John Lewis losses widen to £124m as shopper confidence dips

• The United Nations trained nearly 200 community health officers in Rwanda to prepare the government for a potential Ebola outbreak. • Training focused on early detection, risk communication, and infection and prevention and control.

• UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the multilateral system is straining under fractured geopolitics during his opening address at the 81st UN General Assembly. • Guterres cited a combination of nuclear escalation risks, worsening climate chaos, and declining financial resources for humanitarian operations.

• Former President Donald Trump stated on September 9 that he intends to speak with countries that sanctioned settlements to understand their reasoning. • Otzma Yehudit filed a 39-page request alleging that two nonprofits linked to the Ra’am party, Aid 48 and Humanitarian Deeds, transferred millions of shekels to terrorist organizations.

• The Ministry of National Defense dispatched a local fact-finding mission to the Middle East to evaluate troop deployment to the Strait of Hormuz. • The mission focuses specifically on the strategic logistics and security requirements of deploying personnel to this critical waterway.

• India is attempting to build consensus among member nations at the BRICS summit to overcome deep global divisions. • Harsh V Pant of the Observer Research Foundation notes that India will prioritize the developmental challenges of the Global South to foster unity.

• Professor Michel Chossudovsky released a video on September 9, 2026, discussing the historical and geopolitical implications of the September 11, 2001 attacks. • The presentation argues that the 9/11 attacks were instrumental in changing the nature of wars led by the United States and NATO.

• Harsh Pant, Vice President of the Observer Research Foundation, stated that the upcoming BRICS summit will test India's diplomatic capabilities during a period of global fragmentation. • Pant noted that current wars in Europe and the Middle East are creating geopolitical instability with no clear end in sight.

The strikes come after it was revealed that Ukraine’s president Volodomyr Zelenskyy’s plane was almost hit by a drone when leaving Moldova this weekMeanwhile, Reuters reported that Nato allies interrupted a Russian plot training to unleash a secret weapon designed to disable critical undersea cables without leaving any fingerprints.Two 1,400 km subsea fiber-optic cables linking Svalbard to mainland Norway lie as deep as 2,700 metres below the sea’s surface. They carry ⁠vast amounts of satellite data downloaded at the SvalSat satellite ground station, the world’s largest and part of NASA’s Near Space Network. Continue reading...

The sector is concerned by reports that there won’t be a cap on the levy that can be imposed by mayorsGood morning. Last year Andy Burnham, who was then mayor of Greater Manchester, and his close friend and ally Steve Rotheram, mayor of the Liverpool city region, were urging the government to allow mayors in England to bring in what they called a visitor levy.Burnham and Rotheram were pushing at an open door. In May this year Keir Starmer included plans for an overnight visitor levy bill in the king’s speech. Continue reading...

Funding cuts in 2025 left women, children, older and displaced people hard hit, with 64m fewer people receiving aidThe humanitarian aid system is crumbling as funding shrinks, pressures increase and governments not only fail to protect civilians but are increasingly responsible for endangering them, a new report warned on Thursday as figures revealed 64 million fewer people received aid last year.With aid contributions cut by 30% between 2022 and 2025 and thousands of aid workers losing their jobs, the humanitarian system has suffered one of its biggest contractions since being formed in the post-second world war era, according to the State of the Humanitarian System 2026 report. Continue reading...

Emissions of planet-heating methane and CO2 from natural sources are worsening the climate crisis, paper saysRising global temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels are transforming the world’s forests, wetlands and tundra to the point they are releasing emissions that could further worsen global heating by as much as 30%, a new study has found.As the world heats up, permafrost in the high latitudes is thawing, fiercer wildfires are burning in drying forests and wetlands and lakes are warming. All of these changes are themselves causing the release of planet-heating methane and carbon dioxide locked in trees and soils, therefore worsening the climate crisis, the paper states. Continue reading...

Clothing chain says trading in Europe ‘challenging’ but customers are responding well to its price-cutting campaignPrimark will offer home delivery in Britain for the first time, as the fast-fashion retailer prepares to spin off from its owner Associated British Foods (ABF).The clothing chain, which already offers a click and collect service in the UK, has long avoided home delivery, arguing that its low prices made it too difficult to absorb the cost of packing and shipping orders. Continue reading...