GERMANY - There seems to be a new drug to treat anything and everything these days, but are these medications as effective as they claim to be? A new study has concluded that the answer to that question is no. Furthermore, researchers say that international drug development processes, standards, and policies are fundamentally broken and must be reformed. According to the study performed at the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care, more than half of the new drugs entering the German healthcare system show absolutely no added benefit.

GERMANY - The German government intends to continue the war mission of the Bundeswehr (Germany‘s Armed Forces) in Syria and deploy the Air Force in the entire region beyond October 31, contrary to the provisions of its current parliamentary mandate. This was announced by government spokesman Steffen Seibert at a press conference in Berlin earlier this week. For years, Germany has made “a considerable and internationally recognized contribution to the anti-IS coalition,” explained Seibert. The Bundeswehr was “active in aerial reconnaissance, in aerial refuelling and also in the training of Iraqi units.” Now the German government “together with our allies, with the American side, is talking about how the engagement in the region should develop further.”

GERMANY - The state of the German chancellor’s health has implications well beyond her country’s borders. Merkel is widely considered the most important leader in Europe, a fact that makes the state of her health an important issue well beyond her country’s borders. With questions swirling about the suitability of her chosen successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the chancellor’s sudden departure would almost certainly unleash a period of chaos. There’s no guarantee Germany’s governing coalition would hold, for example, forcing a new election that — if current polls are to be believed — would upend Germany’s political landscape with profound implications for all of Europe.

UK - After a leak revealed that the British Ambassador to the USA had called Trump "inept, insecure and incompetent" (leading to the ambassador’s resignation and a round of Twitter insults between Trump and senior Tory officials), London’s Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu publicly warned journalists not to publish government leaks, threatening to imprison them if they do: "I would advise all owners, editors and publishers of social and mainstream media not to publish leaked government documents that may already be in their possession, or which may be offered to them, and to turn them over to the police or give them back to their rightful owner, Her Majesty’s Government."

PHILIPPINES - An earthquake of magnitude 5.8 has struck the Philippines according to seismologists. The EMSC Twitter account reports the earthquake struck 175km (109 miles) north east of the city of Cagayan de Oro. The city is in the northern part of the Mindanao island, the second largest in the country. The magnitude of 5.8 is in the top of the moderate ranking with damage to some buildings and can be felt by everyone in the vicinity. The tremor was detected 158 miles from Davao, a city of 1.6 million, where current Philippine President Rodrigo Durtete served as mayor. Cagayan de Oro, whose name translates from local languages and Spanish as River of Gold, has a population of over 675,000 thousand. The Philippines is located within the ring of fire, a major basin straddling the Pacific Ocean where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are prone to occur. Around 90 percent of the world’s earthquakes occur in this part of the world.

FINLAND - A new scientific study could bust wide open deeply flawed fundamental assumptions underlying controversial climate legislation and initiatives such as the Green New Deal, namely, the degree to which ‘climate change’ is driven by natural phenomena vs man-made issues measured as carbon footprint. Scientists in Finland found “practically no anthropogenic [man-made] climate change” after a series of studies.

GERMANY - German prosecutor Ralph Knispel has claimed that courts in the German capital are so overburdened, they lack the capacity to carry out litigation against suspects. In Berlin alone, there are an estimated 8,500 arrest warrants yet to be carried out, according to Knispel who said that the criminal scene in the city is “laughing at the justice system”, German news magazine Focus reports. Knispel made his claims on a German television programme, adding that lack of resources meant that things like DNA tests could take anywhere from two to three years to be analysed due to a lack of trained staff and resources.

USA - Reuters reports that Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, has warned that Facebook’s digital currency Libra “cannot go forward” until serious concerns about the project are addressed. Powell commented on Facebook’s project during his semi-annual testimony on monetary policy before the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. Powell stated: “Libra raises many serious concerns regarding privacy, money laundering, consumer protection, and financial stability.” Powell later added “I don’t think the project can go forward,” without addressing those issues.

MIDDLE EAST - On Wednesday, five Iranian gunboats attempted to seize a British oil tanker as it was traveling through the Persian Gulf …this was apparently done in retaliation for an incident which happened in Gibraltar less than a week earlier. British Royal Marines captured a tanker that was reportedly taking Iranian oil to Syria, and the Iranian government warned the British that there would be “consequences” for that action. Apparently the Iranians felt that since the British grabbed an oil tanker that they should return the favor, and they may have gotten away with it if a British warship had not quickly intervened.

CHINA - The largest supplier of consumer goods in the world - China's Li & Fung - has said that Chinese factories are becoming "urgent and desperate" as US retailers move out of the country amid the ongoing trade war, according to Bloomberg, and more factory shut downs are likely to follow as the trade war continues. Companies like Li & Fung Ltd, which designs, sources and transports consumer goods from Asia for some of the world’s biggest retailers, are being pushed by their American clients to shift production out of China. Because of its position as a liaison connecting American retail companies to Asian factories, Fung has a clear perspective of the shifts taking place around the world due to the trade war. Fung continued, talking about President Trump and his Twitter habits: "Nobody’s investing, nobody’s buying. The trade war is causing people to stop investment because they don’t know where to put the money."

IRAN - A report from i24 News on Tuesday evening claimed Iranian officials secretly met with representatives of the US government in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. Sources for the report said the Iranian delegation represented an opposition group that might be attempting to dislodge the weakening regime in Tehran. The i24 report suggested there is division among both Iran’s secular government, currently headed by President Hassan Rouhani, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the branch of Iran’s military loyal to the theocracy of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. These disgruntled officials have purportedly been working with Kurdish groups in both Iran and Iraq to quietly communicate with the United States and Europe. The recent arrest of 125 Iranian officials and the disappearance or assassination of numerous others, including IRGC officers, was offered by i24’s sources as evidence of growing political unrest.

USA - Coulter broke down the Jeffrey Epstein case in an interview with 790 KABC on Monday and said she believes he was running a "blackmailing" operation and he may have a "state sponsor" behind him. "Epstein, according to both girls’ accounts, wanted them to have sex with powerful men, come back to him and report on it, describe what they wanted, what their fetishes were and he had cameras throughout the house so this is obviously for blackmailing purposes," Coulter said. "It just seems to me something much bigger is behind this - perhaps a state sponsor - powerful enough people ... it just seems to me there's something, a very powerful force, behind what's going on here and I am still nervous about this not coming to a conclusion, somehow this getting compromised," she said. Coulter said prosecutors should investigate how he got his money and became a billionaire because his official story is not believable.

USA - Back in 2015, onstage at the annual CPAC conference, Trump said something very interesting about Bill Clinton. "Nice guy," he said. "Got a lot of problems coming up, in my opinion, with the famous island with Jeffrey Epstein. Lot of problems." Trump knew what he was talking about. Vanity Fair reports that, shortly before CPAC, Trump was approached by David Pecker, who then owned the National Enquirer. Pecker visited Trump and brought along "an issue with a Prince Andrew and Epstein-related cover." They were joined by Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.

USA - The much-vaunted “special relationship” between the two English-speaking nations on either side of the Atlantic was always something of a myth. Trump has no time for allies anyway. His worldview is molded by sycophants, and the Brits who know the way to his heart — TV personality Piers Morgan and politician Nigel Farage — are Brexit supporters. His animosity toward the EU is matched by his feeling that NATO is largely a racket designed to get the United States to pay for Europe’s defense. This is a cautionary tale for Israelis as well. Trump doesn’t support Israel. He has no inkling of the issues facing it. He feels comfortable with Israel because of his personal rapport with his friend Bibi. Today, Israel enjoys a special relationship with the United States. But if Israel’s voters, or its criminal justice system, finally turf Netanyahu out of office, he will find a way to show his displeasure. Trump only has special relationships with himself.

USA - Ask members of the Washington diplomatic corps about the cables that Sir Kim Darroch, the British ambassador who resigned Wednesday, wrote to London describing the dysfunction and chaos of the Trump administration, and their response is uniform: We wrote the same stuff. “Yes, yes, everyone does,” Gérard Araud, who retired this spring as the French ambassador, said on Wednesday morning of his own missives from Washington. “But fortunately I knew that nothing would remain secret, so I sent them in a most confidential manner.”