ISRAEL - Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman is threatening a menacing ultimatum - continued airstrikes or full occupation - an Israeli military-owned radio station quoted him as saying on Sunday. The comments came hours after the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched an airstrike on the Gaza strip in retaliation for what they said were projectiles fired from the Palestinian territory into the Negev desert. “Either with each round we attack terror infrastructure and they shoot, or we go to full occupation,” Lieberman said on the IDF-operated Army Radio, or Galei Tzaha.

MIDDLE EAST - A video purportedly shot by Islamist militants at a captured Iraqi border post on the Syrian border shows captured Iraqi soldiers and vehicles, while an English-speaking fighter reaffirms the declaration of an Islamic "caliphate." The fighter, Abu Safiyya from Chile, claims to be standing on the Iraq border with Syria. In the clip, titled The End of Sykes-Picot, Safiyya says that the ISIS will eventually break all of the Middle East borders to make way to Jerusalem. "This is not the first border we will break," he says of the border he is standing on. "God will break all barriers... Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon... all of them until we reach Jerusalem. This is the first of many barriers we will break."

MIDDLE EAST - The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), the terror army supported by Saudi Arabia, the CIA and trained by the Pentagon, has declared a caliphate in the Middle East. It has changed its name to the Islamic State, dispensing with Iraq, Sham and the Levant. The announcement was made on the first day of Ramadan, the Muslim holy day. An ISIS spokesman said Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the leader of the declared caliphate reaching from Syria into Iraq. The spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, said all Muslims worldwide will be required to pay allegiance to al-Baghdadi. “The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the caliph’s authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas,” explained al-Adnani. “Listen to your caliph and obey him. Support your state, which grows every day.”

RUSSIA - The industrial control systems of hundreds of European and US energy companies have been infected by a sophisticated cyber weapon operated by a state-backed group with apparent ties to Russia, according to a leading US online security group. The powerful piece of malware known as “Energetic Bear” allows its operators to monitor energy consumption in real time, or to cripple physical systems such as wind turbines, gas pipelines and power plants at will. The well-resourced organisation behind the cyber attack is believed to have compromised the computer systems of more than 1,000 organisations in 84 countries in a campaign spanning 18 months. The malware is similar to the Stuxnet computer programme created by the US and Israel that succeeded in infecting and sabotaging Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities two years ago. The latest attacks are a new deployment of malware that was first monitored by IT security companies at the beginning of the year.

UK - UK stock markets are approaching “coffin corner”, where even the slightest miscalculation could lead to a sharp correction or even a crash. “Coffin corner” is the point at which a passenger jet is flying at maximum altitude with engines at full throttle. This is when even the smallest mistake can lead to disaster, and it has startling relevance for today’s stock markets.

USA - The color guard leading the annual Gay Pride March down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Sunday carried flags of sky blue, navy blue, red-white-and-blue and rainbow. But, for these marchers, the colors that mattered most were the ones they wore. Khaki shirts, olive pants and rainbow neckerchiefs: the Boy Scout uniform, pride-style — a uniform that had never been seen on a group of marchers in New York City’s pride parade before. They had come to mark progress — the Boy Scouts of America’s breakthrough vote last year to end a decades-old policy of prohibiting openly gay youths from being scouts — and to call for more. However, the organization, a touchstone of traditional America, still bars openly gay adults from participating as troop leaders or volunteers. Ending that ban has become a signature cause for the gay-rights movement.

VATICAN - On June 28, Pope Francis received a delegation sent to Rome by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. The delegation was led by Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon, the co-president of the International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. After recalling his recent meetings with Patriarch Bartholomew in Jerusalem and in Rome, Pope Francis said that “we know very well that this unity is a gift of God, a gift that even now the Most High grants us the grace to attain whenever, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we choose to look at one another with the eyes of faith and to see ourselves as we truly are in God’s plan, according to the designs of his eternal will, and not what we have become as a result of the historical consequences of our sins.”

USA - In much of the world, the Predator drone symbolises US power. It is ubiquitous, stealthy and can strike at any moment. They patrol the skies of central Asia, north Africa, the Arabian peninsula – and now Iraq. Other countries have nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers. But nobody else can match the lethal ingenuity of America’s Hellfire missile. Little surprise that two US presidents – George W Bush, and now Barack Obama – have resorted to them so frequently. But their heyday is waning. America’s unipolar drone moment is ending.

ISRAEL - The three Israeli teenagers who went missing earlier this month in the West Bank have been found dead. An Israeli military spokesman said their bodies were found in a pit near the town of Halhul, north of Hebron. Naftali Frenkel and Gilad Shaar, both aged 16, and 19-year-old Eyal Yifrach were last seen at a junction near Hebron as they hitchhiked home. The teenagers' families have been informed, the military said. More information is expected to be released after an emergency cabinet meeting.

Israel had accused Hamas of abducting the three teens, which the Palestinian militant group repeatedly denied.

The teenagers' families have been informed, the military said. More information is expected to be released after an emergency cabinet meeting.

ISRAEL - One of Abbas's "most trusted advisers" attacked by Palestinian protesters with pepper spray for allegedly entering Jerusalem on Israeli permit. A senior adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was forced to flee the Temple Mount on Friday after dozens of Palestinian protesters assaulted him.

JORDAN - According to a Friday report by The Daily Beast, the officials told senators in a classified briefing earlier this week that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is eyeing Jordan as well as its war-torn neighbors, and that some of its jihadists have already tweeted out photos and messages saying they have seized a key Jordanian town. According to the administration officials, if Jordan were to face a military onslaught from ISIL, it would “ask Israel and the United States for as much help as they can get.” Israel has indicated behind the scenes that it would be willing to give military assistance to its ally Jordan, with which it signed a peace treaty in 1994.

ISRAEL - Following the beginning of the annual 30-day Ramadan festival on Saturday, Jerusalem police announced that heightened security measures are in place to ensure the safety of all the capital’s residents as tens of thousands of Muslims converge on the Temple Mount’s al-Aksa Mosque. Border Police, special patrol and undercover units will canvass the city for the duration of the holiday, he said. “We’re respecting the festival, and will do everything possible to allow the thousands of visitors to observe it, while also ensuring the safety of all Jerusalem’s citizens,” Rosenfeld added.

CHINA - China is moving forward with a plan to create its own version of the World Bank, which will rival institutions that are under the sway of the US and the West. The bank will start with $100 billion in capital. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will extend China’s financial reach and compete not only with the World Bank, but also with the Asian Development Bank, which is heavily dominated by Japan. The $100 billion in capital is double that originally proposed, the Financial Times (FT) reported. A member of the World Bank, China has less voting power than countries like the US, Japan, and the UK. It is in the ‘Category II’ voting bloc, giving it less of a voice. In the Asian Development Bank, China only holds a 5.5 percent share, compared to America’s 15.7 percent share and Japan’s 15.6 share.

USA - The Obama Administration has been pursuing a policy of covert support for the Muslim Brotherhood and other insurgent movements in the Middle East since 2010. MEB has obtained a just-released US State Department document through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that confirms the Obama Administration’s pro-active campaign for regime change throughout the Middle East and North Africa region. The October 22, 2010 document, titled “Middle East Partnership Initiative: Overview,” spells out an elaborate structure of State Department programs aimed at directly building “civil society” organizations, particularly non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to alter the internal politics of the targeted countries in favor of US foreign policy and national security objectives.

USA - Saturday at a press conference from the Rio Grande Valley, Representative Nancy Pelosi (Democrat for California) discussed her tour of a border holding facility and addressed the humanitarian crisis of thousands unaccompanied minors flooding across the US-Mexico border, which she called a “humanitarian opportunity.” Pelosi explained, “We are all Americans — north and south in this hemisphere,” and urged America to see this as not a crisis but an opportunity “to be helpful.” She also said she wished she could simply “take home” the thousands of children temporarily housed in the overburden facilities. According to the US Customs and Border Protection agency, in the past fiscal year more than 47,000 unaccompanied children have crossed the border into the United States through Mexico with the majority coming from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.