USA - Neighborhood cops are becoming armed soldiers. With so much happening internationally and the number of scandals, crises and general screw-ups of the Obama administration here at home, it’s worth noting a disturbing development here on the domestic front: a rapidly expanding police state. On my radio program last week I had the pleasure of speaking with Cheryl Chumley, a reporter for The Washington Times, about her new book, “Police State USA: How George Orwell’s Nightmare is Becoming our Reality.” The title says it all, and aptly describes the shocking transformation of what had been our free society. Keep in mind, people in the political class constantly reveal their contempt for regular citizens. That contempt is the inevitable result of a group of people who have convinced themselves that big government is necessary because the little people can’t control their own lives.

HAWAII - Mauna Loa, the world's largest active volcano, has rumbled back to life in Hawaii over the past 13 months with more seismic activity than at any time since its last eruption, scientists say, while calling it too soon to predict another blast. The volcano, which last erupted in 1975 and 1984, has been rattled since March 2013 by earthquakes of the same type and in the same location as the temblors that preceded those explosions, said Wes Thelen, a seismologist for the US Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. "The earthquakes we are seeing at Mauna Loa lead us to believe that some of the same things that happened before the 1975 and 1984 eruptions are happening right now," Thelen told Reuters. "We don't see this kind of activity outside of pre-eruptive earthquake sequences," he said.

IRAQ - One of the factors behind the most recent violence in Iraq is the sectarian divide between Sunni and Shia Muslims in that country. The majority of Iraq's Muslims are Shia, and the ISIS militants gaining ground there there are Sunni [Shia 51% - Sunni 42%]. According to the Pew Research Center, Iraq is one of only a handful of countries with a Shia majority.

RUSSIA - Russia is secretly working with environmental groups campaigning against fracking in an attempt to maintain Europe's dependence on energy imports from Moscow, the secretary-general of Nato has said. Speaking at the Chatham House foreign affairs think-tank in London, Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Russia was mounting a sophisticated disinformation campaign aimed at undermining attempts to exploit alternative energy sources such as shale gas. He said: "I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations - environmental organisations working against shale gas - to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas. That is my interpretation."

USA - War, famine, mass extinctions and devastating plagues - all of these are coming unless some kind of miraculous solution is found to the world's rapidly growing water crisis. By the year 2030, the global demand for water will exceed the global supply of water by an astounding 40 percent according to one very disturbing US government report. As you read this article, lakes, rivers, streams and aquifers are steadily drying up all over the planet. The lack of global water could potentially be enough to bring about a worldwide economic collapse all by itself if nothing is done because no society can function without water. Just try to live a single day without using any water some time. You will quickly realize how difficult it is. Fresh water is the single most important natural resource on the planet, and we are very rapidly running out of it.

FUKUSHIMA, JAPAN - Some 39 months after the multiple explosions at Fukushima, thyroid cancer rates among nearby children have skyrocketed to more than forty times (40x) normal. More than 48 percent of some 375,000 young people — nearly 200,000 kids — tested by the Fukushima Medical University near the smoldering reactors now suffer from pre-cancerous thyroid abnormalities, primarily nodules and cysts. The rate is accelerating.

UK - “Has the West gone soft?” That is the question I and others were asked to address yesterday at the Margaret Thatcher Conference on Liberty, hosted by the Centre for Policy Studies – and given recent events in Iraq, it is a question that is more urgent than ever. It was always unavoidable that, as the power and capability of other nations rose, ours would fall in relative terms. But there has also been an avoidable decline in the West’s will to act – in short, our backbone. There is none of the passion, none of the moral sense that inspired foreign policy in the time of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. We are not driven by the desire to see freedom triumph. We can’t articulate the need to respond to the challenges we face, and, as a result, we can’t make the sacrifices that have to be made if our global needs are to be advanced.

EUROPE - British Prime Minister David Cameron is determined not to let Jean-Claude Juncker become president of the European Commission. But he is increasingly isolated. He might face his Waterloo as early as next week. Reading the newspaper hasn't been particularly pleasurable for Jean-Claude Juncker in recent days. First, British historian Timothy Garton Ash compared him to King Louis the XVI, who was executed by the guillotine. Then, the Swiss paper Weltwoche lumped him together with Hitler and Mussolini and the British tabloid Sun described him as "the most dangerous man in Europe."

ISRAEL - Hamas on Thursday slammed comments by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas advocating security cooperation with Israel. As far as the terrorist group is concerned, “all options are open in dealing with Israeli aggression.” At a press conference in Gaza, Hamas spokesperson Sami abu Zuhri said that the “Palestinian resistance has a legitimate right to do anything necessary to free its land and its holy places, the Palestinian people and the prisoners.”

ISRAEL - Some forty young yeshiva students from the Alon Moreh Yeshiva [University], located in the town of the same name in the northern Shomron, ascended the Temple Mount today in purity, led by Rabbi Yaakov Savir and with the blessing of Rabbi Eliyakim Levanon, the dean of the yeshiva. The boys ascended the Temple Mount for the purpose of praying for the safety and release of the three young Jewish students who were kidnapped five days ago by Hamas terrorists. Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Frenkel and Gilad Sha’ar were kidnapped Thursday evening as they were on their way home from school. For the forty students from Alon Moreh this was their first time on the Temple Mount. Since last week’s kidnapping hundreds of Jews have ascended the Temple Mount to pray on behalf of the boys’ safety and release from captivity.

USA - President Barack Obama says the US will send 300 military advisers to Iraq to help fight Islamist-led insurgents. Mr Obama said the US was prepared for "targeted and precise military action, if and when… the situation on the ground requires it", but added that US troops would not fight in Iraq. He went on to insist there was "no military solution" and urged the Shia-led Iraqi government to be "inclusive". Iraq has asked the US for air strikes against the Sunni militants. The gunmen - spearheaded by the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) - have made major territorial gains in the past 10 days. Mr Obama said it was not the US's place to choose Iraq's leaders.

PHILIPPINES - Neither China nor the US are interested in full-on military confrontation but both want to play up the potential for it as it allows them to divert more government funds to the defense sector, editor of an independent news website James Corbett told RT. Amid increasing tension in the South Pacific region, especially over America’s growing military footprint, it is reported the Philippines is transforming Ulugan Bay and nearby villages into a major naval base that may host US warships. Ulugan is only 160 kilometers from the Spratly archipelago, a fiercely contested area in the South China Sea.

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - "World’s best gay city" shows off its pride with 16th-annual Gay Pride Parade. According to organizers, an estimated 30,000 tourists had traveled to Tel Aviv to take part. Many flew their national flags, often adorned with rainbows. Some came from nations with harsh anti-LGBTQ laws and policies. Clearly, the focus on Friday in Tel Aviv was pride, the triumphs of the country’s gay population and the challenges it still faces. It was readily apparent that in Israel, the LGBTQ culture is a central and thriving aspect of the country’s national identity.

IRAQ - The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, buoyed by its recent successes in Iraq, wants to expand its regional reach. Reports that Iraq has withdrawn forces from western towns close to its 180-kilometer (110-mile) border with Jordan have left Amman feeling vulnerable, and the Hashemite kingdom, certainly a target of interest for the jihadist movement, has deployed additional security personnel along the border.

IRAQ - Islamist militants in Iraq have taken over a military complex containing a stockpile of old chemical weapons from Saddam Hussein's era. According to the UK Ministry of Defence, the Al Muthanna chemical complex "was the principal manufacturing plant for both chemical agents and munitions during Saddam Hussein's rule." The facility, located in the desert some 80km northwest of the Iraqi capital, was used in the 1980s to produce and store chemical weapons, reportedly including Sarin and Mustard Gas. "We do not believe that the complex contains CW materials of military value and it would be very difficult, if not impossible to safely move the materials," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told the Wall Street Journal. Psaki however added that the US remained "concerned about the seizure of any military site by the Isis."