USA - The US dollar’s status as the dominant global currency is at risk of being eroded because of mounting government debt, according to Zhu Min, former senior executive with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). His warning comes as the United States is expected to double down on its fiscal stimulus measures to soothe the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. Congress is considering a new round of relief that is likely to cost at least $1 trillion on top of the more than $2 trillion passed earlier this year. With the US Federal Reserve continuing its aggressive monetary policy of quantitative easing, there is a rising risk of a sudden loss of confidence in the dollar, said Zhu… “The concern isn’t whether the US dollar will see an accumulated decline of 30 percent in the future, but whether there will be a blow-up event that causes a sudden loss of confidence in the US dollar, and its market to collapse,” Zhu told the South China Morning Post.

USA - Trump says he wants to protect law-abiding citizens. In 1933, Hitler issued his ‘Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State.’ No people has found the American lurch toward authoritarianism under President Trump more alarming than the Germans. For postwar Germany, the United States was savior, protector and liberal democratic model. Now, Germans, in shock, speak of the “American catastrophe.” A recent cover of the weekly magazine Der Spiegel portrays Trump in the Oval Office holding a lighted match, with a country ablaze visible through his window. The headline: “Der Feuerteufel,” or, literally, “the Fire Devil.”

USA - Most Americans, especially conservatives, admit they are afraid to say what they think. A new poll by the Cato Institute shows 62 percent of Americans feel they must censor themselves from openly expressing their political views, in some cases out of fear of losing their jobs or missing career opportunities. The report reveals a jarring phenomenon in a country that was founded with freedom of speech as the first God-given right enshrined in its Constitution. And the breakdown of the results corroborates the view that only far-left views are tolerated in today's society.

USA - 2020 has been an incredibly bizarre year up to this point, and this has many people wondering if the hand of God is at work. And the worse things get, the more this sort of speculation will heat up. When things get crazy, people search for answers, and that can be a good thing. Because the truth is that during normal times most of us are way too self-absorbed and most of us spend far too little time thinking about the things that really matter. 2020 has really shaken up a large portion of the US population, and we should hope that all of this shaking ultimately moves our society in a more positive direction. Right now, COVID-19 is dominating the headlines day after day, and the debates that I have seen on social media platforms about this pandemic have often gotten quite heated. I knew that many people had extremely passionate opinions about COVID-19, but what I didn’t realize is that a large percentage of them are also convinced that God is somehow involved. In fact, an Associated Press/NORC survey found that 63 percent of all religious Americans believe that this pandemic is “a sign from God”…

RUSSIA - As we cross into the second half of 2020, there is little hope left that our misfortunes will end when this annus horribilis goes out. We may be entering one of the most cataclysmic and fateful periods in the history of humankind. There is the growing realization that humanity is in for an extremely rough ride that could last at least a decade. This sense of uncertainty has been building up for years. It probably began with the global financial crisis of 2008-09. Yet, until 2020, there was hope that the world would somehow return to the right track and regain stability. Covid-19 ended this hope, devastating the global economy and exacerbating the pre-existing tensions between the incumbent hegemon (the United States) and a new super-power contender (China).

USA - We get an “F” for family. In case you thought America wasn’t experiencing enough turmoil of late, the United States has been named the second-worst wealthy nation in which to raise a family in 2020, according to new research by travel site Asher & Lyric. To determine the most and least family-friendly countries, the couple rated 35 OECD countries (part of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development forum) according to safety, happiness, cost, health, education and time. The US clocked in at an abysmal 34th place, just ahead of last-place finisher Mexico, whose murder rate jumped to the highest in nearly two years as drug cartels have run amok during the coronavirus lockdown. Leading the pack of overall fam-safe nations were Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland. “I have come to the heartbreaking conclusion that America is a deeply challenged and troubled country,” Benson-Fergusson lamented. “It doesn’t, and maybe never did, line up with its own ideology.”

USA - The number of permanently closed businesses is surging across America and no major media outlet is sounding the alarm. These are lives ruined, jobs lost, bankruptcies entered, life savings lost and families broken apart. It’s tough out there for restaurants and other small businesses. Yelp’s Economic Average report out Wednesday shows exactly how tough: 60 percent of the 26,160 temporarily closed restaurants on the business review site as of July are now permanently shut. Temporary closures are dropping, and permanent shutdowns are increasing. Yelp’s previous report in April found that more than 175,000 total businesses were closed in some capacity. Just under 25 percent of those closed businesses have reopened three months later. For restaurants in particular, this is becoming the way it goes. Yelp noted a 23-percent increase in permanent restaurant closures from only a month ago. Bars and clubs are also closing forever at high rates: 44 percent (as of July) of 5,454 temporarily shuttered bars and other nightlife establishments are shut for good.

USA - The unique characteristics of this pandemic may not allow people to completely eradicate it, but public health measures and good vaccines should bring "very good control," NIAID director Anthony Fauci said Wednesday. Driving the news: "We are living, right now, through a historic pandemic outbreak. And, we are, right now, in a situation where we do not see any particular end in sight," Fauci told a panel hosted by the not-for-profit TB Alliance. "It's the perfect storm," Fauci says. "We often talk about outbreaks and pandemics, be they influenza or other pathogens, that have to have a few characteristics that make them particularly formidable. Well, this particular virus has that."

EUROPE - European Union leaders reached an agreement early Tuesday on a $2.1 trillion budget and coronavirus relief package.  The agreement includes $857 billion in coronavirus funding that will be issued as loans and grants to the hardest-hit countries. It came after negotiations stretched on for four days and nights, well beyond what was expected. A main sticking point was a divide between a group of five richer countries in the north, including the Netherlands and Austria, that advocated a cut in the original proposal of $572 billion in grants along with stricter spending controls, while others such as Spain and Italy sought to keep such restrictions to a minimum. The final agreement included a compromise of $446 billion in grants. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called the final deal “a good package that safeguards Dutch interests and that will make Europe stronger and more resilient.”

UK - Hopes for a coronavirus vaccine before Christmas have been dashed by a World Health Organization expert. Mike Ryan, head of WHO's emergencies programme, said the first use of a Covid-19 vaccine cannot be expected until early 2021. He noted that several vaccines are now in phase three trials and none have failed so far in terms of safety or ability to generate an immune response. His comments come after Oxford University — one of the frontrunners in a race for a vaccine — claimed there was still a chance it could deliver its experimental jab by Christmas if tests keep going according to plan. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Tuesday, Professor Gilbert said: 'The end of the year target for getting vaccine rollout is a possibility but there’s absolutely no certainty because we need three things.' Those three things are the results from phase three trials, the ability for manufacturers to produce large quantities of the virus, and regulators to approve the vaccine.

USA - The WSJ, which has seen a copy of the State Department speech to be delivered Thursday afternoon, describes that it more or less calls for a people's uprising in Communist-run China: Mr Pompeo says Chinese leader Xi Jinping is a “true believer in a bankrupt totalitarian ideology.” Mr Pompeo stops shy of explicitly calling for regime change, urging allied countries and the people of China to work with the US to change the Communist Party’s behavior. And more: “The Communist Party fears the Chinese people’s honest opinions more than any foreign foe,” Mr Pompeo plans to say in the speech at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. The US “must also engage and empower the Chinese people,” Mr Pompeo says, according to the draft.

USA - During Wednesday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Fox News @ Night,” Senator Ted Cruz (Republican for Texas) argued Democrat politicians in some of America’s cities and states were allowing protests to get out of control because they saw it as “in their political best interest to allow the mob to carry out their violence.” He explained that he was offering legislation that would allow for increased damages if citizens were denied police protection, and that resulted in injuries to person or property. “You know, this is a really tough time for our country right now,” he said. “We’re seeing riots across the country. We’re seeing violence and police cars being firebombed, police officers being murdered, and violent mobs within our cities. But even worse, in the face of that, we’re also seeing Democratic politicians — Democratic mayors, Democratic governors — who have somehow made the decision it’s in their political best interest to allow the mob to carry out their violence. And they’re refusing to protect their own citizens. They’re allowing these lawless autonomous zones to exist within their boundaries. That has never happened in modern times.”

UK - Former Monty Python and Fawlty Towers star John Cleese has had enough of political correctness and the cancel culture. As for the state of the "dysfunctional world we live in," he warns that "it's completely hopeless…" As for the sense of hopelessness he feels, Cleese blames the “power seekers. “I believe there’s something wrong with these people. The reason they want to be powerful is that they want to control people, so that they don’t get lathered into situations that they can’t control emotionally. The one thing they fear is losing power, so they’ll do almost anything to hold on to it.” Summing the current state of the world up perfectly, Cleese says, the problem with political correctness, he added, is that comedians "have to set the bar according to what we are told by the most touchy, most emotionally unstable and fragile and least stoic people in the country".

USA - Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden would like to see American children learn more about Islam in class, he said Monday. Speaking virtually at the “Million Muslim Votes” summit, he expressed his desire to see Muslims have a greater influence over American culture. “Look, one of the things I think is important — I wish we taught more in our schools about the Islamic faith. I wish we talked about all the great confessional faiths. It’s one of the great confessional faiths,” Biden told the summit, which was hosted by the Islamic advocacy group Emgage Action. The former vice president has courted the Islamic vote and has been endorsed by Emgage Action.

EUROPE - The German government seeks to have a common "Strategic Compass" adopted, to orient the EU's military policy. The planned strategy paper is aimed at providing the Union's current militarization projects - such as PESCO and the EU Battlegroups - a consistent thrust and to enhance the EU's military response capacity. It is also aimed at aligning the EU member states' national armaments projects with the Union's overall strategic needs. During its EU Council presidency, Berlin seeks to lay the foundations for a new EU common threat assessment, as the core element of the "Strategic Compass." It is to be compiled on the basis of national intelligence services' assessments by their EU counterpart the "European Union Intelligence and Situation Centre" (EU IntCn). The threat assessment, which also lays the groundwork for future EU military operations, will thus not be subject to any democratic control. It is also aimed at unifying the strategies of EU member countries with divergent national interests. It is "One of the Most Important Projects".