Even the most ardent market optimists were admitting that the absurd bubble that had developed over the course of the summer was completely unsustainable, and the only real debate was over when it would finally burst. So is this it? Stock prices have certainly plunged quite dramatically over the last several trading sessions, but it is always possible that things could stabilize for a little while. But whether it happens in September, October, November, December or next year, the truth is that everyone knows that a crash is coming.

USA - The Fed’s fiscal profligacy and greedy tech oligarchs are sinking capitalism faster than the Titanic. During my 40-year Wall St career, I’ve never seen a mania like this. The problem is that central banks are rogue hedge funds with printing presses who are not elected or accountable and make policies that are consistently wrong. US stock markets were rocked last week by massive volatility that saw the most significant declines since the March correction. The US Congress and Federal Reserve policy of endless bailouts, moral hazard and exponential money printing are extreme fiscal profligacy that will sink capitalism faster than the Titanic on its maiden voyage.

UK - LGBTQ-inclusive sex education is now mandatory in all of England’s high schools. Starting this month, all English teenagers will learn about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer sexual health and positive relationships. “We want to support all young people to be happy, healthy and safe,” a Department for Education spokesperson said in an email to NBC News. The inclusive sex-ed mandate is part of a broader set of new guidelines rolled out by the department that seek to teach high school students “what makes a good friend, a good colleague and a successful marriage,” as well as provide information on contraception, consent and online safety. The curriculum aims to “teach young people to understand human sexuality and to respect themselves and others.” As for parents who do not support the LGBTQ-inclusive lessons — or sex education in general — they are able to withdraw their children from the high school sex-ed program until they are 16, the age of consent in England.

USA - Army Chief of Staff General James McConville has vehemently rejected Donald Trump’s comments alleging that the military’s top commanders wish to entangle the US in as many wars as possible in order to enrich weapon manufacturers.

USA - Most US citizens believe their government, legislators and courts are corrupt and unaccountable to the public, according to a new poll. Strikingly, both Democrats and Republicans share this opinion. Seventy percent of US citizens don’t think the government is “open and transparent,” while 60 percent of both Republicans and Democrats believe that judges aren’t free from the influence of parties and politicians. Less than 30 percent of both Republicans and Democrats believe their compatriots “agree on basic facts even though they disagree politically.” The poll seems to display both a complete distrust most Americans seem to have toward their public institutions, and a major ideological divide among themselves. Both Democrats and Republicans often speculate on abuses of power and fraud that may cost them the presidency. The theories vary from Donald Trump refusing to leave office, to liberal partisans electing Joe Biden through mail-in voting machinations.

GERMANY - Just as in a domino effect, it only takes one fallen piece to bring all the other ones down with it, and that piece might be Deutsche Bank. While many central banks around the world are having a meltdown but still keeping it together so far, the collapse of Deutsche Bank can destroy the entire global financial system. In this video, we will explain to you how central banks’ policies over the years had led the economy to a dead-end and the role of Deutsche Bank in what some can define as the final strike.

USA - I’ve gone on for a long time about fear making humans stupid, and even about it being a weapon and a brain poison. But I’ve also wondered at times whether people would hit fear-fatigue… that point where people have simply had enough fear and walk out from under it. As it turns out, however, I was a bit optimistic on fear fatigue. I’ve been reading Robert Sapolsky’s newest book, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best And Worst, and was disappointed to learn what the best new research shows on the long-term application of fear. (Or, in the academic terminology, sustained stress.)