VATICAN - In an extraordinary 11-page written testament, one which the NYT's Ross Douthat called a "truly historic bombshell", a former papal nunco, or Vatican ambassador, to the US, does what many have called for, and offers testimony concerning "who in the hierarchy knew what, and when," about the crimes of Cardinal McCarrick. The testimony implicates a host of high-ranking churchmen. And the pope.

USA - The New York Catholic Conference spent more than $2.1 million on lobbying to protect predator priests and deny their victims justice. An exclusive report from the New York Daily News explains: The Catholic Conference… spent more than $2.1 million on lobbying from 2007 through the end of 2015, state records show.

USA - Molecular biologist Judy A Mikovits, PhD, reveals the disturbing true story of how she was thrown in prison for blowing the whistle on deadly viral contamination of human vaccines. With a well established history of working for the National Cancer Institute as a cancer researcher, Dr Mikovits worked with human retroviruses like HIV. Her work focused on immunotherapy research and involved HIV.

EUROPE - Europe’s biggest volcano has "re-awoken" in a dramatic fashion, as Italy's Mount Etna erupted with immense strength - sending large blocks of flaming lava 500ft into the air. Mount Etna has erupted with shock strength in the past 24 hours… The tallest volcano in Europe has sent ash plumes into the sky, with officials remarking that the lava spewing down Mount Etna appears to be "non-stop". The volcano, which is one of the most active volcano sites in the world, first "re-awoke" in late July. However, the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (IGNV) in Italy recorded an intense escalation in volcanic eruptions on Thursday night. The 700,000-year-old volcano is a huge 24 miles wide and 10,926 feet high.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA - Papua New Guinea is on high alert after the Maman Island volcano erupted yesterday, forcing 2,000 villagers to evacuate, as concerns grow over the volatile site along the Pacific Ring of Fire. Papua New Guinea has deployed armed forces to help emergency evacuations… The massive eruption sent a plume of ash nine miles into the sky, blocking out the sun for several hours and triggering panic among villagers. Around 2,000 villagers from three separate villages have fled so far from the flowing lava and blanket of ash. Maman Island, just six miles wide, is one of the world's most active volcanoes and sits along the volatile Pacific Ring of Fire. The ash has been so heavy that trees have snapped under its weight and at least two houses have collapsed.

GERMANY - In a stunning vote of "no confidence" in the US monopoly over global payment infrastructure, Germany’s foreign minister Heiko Maas called for the creation of a new payments system independent of the US that would allow Brussels to be independent in its financial operations from Washington and as a means of rescuing the nuclear deal between Iran and the west.

UK - Deaths in Sadiq Khan’s London in 2018 have topped 100 with the discovery of a 73-year-old woman’s body on Wednesday. Carole Harrison was found dead in her house in Teddington, in the capital’s south-west, following a house fire, but police say she appears to have suffered injuries “consistent with an assault” prior to the blaze. The investigation into the pensioner’s death is the sixth murder inquiry launched in London in a week, according to MailOnline...

USA - Here we go again. Did Bolton just give jihadists facing imminent final defeat under Assad and Russian bombs an open door invitation to initiate a chemical provocation? As CNN and others warned this week that Syrian and Russian forces are closing in on the "last rebel stronghold" in Syria in the country's northwest pocket of Idlib province, US National Security Advisor put Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on notice, saying the United States would respond "very strongly" if pro-government forces use chemical weapons in their campaign to retake Idlib. 

RUSSIA - The US and its allies are preparing new airstrikes on Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry said, adding that militants are poised to stage a chemical weapons attack in order to frame Damascus and provide a pretext for the strikes. The attack would be used as a pretext for US, UK and French airstrikes on Syrian targets, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov said. USS ‘The Sullivans,’ an Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyer, was already deployed to the Persian Gulf a couple of days ago, he added.

RUSSIA - The Vostok 2018 military exercise in eastern Russia was already billed as Russia’s largest war game since 1981. China’s Defense Ministry announced on Thursday it will send 3,200 troops from the People’s Liberation Army to join over 100,000 Russians in exercises from September 11 to 15. The Chinese troops will bring at least 900 tanks and 30 aircraft with them. If Russia’s boast of the biggest exercise since the Cold War is accurate, over 1,500 Russian tanks and 120 aircraft will be involved. A small force from Mongolia has also been invited to participate, mirroring the way Russia’s huge Cold War exercises included partners from Warsaw Pact countries. Most of the actual former members of the Warsaw Pact will be eyeing Vostok 2018 with some trepidation. This week marked the 50th anniversary of the Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia.

SWEDEN - Sweden’s public broadcaster, SVT, has come under fire for revealing “inflammatory” statistics proving foreign-born men commit around 85 per cent of stranger rapes ahead of the country’s general election next month. Broadcast on investigative journalism show Mission Review on Wednesday, analysis of 843 district court cases over the past five years found that 58 per cent of men convicted of rapes and attempted rapes in the period were born overseas. Looking at just assault rape cases, in which the perpetrator and victim were not previously acquainted, the proportion of foreign-born grew to more than eight in ten, almost half of whom had been living in Sweden less than a year when they launched their attack.

USA - Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former attorney, is “pleading guilty to a crime that doesn’t exist” to further Democrats’ plans to impeach the president. He offered his analysis during a Wednesday interview with Breitbart Senior Editors-at-Large Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight.

USA - A group of local pastors in Mobile, Alabama, are speaking out against a public library for hosting a Drag Queen Story Hour, and are voicing their concerns with the city to stop the event. The pastors throughout Mobile are hoping to get the city to cancel a September 8 event at Mobile’s Ben May Main Library where an adult drag queen is expected to read to a group of children between the ages of three and eight years old, AL.com reported. The pastors are scheduled to voice their concerns about the event at next Monday’s Mobile County Commission meeting, in the hopes the city can put a stop to it. “This is far, far from the moral values and the morality of Mobile, Alabama,” Pastor Fred Wolfe told WALA.

USA - It’s the ultimate annual destination for top Silicon Valley techies to practice hedonistic pleasure, drugs, eastern spirituality and social engineering. This year could see as many as 100,000 people create a pop-up city in a northern Nevada desert. The Utopia-like Technocrat culture is ‘other-worldly’. TN Editor

SOUTH AFRICA - South African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier has decried media spins on the current clerical sex abuse crisis, declaring that the scandal is rooted in same-sex activity by predatory priests. The cardinal was tweeting in response to a newspaper headline in The Mercury, which proclaimed that “Churches may have to allow same sex unions” as a result of the most recent revelations of sexual abuse and impropriety by bishops, priests, and cardinals. Allowing same-sex unions won’t solve the problem, Napier stated, since it is precisely homosexual activity that “is the scandal rocking the Catholic Church to its roots!” “Deviation from God’s law always brings grief,” he added.