USA - The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 600 points Friday after the latest escalation in the trade war between the US and China rattled investors. The broad sell-off sent the S&P 500 to its fourth straight weekly loss. Stocks tumbled after President Donald Trump responded angrily on Twitter following China’s announcement of new tariffs on $75 billion in US goods. In one of his tweets he “hereby ordered” US companies with operations in China to consider moving them to other countries — including the US Trump also said he’d respond directly to the tariffs — and after the market closed he delivered, announcing that the US would increase existing tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods to 30% from 25%, and that new tariffs on another $300 billion of imports would be 15% instead of 10%. Those announcements are likely to influence stock markets in Asia when trading opens there Monday.

USA - Over at far-left MSNBC, Republicans are under attack as being “incendiary” for stating the scientific fact that there are only two genders. MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing ripped into Louisiana Republican gubernatorial candidate Ralph Abraham — who happens to be a medical doctor — over his claim in a TV ad that there are only two genders.

GERMANY - At this year's global religion summit on Lake Constance, female delegates from Africa, Asia and the Middle East made clear women must have a greater say. More than 1,000 religious figures, activists and youths attended the Lindau gathering. At the 10th Religions for Peace World Assembly in Lindau, a town in southern Germany, a fourth of all participants were female. Indeed, even the Vatican sent a female delegate from Caritas International. But while there were more female attendants than at previous summits, many still bemoaned a lack of gender equality. And soon, Azza Karam will succeed William F Vendley to serve as the secretary-general of the World Conference of Religions for Peace. Karam, who was born in Cairo and today holds Dutch citizenship, will be the first woman to be elected to this position. She adheres to the Muslim faith, and makes clear that our religious world is slowly becoming more gender equal.

MIDDLE EAST - Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas threatened this week that "millions of fighters" would swarm Jerusalem and topple the Jewish state's capital city, warning that "no matter how many houses and how many settlements they declare that they [plan to build] here and there — they shall all be destroyed." Abbas, in an Arabic language speech at Jalazone Refugee Camp near Ramallah that was heavy with threats of destruction, doubled down on the Palestinian government's policy of using public money to pay convicted terrorists and their families, telling his audience, "We will not accept their designation of our martyrs as terrorists. Our martyrs are the martyrs of the homeland." Abbas went on to rally those in attendance to swarm the city of Jerusalem and destroy all Jewish people living there. His remarks are the clearest sign to date that the leader has no interest in playing a role in a revamped peace process spearheaded by President Donald Trump's White House.

NIGERIA - Boko Haram jihadis seized two towns in Nigeria’s Borno state on Wednesday, killing many people as they set houses and government buildings ablaze. Zanna Modu, the chairman of the Gubio Local Government Council, indicated that the terrorists “withdrew on Thursday,” according to the Punch. “The situation is calm; people returned to their homes on Thursday,” Usman Zanna, a Nigerian lawmaker who represents both the Gubio and Magumeri communities, reportedly added Thursday. However, the Premium Times reports that jihadis remain in control of the towns. According to CFR, [Council on Foreign Relations] the Boko Haram war has left 35,820 people dead, including jihadis, state actors, and civilians.

USA - Women are increasingly opting out of heterosexuality because it is “the bedrock of their global oppression,” NBC News asserted in a bizarre opinion piece this week. “Men need heterosexuality to maintain their societal dominance over women,” writes Marcie Bianco for the NBC News website. “Women, on the other hand, are increasingly realizing not only that they don’t need heterosexuality, but that it also is often the bedrock of their global oppression.”

USA - Representative Ralph Abraham (Republican for Louisiana) released a television ad Thursday, charging, as a doctor, that “there are only two genders.” In contrast, Louisiana Democrat Governor John Bel Edwards pushed for transgender bathrooms in 2016. Abraham’s gubernatorial campaign, touting his populist and conservative credentials, which includes believing that life begins at conception, government is too big, the Second Amendment is “self-explanatory,” and that, “as a doctor,” he is certain that “there are only two genders.” Three years ago, Governor Edwards issued an executive order that mandated state contractors accommodate employees who identify another gender other than their biological sex, which could have delayed vital infrastructure projects if contractors did not comply with the order.

USA - Just when things seemed to be settling down a little bit, our conflict with China has suddenly escalated to a dangerous new phase. This is not simply just a “trade war” any longer, and our relationship with China will never be the same again. As you will see below, President Trump just referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as our “enemy”, and this is something that the Chinese are going to take extremely seriously.

USA - New York Times Executive Editor, Dean Baquet, held an inter-office staff meeting last week to clarify the paper’s policy for reporting news relating to President Trump. This followed backlash from Democrats when the Times ran a front-page headline that read “Trump Urges Unity vs Racism”. The problem was this did not cast the President in a negative light – so the paper quickly changed the headline to read “Assailing Hate But Not Guns”. During the meeting, Baquet said that the original headline was an oversight and instructed everyone to be alert to ways to shift the anti-Trump-news narrative from Russia Collusion to racism. He said, “…race in the next year is going to be a huge part of the American story.”

BRAZIL - Seemingly everybody has heard about the fires burning in the Amazon, creating smoke and haze events in cities as far away as Sao Paulo. The question is, who is spreading the alarm and is it real or fake? The hysteria over Brazil’s “lungs of the earth” has even become a central contention at the G7 meeting in Europe, with global leaders calling for intervention to save the Amazon jungle. The problem is that most pictures being circulated on social media are NOT of this year’s fires at all! Photos are being dragged out from fires dating back to 1989 and presented as if they were taken in 2019. This is fake news and blatant disinformation at its worst, but the world’s news media is using it to fan the fires of outrage in an attempt to achieve a political outcome, namely, Sustainable Development. In particular, the Amazon rain forest is seen as vital to countering global warming. Apparently fire and smoke is seen as proof of global warming.

AFRICA - Forest fires are tearing through the Amazon rainforest, prompting worldwide protests and demands for action to protect the “lungs of the world.” But, away from the spotlight, the Brazilian fires are dwarfed by blazes in Africa. As protesters in London chanted “Hey hey, ho ho, Bolsonaro’s got to go!” two even bigger blazes burned unnoticed in Africa. Over Thursday and Friday, more fires were recorded in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo than in Brazil, Bloomberg reported, citing NASA satellite data. In those two days alone, 6,902 fires were recorded in Angola and 3,395 in the DRC. 2,127 were spotted in Brazil in the same period. In Africa, it’s more difficult to know what’s happening, as next to no news reports on the fires in Angola and the DRC have surfaced in the west.

UK - The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has been forced to into a humiliating U-turn after a post on their website appeared to suggest universal benefits claimants should work as strippers. The post which made the provocative suggestion has since been deleted. Amber Rudd is the Secretary responsible for the department… As reported by the Daily Mirror, a section entitled “work you can do”, listed “striptease artist” as part of a list of “elementary services occupations”. It explained “dances in adult entertainment establishments” was an options as it required “no formal academic” skills. It added: “Training is typically received on-the-job” for a role which would typically take 42 hours a week and earn the worker £350. The website also suggests becoming a fortune teller and three different jobs working in bingo. A DWP spokesman said: “This is inappropriate and we will immediately review this to determine why it is mistakenly listed.”

USA -We are at war with the mosquito. A swarming and consuming army of 110 trillion enemy mosquitoes patrols every inch of the globe save Antarctica, Iceland, the Seychelles, and a handful of French Polynesian micro-islands. Since 2000, the annual average number of human deaths caused by the mosquito has hovered around 2 million. We come in a distant second at 475,000, followed by snakes (50,000), dogs and sand flies (25,000 each), the tsetse fly, and the assassin or kissing bug (10,000 each). The fierce killers of lore and Hollywood celebrity appear much further down our list. The crocodile is ranked #10 with 1,000 annual deaths. Next on the list are hippos with 500, and elephants and lions with 100 fatalities each. The much-slandered shark and wolf share the #15 position, killing an average of ten people per annum. The mosquito has killed more people than any other cause of death in human history.

UK - A jubilant Boris Johnson won a surprise Brexit boost yesterday from Emmanuel Macron. The French President suggested the EU Withdrawal Agreement could after all be amended to allow the UK to quit the bloc with a deal. The concession saw the Prime Minister raise his hands in the air in apparent triumph on his return to Downing Street from his talks in Paris.

USA - President Donald Trump is expected to unleash multibillion dollar tariffs on the European Union’s imports, an EU chief has warned. The European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom has warned the bloc that they need to prepare themselves for Trump’s sanctions as trade tensions continue. Products including whisky, cheese and olives, could be affected following a dispute over aircraft subsidies. The European company Airbus attacked the US’s Boeing ‘Dreamliner’ programme as only being possible due to illegal subsidies. Last month, Mr Trump tweeted: “The World Trade Organisation finds that the European Union subsidies to Airbus has adversely impacted the United States, which will now put tariffs on $11 billion of EU products. The EU has taken advantage of the US on trade for many years. It will soon stop.” The Trump administration has now claimed that the estimated damage to Boeing following the ‘illegal subsidies of Airbus’ is $11 billion.