CHINA - For the first time ever, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy sailed all of its aircraft carriers at the same time – offering a glimpse at how the PLAN might deploy its flattops during, say, an attack on Taiwan. This weekend, all three Chinese carriers – the ex-Soviet Liaoning, its locally-made sister ship Shandong and the latest, biggest and best Chinese-built carrier, Fujian – were all at sea. Fujian is conducting trials in the Yellow Sea. Shandong was in the South China Sea west of Taiwan with her escorts. Liaoning was in the Philippine Sea east of Taiwan with her escorts. “A monumental milestone,” commented China expert Ian Ellis. Fujian isn’t yet in front-line service, but will be soon. When she joins the fleet, the PLAN will become the world’s second carrier power – pulling past the two-flattop Royal Navy and Indian navy but still sailing in the wake of the 11-carrier US Navy.

GERMANY - Top figures at The Greens have quit after defeats in local elections, sparking “the biggest crisis in decades” within the faction. The leaders of Germany’s Greens party have tendered their resignations following crushing defeats in local elections in the eastern states of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg earlier this month. Ricarda Lang, one of the Greens’ two leaders, announced on Wednesday that “new faces are needed to lead the party out of this crisis.” Her co-chair Omid Nouripour agreed, saying: “we have come to the conclusion that we need a new start.” “The results of Sunday’s elections in Brandenburg are proof of our party’s deepest crisis in a decade,” Nouripour added.

USA - President Donald Trump was the first US President since Jimmy Carter in the 1970s to not enter US troops into new conflicts. President Donald Trump is also the first modern-day US President to bring meaningful peace to the Middle East. One of the great foreign policy accomplishments of the Trump administration was mediating the Abraham Peace Accords.

UNITED NATIONS - Argentine President Javier Milei used his debut speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday to deliver an enthusiastic condemnation of “globalism and the moral posturing of the woke agenda” and warn that the UN flagship Agenda 2030 is a threat to global freedom. Before delivering a list of damning facts about the current state of the United Nations, Milei applauded the institution for successfully preventing a third world war, the original purpose of its existence. But the UN “started to mutate,” he continued, and became “...a supranational government model of international bureaucrats who want to impose on the citizens of the world a determined way of life,” he warned.

UNITED NATIONS - As diplomats from nearly 200 member states gather in New York this week for the UN general assembly against the backdrop of a massive Israeli bombing campaign in southern Lebanon, a nagging question to be addressed is whether the UN is too broken to be fixed. UN officials are facing three intractable conflicts, in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan. While it remains one of the most important humanitarian organisations on Earth, overseeing relief efforts for refugees, natural disaster victims and others in dire need, the UN’s principal security body appears to be powerless to intervene in some of the world’s most grinding conflicts.

GERMANY - The changing politics of mass migration in Germany: This is the most important issue facing Europe right now – more important than the folly of the energy transition, more crucial even than the fading memory of pandemic repression. For nearly 10 years, migration has felt like one of the most intractable problems in our entire political system. However crazy the policies, however contradictory and irrational, there was always only the towering mute wall of establishment indifference. It felt like the borders would be open forever, that we would have to sing vapid rainbow hymns to the virtues of diversity and inclusivity for the rest of our lives. Suddenly, it no longer feels like that. Over the past weeks, a perfect storm of escalating migrant violence and electoral upsets in East Germany have changed the discourse utterly.

MIDDLE EAST - The Middle East is teetering on the brink of "full-fledged" war, according to the EU's foreign affairs chief, after Israeli strikes killed nearly 500 people on September 23. Josep Borrell said prior to a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations on Monday: "I can say we are almost in a full-fledged war. We’re seeing more military strikes, more damage, more collateral damage, more victims", he said, adding: "Everybody has to put all their capacity to stop this."

UK - There is an old tactic among those who wish to rewrite history: take the truth, twist it, and present it as something altogether different. Today, we see this in the rise of anti-Zionism across social media. What was once a marginal, fringe element of discourse has now become mainstream. But this is no mere shift in the tone of debate — it is something far darker. In its most toxic form, anti-Zionism has become a vector for the glorification of Hamas, a terrorist organisation recognised as such by the civilised world.

UK - Social media companies are using your information to train AI models. LinkedIn users began complaining about one such example in posts across the site last week after discovering that their posts, images and profiles are being used without permission. Alongside other social media sites like Snapchat and Facebook, users are required to opt out of this option, possibly without having ever granted the app permission to use their information in the first place. It has become common practice for companies to use information found online to train their AI tools. While users regularly use these sites to share news of their latest achievements, events or friendly hangouts, this information has become fair game for companies who want to use it to their own benefit. Users have expressed their shock that social media sites aren't just using their information, they're automatically opting them in without their consent.

UNITED NATIONS - With a recorded vote of 124 nations in favour, 14 against, and 43 abstentions, the resolution calls for Israel to comply with international law and withdraw its military forces, immediately cease all new settlement activity, evacuate all settlers from occupied land, and dismantle parts of the separation wall it constructed inside the occupied West Bank. The General Assembly further demanded that Israel return land and other “immovable property”, as well as all assets seized since the occupation began in 1967, and all cultural property and assets taken from Palestinians and Palestinian institutions.

UNITED NATIONS - The Palestinian-fronted resolution passed by wide margin, demanding that the Israeli army and Jewish residents evacuate to the pre-1949 line within a year. Jerusalem’s Old City, in addition to Judea and Samaria, must be Judenrein within a year, according to a Palestinian-drafted resolution, which the UN General Assembly passed on Wednesday. The resolution, which passed by a 124-14 margin with 43 abstentions, is meant to give force to a July advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice, which declared any Israeli presence to be illegal in any area over the 1949 armistice line.

GERMANY - Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats have narrowly defeated the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the eastern German state of Brandenburg. The victory for the party of Mr Scholz, although slight, will be a major relief to the least popular German chancellor on record, whose embattled coalition is struggling to cling to power. The state election on Sunday in the formerly communist east was a rare bit of recent good news for his party. The predicted results are also a blow to the AfD, which was polling high and predicted to win another state after a surge in support tied to its anti-immigration policies. Scholz’s centre-left SPD won 30.9 per cent of the vote, while the AfD scored 29.2 per cent, according to provisional official results by the State Electoral Commissioner.

USA - Congress has signed off on a bipartisan spending deal that would avoid a government shutdown before the election. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson announced the new temporary funding proposal that will last nearly three months on Sunday - and it sported some deviations from the original bill he put forward earlier this month. Several go against Donald Trump's wishes, and some make concessions to Democrats. Earlier this month, Trump declared that if Republicans 'don't get absolute assurances on [amendments involving] Election Security,' they should not hesitate to shut the government down. No such assurances were seen in the new bill, which will fund the government until December 20. It did not include any part of the SAVE Act, the Trump-backed proposal that demands Americans show proof of citizenship to register to vote.

SAUDI ARABIA - The Saudis have joined other Asian countries in ditching their long-term sensitivity to the gold price. Evidence suggests the Saudi central bank has been covertly buying 160 tonnes of gold in Switzerland since early 2022, contributing to the current gold bull market. Although the Saudis played a key role in the birth of the global dollar standard in the early 1970s, this time around they might even become a lynchpin for its dissolution.

USA - The US military has moved about 130 soldiers along with mobile rocket launchers to a desolate island in the Aleutian chain of western Alaska amid a recent increase in Russian military planes and vessels approaching American territory. Eight Russian military planes and four navy vessels, including two submarines, have come close to Alaska in the past week as Russia and China conducted joint military drills. None of the planes breached US airspace and a Pentagon spokesperson said Tuesday there was no cause for alarm. “It’s not the first time that we’ve seen the Russians and the Chinese flying, you know, in the vicinity, and that’s something that we obviously closely monitor, and it’s also something that we’re prepared to respond to,” Pentagon spokesperson Major General Pat Ryder said at a news conference.