UK - August’s wet weather has brought this year’s wheat harvest to a “shuddering halt”, the deputy president of the National Farmers’ Union has said. Guy Smith said farmers outside the south-east of England had been left unable to start to harvest their crop because of heavy rainfall this month. Smith said farmers in the south-east had been able to begin their harvest earlier because of earlier hot weather, but that very little had been done in the west and north of England. “We are not quite sure what the impact is yet,” he said.

BRAZIL - We have never seen anything quite like this. This week the skies above Brazil’s largest city turned black in the middle of the afternoon due to the massive wildfires that are currently raging in that country. But the wildfires aren’t actually happening anywhere near São Paulo. In fact, the smoke that turned the skies black actually came from fires that were happening more than 1,000 miles away. Can you imagine how powerful the fires have to be in order to do that? And it isn’t just Brazil – right now horrific fires are scorching vast stretches of our planet from South America all the way up to the Arctic. Some of the fires are producing so much smoke that you can actually see it from space. And in the process, irreversible damage is being done to our ecosystems.

ITALY - Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced his resignation Tuesday, setting the country on an uncertain political course that could lead to a snap election or a new governing alliance. Conte’s move preempted a confidence vote that had been expected to take place 12 days after Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League party and Italy's interior minister, called for such a motion. Before announcing his resignation, Conte held a one-hour speech critical of Salvini, noting that the minister's decision to end the coalition government with the populist 5Stars Movement "has major consequences for the country and its economy." ...Hitting back at Conte's comments, Salvini said he would “do everything all over again” and defended his use of religion in political campaigns, which the prime minister had criticized. “I will always invoke the Virgin Mary to guide me,” he said.

VATICAN - Though usually styled as a pope of the peripheries, Francis has never made a speech directly sketching a social and political future for, say, Asia or Africa. Yet when it comes to Europe, he’s laid out such a vision five separate times - suggesting there’s a special place for the cradle of Western civilization in the heart of a pontiff from the edge of the world.

VATICAN - Pope Francis has further dug in his heels as the anti-populist pope, writing in the forward to a new book that organized citizens in action are the “antidote to populism.” In his forward to The Eruption of Popular Movements: The Rerum Novarum of Our Time, the pope waxes poetic, praising so-called “popular movements” as “a great social alternative, a profound cry, a sign of contradiction, a hope that ‘everything can change.’”

UK - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote a four-page letter to European leaders before a week of meetings with top EU officials and heads of state in what may be the last attempt to renegotiate Theresa May’s failed withdrawal agreement, only to see his proposals immediately rejected. With just ten weeks to go until the promised “do or die” Brexit day, on which the Prime Minister has vowed to take the country out of the European Union with — as is his preferred outcome — or without a deal, Mr Johnson called on European leaders to consider a renegotiation.

USA - San Francisco is a city of extremes. It has more billionaires per capita than anywhere else in the world, but it also has a homeless problem so severe that it rivals some third-world nations. On any given day you can see souped-up Lamborghinis and blinged-out trophy wives in one part of the city, then walk over a few blocks and see piles of human feces, puddles of urine and vomit caked on the sidewalks. The misery of homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction hits deep in San Francisco and has turned parts of a beautiful city into a public toilet. As the problem grows, residents are finding themselves at a crossroads. The compassion for those struggling is constantly being challenged by a fear for their own safety and quality of life. It never had to get this bad, say critics, who are appalled that it's getting worse every day.

USA - The Left is the most dangerous ideological phenomenon in the history of mankind. It glorifies poverty, the total state, and mass death. The Left wants to destroy Western civilization, based on Christianity, the traditional family, and the free market. It’s no coincidence that Communists killed more than 100 million people, not including their wars.

TAIWAN - Despite extreme objections voiced by Beijing, the State Department has approved the sale of dozens of F-16 fighter planes to Taiwan, openly admitting that the move serves US economic and national security interests in the region. The approval of the $8 billion sale by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DCPA) came just days after plans to supply 66 fighter jets to Taipei were greenlighted by the White House. In approving the proposed deliveries, the DCPA reasoned that additional arms will help maintain “political stability, military balance, and economic progress” in the region. The prospects of yet another weapons sale by the Trump administration to Taiwan, which still has to be approved by Congress, drew ire from Beijing, which repeatedly slammed all US attempts to arm the enclave, that China considers an integral part of the mainland.

EUROPE - The 45th G7 summit will take place later this year, bringing together the “Group of 7”. But when exactly is the summit, who is in the G7 group and why is the European Union invited? This year, the G7 summit will take place from August 24 to 26 in Biarritz, France.

GERMANY - According to the German media, China’s alleged raw material monopoly is like a "super weapon." German authorities and business agencies are calling for drastic measures to attain national independence from Chinese raw materials. Particularly in the case of so-called rare earths, "the entire Chinese-controlled value chain must be broken," the Federal Academy for Security Policy (BAKS) explains. If this fails, the "EU's military autonomy" would be compromised, since the metals in question are "indispensable" for arms production, according to the German government's think tank on military policy. This view is shared by the Federal Agency for Geological Studies and Natural Resources (BGR). In a recent paper it warned of serious "disadvantages" for "Germany, as an economic base of operations," should China's "supremacy" in exporting mining products not be countered with appropriate "alternative strategies."

USA - The American ransomware epidemic shows no signs of slowing, as the confluence of underinvestment in IT and information security and the NSA's reckless stockpiling of computer vulnerabilities means that petty criminals can extort vast sums from distant municipalities by seizing their entire networked infrastructure. Currently, more than 20 towns and cities in Texas are being held ransom by criminals. The state believes all of the hijackings - which all landed Saturday morning - are the work of a single "threat actor."

UK - British pharmaceutical companies will be ready to cope with a no deal Brexit scenario despite warnings from a leaked Government document suggesting there will be medicine shortages in the event the UK will leave the EU without a deal. The reassurance comes from the former president of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Ash Soni who told the BBC's Radio 4 Today Programme he believed the appropriate infrastructure to ensure a smooth supply of medicines in the event of a no deal Brexit is already in place. Asked whether he believed the Government was ready to employ relevant mechanisms to cope with the no deal eventuality, Mr Soni replied: “From what we’ve been told, yes. We believe that’s the case. It comes after a sensitive Government document on no deal Brexit preparations was leaked to the Sunday Times yesterday. The leaked dossier warned Britain will face shortages of fuel, food and medicine under a no deal Brexit.

EUROPE - Brussels is "less prepared" than the UK for a no deal Brexit scenario on October 31, CBI director-general Carolyn Fairbairn claimed as she urged both sides to "compromise" and reach a deal. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) chief told BBC Radio 4 Today Programme that avoiding a no deal Brexit outcome must be the "number one priority" for the Government. But she admitted the UK is now more prepared than the EU to leave without a formal agreement on October 31. Asked whether the Brussels bloc was conducting an "Operation Yellowhammer" of its own, Ms Fairbairn said: “The work that the CBI did a few months ago and published last month shows that if anything the EU is less prepared than the UK. There are costs very much on both sides. And we would hope that these conversations this week are productive and are focused on getting a deal and that there is a compromise on both sides.”

GERMANY - Deutsche Bank AG has hit bottom, again. Two months after rebounding from its previous low, buoyed by optimism about Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing’s strategy reboot, Germany’s largest lender fell to a fresh record in Frankfurt trading. The stock is now down 94% from its peak in 2007. But while there’s plenty of blame to go around the German lender’s boardroom for its past performance, the former investment banking giant is hardly alone in Europe in this latest rout.