EUROPE - The US withdrawal from Afghanistan will “catalyse” the EU to establish its own permanent military force, the union’s foreign policy chief has said, despite years of fruitless debate and opposition from member states. After a meeting of EU defence ministers, Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, said the moment had come to establish an active EU expeditionary force, described by some senior European politicians as an army. Borrell said EU impotence during the crisis should be a “wake up call”. He has been backed in his calls by the European council president, Charles Michel, and the EU internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton. “It’s clear that the need for more European defence has never been as much as evident as today after the events in Afghanistan,” Borrell said. “There are events that catalyse the history. Sometimes something happens that pushes the history, it creates a breakthrough and I think the Afghanistan events of this summer are one of these cases.”

GERMANY - The policies of the next German government will be characterised by militarism, police build-up, the dismantling of social gains and the unrestricted spread of COVID-19, irrespective of the result of the federal election on September 26. This was the clear message from the television debate between the main candidates of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens, broadcast by the private channel RTL on Sunday evening.

SWITZERLAND - In November 2020, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace co-produced a report that warned that the global financial system was increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks. Advisors to the group that produced the report included representatives from the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the International Monetary Fund, Wall Street giants likes JP Morgan Chase and Silicon Valley behemoths like Amazon.

UNITED NATIONS - The Second World War concluded 76 years ago, but conflicts between different countries did not come to an end at that time. Nations around the world are grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, economic downturns and destructive wars which have been thus far unresolved by diplomacy. Recent conflict analysis has revealed just 23 countries and territories have had no reported battles, violence against civilians, explosions or remote violence, riots, protests or strategic developments in 2021 so far - meaning the remaining 174 countries have been at war in some form or another in 2021.

USA - A culture of silence and fear stops people learning what really can happen when you undergo ‘sex change’ operations. The trans lobby tries to portray it as easy and straightforward – yet it’s anything but... These hidden victims are the young transgenders themselves, who are led to believe so strongly that they can ‘change their sex’ that they undergo sex-reassignment surgery, only to find themselves not just disappointed by the result, but horrified.

USA - The “good times” were supposed to be rolling by now, but instead the wheels are starting to come off, and the economic outlook for the rest of the year is not good at all. Just yesterday, I warned my readers that things were about to get worse, and it only took exactly a single day for that to actually happen. As you will see below, major factory shutdowns were just announced, and that is going to make shortages even worse. Fear of COVID is restricting production all over the globe, and meanwhile national governments and central banks have been absolutely flooding their systems with fresh cash. As a result, we now have way too much money chasing way too few goods and services, and anyone that has taken ECON 101 will tell you that will inevitably result in higher prices and shortages… if there is something that you need to buy, run out and get it now because the shortages are only going to get worse in the coming months.

AFGHANISTAN - The Afghanistan fiasco is the worst strategic blunder since 1938: the year that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waved around a copy of the Munich Agreement and proclaimed "peace in our time." Chamberlain's failure to understand the enemy gave Germany the space it needed to invade Poland - the event that marked the start of World War II. Chamberlain resigned in 1940 when his political support evaporated. Winston Churchill assumed power, ultimately snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. President Joe Biden's debacle will have no such savior; the Islamic jihad isn't that kind of war. Instead of getting us out of Afghanistan, and bringing peace in our time, he's opened the gates of hell.

USA - Joe Biden is facing mounting pressure over his handling of Afghanistan - with one member of his inner-circle "appalled" and "horrified" with the performance of the US President. President Biden has faced a barrage of criticism over his decision to suddenly withdraw US troops from Afghanistan following the takeover by the Taliban.

USA - White House adviser Cedric Richmond, the former Louisiana lawmaker who has been tasked with heading up the White House’s response to Hurricane Ida in the Gulf Coast, said the administration remains focused on power restoration in the Gulf Coast where nearly a million people are still without power.

GERMANY - Germany's auto industry is on the brink and at risk of putting the European Union's economic recovery plan in jeopardy. A global supply crunch is threatening to derail Germany's economic recovery with the country's auto industry suffering the biggest downfall. Companies from BMW, Siemens AG and Volkswagen are all reporting a lack of supply of materials from the most basic wooden pallets to memory chips. Thomas Nuernberger, managing director of sales at Mulfingen, Germany-based EBM Papst, a maker of industrial fans, told Bloomberg: “In my career we haven’t had a situation with so many commodities being scarce at the same time, and I’ve been dealing with the same materials since 1996. This is the most difficult situation in the global supply chain I’ve witnessed.” He added: “I count on growth being delayed until 2023, because even in 2022 we will still have problems with semiconductors and the container shipping turmoil will also last well into 2022." Clemens Fuest, president of the Munich-based Ifo institute said: “Things are actually getting worse rather than better."

CHINA – China has been shamed after a study showed the 25 megacities that are responsible for producing 52% of all urban greenhouse gas emissions globally. The results were published in the journal Frontiers in Sustainable Cities and it’s the first global balance sheet of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted by major cities around the world. Researchers achieved this by taking sector-level GHG emission inventories from 167 cities – including metropolitan areas like Durban in South Africa to cities such as Milan in Italy. The cities are from 53 countries (in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania) and were chosen based on representativeness in urban sizes and regional distribution. Only two cities outside of China are in the top 25 list – Tokyo and Moscow. There are now less than three months to go before COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland a key climate summit where many hope new measures will be introduced.

AFGHANISTAN - Taliban hold mock ‘funeral’ for NATO, take Black Hawk helicopter for joyrides, and show off loot at Kabul airport after US retreat. After nearly 20 years of fighting against the US in Afghanistan, the victorious Taliban posed with captured American gear at the Kabul airport, held a mock funeral for NATO in Khost, and flew a Black Hawk helicopter over Kandahar. The last US troops left the Hamid Karzai International Airport on Monday, just before the clock struck midnight local time. On Tuesday morning, Taliban fighters strolled through the airport they now controlled, littered with debris, posing for photos with the captured vehicles, aircraft and equipment. Taliban leaders reviewed a “special forces” unit, equipped with weapons and gear captured from the US-trained Afghan army, on the Kabul runway. “It is a historical day and a historical moment… we liberated our country from a great power,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, adding that the past two decades should serve as “a big lesson for other invaders, a lesson for the world.”

MIDDLE EAST - Iran and Russia have big plans. They both want to work more closely with China. In the wake of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan the United States is now charting a new course in which it will refrain from military interventions and “nation building”, US President Joe Biden has said. A recent report by a Russian military expert in Iranian media compared the US ending military operations in Afghanistan with the withdrawal of the military forces of the United States from Vietnam. The United States now has ‘Afghanistan Syndrome’. …The most important feature is the loss of American faith in military power and the impact of its actions. Of course, this time, the loss of confidence in US military action is not limited to the United States and is seen around the world. It means that Iran and Russia [and China] think they will be able to do as they please for the next few years as the US will not want to use its military.

USA - The New York City metropolitan area was struck by sudden disaster on Wednesday night as the remnants of Hurricane Ida flooded subways, roads, and homes across the city and beyond. Intense flooding inundated many areas of the city, Long Island, and across the Hudson in New Jersey. Governor Kathy Hochul has declared a state of emergency and has asked for federal help for what appears to be the worst natural disaster to strike the city since 2012’s Superstorm Sandy. Six trains were stuck in floodwaters and their passengers had to be evacuated, according to New York Post reporter David Meyer, citing the MTA. The Metro-North and Long Island Railroad are “totally offline.” Hochul, in only her eighth day in office, appeared on CNN shortly before midnight, saying that Ida’s path through New York was devastating “far more than anyone expected.” Shortly after the appearance, she declared a state of emergency, urging New Yorkers to “stay off the roads and avoid all unnecessary travel.” The storm is continuing to cause damage as it travels away from New York…

EUROPE - Europhiles have used the calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan to add weight to their burning desire to create an EU army. In a recent meeting, German politician Manfred Weber insisted that “the hour for Europe is only now striking” in international events after America withdrew from the war-torn country last month. Mr Weber, the leader of the European People's Party in the EU Parliament, warned that if the EU withdraws from conflicts across the planet China and Russia “will fill the vacant spaces”. He added: “Europe generally needs military capabilities. Take the cyberwar. In Lithuania or Latvia and beyond, Russia is waging a hybrid war. The Irish health system was recently paralysed. The attacks on public infrastructure are getting closer. We need a European task force with drones and a cyber brigade defending the online infrastructure. If we withdraw from conflict, tomorrow we will wake up in a world that is not ours and confronted with problems of a completely different dimension.”