MIDDLE EAST - There is finally some good news in a year that has been buffeted by the coronavirus crisis. The agreement between the UAE and Israel, announced by the White House on Thursday, is more than just an agreement to normalize relations between Israel and an Arab country. I believe it is the beginning of regionwide peace. It is a catalyst for more countries in the Middle East to actually envision a better future for their children, and it confirms to the entire world that there are still righteous women and men who have worked tirelessly for this moment. It also shows us that there are still leaders who have the courage to make difficult and bold steps in the name of peace.

MIDDLE EAST - After decades of dominating and defining tensions across the Middle East, the Palestinians are no longer a pressing priority; they also seem increasingly irrelevant to the region's trendlines. Their brethren are abandoning them. "The conflict is decidedly less important to leaders in the region," Natan Sachs, the director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, told me. The agreement is "a visible demonstration of the fatigue of some Arab leaders, in the UAE and Saudi Arabia in particular, with the Palestinian leadership and their cause. They no longer want to be held back by what they see as Palestinian rejectionism." The Palestinians have to sort out their own political mess before the Arab world will again expend much political clout to help their cause. Israel's deal with the UAE alters a fundamental premise of peace, Sachs noted. For decades, the framework of international diplomacy was based on "land for peace" in exchange for the Arabs promising no future aggression. The new premise is "peace for peace."

USA - Proponents of children questioning and even changing their biological sex have produced a musical compilation dubbed Trans and Nonbinary Kids Mix to benefit a summer camp in New Hampshire that caters to parents who believe young children can choose their gender. According to the LGBT Foundation, children understand and should be counted in this category: “Non-binary is used to describe people who feel their gender cannot be defined within the margins of gender binary. Instead, they understand their gender in a way that goes beyond simply identifying as either a man or woman. Some non-binary people may feel comfortable within trans communities and find this is a safe space to be with others who don’t identify as cis, but this isn’t always the case.”

USA - San Francisco state Senator Scott Wiener has introduced a new bill to decriminalize adult men having sex with boys and he and his allies in the media are smearing all opposition as "homophobic" and "anti-Semitic." LGBT activists have pushed reasonable notions of equality to its limits with obscene perversions. Wiener argues all forms of sex should be treated equally under the law. The Law Will Protect Exploitation of Minors.

USA - By supporting the “Deal of the Century”, the UAE and Saudi Arabia had made a strategic decision that pursuing peace with Israel was in the long-term collective security interest of the Gulf Arab States. It therefore should not come as a surprise to anyone that there would be a last-ditch effort at diplomacy to save the deal by providing Netanyahu an off-ramp from his very public decision to pursue annexation.

MIDDLE EAST - Israel and the United Arab Emirates have announced an agreement leading to full diplomatic relations - with the help of US President Donald Trump (who has a Zionist daughter and son-in-law Jared Kushner). Sealed after a long-running series of negotiations and confirmed in a phone call on August 13 among Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli co-prime minister, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, and Donald Trump, the US president, the participants will formally sign the accord at the White House in coming weeks.

USA - It begins: Black Lives Matter mob demands white people move out of homes and leave them for black people. Coming soon to a Democrat-run city near you! A Black Lives Matter mob held a rally in a gentrified neighborhood reportedly in Seattle on Wednesday where they demanded that white people leave their homes and give them to black people.

INDIA - India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to continue defending the country, while sending a veiled message to both China and Pakistan, with whom India clashed along disputed borders this year. Addressing the nation on Independence Day, Modi spoke of the Line of Control (LoC) and the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the names for India’s contentious borders with Pakistan and China respectively. From LoC to LAC, whoever tried to challenge the sovereignty of our country got a fitting response from our soldiers in their own language. The message comes a day after India’s President Ram Nath Kovind accused Beijing of “expansion.” In his speech, Modi mentioned the 20 Indian soldiers killed in a fierce confrontation with Chinese troops along the disputed border in the Himalayas on June 15. The incident was the deadliest clash between the neighbors since 1975. Beijing recognized casualties on both sides, but did not release any numbers.

USA - Betting against the US dollar was already the top second-half trade for currency and rates investors and its popularity is only growing as the greenback tumbles, according to a Bank of America Corp survey. A weaker dollar was the favorite trade for 36% of the fund managers surveyed this month by Bank of America, putting it well ahead of other ideas and up from 30% in July. So far that stance appears to be paying off, and a continuing slide in the currency appears to only be adding to the ranks of dollar bears. The Bloomberg dollar index has continued to slide in August after last month notching a decline of more than 3.3%, its biggest drop since January 2018. It’s now close to 10% below its March peak and positioning data shows that bets against the greenback continue to mount.

USA - Two brush fires in Southern California continued Saturday to burn thousands of acres, force hundreds of people from their homes and contribute to unhealthy air quality across the region. The Lake fire, burning in the hills of the Angeles National Forest near Lake Hughes, had consumed 17,862 acres and was 12% contained as of Saturday night, authorities said. It had destroyed six buildings and continued to threaten thousands more, officials said. Mandatory evacuations remained in place for Lake Hughes and the surrounding areas, though some evacuation orders that had been issued for the Antelope Valley were lifted Friday night. The American Red Cross was operating an evacuation point at Highland High School in Palmdale.

RUSSIA - Russia has stepped up vaccinations against the bubonic plague amid signs of a 'alarming' westward spread of the Black Death. The deadly disease has been detected in the Altai Mountains, a popular Siberian tourist region, including an area where it has not been seen since monitoring began 62 years ago. The rush to vaccinate more than 32,000 comes after two deaths in Mongolia and two in China, which both share borders with Russia. Some 18,090 people have been immunised in scenic Altai Republic after the spread in marmots and other rodents, announced health officials.

USA - It's going to be a hot one… More than 80 million people are under excessive heat alerts this weekend with record temperatures possible in over 10 states. Excessive heat warnings are in effect for California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Texas. Heat advisories are in place for some surrounding states, including Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas. "Nearly 100 daily record highs are in jeopardy over the weekend, and even more record heat is expected next week as the heat remains locked over much of the western half of the country," said Haley Brink, CNN meteorologist. We know it's simmering in the Southwest, but Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, aren't exactly known for being hot places. This weekend, however, they both have a chance to break records.

EUROPE - The harsh negotiations brought to the surface once again the deep economic, structural, and cultural divide between north and south. This divide has been at the core of every serious political and economic crisis in the bloc so far, and its reemergence served as yet another reminder of how unnatural, forced, and unsustainable the integration vision of the Europhiles really is.

USA - Rather than hold the line against peaceful protests that morphed into rebellion after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis on May 25th, enfeebled Democratic officials on the front lines appeared to stand docile against the mob rule when, in reality, their impotence was more of a well honed strategy of acquiescence. In a display of massive hubris threatening disintegration of the country’s sovereignty, those Elected continue to play a ruthless partisan game abstaining on the ultimate destruction of their own country and the municipality for which they are legally responsible.

USA - President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United Arab Emirates and Israel have agreed to establish full diplomatic ties as part of a deal to halt the Israeli annexation of occupied land sought by the Palestinians for their future state. The announcement makes the UAE only the third Arab nation to have active diplomatic ties to Israel, after Egypt and Jordan, and, in with it, Israel forgoes plans to annex occupied West Bank territory in order to focus on improving its relationship with the rest of the Arab world