CHINA - Brawls break out and shelves stripped bare as Chinese city heads for 'strictest lockdown'. Images started to circulate on Chinese social media site, Weibo after the lockdown was announced, showing people climbing over each other in supermarkets and cars packed with supplies. Residents in a city of 21 million people brawled over supplies as they clambered to stock up before the "world's strictest lockdown". The Chinese government announced controversial measures to plunge Chengdu into lockdown and only allow one resident per household out to get supplies. The decision was made after just 157 new covid cases were discovered in the capital of southwestern China's Sichuan province on Thursday, 51 of which were asymptomatic. China's much-maligned "zero covid" policy means that cities are forced to enter strict lockdowns even if just a handful of cases are discovered, like in Chengdu's case.

SAUDI ARABIA - After Democrat President Joe Biden folded and went to Saudi Arabia in a desperate bid to drive down oil prices, OPEC and allied oil-producing countries have now announced they will cut oil production. In July, Biden visited Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to beg for help in lowering gas prices after previously bashing the country’s leadership, as Slay News reported.

GERMANY - German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned that uncertainty over gas supplies from Russia will pose a stiff test for European Union solidarity this winter. Officials including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have accused Vladimir Putin of using energy supplies as a weapon to divide the EU, and Baerbock underscored the importance of standing up to the Russian leader and presenting a united front. The bloc’s 27 members are seeking to avoid the tensions that divided member states in the aftermath of the financial crisis. “The elephant in the room is the energy question,” Baerbock said Monday in a speech to German ambassadors in Berlin. “We must be prepared that this aspect of division will be a central building block of Russia’s hybrid warfare in the coming months,” she added. The key issue for the EU will be “whether we’ll be able to secure the gas supply for all people in Europe or not,” Baerbock said. “We will be put through a hard test by this question.”

TURKEY - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that Russia is cutting natural gas flows to Europe in retaliation for sanctions, adding that Europe is "reaping what it sowed". Fears in Europe have increased over a potentially bleak winter after Russia announced it was keeping its main gas pipeline to Germany shut. Russia indefinitely halted the flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and has cut or shut down supplies on three of its biggest westward gas pipelines since its invasion of Ukraine began on February 24. Oil supplies have also been redirected eastwards. NATO-member Turkey has sought to strike a balance between Moscow and Kyiv by criticising Russia's invasion and sending arms to Ukraine, while opposing the Western sanctions and continuing trade, tourism and investment with Russia.

ITALY - One hundred years after he took power, the cult of Benito Mussolini persists in the small Italian town of Predappio, where his tomb draws tens of thousands of visitors each year. Many are just curious but others are driven by nostalgia for a past that weighs heavily on the party tipped for victory in the general election on September 25 - Giorgia Meloni's post-fascist Brothers of Italy. "Mussolini was a great statesman. He promoted labour law and social protection. But he made mistakes with his alliance with Hitler and the shameful racial laws," said Fabiana di Carlo, a 42-year-old civil servant visiting from Rome with her daughter. Her view is typical of many Italians, who draw a line between what Mussolini did before and after his alliance with the Nazis and Italy's entry into World War II.

NETHERLANDS - The Netherlands’ agricultural minister Henk Staghouwer has been forced to resign following widespread protests from Dutch farmers over his radical climate agenda that seeks to destroy their livelihoods. Staghouwer was leading the Dutch agriculture ministry’s climate policy that involved confiscating farms in a forced government buy-out scheme.

IRELAND - Enoch Burke was arrested at Wilson's Hospital School on Monday morning after disobeying a court order and "sitting in an empty classroom" at the school. Schoolteacher Enoch Burke has been charged with contempt of court and committed to Mountjoy Prison after failing to comply with a High Court injunction preventing him from attending or teaching at his secondary school in County Westmeath. He will remain in Mountjoy Prison until he purges his contempt or until further orders from the High Court, Mr Justice Michael Quinn told the court on Monday. Representing himself, Burke said he loved his job and loved to teach, adding that he could not comply with the school's request to "call a boy a girl", which was something he could not do in good conscience. He said he respected the law and the court system but added that he could not comply with the court order as doing so would make him a hypocrite. Burke said he could not purge his contempt because he believed it was something he considered to be a breach of his Christian beliefs.

USA - Dr Paul R McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder.

USA - Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp has declared a state of emergency for two counties in his state as flooding causes heavy damage. Kemp announced the declaration on Sunday after reports of flooded homes and roadways due to ongoing storms across parts of Georgia. “Following severe flooding in North Georgia today, I have declared a State of Emergency in Chattooga and Floyd Counties. As we work with local partners to address the damage in affected communities. The National Weather Service said rainfall of up to one inch per hour and up to 10 inches total had fallen in Chattooga County. “This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation. Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order,” the service said, according to the Associated Press.

UK - A Remain supporter who has become the darling of the Brexit-backing Conservative right wing. A former Liberal Democrat activist, who marched against Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, but who now claims to be the keeper of the Thatcherite flame. It is fair to say that Mary Elizabeth Truss has been on a political journey. She may not be a household name like her predecessor at Number 10 - and she was not the first choice of Tory MPs to replace Boris Johnson. But her promise to return to fundamental Conservative values - cutting taxes and shrinking the state - proved to be exactly what party members, who got the final say over who took over from Mr Johnson, wanted to hear. And, crucially, as foreign secretary she remained loyal to Mr Johnson until the bitter end as other ministers deserted him, winning her favour with Johnson loyalists. Grassroots Tory supporters of Liz Truss see in her the steadfast, tenacious and determined qualities they admired in Margaret Thatcher - an image Ms Truss herself has tried to cultivate. But despite her shifting political positions and allegiances over the years, these words also come up frequently when friends and family are asked to describe her character - along with "ambitious".

USA - MONOPOLY is one of the best, and most viewed documentaries of all time, even in an age of extreme worldwide censorship, that tries to hide these kinds of truths. But for those of you who haven’t viewed it yet, I want to give a brief summary, hoping this will tickle you enough to watch it anyway, despite your busy schedule. In our world we see millions of brands, names, logos that all seem to compete with one another. There are countless corporations offering different services in clothing, food, travel, technology, agriculture, finance, medicine, and so on. Today all those major brands that seem to compete, are essentially owned by one and the same corporation: Vanguard.

GERMANY - Germany's “neighbors” should set up a joint air defense system amid the Ukraine conflict and other security challenges, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has proposed. “We have a lot of catching up to do in Europe when it comes to defense against airborne and space-based threats. That is why we in Germany will be investing very significantly in our air defense over the years ahead,” Scholz said in a speech at Charles University in Prague on Monday. “At the same time, Germany will from the very start design future air defense in a way that our European neighbors can be involved in, if [they] desire,” he added. The chancellor stated that maintaining a joint air defense shield would be “more efficient and cost effective” than if each country continued to develop its own defense solutions.

GERMANY - In certain critical areas the chancellor has suggested switching to majority voting. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday called on EU members to abandon the right to veto in favor of majority voting in a number of key areas. Such a move could facilitate the bloc’s future expansion. Speaking at the Charles University in Prague, Scholz argued that changing voting practices may help to grow the EU, given that currently any bloc member can veto the accession of a candidate country. He also suggested introducing majority voting on a number of pressing matters, including sanctions and human rights. “Where unanimity is required today, the risk of an individual country using its veto and preventing all the others from forging ahead increases with each additional member state,” the German chancellor said.

RUSSIA - After a 3-day halt, Russian energy giant Gazprom was expected to resume critical supplies of natural gas to Europe via Nord Stream 1 tomorrow, but it appears that Putin, who is enjoying the game of cat and mouse a little too much, had other plans and as a result, Russian gas flows toward Europe won’t be coming back any time soon, as moments ago Gazprom announced that it had “completely halted” transport of gas to Nord Stream until a previously undetected oil leakage is rectified. The “shocking development” is a massive blow to Europe, which is scrambling to fill up its gas storage ahead of winter and which has been trying to guess Moscow’s next steps in the energy war for weeks. That means that Europe will now be forced to rely even more on… well… Russian gas, in the form of much more expensive LNG resold by China. And after tumbling by more than 50% in the past few days, we fully expect European gas prices are about to go super parabolic and take out all time highs as soon as trading returns on Monday. The news promptly sent spoos [a slang term for index futures contracts on the S&P 500] sliding back under 4000 as any hope Europe’s energy hyperinflation was finally over were just steamrolled by the Russian president.

KOSOVO - Another war in Kosovo has been avoided, but the compromise reached is anything but a solution to the tensions between Belgrade and Pristina. The events throughout late July in the Balkans – alarms sounding at the administrative border between Serbia and Kosovo, locals hastily erecting barricades, gunshots, forces redeploying, calls for peace from the Serbian president and NATO’s vow to intervene should the situation escalate – have led many to believe Europe is on the brink of another war. Yet diplomatic efforts were somewhat successful: Pristina agreed to postpone for a month its decision – the source of the tension in the first place – to bar holders of Serbian documents and license plates from entering Kosovo. This has given diplomats enough time to convince the sides to make mutual concessions and work out a compromise. The resolution will most likely only delay an escalation that has been looming over the region for several decades already. Despite being smaller than Connecticut in the US or Thuringia in Germany, these 11 square kilometers of historic Kosovo lands are still in the middle of a crisis that can affect the whole world.