GERMANY - Following the deployment of the frigate Bayern last year, Germany’s Luftwaffe (Air Force) is now also expanding its operations to the Indo-Pacific. In recent days, six Eurofighters from Tactical Air Wing 74 in Neuburg an der Donau, four A400Ms from Air Transport Wing 62 in Wunstorf and three A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport from the Eindhoven-based Multi Role Tanker Transport Unit have been deployed “for the first time from Germany to the Indo-Pacific,” according to the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces). The US has deployed an aircraft carrier battle group led by the USS Ronald Reagan near the island and plans to send warships through the Taiwan Strait. The One China policy, which had been the basis for diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and Washington since 1979, has effectively ended.

JAPAN - Relations with Beijing are crucial for regional trade, but is Tokyo ready to put it all on the line over Taiwan and Washington’s favor? A recent report suggests that Japan’s government is considering positioning over 1,000 ballistic missiles aimed towards China, a move that would mark a major escalation in tensions between Tokyo and Beijing. It is unclear if this will ever materialize, given the threat to regional stability it would carry, as well as the limits imposed by Japan’s own constitution, but by this point it is undeniable that geostrategic competition between Japan and China is a new reality.

UK - Liz Truss feels “ready” to launch Trident nuclear weapons, the frontrunner for Conservative leadership declared at Tuesday’s hustings in Birmingham, UK, saying that making decisions like this is an “important duty of the prime minister.” The foreign secretary did not elaborate on which country the UK might be persuaded to use nuclear weapons against. She has delivered plenty of hawkish rhetoric along the campaign trail, primarily targeting Russia, and is an avid booster of the Ukrainian cause. Truss also pledged to raise military spending by 3% of GDP by the end of the decade. Both candidates have blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the dismal state of the British economy, which is plagued by high inflation, high gas prices, and an increasingly unaffordable cost of living, widely seen as resulting from unilateral restrictions imposed by London and its allies.

UK - We're getting some reaction now to the news of the huge rise in the energy price cap. Becca Lyon, head of child poverty at Save the Children, calls the price cap rise "a full-blown economic crisis for thousands of families". "Children are at serious risk from today's announcement and could spend this winter in cold homes, with fewer hot meals, despite the best efforts of their parents and carers. Our children deserve better." Tom Marsland, policy manager at disability equality charity Scope, says today’s announcement "confirms disabled people’s fears". “We’ve been inundated with calls from disabled people who don’t know which way to turn and feel like they are being punished for using more energy. The government must intervene now." Frances O'Grady, general secretary of the TUC which supports trade unions, says "millions are facing bankrupting bills in the months ahead". "Ministers must immediately cancel this catastrophic increase. This is the worst possible time for the government to go missing in action."

USA - The Los Angeles Police Department is warning people in the city not to create a new looting trend where suspects form a “flash mob” and ransack a store. “We really want to prevent this from becoming a new trend where they think they can show up and take over a street or a freeway or any part of the city that they’re just going to be able to do what they want,” LAPD Detective Ryan Moreno said last week in comments to the press.

RUSSIA - Russia has raised concerns about the situation on the Korean Peninsula, which has escalated in connection with the resumption of joint military drills by the US and the Republic of Korea, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a commentary released on Wednesday. "We are concerned about the situation unfolding on the Korean Peninsula, which has recently escalated in connection with the resumption of large-scale joint military drills conducted by the US and the Republic of Korea, as well as inflammatory distribution of propaganda materials to North Korea from South Korea," the diplomat pointed out.

UKRAINE - The war in Ukraine has been dragging on for six months with no end in sight. Russia is slowly and systematically advancing, while the Ukrainian military is being ground down in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. On balance, Russia is winning the war, although progress is slow. Russia will next likely move to take Odesa, a strategically key Black Sea port. Russia has staged missile attacks on Odesa in recent days. If Russia ultimately takes Odesa, it removes Ukraine’s access to the sea, effectively rendering it completely landlocked. But there don’t appear to be any plans for an imminent Russian attack on Odesa. At any rate, a negotiated peace settlement is nowhere in sight. Neither side will accept the other’s demands. One Ukrainian volunteer fighting in the Donbas has said:

UNITED NATIONS - Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at UNSC briefing: “Hardly anyone can be satisfied with the international situation we are facing today. The international security system is going through a profound crisis. Almost all institutions it relied on have deteriorated, the level of trust between key international players has dropped to a critical low. Today, more than ever before, it is important to understand why this has happened. However, for at least the past 200 years, Western countries have been blaming Russia as the sole explanation for any such problems and their universal solution. But let us look at the facts.

NEW ZEALAND - Protesters converged around New Zealand’s parliament to condemn the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, drawing a heavy police response and a crowd of counter-demonstrators. Tuesday’s action saw around 2,000 people gather at the parliament building in Wellington, according to the Associated Press, which noted that law enforcement had made preparations in the area to prevent any major unrest, blocking off roads, erecting barricades, and barring demonstrators from bringing structures onto the grounds.

INDIA - At least 50 people have perished, with some crushed inside their homes. Floods and landslides have killed at least 50 people since Friday in the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Odisha. Thousands of people have been displaced from their homes and rescue operations are ongoing to find those missing. Heavy rains lasting throughout the weekend in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh triggered landslides and flash flooding, leaving at least 36 people dead, a state government official told Reuters. Some of these deaths were caused by homes collapsing with residents inside, CNN reported. In neighboring Uttarakhand, a government statement on Sunday said that four people were dead and 13 missing. Emergency workers are reportedly using helicopters to rescue people trapped in remote areas.

USA - The size of North America's upcoming crop harvest will have a meaningful impact on global supplies next year. Early signs from the US crop tour revealed that menacing heatwaves and drought this summer had damaged corn and soybean yields. Both corn and soybeans were below average at the initial stops in South Dakota on the western leg of the four-day Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour. Corn yield potential was estimated at 118.6 bushels per acre, well below the three-year average of 161.8 bushels. Soybean pod counts stood at 792.5, below the 1,073 average. Some corn fields had been cut for silage, a sign of a poor-quality crop. One Minnesota farmer and crop scout warned of the apocalyptic state of farmland while on tour: "I heard it was dry, but I'm shocked it's as bad as it is." Made it through South Dakota. This crop has felt the stress long before pollination. Some stalks didn’t even try to put on ears. The average yield of these six corn fields is 133 bu/acre. Northeast Nebraska - Knox, Pierce, Cedar, Wayne, Madison counties. Average of tour 22 yields in this area last year 182, 3yr avg 175, so it's not good here.

UKRAINE - According to Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the six largest European countries gave Kiev no new military pledges last month, this being the first time such a thing has happened since the beginning of the conflict in February. Besides Spain, France, Germany and Italy, not even the UK and Poland have made any new military commitments to Ukraine, which is quite surprising considering they had been such staunch supporters. In any case, European military support had been decreasing since April. It would seem Europe is quietly and silently “abandoning” Kiev. Aid initiatives are drying up and Zelensky is becoming an inconvenience, not much trusted by Washington, it remains to be seen how long the US, which struggles with its own domestic crisis (and is already facing frictions with China over Taiwan), will have the political will to remain bearing mostly alone the “burden” of supporting Kiev. It also remains to be seen how Kiev will perform without the expected new weapons from Europe it so ardently has been claiming to need.

UK - The world can still step back from the abyss. The nuclear weapon states – the US, Russia, China, France and the UK – must lead the way. In 1945 nuclear weapons were used in armed conflict for the first and only time. 355,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by two nuclear bombs. That number alone puts in stark perspective the world’s current arsenal of about 13,000 nuclear weapons. And yet in many ways the 13,000 weapons held globally represents progress; it’s less than a quarter of the more than 63,000 weapons in circulation in 1985 during the cold war. But what John F Kennedy said in 1961 at the United Nations is as urgent now as it ever was: “We must abolish these weapons before they abolish us.”

RUSSIA - A detailed plan has been drawn up by Russia to disconnect Europe’s largest nuclear plant from Ukraine’s power grid, risking a catastrophic failure of its cooling systems, the Guardian has been told. World leaders have called for the Zaporizhzhia site to be demilitarised after footage emerged of Russian army vehicles inside the plant, and have previously warned Russia against cutting it off from the Ukrainian grid and connecting it up to the Russian power network. But Petro Kotin, the head of Ukraine’s atomic energy company, told the Guardian in an interview that Russian engineers had already drawn up a blueprint for a switch on the grounds of emergency planning should fighting sever remaining power connections.

RUSSIA - Beijing and Moscow have gotten closer under Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian equivalent Vladimir Putin, especially since the commencement of the Ukraine war. Now, Russia, China and India are set to hold the massive “Vostok” war games in two weeks. China’s defense ministry announced on Wednesday that its involvement in the joint exercises was “unrelated to the current international and regional situation,” and that Chinese troops would be traveling to Russia to participate in war games alongside troops from India, Belarus, Mongolia, Tajikistan, and other largely anti-Western nations. It turns out that little under 50% of the world’s population falls under the “foreign forces.” According to Reuters, China’s defense ministry stated that its participation in the drills was a result of an ongoing bilateral annual cooperation agreement with Russia.