UK - We need to stop paying people to stay at home, and get them back to work. Britain is heading for a 1970s-style fiscal meltdown brought on by government policy. Britain’s national debt stands at £2.9 trillion, up from £1.6 trillion a decade ago. This means we are now spending £105 billion a year on debt interest alone – far more than, for example, on education or defence. To top it all, Labour’s ideological energy policy has left us with the highest energy costs in the developed world. Profligate spending on welfare is unsustainable. Debt is now some 100 per cent of GDP, the deficit almost five per cent, and the tax burden at the highest level since the Second World War. Yet despite this, borrowing costs are soaring and unemployment is rising. Getting out of this mess this will demand political leadership of the likes of which we have not seen since Margaret Thatcher.

FRANCE - We live in an era when rather too many political leaders in the western world are either incompetent, corrupt or dishonest; some are all three. So it is refreshing, and salutary, to note the recent performance of François Bayrou, the beleaguered prime minister of France. Before his country went on a summer holiday it could ill afford, Mr Bayrou announced that he would be presenting a budget cutting 43.8 billion euros from French public spending, to reduce an unsustainable deficit. To do this, he proposed measures that made many of his compatriots gasp with horror.

FRANCE- C’est normal, as they would put it on the other side of the Channel. The Government is teetering on the edge of collapse, the budget is out of control, there are emergency tax rises on the way and the rioters are gearing up for protests on the streets. For France, it is all pretty much business as usual. Yet this could turn into far more than just a political drama in Paris. With worries about government debt and the affordability of lavish welfare systems rising all the time, France could be about to trigger a full-blown market crash.

EUROPE - Twenty years ago in 2005, majorities of voters in France and the Netherlands rejected the “Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe” in national referenda. But that didn’t stop the Machiavellian European elites. They repackaged the new European federal constitution as an amendment to existing European treaties and passed the nearly-identical Treaty of Lisbon, which was ratified by all EU member states and came into force in 2009. The government of the Netherlands circumvented democracy by approving the constitution-disguised-as-a-treaty by a parliamentary procedure, instead of a second referendum.

CHINA - This meeting potentially shifted international dynamics between the non-Western superpowers. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, welcomed India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to China in a high-profile, potentially world-order-shifting visit. Modi went to China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, which is one of a number of important world groups that do not include the West. Along with BRICS, an international organization comprising the governments of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and others, it is a key platform for both China and India to showcase their influence. Modi arrived in China amid growing tensions with the United States. President Trump's administration officials appear to be progressively giving India a cold shoulder. This was Modi's first visit to China in seven years. The symbolism of Xi and Modi's meeting is important. Modi is in China, and US-India ties are on the rocks, potentially going off the rails. The new world order that is emerging awaits these shifts.

AFGHANISTAN - At least 800 people have been killed and thousands have been injured after a powerful earthquake struck the eastern region of Afghanistan. The 6.0-magnitude quake hit the rugged province of Kunar near the Pakistan border just before midnight on Sunday, followed by a series of aftershocks. Entire villages built with fragile mud and stone were completely levelled as dozens were trapped under debris, with the death toll expected to rise as rescuers search for victims.

YEMEN - On Thursday, August 29, 2025, Israel carried out an airstrike in Yemen that killed Houthi Prime Minister Ahmad Ghaleb al-Rahawi along with several senior officials. The strike targeted a villa in Beit Baws, an ancient village in southern Sanaa, where Houthi leaders had gathered to watch a speech by Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the group’s secretive leader. Among the confirmed dead were the energy, foreign, and information ministers, while the status of the defense minister remains unclear. Israeli intelligence sources believe the entire Houthi cabinet, 13 ministers in total, including the prime minister, may have been eliminated, though this assessment is not yet definitive. The attack marked the first time Israel has eliminated top Houthi officials and came just days after another strike, which followed the interception of Houthi drones launched toward Israel.

SWITZERLAND - For decades Switzerland has been perceived as Europe's most stable country, with its picture-perfect Alpine vistas, private banking vaults and neutral status during conflict. It has long appeared immune to the rising social and political tensions its French, German and Italian neighbours - and increasingly the UK - have been grappling with. But that perception was shattered this week - after the death of 17-year-old Marvin 'Shalom' Manzila in Lausanne sparked rioting that exposed bitter social divisions that have been quietly festering there without coming to the attention of the wider world.

USA - California school board tables rules on avoiding sharing facilities with transgender classmates. The Temecula school board voted Tuesday, August 26, to table a policy that would have required students to seek special accommodations if they don’t want to share a locker room or restroom with transgender classmates. The board voted 4-1 to push a vote on two policies that would have set a requirement for written requests seeking mental health or religious exemptions if [students wished] to avoid sharing facilities with trans students. Barham, who suggested postponing the vote, said he listened to parents and wanted more time to create a different policy that would not stigmatize students by using mental health exemptions. He said that the district needs something on the books, so that if a parent comes to them, they will have a legal obligation to do something. “We are trying to work around the law to help families and keep boys from looking at girls’ parts and girls looking at boys’ parts,” Barham said. “The problem is adults allowing these boys to think that they’re girls and go down that dangerous path and vice versa,” Shaw said. “We need to stand strong.”

USA - The political earthquake has struck. President Donald J Trump has openly declared that George Soros and his son should face RICO charges — accusations usually reserved for mafia bosses and criminal cartels. In his official statement, President Trump did not mince words: “George Soros, and his wonderful Radical Left son, should be charged with RICO because of their support of violent protests, and much more, all throughout the United States of America. We’re not going to allow these lunatics to rip apart America any more… Soros, and his group of psychopaths, have caused great damage to our Country!” This is not campaign bluster. This is the President of the United States declaring that one of the most powerful globalist figures in modern history should be treated as an enemy of the Republic.

USA - RICO — the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — is America’s most powerful legal weapon against organized crime. It allows prosecutors to hold leaders accountable for the crimes of their networks, even if they never personally committed them.

If RICO is turned against Soros, the implications are staggering:

• A full-scale federal investigation into Open Society Foundations and its web of affiliates.


• Scrutiny of NGO and activist funding streams across the US and Europe.


• Possible exposure of coordination between Soros-linked groups and violent protest movements.

This is not just a legal risk for Soros. It is existential.

CANADA - According to a recent article in The Atlantic, assisted suicide is now so popular in Canada that doctors cannot keep up with the demand. Appropriately titled Canada is Killing Itself, the article described how Medical Assistance in Dying (or MAiD), passed just 10 years ago, now accounts for about one in 20 deaths in Canada. That number is more than the total number of combined deaths from Alzheimer’s and diabetes, and it surpasses many countries where assisted dying has been legal for far longer. The shortage of “care” is not due to a lack of interest from medical professionals. Doctors are in fact flocking to join what the Atlantic article called “the world’s fastest-growing euthanasia regime.”

GERMANY - Germany’s unemployment has surged past 3 million for the first time in over a decade, reaching 3.025 million in August 2025. The jobless rate ticked up to 6.4%, with manufacturing and energy-intensive sectors hit hardest. Labour Minister Baerbel Bas called for “countermeasures,” while Chancellor Friedrich Merz faces mounting pressure to deliver reforms.

RUSSIA - Three giants at one table: Can Russia, India, and China rewrite the global rules? In the wake of the Putin-Trump Alaska summit, Russia once again demonstrated that it remains an indispensable actor in global diplomacy. The very fact that Washington and Moscow returned to the table underscored that neither side can afford to exclude the other in discussions on international security. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Delhi a few days later included rounds of strategic discussions. He co-chaired the boundary talks alongside NSA Ajit Doval, held bilateral consultations with India’s Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, underscoring India’s continued openness to managing contentious issues through established dialogue channels.

NIGERIA - A horde of motorcycle-riding gunmen stormed the village of Gamdum Mallam in Nigeria’s Zamfara State on Saturday, shooting up the town and riding off with over a hundred captives, mostly women and children. Zamfara has long been plagued by “bandits” with a penchant for mass kidnappings. Saturday’s attack would bring the total number of people abducted over the past year to almost 5,000. Local residents said the attackers roared into town on motorcycles with guns blazing, then split into two groups. One group established a roadblock to prevent any of the residents from escaping, while the other set about stealing livestock and taking human prisoners. “We were being treated like slaves in our own land, as if there is no government,” one of the villagers told Reuters on Wednesday.