CHINA - China has sent a terrifying warning to US President Donald Trump as a Beijing expert claimed the country will continue to rise and its growth cannot be stopped. Speaking to Channel 4 news, Victor Gao said: "China will continue to rise and eventually the US will need to come to terms with the reality of a China which may be larger and more impactful than the US in about 10 to 15 times. This is a mega-trend, no one can stop it, no one can reverse it." He added: "I do not know what will happen between now and November 3. I think the US will be cursed if Trump wins, it will be cursed if Trump loses and there will be great turmoil in the US between now and January 21.”

The expert noted the US is its worst enemy. It comes as China said on Friday it would take "reciprocal measures" against the US after Washington imposed sanctions on senior Chinese officials over alleged human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslim minority. Washington imposed sanctions on the autonomous region of Xinjiang's Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo, a member of China's powerful Politburo, and three other officials.

USA - Communist Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant (Socialist Alternative) gave a victory speech Tuesday night after passage by the city council of the so-called Amazon Tax in which she vowed to overthrow the United States, replacing the government and society with a “socialist world”. Sawant, 46, immigrated from India as an adult with a BSc in computer science from the University of Mumbai received in 1994. Once in the US, Sawant earned a PhD in economics from North Carolina State University and became a US citizen in 2010. Sawant has served on the Seattle City Council since 2014.

USA - The last four months have been an unending nightmare for the US economy. Businesses are shutting down at a pace that we have never seen before in American history, the “retail apocalypse” has reached an entirely new level that none of the experts were anticipating prior to this pandemic, and we are in the midst of the greatest spike in unemployment that the United States has ever experienced.

EUROPE - “How Europe fares in this crisis compared to other regions of the world will determine both the future of European prosperity and Europe’s role in the world,” Chancellor Merkel told the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, as she assumed the EU presidency. Those who know Merkel best say that what drives the uncharacteristic urgency and decisiveness of Merkel’s messages is a fear that the EU could become irrelevant or even unravel from the force of Covid-19 and its economic, social and political after effects. She understands the challenges for the EU are of a more existential nature than those facing China, the United States or any other single country, coming even as the United Kingdom exits the Union.

AUSTRALIA - Five million people in Australia's second-biggest city began a new lockdown Thursday, returning to tough restrictions just weeks after they ended as Melbourne grapples with a resurgence of coronavirus cases. Residents have been told to stay at home for six weeks after other measures to contain a spike in COVID-19 failed to prevent the virus spreading. The state of Victoria has been effectively sealed off in an effort to preserve the rest of Australia's success in curbing the virus. In Melbourne, there are concerns over the economic and mental health impacts of the second lockdown, which officials estimate will cost the economy Aus$6 billion ($4.2 billion). Australia has recorded just under 9,000 cases of COVID-19 among a population of 25 million, with 106 deaths.

USA - While critics of US President Donald Trump gloated over the Supreme Court ruling in the matter of his taxes, another verdict returning much of Oklahoma to the Creek Nation has far bigger implications for the country down the line. “On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise,” Justice Neil Gorsuch – a Trump appointee presumed to be a conservative textualist – declared at the start of the majority opinion in McGirt v Oklahoma, referring to the removal of Native Americans that began in 1831.

USA - The Satanic Temple plans to sue the state of Mississippi if its new flag includes a reference to God but not to Satan. In a letter to Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, Marc J Randazza, attorney for the Satanic Temple, wrote the plan for the new state flag to replace the image of the Confederate flag with the phrase, “In God We Trust,” would be the equivalent of “removing one divisive symbol of exclusion only to replace it with a divisive phrase of exclusion.” Such a plan, the letter read, “does not eliminate exclusion, but rather moves it from one group to a collection of others.” The Satanic Temple, Randazza continued, “would like to suggest that if Mississippi is going to place a religious phrase on its flag, it should include reference to Satan.” The attorney goes on to list the “seven tenets of the Satanic Temple,” suggesting they are “more consistent with Mississippi values than even the Ten Commandments.”

TURKEY - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Friday that the Hagia Sophia, one of the architectural wonders of the world, would be reopened for Muslim worship as a mosque, sparking fury in the Christian community and neighbouring Greece. His declaration came after a top Turkish court revoked the sixth-century Byzantine monument's status as a museum, clearing the way for it to be turned back into a mosque. In an address to the nation, Erdogan said the first Muslim prayers at the Hagia Sophia would be performed on July 24. The UNESCO World Heritage site in historic Istanbul, a magnet for tourists worldwide, was first constructed as a cathedral in the Christian Byzantine Empire but was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Last year, 3.8 million tourists visited the monument.

USA - “If We Don't Act, 2% of the People Are About To Control the Other 98%”, By Retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn who served as national security advisor to President Donald Trump. The more I’ve thought about this phrase, the more I believe it. There is now a small group of passionate people working hard to destroy our American way of life. Treason and treachery are rampant and our rule of law and those law enforcement professionals who uphold our laws are under the gun more than at any time in our nation’s history. These passionate 2 percent appear to be winning.

USA - Residents are fearful to go out after dark. The police are afraid to patrol, and violent crime, murder and looting are rampant, while businesses are collapsing. And war has already been declared on our values and culture. The world is under attack from a well-organised and well-funded group of anarchists who have launched an ideological cultural revolution to further globalism. The BLM movement, the riots, looting, protests and Covid-19 are all about partisan politics and the 2020 presidential election.

USA - Liberal activists, especially those in the media, are masters at skewing language in order to further their narratives. As a former establishment media social media manager, I know the rules. There is an unspoken general rule for social media managers in newsrooms: If a minority person commits a crime, the reporter more often than not focuses on the weapon that was used in crafting the story.

GERMANY - Europe’s most powerful bureaucrat works from a sparsely furnished mid-sized office on the second floor of a building overlooking a train station — in Berlin. Few outside the machine room of European politics are likely to have heard of Uwe Corsepius, but in the halls of Brussels and in capitals across the Continent, the mere mention of his name stirs a combination of fear, anger and admiration.

USA - The Gulf of Mexico and US East Coast should brace for a heavy slate of hurricanes, after a top US climate researcher predicted one of the most active years on record for tropical storm activity in the Atlantic Basin. The Atlantic tropical storm season runs from June through November and has 30-year averages of 12 named storms and six hurricanes, but the Colorado State University climate research center on Tuesday raised its forecast to 20 tropical storms, including nine that will develop into hurricanes.

USA - A brutal heat wave that has been baking the southwestern United States this week is forecast to ramp up in intensity in the coming days, causing many locations already sweltering to experience warmth well above normal, with temperature readings at 110 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. The dangerous heat has caused excessive heat warnings to be issued across the Desert Southwest from southeastern Arizona and even into Central California. Areas under the warnings include cities such as Las Vegas, Indio, California, and Phoenix, Arizona.

Ongoing and worsening drought over the southwestern United States will continue to contribute to well-above-average heat into early next week, while a big surge of heat is likely to make its presence known farther to the east around the middle of July. Since the heat is coming at the hottest part of the summer, on average, and that temperatures are forecast to be 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, to say that the heat will be extreme may be an understatement.

TAIWAN - The imposition of a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong has sent chills through Taiwan, deepening fears that Beijing will focus next on seizing the democratic self-ruled island. China and Taiwan split in 1949 after nationalist forces lost a civil war to Mao Zedong's communists, fleeing to the island which Beijing has since vowed to seize one day, by force if necessary. "The law makes me dislike China even more," 18-year-old student Sylvia Chang told AFP, walking through National Taiwan University in Taipei. "They had promised 50 years unchanged for Hong Kong but they are getting all the more heavy-handed... I am worried Hong Kong today could be Taiwan tomorrow."