USA - As BRICS gains momentum, the US economy becomes weaker because the members of the grouping can circumvent American sanctions and trade in their own currencies, Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said on Thursday. Speaking to her constituents in Georgia, the Republican congresswoman lashed out at the administration of US President Joe Biden, which she said is turning a blind eye to the rise of BRICS – an economic group which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa and accounts for more than a quarter of global GDP.

AUSTRIA - Austria’s far-right Freedom Party — which is expected to win next year’s elections — has sparked fury with a “frightening” video glorifying fascist thinkers and making knowing nods to the country’s Nazi past. The two-minute promo — which splices an extremist conspiracy theory that white Europeans are being replaced by migrants with images of Notre Dame in Paris in flames — was made by the party’s youth wing. But the Freedom Party’s hardline leader Herbert Kickl sprang to its defense, calling the video “great.”

RUSSIA - Russian diplomat Dmitry Glukhov told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin's suggestion earlier in the year that Moscow could possibly restart nuclear tests was conditional on such activity by the US. Glukhov was responding to accusations aired by US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Bonnie Jenkins, who claimed that Putin’s speech amounted to a threat of renewed atomic testing. “I wish to underscore that the aforementioned statement by the Russian president about the hypothetical possibility of our country resuming nuclear tests, mentioned during his speech to the federal legislature, needs to be understood solely in the context of our response to the destructive actions of the US. It was a preventive signal to Washington,” said Glukhov, who serves as third secretary of Russia's mission to the UN. “We will resort to such a step only if the US does it first,” the diplomat added.

CANADA - The Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) currently employs Paolo De Buono - a likely contender for the globe's most extreme and outspoken pro-LGBT teacher in a Catholic school. De Buono has publicly and shamelessly rebuked Ontario's Catholic authorities, including Archbishop of Toronto Francis Leo, for teaching and upholding Catholic faith and morals. Now Paolo's sister, Divina De Buono, goes on the record to respond to her brother's actions, providing further context for Paolo's unabashed support for the LGBT Agenda. Does Paolo De Buono have a vendetta against the Catholic Church and the Culture of Life?

UK - Cinnamon, basil, cloves and a bay leaf - no, it's not the ingredients of an autumnal dish, but what you need to join one - of the many - witches covens popping up in the UK. Paganism - the umbrella term referring to traditional Celtic religion - is one of the fastest growing religions in the UK. Every week thousands of people, primarily women, are meeting up in 'covens' and casting spells. For some it's for sisterhood, while others use meet-ups to cast spells and right 'wrongs in the world'. And it's not just in the UK, globally #WitchTok has racked up millions of views on TikTok - with groups meeting up in the US, Australia and beyond to 'cast spells on Putin and Trump'.

GABON - Following last month's military takeover in Niger, a group of senior Gabonese military officers announced on national television they were seizing power in the central African nation, overturning results in a disputed presidential election four days ago. Bloomberg reported the oil-rich nation (also an OPEC member) with a population of about 2 million saw dollar bonds tumble after military officers announced on television channel Gabon 24 that election results were canceled, borders closed, and state institutions including the Senate, National Assembly and Constitutional Court dissolved. "In the name of the Gabonese people… we have decided to defend the peace by putting an end to the current regime," one military office said. He said, "We call on the population for calm and serenity." If successful, the coup will be the eighth in West and Central Africa since 2020 — coups in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger.

AFRICA - When US Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland traveled to South Africa on July 29, her reputation as a blunt instrument of Washington’s hegemonic interests preceded her. According to a veteran South African official who attended meetings with the senior US diplomat in Pretoria, however, Nuland and her team were demonstrably unprepared to grapple with recent developments on the African continent — particularly the military coup that removed Niger’s pro-Western government hours before she launched her multi-stop tour of the region. “In over 20 years working with the Americans, I have never seen them so desperate,” the official told The Grayzone, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Pretoria was well aware of Nuland’s hawkish reputation, but when she arrived in Pretoria, the official described her as “totally caught off guard” by winds of change engulfing the region. The July putsch that saw a popular military junta come to power in Niger followed military coups in Mali and Burkina Faso that were similarly inspired by mass anti-colonial sentiment.

USA - The FBI has amassed 21.7 million DNA profiles — equivalent to about 7 percent of the US population — according to Bureau data reviewed by The Intercept. The FBI aims to nearly double its current $56.7 million budget for dealing with its DNA catalog with an additional $53.1 million, according to its budget request for fiscal year 2024. “The requested resources will allow the FBI to process the rapidly increasing number of DNA samples collected by the US Department of Homeland Security,” the appeal for an increase says. “When we’re talking about rapid expansion like this, it’s getting us ever closer to a universal DNA database,” Vera Eidelman, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union who specializes in genetic privacy, told The Intercept. “I think the civil liberties implications here are significant.”

EUROPE - The Internet just changed forever, but most people living in the United States don’t even realize what just happened. A draconian new law known as the “Digital Services Act” went into effect in the European Union on Friday, and it establishes an extremely strict regime of Internet censorship that is far more authoritarian than anything we have ever seen before. From this point forward, hordes of European bureaucrats will be the arbiters of what is acceptable to say on the Internet. If they discover something that you have said on a large online platform that they do not like, they can force that platform to take it down, because someone in Europe might see it. So even though this is a European law, the truth is that it is going to have a tremendous impact on all of us. Starting on August 25th, 2023, tech giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and more must comply with sweeping legislation that holds online platforms legally accountable for the content posted to them. Even though this new law was passed in the EU, we’ll likely see far-reaching global effects as companies adjust their policies to comply. And so that means that “hundreds of unelected EU bureaucrats” will be in control of speech on the Internet now…

UK - In a major shift in attitudes over the past decade, a survey of priests in England conducted by the Times found that more than half supported a change in law to allow clergy to conduct the marriage of gay couples, with 53.4% in favour compared with 36.5% against. The last time Anglican priests in England were asked, in 2014, shortly after the legalisation of same-sex civil marriage, 51% said same-sex marriage was “wrong”, compared with 39% who approved. Last year a row erupted at the first Lambeth conference (a meeting of Anglican bishops from around the world) in 14 years, when the archbishop of Canterbury faced sharp criticism for affirming a 1998 declaration that gay sex was a sin. But the new poll found that 64.5% of priests in England backed an end to the teaching that “homosexual practice is incompatible with scripture”. The survey also found that three-quarters of respondents thought Britain could no longer be described as a Christian country. Almost two-thirds (64.2%) said Britain could be called Christian “but only historically, not currently”.

USA - Homes were ripped to shreds by the storm surge and extreme winds in the hardest-hit areas of Florida’s Gulf Coast, including places like Horseshoe Beach, which is south of where Category 3 Hurricane Idalia crashed ashore. Trucks were tossed around like toys by the destructive force of water driven inland by the hurricane. Metal was twisted and strewn about as boats were ripped from their mooring. Debris clogged canals as trees were stripped and toppled over in many areas. President Biden declared a major disaster in Florida on Thursday morning in Hurricane Idalia’s wake. “The President’s action makes Federal funding available to affected individuals in the counties of Citrus, Dixie, Hamilton, Lafayette, Levy, Suwannee, and Taylor,” the White House said in a statement. “There are some communities that may never look the same and others that will get rebuilt that will look slightly different,” Moskowitz told CNN. "This is a life-changing event for some of these counties.”

USA - Electric customers across parts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina are without power this morning in the wake of Idalia. Outages across the four states on Thursday morning were around 309,000, according to PowerOutage.us, down from the 600,000 that were facing outages on Wednesday evening. However, some of the hardest-hit regions of Florida and Georgia could face outages into the weekend as utility crews work to repair broken lines and snapped power poles. On Wednesday, Duke Energy Lead Communications Manager told AccuWeather that extensive damage and flooding were impacting the company’s ability to restore power in parts of Florida, but power restoration work will begin when the weather conditions are safe for utility crews.

GERMANY - Berlin is debating reactions to the BRICS group’s increase in influence following its successful summit in Johannesburg last week. The West’s attempt – Germany’s included – to drive a wedge into the group has failed: Despite disputes over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s participation, the summit made two major advances. BRICS will admit six nations as members by January 1, 2024, including the four most powerful in the Middle East, where the West’s influence will be noticeably reduced. The bloc’s share of the global GDP will rise from around 25 to approximately 37 percent. In addition, BRICS countries will shift their trade transactions from the US dollar to national currencies, to an even greater extent than before, most likely including Saudi, Emirati and Iranian oil trade. This will gradually reduce the US currency’s global importance. German government advisors are promoting a shift from a strategy of division to one of inclusion vis-à-vis BRICS to prevent a further loss of the West’s influence.

USA - Until March the direct link between the Nuclear Risk Reduction Centres (nrrcs) of the world’s two biggest nuclear powers was alive with messages informing each other about the movement of missiles and bombers. Under New start, which came into force in 2011 and which includes caps on long-range nuclear weapons, there were 2,000-odd such notifications in 2022. No longer. The half-yearly updates on warhead numbers have stopped, too. And there have been no on-site inspections since March 2020.

USA - Xi Van Fleet escaped from communist China, but not before witnessing the horrors of life under Mao Zedong, who was responsible for the deaths of millions of people, mostly by starvation. When she looks at what the left is doing to Trump, she has a warning for America. She says this is just what China’s ‘Cultural Revolution’ looked like. She accuses the left of being Marxists and says that no one is safe because they will eventually come for everyone.