UK - Many FTSE 100 businesses continue to readjust reported metrics as they struggle to assess whether they are hitting climate targets. That companies seemingly cannot accurately tell their stakeholders what their emissions are will raise further doubts about whether lenders or investors should be relying on this data when making decisions. Steve Baker, the former minister who led the net-zero scrutiny group of backbench Conservative MPs, urged businesses and the government to “take stock”. He added: “Unfortunately, this data seems to suggest that firms are, as one would expect, failing to achieve impossible things. And yet under pressure they are too often making statements which turn out to be untrue, undermining everyone’s faith in the integrity of policy and institutions trying to comply with it. This has become a fable for our times.”

GERMANY - The German government has introduced a new bill aimed at rapidly increasing the size of its armed forces. Germany hopes to recruit 100,000 new soldiers by the end of the decade as the country continues plans to rapidly strengthen its armed forces. War in Europe has seen Germany alter its approach to defence, with the government voting to change the law to allow it to invest heavily in defence earlier this year. Since the end of the Second World War, the country has resisted heavy spending in defence, in part due to the legacy of the Nazis but also driven by economic prudence following the financial crisis of 2008. The country will now seek to pass a new law which will allow it to enhance its voluntary recruitment as it seeks to respond to war in Ukraine. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said as he presented the Military Service Modernisation Act: “A functioning Bundeswehr requires a functioning country. A strong army - in terms of personnel and equipment - is the most effective means of preventing wars.”

GERMANY - When Nigel Farage announced his plan to deport 600,000 illegal migrants from Britain, he put forward Germany as an example of how it could be done. The Reform UK leader pointed to two deportation flights organised by Berlin, transporting a total of 102 failed Afghan asylum seekers back to their homeland. The flights were the first to leave Germany for Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power and the European nation closed its embassy in Kabul in 2021. Germany accomplished this without leaving the European Union, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) or any other international treaties. But it took a colossal legal, political and diplomatic juggling act to get the wheels off the ground.

UK - Popular for adults undergoing career and life transitions, and expanding into specialisms from dating to bereavement, life coaching is also gaining popularity with the parents of children and teens. The International Coaching Federation (ICF), which trains coaches globally, says it has seen a rise in child specialist life coaches in the UK in the years since the pandemic. Advocates say that the coaching methodology, which is based on instilling practical tools to deal with challenges and emotions rather than traditional psychotherapy’s exploration of the roots of these emotions, translates well to the travails of modern childhood: online friendship groups, uncertainty about the future and the low self-esteem that can creep up on us all in the teenage years but is hyper-powered by social media. The specialism is unregulated. Some clinical child psychotherapists, and coaches themselves, warn of a “Wild West” that has potential to cause harm. Others wonder whether child coaching encroaches on the nurturing and advisory roles that are best left to parents.

USA - Liberal and corporate media outlets referred to Robin Westman, a trans-identifying male who killed two children on Wednesday, by his preferred feminine pronouns in their coverage about the Catholic school shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Westman, 23, killed an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old and injured 17 others after he opened fire through the window of the Annunciation Catholic Church during a school Mass service. The Washington Post, NBC News, The Daily Mail and other outlets referred to Westman as a “she” and “her” to accommodate the shooter’s trans identity. The Post used these pronouns and referred to Westman as his mother’s “daughter” while covering his name change in 2019. Court records show that his mother, Mary, had to sign off on Westman’s name change from Robert to Robin because he was still a minor at the time, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.

USA - The post-1945 world trading system is succumbing to conflict that beckons parallels with the tensions in the 1930s over intractable current account imbalances and rising protectionism. Today, trade wars, the exercise of coercion, the weaponisation of technology, finance and products such as rare earths, and the proliferation of industrial policies reflect rising fragmentation that could, if poorly managed, become the basis for broader instability in markets, and in international relations. The effective US tariff, if fully passed through, is now a bit over 18 per cent, its highest level since 1933. The IMF reports that globally, new restrictive trade measures and domestic subsidies that distort trade are running about 10 times higher than during 2009-2017. Global imbalances are unquestionably unsettling the world economy.

CHINA - President Xi Jinping will gather more than 20 world leaders at a regional security forum in China next week in a powerful show of Global South solidarity in the age of Donald Trump, while also helping sanctions-hit Russia pull off another diplomatic coup. Aside from Russian President Vladimir Putin, leaders from Central Asia, the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia have been invited to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, to be held in the northern port city of Tianjin from August 31 to September 1. The summit will feature Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first visit to China in more than seven years as the two neighbors work on further defusing tensions roiled by deadly border clashes in 2020. Modi last shared the same stage with Xi and Putin at last year’s BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, even as Western leaders turned their backs on the Russian leader amid the war in Ukraine. Russian embassy officials in New Delhi last week said Moscow hopes trilateral talks with China and India will take place soon.

UK - Paying wind farms not to produce electricity was not part of Labour’s net zero prospectus. Even supporters of the Government’s green ambitions must admit that handing out astonishingly high sums of public cash to compensate generators while charging households ever more for electricity is not an election-winning look. The reason for this absurd pantomime is that the National Electricity System Operator (NESO), previously known as National Grid, must pay to either bring on or turn off electricity generation to keep supply and demand in balance at all times. The more unpredictable sources of generation are, such as with renewables, the more difficult the task becomes.

USA - Restoring marriage, amid the devastating attack coming against it, is essential to saving the nation and civilization, explained North Carolina judge turned Southern Evangelical Seminary President Phil Ginn in this interview on Conversations That Matter with The New American magazine’s Alex Newman. Ginn, whose seminary is hosting a marriage conference in October to defend the institution, pointed out that the biblical understanding of marriage has largely been lost. The Bible says marriage is a representation of the relationship between Christ and the church, which offers clear insight into how it should run. Judge Ginn believes the crumbling of marriage is a symptom of the broader collapse of culture. But it is not too late to turn it around. He believes that saving marriages could be part of a larger revival that might transform America once again.

USA - The president’s intention to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook could give him sway over the central bank’s rate-setting power. President Trump’s attempt to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook is the most dramatic step yet in his effort to take control of the independent central bank and its vast authority over interest rates. Trump has for months demanded that the Fed lower rates to boost the economy, make housing more affordable, and lower the cost of servicing the national debt. He has castigated Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not moving sooner to cut them. By replacing Cook, he could add enough voices to the seven-member board of governors to potentially outvote Powell and move interest rates in his preferred direction.