INDONESIA - The Mount Agung volcano, on the Indonesian island of Bali, has erupted for a second time in less than a week, firing a column of ash 1,500 meters into the air. The eruption emitted a bigger ash cloud than Tuesday’s blast. It caused several airlines - including, KLM, Qantas, AirAsia, and Virgin - to cancel or rearrange flights in the region. Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes in recent months over fears of potential destruction an eruption could bring. More than 1,000 people were killed when the mountain last erupted in 1963.

GERMANY - Angela Merkel appeared to have staged one of the great political escapes on Friday after a rival party agreed to end the crisis in Germany by opening talks on forming a new government. Martin Schulz, the leader of the Social Democrats (SPD), said his party had agreed to end its refusal to enter talks with Mrs Merkel following a “dramatic” personal appeal from the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

GERMANY - The far-right Alternative for Germany party sees Chancellor Angela Merkel's struggle to form a new government as proof of its growing power to upend the country's political order, a top party official told AFP. Parliamentary group leader Alexander Gauland said in an interview that the current turmoil showed that the four-year-old AfD had succeeded in its primary goal in September's general election. "It's all downhill for Merkel now and that is partly our achievement," Gauland said, sipping a glass of rose wine at a lakeside Italian restaurant in the eastern city of Potsdam. "Her time is up - we want her to leave the political stage."

MIDDLE EAST - The Palestinian Arab leadership, as well the neighboring Arab states, have consistently rejected the two-state solution from the start. The July 1937 Peel Committee report led to the intensification of mass violence, begun the previous year and curtailed for the duration of the commission’s deliberations, while the November 1947 partition resolution triggered an immediate outburst of Palestinian-Arab violence, followed six months later by an all-Arab attempt to destroy the newly proclaimed State of Israel. 

UNITED NATIONS - How do you get 25,000 tons of food to the people who need it? Risky air drops and truck deliveries across some of the most dangerous roads in the world: To tackle what is currently Africa's worst hunger crisis, the UN World Food Program is using all means at its disposal. Every month, the agency moves more than 25,000 tons of food in its war on hunger.

USA - President Trump betrayed his intelligence community by leaking highly sensitive classified Israeli intelligence operation to two high-ranking Russian envoys. What he told them — and the ramifications. “Trump betrayed us,” said a senior Israeli military official bluntly, his voice stern with reproach. “And if we can’t trust him, then we’re going to have to do what is necessary on our own if our back is up against the wall with Iran.” If Trump is handing over Israel’s secrets to the Russians, then he just might as well be delivering them to Iran, Russia’s current regional ally.

USA - Progressive activists are forcing public schools to teach and practice gender ideology in the name of civil rights, but more American students and their parents are saying “no” to the demands made on behalf of a minority who claim to be the opposite sex. In Portland, Oregon, parents of high school students have filed a federal lawsuit over the school district’s policy that allows a biological female student who claims to be male to use the boys’ locker room and bathroom.

EGYPT - At least 235 people have been killed and dozens more injured after a suspected Islamic State bomb and gun attack on a mosque in Egypt. Militants tried to stop people from escaping from the area by blowing up cars and then using the burning wrecks to block roads. The country's government has declared three days of mourning following the assault on al-Rawdah mosque on Friday afternoon - one of the deadliest attacks in Egypt's modern history - which has also wounded more than 100 people. The mosque is in Bir al-Abed in the volatile northern Sinai Peninsula, around 25 miles from the provincial capital of el-Arish, which has been regularly targeted by IS militants in recent years.

USA - According to the official historical record, in 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For over a century, families have gathered to proclaim what they are thankful for while others have taken to shelters and charities to help those who cannot help themselves. However, thanks to the state, helping others during this most giving time is now illegal — unless you pay the government for permission.

USA - Electric cars are considered pollution-free as they can help keep our cities and our planet clean. However, a recent study published by the Trancik Lab of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has revealed that electric cars are NOT as green as you think and are worse polluters than petrol and diesel cars. The study claims that an electric Tesla Model S P100D saloon produces more carbon dioxide (at 226g per kilometer) than a petrol-driven Mitsubishi Mirage (at 192g per kilometer).

IRAN - Iranian warships are set to leave the waters of the Persian Gulf to sail across the world and tour another gulf — the one that lies between the US and Mexico. At a time when Iran is looking to expand and modernize its military in the face of what is seen as a growing US threat, its newly appointed navy commander, Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, held his first press conference Wednesday, announcing that a fleet of Iranian ships would soon depart for the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico en route to visits to a number of South American countries, Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim News Agency reported. The move is reportedly part of a push to project Iran’s military on a more global scale and establish international ties as President Donald Trump and his allies, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, seek to isolate the revolutionary Shiite Muslim power.

NORTH KOREA - Havana and Pyongyang have agreed to strengthen ties to withstand Washington’s “unilateral and arbitrary” demands. With tensions accelerating on the Korean peninsula, North Korea’s Foreign Minister flew to Cuba to present a united front against “US imperialism.” Cuban Foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez received his Korean counterpart, Ri Yong Ho, in Havana Wednesday, where both diplomats firmly rejected Washington’s approach to resolve political tensions around the world based on “coercive measures.” The two foreign ministers “strongly rejected the unilateral and arbitrary lists and designations established by the US government which serve as a basis for the implementation of coercive measures which are contrary to international law,” the Cuban Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

USA - Commercial and educational organizations alike are pushing exoskeleton technology forward. Ford, Hyundai, and Audi are among the manufacturers doing intensive development of technology that will allow humans to be stronger and have more endurance. Hyundai’s wearable exoskeleton can assist in physical therapy, or allow a healthy individual to lift hundreds of pounds. Audi’s titanium “Chairless Chair” is designed for jobs that involved long hours of seated work, stimulating muscle usage to fend off the serious health problems resultant from such jobs. Ford has partnered with Ekso Bionics on the EksoVest, a “lightweight and low profile” upper body exoskeleton which “elevates and supports a worker’s arms to assist them with tasks ranging from chest height to overhead.”

VATICAN - Pope Francis has laid into modern cultural trends, especially the casual acceptance of abortion and the persecution of the Christian faithful, calling the present globalist mentality “a perverse new state of affairs.” “Before, it was a sin, you couldn’t kill little children, but today you can, it’s not seen as a big deal,” the Pope lamented during his homily in the Vatican Tuesday morning. “It is a perverse new state of affairs.”

VATICAN - Among the world’s most prominent figures, few have received such consistent media praise as Pope Francis I. Since his papacy began in 2013, Pope Francis has been touted as a left-leaning reformer committed to reducing global poverty and fighting climate change, as well as taking other positions popular with those identifying as politically progressive. However, Western media has continuously overlooked the church leader’s dubious past, which paints him as anything but a progressive concerned about the oppressed or their human rights.