EUROPE - Brexiteer Ben Habib issued a stark warning to the European Union about the future of the bloc and warned of growing Eurosceptic movements on the continent. During an interview with Express.co.uk, Mr Habib hinted member states, Spain, Greece, Italy and France could one day push to try to leave the European Union. He insisted this was due to the bloc's initial handling of the coronavirus pandemic. He added if Britain makes a success of Brexit, other countries may want to follow in the UK's footsteps. Mr Habib said: "The EU fears greatly that other countries will wish to leave. That is one of the reasons why it cannot allow the UK to have a successful Brexit. Countries such as Greece, Italy, Spain and even France, France is in real trouble, these countries have significant Eurosceptic movements and they are growing.” He said: "There is another reason why the EU cannot allow Britain to have a successful exit. It is because you will then see the Eurosceptic movements in France, Italy, Greece, Spain and eastern parts of the European Union grow. They will really be banging the drum saying we need to get out of the EU."

GERMANY - As the political and economic centre of the world shifts from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific, and geostrategic competition increases, Germany, the EU and NATO want closer defence cooperation with nations such as Australia. Germany’s defence minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, told an online seminar organised by ASPI that Australia was regarded as a ‘rock of stability’ in the region and had a key role to play in maintaining peace and security. ‘We intend to expand security and defence cooperation with those who share our values in the region, intensify our military contexts and promote dialogue on matters of security.’ Germany planned to send naval vessels to patrol Indian Ocean trade routes next year and it was discussing with the Australian Defence Force the possibility of placing liaison officers aboard Australian naval vessels, she said. ‘We need strong partnerships … between Germany and Australia, but we also need an international network that goes beyond that.’ She added that the relationship with Australia was all-encompassing and not just about security and defence.

GERMANY - Germany has given the green light to purchase jets worth at least €5.4 billion. The air force said that the new aircraft will be equipped with the latest technology and could be used against targets on the ground. The contract is part of the German Defense Ministry's long-term plan to gain at least 93 Eurofighter jets, along with 45 F-18s from Boeing. Decisions on the purchase of the remaining jets are expected after Germany's federal election next year. Germany's ruling grand coalition government as well as the Free Democratic party (FDP), and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party voted in favor of the billion-dollar purchase. The Left party voted against the deal, and the Greens abstained.

AFRICA - Flowing through 11 African countries, the Nile River plays an important role in the lives of more than 24% of Africa’s population. To both upstream and downstream countries, the Nile waters are crucial in development planning, food and energy production. As countries vie for these resources, there has been immense tension. Most notably, Egypt and Sudan have challenged Ethiopia’s decision to construct and fill the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. This is a huge project on one of the Nile’s main tributaries, the Blue Nile, which supplies more than 80% of the water reaching Egypt. Treaties are needed to govern the allocation of water resources in the region. Our study shows that there’s a looming water crisis in the Nile basin. This calls for an urgent regional basin initiative on sustainable water resources management. It won’t be easy to get the 11 countries in the basin to agree to a water sharing plan to avoid chronic water shortages in the future. But key to ensuring cooperation is good information sharing and technical cooperation between the riparian states.

USA - Blizzard-like conditions, record volumes of snow and ice started accumulating Sunday and Monday across Alaska and NW Canada, blocking roads, knocking down power for thousands and forcing school and businesses’ closures. The extreme cold temperatures are due to frigid Arctic air moving farther south than expected. This is the first time since 2008 that -40°F has been recorded this early in the season for the entire state of Alaska and the earliest day in the season that Fairbanks has reached 20 below since 1996. And it seems like these extreme temperatures and the intense snowfall will continue throughout the week.

USA - President Donald Trump responded to the presidential election results during the early morning hours on Wednesday, which showed a very tight race between Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, by suggesting that the election could be decided by the Supreme Court.

CHINA - The Global Times, a newspaper owned by the Chinese state, lamented on Wednesday that the extended vote-counting process in America proved the country is “not synonymous to a stable, civilized, and consensus-based society anymore.” The Times regularly predicts the downfall of American civilization and has referred to the United States in the past as “primitive.” Columns in the newspaper often portray Chinese-style communist totalitarianism as a superior government model to America’s free society, comparing its “harmony” — the product of criminalizing political dissent — favorably to the “chaos” of a state in which citizens can vocally disagree. “Disputes, chaos, and the refusal of election results by certain candidates were supposed to take place in developing countries where political conditions were not stable, and definitely not in a country like the US.”

USA - By the time many of you read this, more of the votes will have been counted and the mainstream media may have decided to call the race for Biden. If that happens, this could be perhaps the first national election in US history where almost everybody loses. Let me illustrate what I mean. Here are some of the potential losers in this election…

EUROPE - The United States and the European Union need a “new transatlantic relationship,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday, adding that Europe has asserted its sovereignty in the Trump era. The EU and Washington will have to reset their relations after the US presidential election, irrespective of who wins it, the French foreign minister said on Thursday. The world has changed in four years and there “will be no going back to the previous situation, to the good old times of transatlantic relations.” Le Drian told Europe 1 radio: “We will have to build a new transatlantic relationship, which will be a new partnership.” He said, however, that France would work “with the person elected and the new US government, whatever happens.” “Europe has in the past four years asserted its sovereignty, in the areas of security, defense and strategic autonomy,” according to Le Drian. The EU’s common defense fund and moves to regulate US internet giants’ activities show that the continent “has shed its naivety… and begun to assert itself as a power.”

EUROPE - Eurocrats have based future economic forecasts on a no-deal Brexit as the European Union prepares for a second devastating recession. The European Commission said the second wave of coronavirus lockdowns would further dampen the bloc’s ability to bounce back from its worst economic crisis on record. In its Autumn Economic Forecast, the EU executive said next year’s recovery would be subdued as Britain is predicted to leave the single market and customs union on World Trade Organisation terms. The report said: “Given the uncertainty about the future trading relationship between the UK and EU, it is also assumed, without any prejudice to the outcome of the ongoing negotiations, that the EU and UK will trade on WTO Most Favoured Nation rules from January 1, 2021 onward. This implies a much less beneficial trade relationship with economic costs for the UK, and to a lesser extent, the EU.” Commission economists predicted the Eurozone economy would shrink by 7.8 percent in 2020…

USA - Even if Trump loses, the truth is that to many Americans Trumpism isn’t a pathology but a new normal which is a product of a massive social divide caused by dissatisfaction with the political system and life in general. The world watches with bated breath as the US Presidential election sits at a dead heat. It’s going down to the wire and nobody knows who is going to emerge victor yet.

USA - Polls before election day suggested possible outcomes ranging from a comfortable win for Joe Biden, to a narrow Donald Trump victory where he loses the national popular vote but once again carries enough battleground states to win in the electoral college. After a vote count that has stretched from the evening into the early morning hours, a Biden landslide is off the table. The victory will be narrow. It's just a matter of who and how - and how long until we know. A national race is boiling down to just a handful of states: Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

USA - The largest US banks are less healthy than they appear, boosted by temporary accounting and capital-relief measures as well as massive market support from the Federal Reserve, an advocacy group said. Although the six biggest banks’ leverage ratios reported at the end of June averaged almost 2 percentage points above the regulatory minimums, the actual average would have been only 0.84 percentage points above without the relief measures, Americans for Financial Reform said in a report Monday. “We’re not in a 2008 situation where major banks are facing collapse, but we’re going into an uncertain future due to the pandemic, and the big banks aren’t in as good a shape as they appear,” Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, said in an interview.

USA - Until recently, at least, the US was rightly focused on finding ways to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic that prioritize the health of American citizens. And economic health cannot be restored until people feel safe going about their daily business. But health risks and economic risks must be considered together. In calculating the risks of reopening the economy, we must understand the true costs of remaining closed. At some point, they will become more than the country can bear.

USA - “Ballots have been mailed in to the New York City Board of Elections in the name of dead voters,” reports the New York Post. What’s so troubling about this is that there is no way this is an oopsie, no way it happened by accident. You don’t “accidentally” request a mail-in ballot that belongs to a dead person, fill it out, and return it. This feels like an organized effort on behalf of some person or organization that is going to a lot of trouble to find out who’s dead but still on the voter rolls, and vote on their behalf. And you can bet this isn’t a Republican effort. If it were, it would be the biggest story in the world right now. But because it is almost only Democrats who cheat, we’re gas-lighted with the media lies about how voter fraud isn’t a real problem. This, despite the fact, Jack Kennedy almost certainly beat Richard Nixon in 1960 thanks to all those dead voters in Chicago.