LIBYA - Libya has issued a veiled threat to send "hundreds of thousands" of extra migrants to Europe if Brussels does not give official recognition to its self-declared government. Officials say they could hire boats to send large numbers of African migrants across the Mediterranean, massively adding to the numbers already reaching Europe's borders.
USA - Those who speak Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese at home are less proficient in English than Spanish-speakers according to striking findings the Census Bureau released Tuesday that suggest some Asians may have a tougher time mastering English than Hispanics.
USA - When President Obama signs into law the new two-year budget deal Monday, his action will bring into sharper focus a part of his legacy that he doesn’t like to talk about: He is the $20 trillion man.
UK - George Osborne has insisted Britain can get the "best of both worlds" out of its EU renegotiation, in an interview with the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg. He said the UK could get the benefits of the single market but not the "burdens" of bailing out the eurozone. The chancellor is in Berlin to set out the UK's economic demands ahead of a planned in/out referendum.
GERMANY - Among senior members of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat party, there is some dismay that Britain is embarking on negotiations over its relationship with the EU at a time when Germany is housing refugees in sports halls.
VATICAN - The Vatican capped a months-long investigation into internal leaks to the media by arresting two high-profile officials over the weekend, just days before the publication of a pair of books promising incendiary revelations about the Holy See. “The leaking of confidential information and documents is a crime,” said a communiqué from the Vatican, which has its own police force and legal system.
USA - I pronounce you ... father and son? A Pennsylvania couple’s bid to enter into a same-sex marriage has hit an unusual snag — because the pair are technically parent and child. Nino Esposito, 78, adopted his partner Drew Bosee, 68, three years ago — before same-sex nuptials were legal — in order to gain inheritance rights and other benefits afforded to straight couples.
ISRAEL - By rejecting the idea of setting up 24-hour surveillance cameras at the Haram al-Sharif, the Palestinian Authority has found itself on a course of collision with Jordan. Why is the Palestinian Authority (PA) opposed to Jordan's proposal to install surveillance cameras at Jerusalem's Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount), sacred to Christians, Muslims and Jews?
EUROPE - With millions of Muslim migrants pouring into Europe, some experts are warning the continent faces a future of revolution, civil war or surrender to Islamic rule. Author, WND columnist and anti-Shariah campaigner Pamela Geller thinks it is already too late. Asked if she thought it would come to civil war in Europe, Geller told WND, “Yes, I do.”
She’s not alone.
GERMANY - Disputes between Germany’s two ruling conservative parties over the migrant crisis is jeopardising the government's ability to act and pushing people towards far-Right parties, the country’s vice chancellor has warned. Sigmar Gabriel, leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the junior partner in the coalition government, has criticised the growing conservative bloc infighting over the migrant influx as "irresponsible" following frequent clashes between Angela Merkel and Horst Seehofer, the leader of the Bavarian sister party.
USA - More than 25 million people live in the vicinity of North America’s 2nd-highest volcano, and in recent weeks this volcano has been steadily rumbling and has been spewing out massive amounts of black smoke and ash. I have previously written about “the most dangerous mountain in the United States” (Mount Rainier), but if the volcano that I am talking about today experiences a full-blown explosive eruption it could potentially be a cataclysmic event beyond what most of us would dare to imagine.
NASA - Antarctic ice is INCREASING by 135 billion tonnes a year, says NASA. A new Nasa study of the Antarctic from space has thrown the case for climate change into disarray after finding that more new ice has formed at the Antarctic than has been lost to its thinning glaciers.
RUSSIA - Wildfires crackled across Siberia this summer, turning skies ochre and sending up enough smoke from burning pines to blot out satellite views of the 400-mile-long Lake Baikal. To many climate scientists, the worsening fires are a consequence of Siberia getting hotter, the carbon unleashed from its burning forests and tundra only adding to man-made fossil fuel emissions.
USA - A breathtaking sight awaits those who travel to the southernmost tip of Hawaii’s stunningly beautiful Big Island, though it’s not in any guidebook. On a 100-acre site, where cattle wander past broken ‘Keep Out’ signs, stand the rusting skeletons of scores of wind turbines. Just a short walk from where endangered monk seals and Hawksbill turtles can be found on an unspoilt sandy beach, a technology that is supposed to be about saving the environment is instead ruining it.
ISRAEL - Labor and Likud MKs have joined forces on a new bill that proposes to allow Jews to pray at the Temple Mount compound - for the first time since the destruction of the Second Temple, as Jews are currently barred from praying at the site. MK Miri Regev (Likud) and MK Hilik Bar (Labor) are expected to introduce the bill for discussion in the Knesset. It aims to extend freedom of worship on the Temple Mount to the level allowed in Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs, where Jews and Muslims share the holy site.