UK - Speaking at a press conference last week in which he announced sanctions against Israel, Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish prime minister, bemoaned not having any nuclear weapons – because it meant he couldn’t use them to threaten Israel. It’s certainly true that neither Sir Keir Starmer nor any member of the British Government has yet threatened the Israelis with nuclear apocalypse. But every week brings another example of how, under Labour, Israel is now being treated as an enemy state. Today we learn that the Royal College of Defence Studies will no longer accept students from Israel, the first time it has barred Israelis since that nation’s creation in 1948. As Amir Baram, the director general of Israel’s defence ministry (who studied at the college) put it in a letter to the Ministry of Defence, the ban on Israelis is “a profoundly dishonourable act of disloyalty to an ally at war” and a “disgraceful break with Britain’s proud tradition of tolerance – and plain decency”.

UK - Internet chatrooms in Nepal played a key role in selecting a prime minister, but the same technology has been used to spread vile abuse after Charlie Kirk’s death. Many of the comments were vile. They began on social media almost as soon as Charlie Kirk had been assassinated. He was reviled as a bigot, a racist and a fascist who fully deserved to be shot. The celebrations on Bluesky were especially ­repulsive. Others, including his supporters, posted appalling images: videos of the blood gushing from his neck as he fell backwards. Some may have thought this would expose the enormity of the crimes they insist are perpetrated by the left; others simply recognised the awful attraction of violence on screen, the same gleeful fascination that in the past prompted Islamist terrorists to post videos of a western journalist having his throat cut in Pakistan or a Jordanian pilot being burnt alive. Little wonder that more and more people see the internet as a sewer which they want drained and regulated.

POLAND - When 19 alleged Russian drones violated Polish airspace this week, NATO scrambled its most advanced — and most expensive — weapons to stop them. Dutch F-35 fighter jets, Italian surveillance planes, and German Patriot missile systems were deployed in a high-stakes interception effort. The result? Only seven drones were shot down, despite each missile costing nearly 40 times more than the $11,000 wooden-and-foam UAVs they targeted. The embarrassing failure has exposed a gaping hole in NATO’s air defenses, leaving Eastern Europe vulnerable to waves of low-cost, high-impact attacks that modern militaries simply aren’t equipped to handle. The incident was a huge wake-up call. According to internal NATO calculations cited by the Financial Times in May, the alliance has only 5% of the air defenses needed to protect Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and Scandinavia. That means if Russia or any other adversary decided to flood the skies with cheap, disposable drones, NATO’s billion-dollar war machines would be outmatched, outnumbered, and financially drained before the first real battle even begins.

ISRAEL - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended his country’s recent airstrike on Hamas terrorists in Qatar, saying Monday that the Gulf state was in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373. That resolution, passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, bars countries from harboring terrorists, and implies that other states have a right to self-defense against terrorists that are being sheltered by other nations. Standing alongside US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a press conference in Jerusalem, Netanyahu fielded a question about the airstrike, after Rubio was asked how the US could assuage its Gulf allies.

USA - On Instagram, a group of New Zealand Māori Christian men raised large photos of Charlie Kirk as they performed the Haka, a traditional war dance with fierce movements and powerful lyrics. In South Korea, Christians gathered to pray for Kirk while mourners took to the streets, lowering flags to half-staff and marching with American flags and Kirk’s image. A Twitter user, Dawn of Asia, described the scene: “Koreans gathered in Seoul to honor Charlie Kirk. After a moment of silence, we chanted ‘We are Charlie Kirk’ throughout a rally that lasted more than three hours. Thank you, Charlie Kirk. God Bless America.”

USA - Charlie Kirk's grieving widow, Erika, delivered one of the most powerful speeches by any woman in recent memory last Friday, just days after her husband was assassinated by what has been described as a "radical left ANTIFA-adjacent creep" with a transgender partner. The FBI's investigation has widened its focus to a Marxist-aligned militant group calling itself the "Armed Queers."

UK - Police said up to 150,000 people were in London on Saturday for the "Unite the Kingdom" rally led by far-right activist Tommy Robinson. Danny from south Birmingham was holding a sign that said: "Send them Back" - and said he was unhappy with migration "in general". He came to "stand up for what we believe in, the religion and identity of our country". That's been a difference with this rally compared to past ones I've covered - an overt Christian nationalism. People carried wooden crosses. One person had a light-up crucifix. When the crowd arrived at Whitehall, they were led from the stage in a chant of 'Christ is king'. And then a public recital of the Lord's Prayer shortly after that. It's an important difference. Not just a flag to rally around, but a religion too. The tinderbox summer of protest promised by activists never really caught flame. Instead, there has been the slow, steady burn of nationalism. This was its culmination but also, those here hoped, the beginning of something even bigger.

USA - Elon Musk Delivers Ominous Message at Far-Right Rally: ‘Violence is Coming’ and ‘You Either Fight Back, Or You Die’. Elon Musk sent a chilling message at a far-right rally in the UK on Saturday — warning the crowd that “violence is coming” and “you either fight back, or you die.” Appearing virtually at the far-right “Unite the Kingdom” demonstration in London, the Tesla boss made clear he does not foresee peace in the near future. “Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you,” Musk said. “You either fight back, or you die. You either fight back, or you die. That’s the truth.” Tommy Robinson, the far-right activist who organized Saturday’s protest, told Musk, “Today, Elon, I think the British public are telling the world that they’re ready to fight back.” “Good!’ Musk said, raising his fists in the air — as the estimated crowd of up to 150,000 people cheered. “Yes!”

USA - As Americans continue to try to make sense of last week's assassination of Christian champion and civil rights leader Charlie Kirk, videos are emerging of the outspoken Jesus worshiper issuing a challenge to fellow believers about what he calls "the most ignored commandment" of the Ten Commandments. "I speak at hundreds of churches of all different denominations," Kirk told the Wisdom Pearl, "and I will challenge the Christian church because I believe this is the most ignored commandment of the Decalogue to our own detriment." "We do a horrible job of honoring the Sabbath," he explained. "We do a really bad job of that as American Christians."

USA - A rising tide of political violence and the rejection of legal norms suggests the America of the Founding no longer exists. “We got him”, said the governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, making an unqualified judgement of guilt on the man who had just been apprehended. Will they bother with a trial at all, and if so, how could any jury now be unprejudiced? Has Tyler Robinson, who is still being described officially as a “suspect”, already confessed and made it clear that he will plead guilty? President Trump has expressed a wish for him to be given the death penalty. Has there been (or will there be) a psychiatric examination to establish that the accused, who had not even been charged when the Governor held his triumphant press conference, is fit to be held responsible for his actions?

GERMANY - The conservative Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is continuing to make gains across the country. The AfD secured nearly 15 percent of the vote in North Rhine-Westphalia, placing third, according to preliminary results reported by Politico. That marks a sharp rise from the 5.1 percent it received in the state’s last municipal elections five years ago. “A huge success: According to initial projections, the AfD’s result in NRW has tripled,” AfD leader Alice Weidel wrote on the X platform. In February’s federal election, the AfD captured 20.6 percent of the vote, finishing second overall and achieving the strongest showing ever for a far-right party in postwar Germany. Its performance was driven by sweeping victories across nearly all of the former East German states. Since then, support for the AfD has continued to grow, even as Germany’s left-wing intelligence agencies classify it as an extremist organization. Last month, a national poll found that the AfD’s overall support had surged to some 26 percent, which would make it the most popular party in Germany and give it the power to potentially form the next government.

EUROPE - The FPO are polling 1st in Austria

The RN Party is polling 1st in France

The AfD are polling 1st in Germany

Reform UK are polling 1st in Britain

Europeans are voting for the most right-wing party available.

USA - I was recently reminded that as we were getting ready to enter September I described it as a “pivotal” month. I got to thinking about that, and I decided to look up the definition of “pivot”. According to Vocabulary.com, to pivot “is to turn or rotate, like a hinge”. I found that to be very interesting, because events have certainly taken a significant “turn” this month, haven’t they? In fact, many are referring to the assassination of Charlie Kirk as a major “turning point”, and that also happens to be the name of the organization that he founded. We have seen such an explosion of emotion on all sides in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s death. But there is one thing that virtually everybody agrees on. Nothing will be the same after this. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that more political violence is coming. Members of Congress from both parties are cancelling public events, and President Trump just requested an additional 58 million dollars for more security for the executive and judicial branches… If you think that things are crazy now, just wait, because things are going to get even crazier in the months ahead.

USA - Although the United States of America and Australia are a vast ocean apart, our core shared values mean that we often stand shoulder to shoulder through war, natural disasters and tragedy. Many people I have spoken to remain in shock, disbelief and tears over the assassination of Charlie Kirk. It is a reminder that speaking truth, particularly Biblical truth, is inherently dangerous in a world where truth sounds like hate to those who hate the truth.

UNITED NATIONS - US, Israel denounce the move for emboldening Hamas and harming the prospect of peace. The UN General Assembly (UNGA), currently in session, approved a resolution on Friday calling for an “irreversible” path toward a Palestinian state. The resolution was an endorsement of the “New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine,” adopted at an international conference in July at the UN headquarters in New York. Signed by the EU, the Arab League, and 17 other countries, the declaration called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and supported the deployment of a temporary international stabilization mission under a UN Security Council mandate. The conference was organized by France and Saudi Arabia and with a declaration “lays out a single roadmap to deliver the two-State solution” according to French UN Ambassador Jerome Bonnafont. Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon said “The only beneficiary is Hamas… When terrorists are the ones cheering, you are not advancing peace; you are advancing terror.”