CHINA - Chinese state media said Saturday the double US aircraft carrier deployment to the South China Sea is 'at their pleasure'. In a tweet The Global Times also warned: 'China has a wide selection of anti-aircraft carrier weapons like DF-21D and DF-26 "aircraft carrier killer" missiles.' Two US aircraft carriers were conducting exercises in the disputed South China Sea on Saturday, the US navy had said, as China also carried out military drills that have been criticized by the Pentagon and neighboring states. The state run Global Times said analysts noted that they could destroy the carriers at any moment with missiles in a chilling threat.

AUSTRALIA - Australian authorities were preparing to close the border between the country’s two largest states, as the country’s second-largest city, Melbourne, recorded two deaths and its highest-ever daily increase in infections on Monday. The border between the states of New South Wales — home to Sydney — and Victoria — home to Melbourne — is due to be shut late Tuesday. New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian was a critic of states that closed their borders to her state when Sydney had Australia’s largest number of coronavirus cases. But she said she changed her stance because the situation in Melbourne was unprecedented and indicated the pandemic was in a new phase.

CHINA - Bubonic plague has broken out in a Chinese city with authorities issuing an epidemic warning after a local farmer contracted the virus that caused the infamous Black Death. The Inner Mongolian Chinese city of Bayan has been placed under a level three warning for epidemic control. This is the second-lowest in a four-level system and the hunting and eating of wild animals has been forbidden. The resident of the Nur is now said to be in a stable condition. If antibiotics are administered within 24 hours of infection patients are likely to survive. If antibiotics are not available the virus can lead to a prolonged painful death.

USA - Multiple signs point to a crisis in global order. The uncoordinated international response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting economic downturns, the resurgence of nationalist politics, and the hardening of state borders all seem to herald the emergence of a less cooperative and more fragile international system. According to many observers, these developments underscore the dangers of US President Donald Trump’s “America first” policies and his retreat from global leadership.

USA - It has been clear for many years that the United States is a house divided. But since March, when the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the country, that division has taken on a ghastly new face. Staggering death tolls and nightmarish images of body bags, overwhelmed hospitals, and freezer morgues have stirred little sense of unity or common purpose. Instead, they seem to have simply fed an already raging case of partisan polarization — another virus for which there is as yet no treatment or vaccine. It has become difficult to ask even the most basic questions — whether a certain medicine works, whether a city has enough ventilators and protective equipment — without triggering a political brawl, usually revolving around President Donald Trump.

USA - A national parents’ coalition that formed around the anti-Common Core movement told Breitbart News it is “thrilled” President Donald Trump has exposed the “indoctrination” of America’s children that has been occurring for decades in government schools. The president said: Our children are taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but that they were villains. The radical view of American history is a web of lies — all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted, and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition.

EUROPE - Serious conflicts between Berlin and Paris over foreign policy overshadow the beginning of the German EU Presidency. French President Emmanuel Macron's ongoing endeavours to cooperate more closely with Russia are being met with resentment in the German capital. During a recent two-hour long video conference with his Russian counterpart he agreed to soon visit Moscow. In fact, the German government lays claim to leadership in determining the EU's policy toward Russia.

There is also the conflict between France and Turkey, which had considerably escalated after a Turkish naval vessel carried out radar targeting of a French frigate in June. Paris therefore withdrew from a NATO operation and is demanding tougher EU sanctions being imposed on Ankara. This runs counter to Berlin's intention to seek the kind of cooperation with Turkey that can safeguard the refugee pact and serve its own geostrategic interests. The dispute could escalate next week when the EU foreign ministers meet… More foreign policy controversies are clearly looming with France.

ISRAEL - When Israeli defense planners who support an annexation move talk about a “window of opportunity” in Washington, they mean something larger than the expected end of the Trump presidency. There is a fear that America itself is in retreat, and with it a global order that could be relied upon to ensure some measure of stability and security for a small country like Israel. “American hegemony is crumbling before our eyes,” said Dr Eran Lerman, a prominent conservative defense thinker who supports the annexation plan. The Trump plan is vague. Critics, including in Israel, have assailed it from all sides. But it nevertheless provides a number of basic Israeli needs that have become vital truths for most Israelis, including control of the large settlement blocs and of the Jordan Valley.

ISRAEL - The head of the advisory panel helping to craft the government’s response to the latest coronavirus outbreak warned on Sunday that Israel had “lost control of the pandemic.” “In terms of the number of infected, and the fact that they’re scattered throughout the country, we don’t know the sites of infection for most of the infected, so we’re unable to control the outbreaks,” Professor Eli Waxman, a physicist who heads the panel of experts advising the National Security Council’s deliberations on combating the pandemic, elaborated in a Channel 12 interview. “In today’s situation, with 1,000 infected [daily], we can no longer disrupt the chain of infection — even if there were a working system to do that, and there isn’t.” He warned: “We are facing Israel’s greatest ever national civilian crisis.”

CHINA - A suspected case of bubonic plague has been registered in China’s north, according to local health authorities. The news comes after two similar cases were detected in neighbouring Mongolia. The case was registered at a hospital in China’s Inner Mongolia region, its health commission said in a statement on Sunday. This prompted a third-level warning of a potential epidemic in the region. The alert comes into force immediately and will be in place until the end of this year. It’s believed the patient in question is suffering from the bubonic form, which causes swollen lymph nodes, and is considered to be the most easily treated variant of the disease. The plague also has a pneumonic and an extra-deadly septicemic form that can kill a victim within a day.

USA - This has been a year like no other, and as Independence Day rolls around, I find myself looking at the whole thing differently than in years past. I still celebrate the freedom that I have but we’re watching it disappear at a such rapid pace. Somehow, neighbor has turned against neighbor, brother against brother, and Americans are turning against their own country. In my memory, it’s never been as bad as it is now. Those of you who recall the protests over the Vietnam War and other conflicts may see things differently – I’m not sure how it was in our country during those times. I can only speak about what I personally recall. We are weaker when we are not united. We are ripe for the picking. The United States of America we once knew is fading and turning into the Divided States of America. And it’s heartbreaking.

USA - What we are witnessing all over the country right now is incredibly sad. In the aftermath of the tragic death of George Floyd, it would have been wonderful to see the entire nation unite behind an effort to make our society less violent, more just and more peaceful. But instead, we have seen a tremendous explosion of violence and lawlessness that doesn’t seem likely to end any time soon.

USA - During Friday’s address at Mount Rushmore’s Independence Day celebration, President Trump said the radical left’s goal is “not a better America, their goal is to end America.” “Those who seek to erase our heritage want Americans to forget our pride and our great dignity so that we can no longer understand ourselves or America’s destiny,” Trump told the crowd in front of the American landmark Friday evening. “In toppling the heroes of 1776, they seek to dissolve the bonds of love and loyalty that we feel for our country and that we feel for each other,” he explained. “Their goal is not a better America, their goal is to end America.” Rather than striving for a better America, Trump said those who seek to destroy the country’s heritage “want power for themselves.” Trump added that they would “tear down the beliefs, culture, and identity, that have made America the most vibrant and tolerant society in the history of the earth.”

GERMANY - Germany should reintroduce compulsory military service to fight the problem of far-right extremism in the army, the parliamentary armed forces commissioner says. The country suspended conscription in 2011. Högl's remarks come after a slew of reports on far-right activities in Germany's armed forces over the past year, most recently in the elite special forces unit KSK.

GERMANY - Young people in Germany will have an opportunity to apply for one year of free military training as part of Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer's project aimed at addressing a chronic personnel shortage in the army. Kramp-Karrenbauer, commonly known in Germany as AKK, expects the first volunteers to join the program called "Your Year for Germany" in 2021. The project is intended to boost the defense capabilities of the German military, which has suffered from an almost constant shortage of new recruits, as well as making it more effective as a NATO member. The German Armed Forces, or Bundeswehr, has gradually reduced its manpower since the end of the Cold War, most significantly after compulsory military service was abolished back in 2011. Since then, the military has been struggling to fill its ranks.