SOUTH AMERICA - Brazil and Argentina are monitoring a cloud of locusts that’s crossing South America, issuing warnings in parts of the countries. The insects, which entered Argentina from Paraguay, are heading toward Uruguay. While they are not expected to affect Brazil’s crops, the nation’s agriculture ministry on Thursday declared a state of emergency in two southern states in order to allow officials to take preventive measures. The swarm of locusts is close to the province of Entre Rios, Argentina’s food safety department Senasa said in a report on June 23. So far, there has been no damage to crops in the area, according to the department. Massive swarms of locusts have ravaged fields in Africa and Pakistan, destroying crops and dealing a crippling blow to economies.

EUROPE - Walk into any meeting in Brussels and, most likely, a German will be leading it. In the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the former German defence minister, is in charge. For the next six months, German ministers will be cajoling their peers into signing off legislation as the country takes over the EU’s rotating presidency. In the European Council, where the bloc’s leaders butt heads, it might technically be Charles Michel, the former prime minister of Belgium, heading it. But it is Angela Merkel — longer in post than the leaders of France, Spain, Italy and Poland combined — who is the undisputed top dog. The EU’s main response to the Covid-19 crisis — a flagship €750 billion recovery fund paid for with debt issued collectively by the EU — is based on a plan cooked up in Berlin and Paris. The Germans are running the show. Usually, German power in Brussels is the political equivalent of dark matter: invisible, difficult to measure and yet everywhere. Now the Germans are stars, shining so bright as to be impossible to ignore. Germany has the means to change Europe — if it chooses.

EUROPE - The US may voluntarily relinquish its status as a world power and Europeans must brace themselves for such a contingency, including by boosting their militaries, the German chancellor has warned. European nations need “to carry more of the burden than during the cold war” in terms of defense spending, Merkel said, because they cannot assume that the US will be there to protect them.

USA - One of the things you know if you were brought up as a Catholic in a Protestant country, as I was, is how the attempted extirpation of England’s historic Catholic faith was enforced not just by executions, imprisonments, and public burnings but also by the destruction of monuments, statues, artifacts, paintings, buildings, and sacred sculptures. The shift in consciousness that the religious revolution required could not be sustained by words or terror alone. The new regime — an early pre-totalitarian revolution imposed from the top down — had to remove all signs of what had come before. The items were not merely forms of idolatry in the minds of the newly austere Protestant vision; they also served to perpetuate the rule of the pope. They could be occasions for treason, heresy, and sin. The impulse for wiping the slate clean is universal. Injustices mount; moderation seems inappropriate; radicalism wins and then tries to destroy the legacy of the past as a whole.

GERMANY - Germany has been left furious over the threats from US President Donald Trump to kill off the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with additional sanctions, with Angela Merkel ready to strike back as a huge backlash escalates. Chancellor Angela Merkel's administration is considering lobbying for coordinated action from the European Union, two German officials familiar with the discussions told Bloomberg.

USA - Multiple signs point to a crisis in global order. The uncoordinated international response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting economic downturns, the resurgence of nationalist politics, and the hardening of state borders all seem to herald the emergence of a less cooperative and more fragile international system. According to many observers, these developments underscore the dangers of US President Donald Trump’s “America first” policies and his retreat from global leadership.

EUROPE - The Eurozone economy faces irreparable damage from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the European Central Bank's president has warned. Christine Lagarde said the economic recovery after the crisis will be “restrained” because households have decided to save instead of spend. She added that airlines and hotels across the European Union’s 19-country single currency bloc will suffer “irredeemable” damage.

EUROPE - EU leaders have been warned Italy is likely to cause the "biggest problems" to the bloc in the foreseeable future as the founding member of the Brussels club will be in huge economic strain after the coronavirus pandemic. The warning comes from economist Roger Bootle who told Brexit Watch he believes the mood in Italy over the benefits of the European Union membership has drastically changed. Mr Bootle claims Italians were among those who were most excited to join the EU at first, but now think the bloc is a burden. He said: "It is Italy that all along I thought it is likely to cause the biggest problems because, of course, it is under enormous economic strain.

USA - It is hard to escape the feeling that this is a uniquely humiliating moment for America. Even in previous moments of American vulnerability, Washington reigned supreme. Whatever moral or strategic challenge it faced, there was a sense that its political vibrancy matched its economic and military might, that its system and democratic culture were so deeply rooted that it could always regenerate itself. It was as if the very idea of America mattered, an engine driving it on whatever other glitches existed under the hood. Now, something appears to be changing. America seems mired, its very ability to rebound in question. A new power has emerged on the world stage to challenge American supremacy — China — with a weapon the Soviet Union never possessed: mutually assured economic destruction.

USA - America's most senior general warned that "divisiveness leads to defeat" in a speech to Naval War College graduates on Wednesday. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley counseled the audience to "eliminate anything that divides us." While he also spoke of the traditional need to keep an eye on adversaries "during periods when we are weary from conflict or otherwise preoccupied," and did not mention President Donald Trump by name, his comments appeared to address the broader backdrop of racial divisiveness in the country and concerns within the Pentagon about the military becoming politicized. Milley told the students, "We who wear the cloth of our nation must hold dear the principle of an apolitical military that is so deeply rooted in the very essence of our Republic."

USA - Just when you think that 2020 has been filled with enough trouble, even more stuff starts happening. Coming into this week, we were already dealing with a new COVID-19 surge which has pushed the number of daily cases to the highest levels we have seen so far, a global economy which is in the process of imploding all around us, massive civil unrest in US cities from coast to coast, and giant swarms of locusts that are wiping out farms all the way from eastern Africa to parts of India. Unfortunately, now we have several more items to add to our growing list.

USA - The coronavirus surge is real, and it's everywhere. The coronavirus pandemic is getting dramatically worse in almost every corner of the US. The big picture: The US today is getting closer to the worst-case scenario envisioned in the spring — a nationwide crisis, made worse by a vacuum of political leadership, threatening to overwhelm hospitals and spread out of control. Nationwide, cases are up 30% compared to the beginning of this month, and dramatically worsening outbreaks in several states are beginning to strain hospital capacity — the same concern that prompted the nationwide lockdown in the first place. What’s next: Younger people are making up a greater share of all cases, and tend to be less susceptible to serious injury or death, so hopefully this spike in new cases won’t be followed by an equivalent spike in deaths. But it’s too early to say that for sure.

USA - Fear of COVID-19 absolutely crippled the US economy during the first half of this year, and now it appears that there are some people that are pushing for that to happen again during the second half of 2020. Earlier this evening, I came across a headline that boldly declared that there will be “180,000 US deaths of COVID-19 by October”, and right now just about every mainstream news outlet is running stories about how the number of confirmed cases in the US is surging. And it is definitely true that we are seeing an alarming rise in the number of confirmed cases.

USA - The US has broken its own record for the number of coronavirus cases recorded in a single day, with more than 38,000 new patients confirmed in the last 24 hours, topping a high set in April, as some states see infections spike. Some 38,672 new cases were reported on Wednesday, according to data collected by the Covid Tracking Project, breaking a previous record set on April 25 by 2,671 infections. The new milestone comes amid a resurgence of the virus across some regions of the country, particularly in southern states. To date, the US has tallied in excess of 2.3 million coronavirus infections and more than 115,000 deaths, holding its place as the world’s top hotspot for the illness. With outbreaks taking off in South America, however, Brazil has been thrust into second place, with some 1.1 million cases and nearly 54,000 fatalities.

EUROPE - Europe has seen an increase in weekly cases of Covid-19 for the first time in months as restrictions are eased, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. In 11 places, which include Armenia, Sweden, Moldova and North Macedonia, accelerated transmission has led to "very significant resurgence", said Regional Director Dr Hans Henri Kluge. His warnings about the risk of resurgence had become reality, he said. If left unchecked, he warned health systems would be "pushed to the brink". More than 2.6 million cases of Covid-19 and 195,000 deaths have been reported in the WHO's European region, which is expansive, covering 54 countries and seven territories across Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. Almost 20,000 new cases and more than 700 new deaths are being recorded daily.