UK - Another scientist has pushed back against the doom-and-gloom climate change predictions from the United Nations and other governmental agencies. Dr Leslie Woodcock, emeritus professor at the University of Manchester (UK) School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, is a former NASA scientist along with other impressive accomplishments on his distinguished professional resume. In an interview, he laughed off man-made climate change as nonsense and a money-making industry for the green lobby, which approaches the subject with a religious fervor.

UK - The Government is launching a major crackdown on companies ‘greenwashing', in a bid to fight against climate change. Britain hosts the UN’s COP26 climate conference later this year, which will see leaders from around the world gather in Glasgow. Boris Johnson wants Britain to lead the way, with the UK aiming to become a net zero greenhouse gas polluter by 2050. As part of this effort the Government is targeting ‘greenwashing’, when firms make misleading or inaccurate claims about their environmental credentials. Price comparison websites are also in the firing line, and could be required to provide consumers with more details of how environmentally friendly different offers are. According to the Telegraph there are fears within the Government that, whilst it is illegal for companies to make grossly inaccurate claims, some are exaggerating their environmental credentials. Speaking to the paper an insider said: “Nobody can say the energy coming out of your plug is completely green, because not all the energy sources going into the grid are green."

USA - “There has been no dramatic sea level rise in the past century, and evidence-based projections show no significant or dangerous rise is likely to occur in the coming century. There is no evidence to indicate that the rate of sea level rise (or fall) in any of these areas will be substantially different than has been the case over the past decades or even century. There is no correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and sea level rise.

AFGHANISTAN - Taliban fighters have entered Kabul and are seeking a 'peaceful transfer of power' with gunfire heard near the presidential palace as the extremists seized huge swathes of the country in the wake of the US military departure. The militants were seen in the districts of Kalakan, Qarabagh and Paghman hours after taking control of Jalalabad, the most recent major Afghan city to fall to the insurgents as they make huge gains across Afghanistan. The US evacuated diplomats from its embassy by helicopter as a Taliban spokesman said they were looking for a 'peaceful surrender' of the capital after meeting little resistance, while the British ambassador moved to a safe place to prepare for an evacuation. A US defense official has warned it could be only a matter of days before the insurgent fighters take control of Kabul. Just last week, US intelligence estimates expected the city to be able to hold out for at least three months.

USA - Lawmakers in Texas have blocked a Chinese billionaire’s push to build a 15,000-acre wind farm on a large swath of land he purchased after news of his plans drew the attention of a conservancy group. It warned first about the environmental impact and then noted Sun Guangxin’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party and how the project could give him access to the state’s electricity grid. And the 140,000 acres that Sun snapped up in recent years is near Laughlin Air Force Base raising national security concerns. Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the Lone Star Infrastructure Protection Act into law in June. “As far as I know this is the first law of its kind by any state in the United States of America,” Abbott said of the bill designed to prevent “hostile nations” from accessing Texas’ electricity grid and other “critical infrastructure,” such as computer networks and waste treatment systems.

RUSSIA - President Vladimir Putin on Saturday said the scale of natural disasters that have hit Russia this year is "absolutely unprecedented" as local officials ask for Moscow's help to tackle fires and floods. The Russian leader called on authorities to do everything possible to help Siberians affected by the region's gigantic wildfires, as well as Russians living in the flood-hit south of the country. Speaking at a video conference with the leaders of the affected eastern and southern regions, Putin said he received daily reports on the climate situation in the country. "In the south (of Russia), the monthly norm of rainfall now falls in a few hours and in the Far East on the contrary, forest fires in drought conditions are spreading rapidly," Putin said. In Russia's largest and coldest region of Yakutia, this summer's forest fires have already burned through an area larger than Portugal. Aysen Nikolayev, the head of Yakutia, said firefighters were able to save 230 houses from flames. He called the scale of the fires a first "in history" and asked for help after the region's harvest was severely affected.

USA - As a measure of both the nation’s creaking infrastructure and the severity of the drought gripping California there is the $5 shower. That’s how much Ian Roth, the owner of the Seagull Inn, a bed-and-breakfast in this tourist town three hours north of San Francisco, spends on water every time a guest washes for five minutes under the shower nozzle. Water is so scarce in Mendocino, an Instagram-ready collection of pastel Victorian homes on the edge of the Pacific, that restaurants have closed their restrooms to guests, pointing them instead to portable toilets on the sidewalk. “We’ve grown up in this first-world country thinking that water is a given,” said Julian Lopez, the owner at Café Beaujolais, a restaurant packed with out-of-town diners in what is the height of the tourist season. “There’s that fear in the back of all our minds there is going to be a time when we don’t have water at all. And only the people with money would be able to afford the right to it.”

SCOTLAND - The Scottish government has kicked off a storm on social media after issuing “deeply disturbing” LGBT inclusivity guidelines that allow children as young as four to change their gender and name at school without parental consent. In the 70-page document, issued to schools across the country on Thursday, teachers are instructed not to question students who declare that they are transgender or tell them “it’s just a phase”. Instead, they are urged to “be affirming” of the students’ feelings. Other “tips” for teachers include asking these students “what name and pronoun” they would prefer to be addressed by and to check if that is “all the time or in certain circumstances”. As well, teachers are encouraged to “ask reflective questions that allow young people to express themselves, explore their gender identity and identify their needs”. However, the majority of social media users claimed the guidelines did just that, with several people noting this was an example of “utter woke insanity”. Politician and RT host George Galloway, who is a former UK minister of parliament, denounced the policy as “sick” with many commenting in agreement. Others said it amounted to “child abuse”.

UK - Just one in five (21.1 per cent) of traditional, opposite-sex marriages in 2018 were religious ceremonies, the lowest on record, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). While the Church of England, the seat of the worldwide Anglican communion, forbids people legally of the same sex to marry, the Methodist Church of Great Britain announced last month that “marriage can be between any two people”. The Methodist Church, which ordained its first transgender vicar in 2017, stated in a resolution which was passed by 254 to 46 against that it “consents in principle to the marriage of same-sex couples on Methodist premises… by Methodist ministers”. Plans for the two English churches to reunite could be put at risk by the Methodists’ seismic shift to embrace non-Biblical unions; however, the Church of England itself appears confused over the relationship to gender and marriage.

HAITI - Haiti is facing the threat of a tropical storm bringing heavy rains and strong winds just days after a devastating 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit the country on Saturday, killing more than 700 people. There are fears that Tropical Storm Grace, which is projected to hit the island between Monday and Tuesday, could hamper rescue efforts. The quake comes over a decade after a disastrous 7.0-magnitude shock in 2010 that struck closer to the country’s capital of Port-au-Prince, killing an estimated 220,000 people.

The US Ambassador to Afghanistan and some of his staff were seen fleeing their Kabul workplace with the stars and stripes flag Sunday, as the Pentagon increased the number of troops deployed in the region by 1,000 to 6,000.

AFGHANISTAN - US mulls EVACUATING Kabul embassy as Taliban advances! According to sources, there are internal discussions underway at the State Department about evacuating the US embassy in Kabul, with one saying as early as the end of the month. After a 20 year war and over 2 trillion dollars spent, America is retreating from Afghanistan, a third world country, also known as the graveyard of empires. How humiliating! Without US troops, there’s no way for the so-called Afghan government to hold Kabul, as the overwhelming majority of the population of Afghanistan supports the Taliban, something that Americans are still not aware of. The Pentagon spent $88 billion dollars training the Afghan Army for 20 years. It collapsed in 1 month.

AFGHANISTAN - The Allies' reckless withdrawal has plunged Afghanistan back into darkness and allowed the Taliban – that horrifying group which brutalised the Afghan population and provided safe haven to Osama bin Laden – to take most of the country in just a few days. It's a terrible irony that by the 20th anniversary of 9/11 in a few weeks, the whole country may be ruled by the Taliban again.

UK - Britain is in a state of shock after its first mass shooting since 2010. Jake Davison gunned down five people, including his mother and a three-year-old girl, in the killing spree in Plymouth on Thursday evening. He took the lives of Maxine Davison, 51, Sophie Martyn, three, Lee Martyn, 43, Stephen Washington, 59, and Kate Shepherd, 66. The attack lasted around six minutes before Mr Davison turned the gun on himself, police said. In videos posted online prior to his death, Mr Davison described his life as “just me against the world". He also shared hate-filled views on Reddit forums used by “incels”, part of an online community and wider ideology which is growing in size.

UK - An incel is a man who expresses online hostility and resentment towards those who are sexually active, particularly women. It is an abbreviation used in online communities for ‘involuntary celibate’ - someone who is unable to find romantic or sexual partners despite wanting them. Online forums, hosted on websites such as Reddit, play host to discussions of resentment, misogyny, and racism, in particular towards women, especially those they perceive in a sexual way. Tim Wilson, director of Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews, said an incel is the idea sexual fulfilment is a human right and a “man not getting it is being actively repressed by women". “The basic idea, I’m afraid, is the idea that sexual fulfilment is a human right and that, as a man not getting it, you’re somehow being actively deprived and repressed by women.” Davison’s posts were filled with hatred for his mother, whom he described as “my vile dysfunctional chaotic mother”. He also ranted in general against the concept of single mothers.