USA - This week it was Kenosha, Wisconsin and next week it will probably be somewhere else. Yet another senseless police shooting was followed by more rioting, looting and violence. Of course rioting, looting and violence have basically become a nightly occurrence in America at this point anyway. The protests never seem to end in some cities, and crime rates are absolutely skyrocketing all over the country.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - The United Arab Emirates reportedly canceled a trilateral meeting with Israel and the US last week in retaliation against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public opposition to Washington’s brewing sale of F-35 fighter jets to Abu Dhabi. A New York meeting of the three countries’ UN envoys celebrating the normalization of Israel-UAE ties had been scheduled for Friday, the Walla news site said in a report Monday. But in the lead-up to the gathering, Netanyahu spoke out against the US sale of advanced weaponry to the UAE, following reports that he had agreed to pull opposition to the deal in exchange for normalization. Israel fears allowing the UAE to obtain the ultra-advanced stealth jet fighters will compromise its military edge in the region, which the US has pledged to uphold.

USA - It has just been one thing after another in 2020. First, the COVID-19 pandemic erupted and quickly spread all over the globe. At this point more than 800,000 people have died globally, and authorities are warning us to brace ourselves for another wave of the pandemic in the fall. Of course many would argue that fear of the virus has been even worse than the disease itself, and it is undeniable that the COVID-19 shutdowns were the primary reason why we have plunged into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

USA – Military spending compared to other world powers:
China: $266 billion
France: $52 billion
Germany:$51 billion
Russia: $64 billion
USA: $718 billion

USA - Hurricane warnings have been issued in the US ahead of the arrival of two tropical storms expected to smash into the south coast. If Tropical Storm Marco and Laura swell together into hurricanes, it would be the first time two have collided simultaneously on record, according to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. Tropical Storm Marco is expected to hit Louisiana on Monday as forecasters issue storm surge and hurricane warnings for the state. The storm is gathering strength in the Gulf of Mexico, southeast of the US state and could well arrive as a hurricane, the national centre has warned. There are also fears the neighbouring state of Mississippi could also be hit by the tropical storms. With the state also struggling with the coronavirus pandemic, Governor Tate Reeves declared a state emergency. He said: “We are in unprecedented times.”

USA - California fires expected to grow as new storm system approaches. The second and third largest fires in California history — both of which are located in the San Francisco Bay area — are expected to grow in the coming days as a new thunderstorm will move over the state, likely bringing with it dry lightning and strong winds, The Los Angeles Times reports. The National Weather Service has issued red-flag warnings across Northern and Central California, but the fires have already destroyed hundreds of homes and forced thousands of people to evacuate. California Governor Gavin Newsom (Democrat) said Saturday that the White House has approved the state's request for a presidential major disaster declaration to bolster the response to the blazes. Since July, about 1.2 million acres in California have burned, which the Times notes is an "astonishing" figure for so early in the fire season.

USA - A Tennessee school district is under fire for asking parents to sign a form agreeing not to eavesdrop on kids' virtual classes over concerns they could overhear confidential information. After significant pushback, Rutherford County Schools is allowing parents to tune in with permission from the teacher but they can't record the classes. “It's ridiculous. It's so hypocritical because they've been data mining our children for years, compliments of common core," Laurie Cardoza-Moore, founder of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, said on "Fox & Friends Weekend" Saturday. "What are they trying to hide? What is the problem? Why won't they let us sit in?" the homeschool mom of five asked. "Obviously, because they are teaching our children propaganda that they should not be teaching," she said. "They are trying to socialize our children." She added: "We have had a major problem in education, not just here in Tennessee, but across the country where they are indoctrinating our children with propaganda."

AUSTRALIA - On August 2, lockdown measures were implemented in Melbourne, Australia, that were so draconian that Australian news commentator Alan Jones said on Sky News: “People are entitled to think there is an ‘agenda to destroy western society.’” The gist of an August 13th article on the Melbourne lockdown is captured in the title: “Australian Police Go FULL NAZI, Smashing in Windows of Civilian Cars Just Because Passengers Wouldn’t Give Details About Where They Were Going.”

KENYA - In parts of Kenya, the economic damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic has been so catastrophic that people have started to kill endangered wildlife for food. Last week, The Telegraph trekked with rangers through the Tsavo conservation area, a region larger than Wales in southeastern Kenya, and found a Masai giraffe which had been stripped bare by poachers for bushmeat. “They have really done a hell of a job on this one,” muttered a ranger when we came across the mass of bloodied bones, organs and skinned hide. “They’ve even cut the meat out from in-between his ribs.” In life, just hours earlier, the fully grown bull would have weighed about two and a half tonnes and stood almost 20ft off the ground. Its legs would have been strong enough to kick in a lion’s chest. But now there was almost nothing left.

UNITED NATIONS - The Covid-19 pandemic may lead to a calamity of epic scale, with millions facing starvation worldwide, the head of the UN’s hunger-fighting body has warned. “All the data we have, including WFP forecast that the number of people experiencing malnutrition will grow by 80 percent by the end of the year, … points to a real disaster,” David Beasley, Executive Director of the UN World Food Program (WFP), said. We are risking a famine of biblical proportions.

USA - Economists and deficit hawks have warned for decades that the United States was borrowing too much money. The federal debt was ballooning so fast, they said, that economic ruin was inevitable: Interest rates would skyrocket, taxes would rise and inflation would probably run wild. The death spiral could be triggered once the debt surpassed the size of the US economy — a turning point that was probably still years in the future.

USA - After tapping the bond market at a record-shattering pace in recent months, Corporate America is more indebted today than ever before. And while much of that fresh cash - more than $1.6 trillion in total - helped scores of companies stay afloat during the pandemic lockdown, it now threatens to curb an economic recovery that was already showing signs of sputtering. Many companies will have to divert even more cash to repaying these obligations at the same time that their profits sink, leaving them with less to spend on expanding payrolls or upgrading facilities in months ahead. And there will probably be a hangover. Many companies were groaning under their debt loads even before the Covid-19 pandemic, and now will have to work harder to cut borrowings as earnings remain depressed. Even if companies are hanging on to the money they borrowed, they must still pay interest on it, and could eventually use the cash if the pandemic drags on.

EUROPE - The pandemic rouses a sleeping giant. Europe has been a geopolitical nonentity since the 1990s. With the largest economy in the world, 450 million people, and defense spending comparable to Russia’s, the continent could be a colossus. Yet Europe has never come close to equaling the combined clout of its constituent countries. Beset by chronic economic, political, and institutional limitations and crises, the European Union has for the last three decades exerted remarkably little influence on global affairs. Europe’s most powerful member states, meanwhile, have either seen their sway diminish, as France has, or, like Germany, resisted taking up the mantle of international leadership. Now, suddenly, Europe is stirring…

USA - Celebrated Christian pastor Franklin Graham denounced the total absence of God in this week’s Democratic National Convention, calling on Americans to bring God back into public life. “In watching some of the Democratic National Convention on television this week, it has been interesting to see the absence of God,” Rev Graham wrote on his Facebook page early Friday. “I don’t believe America’s finest hours will be in front of us if we take God out of government and public life.”

PAKISTAN - A Pakistani minister has threatened India with a nuclear attack in "the bloody last war" and says only Muslims will survive. Sheikh Rashid made the threat of nuclear war, claiming that Pakistan has very precise weapons which are “small and perfect” and are able to target specific regions.“If Pakistan gets attacked by India, there is no scope for conventional war. This will be a bloody and nuclear war," he said during an interview with Pakistani media channel Samaa TV on Wednesday. Pakistan has previously threatened nuclear war against India with Prime Minister Imran Khan mentioning such a conflict on several occasions last year.