UK - Six psychologists who resigned from England’s flagship National Health Service (NHS) child transgender clinic have raised concerns over its treatment of children with the mental disorder gender dysphoria, saying that they felt pressured to ignore psychological treatment and begin hormone treatment for minors.

AUSTRALIA - Australia has set a record for its hottest ever day for a second day running after Tuesday's 105.5F (41C) was followed by a searing 107.4F (42C) on Wednesday. The heatwave has added to dangerous fire conditions with warnings in place for most of the country and more than 170 fires burning in New South Wales and Queensland. The Bureau of Meteorology said on Wednesday the new nationally averaged maximum had been reached again, with the two recent records beating the previous of 104.5F (40C) set in January 2013. Australia's most populous state of New South Wales declared a seven-day state of emergency on Thursday as oppressive conditions fanned around 100 wildfires. Around 2,000 firefighters were battling the blazes, half of which remain uncontrolled, with the support of US and Canadian backup teams and personnel from the Australian Defence Force.

USA - The White House on Tuesday denied reports from a Lebanese television channel that its supposed peace plan will include a three-way deal between Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, the Islamist terror group that rules the Gaza Strip. “Rumors about the content of the Trump Administration peace plan are false,” a senior administration official told The Times of Israel. “We are confident that the so-called source has not seen the plan.” The report — by the pro-Hezbollah Al-Mayadeen — features details that starkly contradict the limited information that Washington has released about the proposal, and that stand at sharp odds with known US and Israeli positions.

UK - Thursday: The state opening of Parliament. The Queen's Speech is the centrepiece of this, when she will read a speech written by ministers setting out the government's programme of legislation for the parliamentary session. A couple of hours after the speech is delivered, MPs will begin debating its contents - a process which usually takes days.

Friday: Depending on how rapidly Boris Johnson wants to move, the debate on the Queen's Speech could continue into Friday. The government will introduce the Withdrawal Agreement Bill to Parliament. MPs in the previous Parliament backed Mr Johnson's bill at its first stage but rejected his plan to fast-track the legislation through Parliament in three days in order to leave the EU by the then Brexit deadline of 31 October. After the debate on the Queen's Speech is concluded, MPs will vote on whether to approve it. Not since 1924 has a government's Queen Speech been defeated.

UK - Prime Minister Boris Johnson will make it illegal for parliament to force the British government to extend the transition period beyond December 31st, 2020. The move pre-empts efforts by Remainer activists and parliamentarians — the latter however now in the minority — from forcing the Conservative government to accept another Brexit delay if negotiators do not agree on a deal on the future relationship with the EU by the end of the 11-month transition period. A Downing Street source told The Times: “Last week the public voted for a government that would get Brexit done and move this country forward — and that’s exactly what we intend to do, starting this week. Our manifesto made clear that we will not extend the implementation period and the new withdrawal agreement bill will legally prohibit government from agreeing to any extension.”

UK - Prince Charles is planning to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories next month, the future British king’s office announced on Wednesday. The trip, which comes amid the UK’s efforts to leave the European Union and sign bilateral trade agreements with other countries as well as an ongoing controversy over anti-Semitism in the UK Labour party, will be only the second official visit to Israel by a member of the royal family since the State of Israel was founded in 1948. Charles, known formally as His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, is scheduled to attend the World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem (to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp) on January 23, 2020.

CHINA - If you are not familiar with the bank, it’s one of the largest banks in China, a “big 4” State Owned Enterprise (SOE) bank and the bank has a market cap similar in size to Wells Fargo around $200 billion dollars. However, many of the people, thousands of people according to the Asian source who follows the Chinese economy closely and sent me the 15 second video, were arrested by police for trying to take out too much Chinese Yuan out of their accounts. So far news of this bank run was kept quiet by the Chinese government controlled state run media in mainland China. There seem to be very large and growing problems in the last 12 months with Japanese, Chinese, European and now American banks with Repo Madness.

USA - The government is ratcheting up its efforts to convince Americans to get flu shots. “You can’t walk into a pharmacy without seeing lines, and the government is now telling preachers to tell their congregations to get flu shots,” says Dr Russell Blaylock, renowned neurosurgeon and editor of the Blaylock Wellness Report. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” The incidence of flu across the United States is extremely low — there are virtually no outbreaks — and not a single child has died.

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said Monday he looks forward to congratulating Pope Francis personally for his important work in environmentalism, multilateralism, and immigration. In an interview with the Italian daily La Stampa, Guterres, who has been described as the Vatican’s “ally” at the United Nations, reiterated his opposition to the pro-sovereignty movement as well as his shared world-view with Pope Francis. “I wanted to meet with the (Pope) to express my appreciation for his work,” said Guterres, who will soon visit the Pope. “He is a strong voice on the climate crisis, on poverty and inequality, on multilateralism, on the protection of refugees and migrants, on disarmament and many other important issues. Through his work, the Pope is contributing to reaching many of our objectives, including the Sustainable Development Goals, combating climate change and promoting a culture of peace,” he added. We need a universal system that respects international law and is organized around strong multilateral institutions.

VATICAN - The deputy director of the Vatican’s communications office declared this week that the UN's COP25 climate change convention had “ended in failure” as world leaders reached no agreement regarding a global carbon market. Speaking in Madrid at the book launch of A Great Hope: The Custody of Creation, a collection of writings by Pope Francis on the environment, Alessandro Gisotti said Monday that while “it is true that the summit has ended in failure” there is, at least, greater consciousness of the problem of climate change.

ISRAEL - Three Jewish Israelis have been indicted for praying at Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem, violating a ban on Jewish prayer at the holy site. The three men, two of whom are IDF soldiers, were caught reciting the “Shema,” Judaism’s most famous prayer, in front of the Dome of the Rock in September 2018. The ban on non-Muslim prayer at the Temple Mount is the result of a decades-long agreement with Jordan’s Islamic Waqf, which administers the site. Muslims can pray on the mount unrestrictedly. Jordan and the Palestinian Authority deny any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, despite archaeological proof that it once housed the two Jewish temples. Moshe Polsky, a lawyer for another of the defendants, called the indictment “outrageous.” “It is unthinkable that in the State of Israel saying ‘Shema Yisrael’ is deemed a criminal offense,” he said.

LEBANON - The report by the pro-Hezbollah Al-Mayadeen features details that starkly contradict the limited information the administration has released about the plan, and that stand at sharp odds with known US and Israeli positions, casting considerable doubt on the credibility of the report. The report claimed the United States would end its economic support for Israel if the Jewish state rejects the deal, which reportedly provides for establishing a Palestinian state in Gaza and parts of the West Bank to be called “New Palestine.”

USA - The bitter feud between President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has just gone to an entirely new level. On the brink of being impeached, Trump sent an absolutely scathing letter to Pelosi on Tuesday in which he accused her of “declaring open war on American Democracy”, “breaking your allegiance to the Constitution” and “interfering in America’s elections”. This is the culmination of a long crusade by the left to try to take Trump out, but of course if Trump wins again in November 2020 there will be more attempts in the future. The visceral hatred that they feel toward Trump comes out in everything that they do, and they are never going to stop until they are finally able to get rid of him.

GERMANY - German President Steinmeier has warned against forgetting the lessons learned from "unbridled nationalism." at the 75th anniversary of the pivotal Battle of the Bulge. "A united and peaceful Europe — that is the lesson we Europeans have learned from unbridled nationalism and racism, from the war of annihilation," said Steinmeier. "Please don't let us forget that, especially at a moment when nationalism and ethnocentric thinking are again regaining their allure."

TURKEY - Turkey could shut down its Incirlik air base, which hosts US nuclear warheads, in response to threats of US sanctions and a separate US Senate resolution that recognized mass killings of Armenians a century ago as genocide, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday.