CHINA - When a Chinese Christian, Chen Yu, was caught boldly selling religious publications not authorized by the government, his punishment was a seven-year prison sentence and an approximately $30,000 USD fine, handed down by a court last month. Such steep punishment for promoting and adhering to a religion is all too common in China today. Faith is increasingly under attack in President Xi Jinping’s China. Make no mistake — this is a regime that is deeply afraid of the growth of Christianity.

USA - Right now we are experiencing the calm before the storm. Many Biden supporters believe that a Trump victory would literally be the worst thing that could possibly happen to our country, but at the moment most of them are quite confident that Biden will win. Likewise, many Trump supporters are absolutely convinced that we will plunge into a horrifying socialist abyss if Biden wins, but for now most of them are convinced that the polls are wrong and that Trump will pull out another victory in November. So with just a little over a week until Election Day, most Americans that really care about politics are pacified because they believe that a positive outcome is right around the corner.

USA - In the eyes of much of the world the United States is a potent, yet faltering force, a conflicted nation heading into an election that will either redeem it or tug it farther away from the myths and promise that for generations defined it in capitals from Singapore to Paris and Buenos Aires to Nairobi. The stature and standing of the US have plummeted in recent years, a number of international polls suggest. That trend has been exacerbated this year by what is widely perceived to be a disorderly and ineffectual governmental response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and now by a chaotic electoral process.

ISRAEL - "Today, I am submitting for Cabinet ratification the historic peace agreement with the United Arab Emirates, which has been approved by the Knesset. The Cabinet will also approve sending to the Knesset the agreement on establishing peaceful ties with Bahrain. As you know, over the weekend we also declared an additional normalization agreement, this time with Sudan, which had been an enemy country until a few years ago. It cooperated with Iran in smuggling very dangerous war materiel to Hamas for use against Israel. This change began as the result of our steadfast stand against Iran, as the result of our taking actions against its activity and attempts to smuggle via Sudan, and – of course – as result of the internal changes that have taken place in Sudan, which we welcome. I remind you that in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, in 1967, the Arab League adopted the three no's – no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel. And today Khartoum says – yes to peace with Israel, yes to recognition of Israel and yes to normalization with Israel. Today we are expanding the circle of peace.”

RUSSIA - Vladimir Putin says it’s ‘quite possible to imagine’ a full-blown defense pact between Moscow and Beijing in the near future. Such a deal would transform the geopolitical balance – and be a big headache for the US and NATO. Just over 70 years ago, Stalin and Mao haggled in Moscow to create the short-lived Sino-Soviet treaty. With China’s Communist Revolution still fresh, Beijing turned to the Soviet Union for economic and military support in securing its new state. Ideologically on the same page, the two powers had a common enemy: the United States and its allies. By securing a friendship with China, Stalin ultimately hoped to tilt the balance of the Cold War away from Europe and into Asia, giving him a strategic advantage over NATO. History may be about to repeat itself.

EUROPE - The Eurozone is bust. The deterioration of TARGET2 imbalances have been hardly noticed, but in recent months it has been alarming. Despite official denials over the years that it is a matter of concern, it is increasingly obvious that the national banks of Italy, Spain and other nations with increasing bad debts are hiding them within the TARGET2 system. The first wave of Covid-19, which is leading to bankruptcies throughout the Eurozone, is now being followed by a second wave, which will almost certainly take out a number of important banks, in which case the cross-border euro system will implode.

GERMANY - Deutsche Bank is creating a destructive domino effect that will result in an apocalyptic economic collapse. Deutsche Bank, the second most prominent bank in Europe, the greatest bank in Germany, one of the ten largest banks by assets in the whole world and, evidently, the leading authority for derivatives trading, is caught up in a huge chaos. The International Monetary Fund was the first to warn about it being the biggest net contributor to systemic risks for the global financial system, undoubtedly, the bank’s situation is decisive for the world’s economy. The banking system simply cannot allow Deutsche Bank to fall, otherwise, it will drag along the whole financial system with it, creating a destructive domino effect that will result in a catastrophic economic collapse.

USA - Wikipedia is the most widely used source of information in the world, and a great deal has been written about its impact on public perception of certain topics. Wikipedia shapes both scientific research and real-world economic outcomes, and is the top source of medical information for both doctors and patients. The widespread reliance on Wikipedia would not be a problem if it were a neutral and authoritative source, but earlier this year Wikipedia’s co-founder Larry Sanger declared that “Wikipedia’s ‘NPOV’ (neutral point of view) is dead.” Is Sanger’s statement correct? A 2018 study by Shane Greenstein and Feng Zhu compared levels of political bias in Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica by quantifying each encyclopaedia’s respective usage of phrases favoured by Democratic or Republican members of US congress. Their study found that Wikipedia articles are more politically biased than those in Encyclopaedia Britannica, as well as being slanted towards Democratic (as opposed to Republican) points of view.

UNITED NATIONS - The decision by Pope Francis to offer his tentative support for civil union laws for same-sex couples was praised Thursday by UN chief Antonio Guterres. A devout worshipper from Catholic Portugal, the former socialist political leader said the cautious papal thumbs-up was “extremely welcome.” “This is a clear demonstration of a fundamental principle, which is the principle of nondiscrimination,” said Guterres in New York during an interview with the Associated Press. “And one of the things that has been very clear in the UN doctrine on this is that non-discrimination is also relevant in the questions of sexual orientation. So this decision of the Pope is, of course, extremely welcome from our perspective.”

VATICAN - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, authored a pastoral letter on the care of homosexual persons that was distributed to the bishops of the Catholic Church in 1986 that noted that St Paul had listed “those who behave in a homosexual fashion among those who shall not enter the kingdom of God.” Pope John Paul II approved the pastoral letter on October 1, 1986. Cardinal Ratzinger had authored it as prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. “Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder,” said this pastoral letter. “Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option,” said the letter. “It is not.”

USA - Evangelist Franklin Graham and leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have responded to Pope Francis’ endorsement of same-sex civil unions, calling it “unthinkable in light of the Word of God” and explaining that no pope or priest gets to “define sexuality or the family.” “For Pope Francis to attempt to normalize homosexuality is to say that Holy Scriptures are false, that our sins really don’t matter, and that we can continue living in them,” Graham, the president of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, wrote on Facebook. “If that were true, then Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection wouldn’t have been needed. The cross would have been for nothing. No one has the right or the authority to trivialize Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf,” Graham added. In a documentary, called “Francesco,” that premiered Wednesday in Rome, the pope says, “Homosexual people have a right to be in a family. They are children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out or be made miserable over it,” the Catholic News Agency reported.

MIDDLE EAST - Diplomats from the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday made their first official trip to Israel since the countries normalized relations in August, and the two sides signed pacts deepening their ties, including allowing their citizens to travel from one country to the other without visas — Israel’s first such waiver with an Arab state.

SUDAN - Two senior Israeli diplomats have arrived in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Wednesday evening after Sudan reportedly consented to normalization of ties with the Jewish state, according to a foreign ministry source. The Sudanese diplomatic source who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was ‘not allowed to talk to the media on the matter’, said the unnamed Israeli diplomats, along with their aides, were accompanied to Khartoum by one Emirati diplomat and a Saudi security officer. “This evening, two officials from the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs arrived in Khartoum. They [came] together with a foreign ministry colleague from [United Arab] Emirates and a security official from Saudi [Arabia],” the source said. “They will stay here and they will return tomorrow (Thursday) night and a lot about the process (normalization) will be discuss so that as soon as the US delist our country from terror designation, we will then publicly announce talks to begin,” the official added.

RUSSIA - Russian president Vladimir Putin has said a military alliance between Russia and China could be forged in the future. An alliance between the two nations with the second and third biggest militaries in the world would be far more powerful than the US Army in a number of key areas. Putin's statement on Thursday signalled deepening ties between Moscow and Beijing amid growing tensions in their relations with the United States. Asked during a video conference with international foreign policy experts Thursday whether a military union between Moscow and Beijing was possible, Putin replied that 'we don't need it, but, theoretically, it's quite possible to imagine it.' Russia and China have hailed their 'strategic partnership,' but so far rejected talks about the possibility of forming a military alliance.

USA - If Donald Trump is forced from the White House in the November election, he won’t be the only loser. Though many governments would likely celebrate the end of the most unconventional and at times chaotic US presidency of modern times, others will have reason to miss it. For the leaders of Turkey, North Korea and Israel, the ledger has been almost entirely positive. Trump’s ejection would confront them with immediate challenges. The scorecard for countries like China is more nuanced. Even so, what the mostly authoritarian winners from Trump’s four years in office have in common is a fear his departure would spell the return of a more conventional US foreign policy.