THE NEW YORK TIMES (USA): Europe’s “Reason for Being” at Risk as Competitiveness Wanes, Report Warns. The European Union, facing a shrinking share of the global economy, needs to increase its spending by nearly $900 billion a year, according to a long-awaited report from Mario Draghi. The challenge for the European Union is “existential,” Mario Draghi, a former president of the European Central Bank, said on Monday in Brussels. If Europe cannot effectively compete and, in turn, provide its people with security and prosperity, he said, “it will have lost its reason for being”. Mr. Draghi said that the European Union needed additional annual investment of up to 800 billion euros ($884 billion) to meet the objectives he laid out in his report. That is equivalent to about 4.5% of the European Union’s gross domestic product last year. By comparison, investment under the Marshall Plan from 1948 to 1951 was equivalent to about 1.5% of Europe’s economic output.

LE FIGARO (FRANCE): Commission européenne: Ursula von der Leyen peaufine l’architecture de sa future équipe. Quel portefeuille pour quel commissaire? Ursula von der Leyen, qui a obtenu en juillet le feu vert de Strasbourg pour un second mandat à la tête de la Commission, présentera ce mercredi matin la très attendue architecture de sa future équipe. Ce travail a toujours été un casse-tête pour les chefs de l’exécutif européen. Il faut composer avec les candidats proposés par les capitales, prendre en compte les souhaits de ces dernières sur les portefeuilles espérés tout en s’assurant que leurs candidats respectifs ont bien les compétences requises. Il faut aussi ne pas hérisser les autres États membres en confiant des secteurs à des commissaires issus de pays considérés comme trop marqués. Par exemple, l’économie aux frugaux Néerlandais! Le tout en veillant à tendre vers la parité entre hommes et femmes, à un équilibre géographique et politique, etc. Les enjeux sont, cette fois, bien plus lourds qu’ils ne l’étaient en 2019.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (USA): How Harris and Trump will try to win the debate. In their first face-to-face encounter, the two candidates will try to draw contrasts with each other before a closely divided electorate. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have never crossed paths in person. But they are about to collide on the debate stage. The two candidates will clash Tuesday evening in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center, creating the campaign’s biggest moment since Harris replaced President Biden as the Democratic nominee when he ended his re-election bid only seven weeks ago. The debate hosted by ABC is expected to draw tens of millions of television viewers, and it comes as ballots have gone out in some battleground states and polls show the two rivals engaged in a tight contest—including in Pennsylvania.

USA TODAY: When the history of the 2024 presidential election is written, the one and only debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump will be remembered as the event that truly changed the course of the race. A few weeks after Biden’s disastrous performance, he dropped out, and Kamala Harris stepped in as the Democratic nominee. This week, the second debate of the presidential contest will take place, this time between Harris and Trump. The stakes are high for both candidates, with polls showing a close race with just two months left until Election Day. For Harris, the debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday will provide a chance to show she can stand up to Trump and introduce herself to voters who feel they know little about her. For Trump, the debate is an opportunity to define Harris on his terms and try to regain some of the momentum he has lost to her following the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

THE HILL (USA): For Harris, the top objective for the debate is to avoid any moment that would put an abrupt end to her momentum — a gaffe, a misstatement or a clash with Trump that works to her disadvantage. If the debate simply passes without major incident, that will be one goal accomplished for Harris. The election is likely to be decided by a small number of voters in the center-ground. Harris has already shifted position on some topics in an attempt to win them over. But immigration, in particular, remains a vulnerability for Harris. On Tuesday, Trump will be debating someone vying to be the first female president. That raises big dangers for the former president if he is perceived as boorish toward Harris when they share the stage. Trump has already sought to belittle Harris’s intelligence and has claimed, falsely, that she only adopted a Black identity recently. On social media, he has shared crude sexual innuendos about the vice president.

THE WASHINGTON POST (USA): The Harris agenda emerges: Populism with a “healthy dose of centrism”. The vice president has in a few weeks revamped Democratic Party policy with a raft of new proposals. A debate is raging about what it all means. When Vice President Kamala Harris endorsed $5 trillion in tax hikes outlined in President Joe Biden’s most recent budget proposal, she sparked a wave of unease among investors and other financial elites who said it tilted too far to the left. Since she suddenly became the Democratic presidential nominee barely a month ago, Harris has released, disavowed or refined a raft of policies — on health care, housing, child benefits and more — that begin to define her vision for the economy. The result, which blends left-leaning populism with more sympathy for industry, has led critics to accuse the campaign of scrambling to appease warring internal factions. But it also has drawn praise for taking a broader view than Biden’s of the American economy.

ARAB NEWS (SAUDI ARABIA): GCC strengthens ties with Russia, India, Brazil at Riyadh summit. The 161st Ministerial Council meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council, chaired by Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and attended by GCC ministers of foreign affairs, was held in Riyadh on Monday. On the sidelines of the meeting, the GCC held three separate ministerial meetings with Russia, India and Brazil to open new horizons for cooperation. The seventh GCC-Russia strategic dialogue ministerial meeting was held with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the GCC-India meeting with Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, and the GCC-Brazil meeting with Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira.

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (HONG KONG, CHINA): A top official from Saudi Arabia said the country is “open to new ideas” – including use of the yuan in crude settlements – as the oil-rich Middle Eastern nation looks to incorporate Chinese products like electric vehicles (EVs), the C919 passenger jet and renewable energy infrastructure while it attempts to diversify its economy. Bandar Al-Khorayef, Saudi minister of industry and mineral resources, made the comments as the two countries have moved closer despite an escalating rivalry between China and the US, Saudi Arabia’s traditional ally. Broader adoption of the petroyuan – shorthand for the use of China’s currency in cross-border crude oil settlements – is widely viewed as the next step for the yuan’s internationalisation, and a challenge to the omnipresent US dollar in global commodity markets. The currency’s use has grown – alongside trade with Russia, China’s largest source of crude imports – after Moscow was locked out of the US dollar system following its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

THE GUARDIAN (GB): At least 40 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on a tent encampment designated as a humanitarian zone in Khan Younis, Gaza officials said early on Tuesday, in what the Israeli military said was an attack on a Hamas command centre. Gaza civil defence officials told Agence France-Presse and the BBC that as well as the 40 people killed in the attack inside the Al-Mawasi camp, a further 60 were injured and transferred to local hospitals. Residents and medics said the tent encampment in the al-Mawasi area was struck by at least four missiles. The camp is crowded with displaced Palestinians who have fled from elsewhere in the enclave. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it “struck significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control centre embedded inside the humanitarian area in Khan Younis.

HAARETZ (ISRAEL): Israeli Government’s apocalyptic vision: turning Gaza into West Bank, and West Bank into Gaza. Forget mudslinging at Ben-Gvir: Israel risks a real quagmire as it sets sights on military rule over Gaza while the West Bank is witnessing an escalation on every level. While the Israeli media this weekend concerned itself, with infinite seriousness, with the mud ball that was allegedly thrown at Itamar Ben-Gvir at the beach, the entire country continued to sink into the real mud, courtesy of the national security minister and his partners: that is, the project of turning the West Bank into Gaza and Gaza into the West Bank.

DAILY SABAH (TURKEY): Erdoğan urges regional solidarity against Israel. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for establishing regional solidarity in the face of rising Israeli aggression, as he warned of potential threats. Speaking to reporters in the capital Ankara following a cabinet meeting, Erdoğan said all countries of the region must establish what he called a “line of solidarity” against Israel. He warned that if Tel Aviv does not halt its attacks, its occupation would further expand, posing an immediate threat to the countries of the region.

LA LIBRE (BELGIUM): La Turquie propose une “alliance islamique” pour mettre fin à la guerre à Gaza: “Erdogan fait tout pour contrer Israël”. La Turquie effectue un retour remarqué sur le devant de la scène régionale à la faveur de la guerre à Gaza. Signe parmi d’autres: son ministre des Affaires étrangères est l’invité ce 10 septembre du sommet ministériel de la Ligue arabe, au Caire. “Rien que cette invitation, c’est un trophée pour la diplomatie turque”, estime le chercheur Hasni Abidi, spécialiste du Moyen-Orient. Cela fait treize ans que la Turquie ne s’est pas jointe aux discussions de l’organisation arabe. Les efforts déployés ces dernières années par le président Recep Tayyip Erdogan pour “tenter d’élargir l’audience de la Turquie dans le monde arabe” et réchauffer les relations avec les États qui la boudent, sont finalement payants.

THE JERUSALEM POST (ISRAEL): The Axis of Resistance may crumble on its own. Israel faces threats from seven Iranian-backed fronts, yet Gallant and Netanyahu believe the alliance is unstable and vulnerable. As early as December 27, 2023, speaking to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “We are in a multifront war and coming under attack from seven theaters”. He added that the Israel Defense Forces was taking action on six of them. On July 1, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu elaborated on this to a group of visiting US leaders. Israel, he told them, is engaged in defending itself on at least seven fronts, all Iranian-inspired and supported. He listed them: Hamas in Gaza; Hezbollah in Lebanon; the Houthis in Yemen; militias in Iraq, Syria, and the West Bank; and Iran itself. Iran has dubbed them the “Axis of Resistance”. Yet even though all seven look to the Iranian regime for financial and military support, and act under its guidance, to regard this Axis as anything like a unified or integrated opponent would be a misreading of the situation. The alliance is, in fact, inherently unstable, and therefore vulnerable.

ASIA TIMES (HONG KONG, CHINA): The Ukraine war has weakened the United States because it has emptied its treasury and its arsenals. It has undermined US interests elsewhere, especially in the Pacific, where a restless China is now challenging Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan. Many European countries have emptied their arsenals to support Ukraine, sending tanks, armored vehicles, missiles, air defenses, artillery, ammunition and plenty of other hard-to-replace weapons. While Europe spends a lot on defense ($295 billion) compared to Russia, it does not get much bang for its buck either in equipment or in fighting forces. Empty arsenals and overseas deployments on Europe’s borders diminish America’s ability to defend its interests elsewhere, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Expanding NATO is a big risk for the United States, which has unequivocally backed NATO enlargement and its aggressive posture toward Russia. The time has come to reevaluate America’s support for expanding NATO.

ASHARQ AL-AWSAT (GB): America is losing the battle of the Red Sea. Even by the Middle Eastern standards, the past year has been full of surprises. Yet the biggest surprise is also the most ominous for global order. A radical, quasi-state actor most Americans had never heard of, the Houthis of Yemen, have mounted the gravest challenge to freedom of the seas in decades — and arguably beaten a weary superpower along the way. The second feature is strategic synergy among US foes. The Houthis became more fearsome thanks to mentorship by Iran and Hezbollah. Since October 2023, they have allowed most of China’s shipping to pass without harm. The Houthis have also received encouragement — and, it seems, direct support — from a Russia that is eager to exact vengeance on Washington. Further inflaming matters is a third factor: America’s aversion to escalation, which is rooted in military overstretch. A global superpower has been reduced to an inconclusive tit-for-tat with a band of Yemeni extremists. Thus a fourth feature: The rotting of norms the international community has taken for granted. The global commercial damage caused by the Houthis has actually been limited, thanks to the adaptability of the shipping networks that underpin the world economy. But the precedent is awful: The Houthis have upended freedom of the seas in a crucial area and paid a very modest price. A dramatic course correction by the US probably isn’t imminent. But this muddle-through approach may not survive for long after that. Whoever becomes president in 2025 will have to face the fact that America is losing the struggle for the Red Sea, with all the pernicious global implications that may follow.

KOMMERSANT (RUSSIA): Стало известно новое место развертывания американских ракетных комплексов наземного базирования средней дальности Typhon: на сей раз они будут размещены на территории Японии. Ранее такие вооружения были запрещены по российско-американскому Договору о ликвидации ракет средней и меньшей дальности (ДРСМД). После его развала США начали размещать соответствующие системы в разных государствах Европы и Азиатско-Тихоокеанского региона. Развертывание Typhon на территории Японии позволяет США доставать до территории сразу трех стран — Китая, России и Северной Кореи.

NIKKEI (JAPAN): U.S. lawmakers are pushing ahead this week with a string of bills aimed at countering China, including one to keep federal contractors from working with Chinese biotechnology companies, as Congress returns from its summer recess. In what has been dubbed “China Week”, the House of Representatives will vote on dozens of bills targeting China and its companies, according to a website maintained by the congressional chamber.

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN (JAPAN): Japan will likely see another stimulus package under a new prime minister, with several candidates running in the ruling party’s leadership race pledging fresh spending measures to boost growth and cushion the blow to households from rising inflation. In announcing his intention to run in the race to replace incumbent Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Monday he would prefer boosting spending, rather than cutting taxes, if the economy requires another stimulus package. Another candidate and minister in charge of economic security, Sanae Takaichi, also called for more fiscal spending to strengthen the economy. “Strategic deployment of fiscal spending will increase jobs, household income, and improve consumer sentiment. It will also increase tax revenues without raising the tax rate and help build a strong economy,” Takaichi told a press conference on Monday to announce her intention to run in the leadership election. The remarks followed those by leading candidate, Shinjiro Koizumi, on Friday that he would “immediately” work on a new economic package to aid small firms and low-income households hit by rising living costs.

IZVESTIA (RUSSIA): Американская мечта: возрождение промышленной гегемонии США провалилось. Даже крупнейшие корпорации страны испытывают огромные проблемы. Попытка реиндустриализации США, начатая в 2020-е и потребовавшая сотни миллиардов долларов расходов в виде разнообразных бюджетных программ, идет не очень успешно. Производственная активность по-прежнему находится в минусе, а крупнейшие компании, которые должны были стать флагманами этого процесса, оказались в сложном финансовом и производственном положении. Причем речь идет как о цифровой индустрии, связанной с выпуском чипов и компьютерной техники, так и “аналоговой” — это традиционные отрасли американской промышленности вроде авиастроения.

THE ECONOMIC TIMES (INDIA): The United States is deepening its strategic partnership with India, focusing on defence and technology cooperation. At the INDUS-X Summit in California, US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell highlighted the significant progress made in areas like space, semiconductors, and clean energy. The initiative aims to foster innovation and strengthen ties between the two nations through joint challenges and co-production agreements. The United States has invested significantly in expanding its strategic partnership with India and is pursuing a robust agenda to deepen the bilateral cooperation, US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has said.

RENMIN RIBAO (CHINA): Emerging global trends such as geopolitical tensions, digital revolution and climate change are reshaping the landscape of trade-led development, the World Trade Organization (WTO) said in a flagship report released on Monday. In the 2024 edition of the “World Trade Report”, the WTO estimated that global factors such as geopolitical tensions, regional conflicts and trade sanctions have impacted the stable foundation of world economic growth in the past 30 years, potentially leading to trade fragmentation. On the other hand, the increased capital and skill intensity of modern manufacturing has reduced the scope for manufacturing-led growth in low-income economies. Meanwhile, climate change poses even greater challenges, particularly for these nations. However, the report also emphasized new opportunities brought by these global trends. For instance, developing economies can lower trade costs through digitalization, pivot toward service-led growth, or seize the demand for renewable resources in the global green transformation to achieve development.

THE TIMES (GB): “I’ve finished chemotherapy”: Princess of Wales releases intimate family video. Kate speaks of “relief” at completing treatment and says she is focusing on staying “cancer free”. The Princess of Wales has announced with “relief” that she has finished her cancer treatment and looks forward to returning to duties “when I can”.