IRAQ - The internal strife and civil war spurred by the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 is escalating rapidly. The Sunni militia that has staked a claim to areas on both sides of the Iraq/Syria border is expanding its military campaign against the Shia-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as it moved southward on Wednesday following a decisive victory in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday. Known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the powerful military force has proven capable of overwhelming the Iraqi Army as it has gained ground in numerous provinces in the west and north-central regions. Iraq's parliament declared a national state of emergency at the request of al-Maliki on Tuesday. Government officials in the country are now calling for a large-scale and immediate military response to the ISIL threat.

IRAQ - Iraq has privately signaled to the Obama administration that it would allow the US to conduct airstrikes with drones or manned aircraft against al Qaeda militant targets on Iraqi territory, senior US officials said Wednesday. Iraq has long asked the US to provide it with drones that could be used in such strikes, but Washington has balked at supplying them, officials said. And just like the war in Iraq, "Bush's war" according to so many, this is about to come back with a vengeance - this time under a Nobel peace prize winning president, and what makes it most grotesque is that this time the US will be waging combat against a military force that it is itself training and arming in neighboring Syria. Which of course is good news for the military-industrial complex and US Q3 GDP, if not so good for millions of innocent civilians soon to be known as "collateral damage."

EUROPE - Leaders of the main political groups in the European Parliament on Thursday (12 June) told EU council chief Herman Van Rompuy to nominate Jean-Claude Juncker as the next EU commission president or face an "institutional crisis". Van Rompuy received the group leaders separately in his EU council office throughout the day. All groups, except for the British Conservative-dominated ECR said EU leaders should nominate Juncker or the EP will veto any other candidate. "Our core message is that there is a broad majority for Juncker in the EP and we expect Van Rompuy to propose him to EU leaders on 27 June," centre-right EPP group leader Manfred Weber said in a press conference after meeting Van Rompuy. He said any other name coming out of the council would go against the promise made to voters that the top candidate (Spitzenkandidat) of the party who wins the elections becomes commission president.

USA - Stunning defeat of Eric Cantor is a reminder of Tea Party's power and its determination to defeat Republicans seen as dealing with the White House. President Barack Obama's few remaining hopes of finding compromise with Republicans were in tatters today after the Tea Party claimed a stunning victory over the party's more moderate leadership. In one of the greatest upsets in recent US political history, Eric Cantor, the deputy Republican leader in Congress, was defeated by a little-known conservative academic.

UK - The number of schoolchildren speaking English as a second language has soared by a third in just five years amid fresh concerns that immigration may be putting a strain on the education system. Official figures show that the number of pupils who speak another language in the home exceeded 1.1 million for the first time this year. The proportion of non-native speakers in primary schools has now reached almost one-in-five following a year-on-year increase over the last decade. In some parts of London, children with English as a second language now make up as much as three quarters of the school roll, with around half of pupils being classified in towns and cities such as Slough, Luton and Leicester. Children who do not have English as their mother tongue generally perform as well as native speakers and are valued in many schools for creating linguistic and cultural diversity.

UKRAINE - Ukraine’s volatility exacerbates the risk for the country’s 15 Soviet-style nuclear reactors, warn German experts. They demand more attention for the country where the world’s worst nuclear accident took place. The recent news of a water shortage due to a broken pipeline affecting thousands in strife ravaged Eastern Ukraine spells trouble for the safety of the country's nuclear power plants. That's because the security and reliability of a country's critical infrastructure like its electrical power and water grid is essential to safely run nuclear reactors. "Once you have decided to operate a nuclear power plant or like in this case a nuclear reactor park, you must guarantee you don't have unstable social situations and you definitely can't have a war," Michael Sailer, chairman of the German Nuclear Waste Management Commission and member of the German Reactor Safety Commission, told DW.

USA - It is hard to put into words how reckless they [global banks] have been. At the low end of the estimates, the total exposure that global banks have to derivatives contracts is 710 trillion dollars. That is an amount of money that is almost unimaginable. And the reality of the matter is that there is really not all that much actual "money" in circulation today. In fact, as you will read about below, there is only a little bit more than a trillion dollars of US currency that you can actually hold in your hands in existence. If we all went out and tried to close our bank accounts and investment portfolios all at once, that would create a major league crisis.

RUSSIA - Russia has deployed 24 Baltic Fleet warships and vessels, along with heavy fighter jets and bombers, as reinforcement for military drills in the westernmost Kaliningrad region while NATO stages its own war games across the border. On Wednesday, Moscow deployed a grouping of 24 Baltic Fleet warships and vessels for military drills in its exclave on the Baltic Sea coast. The drills were launched on Tuesday in response to NATO’s international drills – Saber Strike 2014 and BALTOPS 2014 – near Russia’s border. "The squadrons of warships are performing the tasks of ensuring the protection of the state border of the Russian Federation, protecting marine communications, providing for shipping safety, organizing air defense, and searching for and detecting surface ships and submarines of the imaginary enemy," said Russia's Defense Ministry.

USA - President Barack Obama said in a recent address that he’s become ‘frustrated’ with America’s lack of movement toward civilian disarmament. As police in the USA become increasingly militarized (with Obama’s help), the president is using crime as an emotional tool to soften Americans toward gun control. Surrounded by heavily armed body guards, Obama said on June 10th: “Couple of decades ago, Australia had a mass shooting, similar to Columbine or Newtown. And Australia just said, well, that’s it, we’re not doing, we’re not seeing that again, and basically imposed very severe, tough gun laws, and they haven’t had a mass shooting since. Our levels of gun violence are off the charts. There’s no advanced, developed country that would put up with this.”

ITALY - A former mafia mobster has written to the Pope asking to confess three "very important secrets", including details about one of Italy's most famous missing persons cases, it's been reported. In a six-page letter, Vincenzo Calcara says he is "convinced" his confessions "can change the course of certain events", according to La Repubblica newspaper. Calcara was a member of Sicily's Cosa Nostra, before becoming a so-called "pentito", or police collaborator.

IRAQ - The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham has set out a list of rules for residents of Mosul as it seeks to impose its Islamist rules on Iraq's second city. Referring to the area by its ancient name, Nineveh, the group says it has a clear set of instructions for the remaining occupants of the city and surrounding area. Firstly it tells "anyone who is asking," who its members are and what it is about: "We are soldiers of Islam and we've taken on our responsibility to bring back the glory of the Islamic Caliphate."

IRAQ - Events in northern Iraq are a fearsome demonstration of what has become ever clearer over the last three years: America is losing control of the Middle East. A region seen since the discovery of oil as the central pivot of Western international policy is victim to raging wars which Washington and its allies are powerless to stop. Parts are beyond the remit of any government at all.

IRAQ - Open warfare between the government and rebels in Iraq would pose a threat to the global economic recovery should oil production from the war-torn Middle East state suffer a serious disruption, analysts have warned. Brent oil prices climbed as high as $110.25 (£65.59) on Wednesday amid concerns that 3.5 million barrels per day of Iraqi exports could be knocked out of the market by the violence that has seen al-Qaeda forces seize control of Mosul, Tikrit and Samarra. "The worst case scenario is that we see production from Iraq slip down to levels in the last Gulf war, then oil could spike $20 a barrel very quickly," Ole Hansen, vice-president and head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank told The Telegraph. "In that scenario, the entire economic recovery, which is still fragile, could stall and we could even slip back into recession in some regions."

IRAQ - Al Qaeda wasn’t even in Iraq until the US invaded that country. And US policy in Libya is partly responsible for sending an influx of Al Qaeda terrorists – and heavy weapons – into Iraq. And now things are getting a whole lot worse…

TIKRIT, IRAQ - Islamist insurgents in Iraq have seized the city of Tikrit, their second major gain after capturing Mosul on Tuesday, security officials say. Tikrit, the hometown of former leader Saddam Hussein, lies 150km (95 miles) north of the capital Baghdad. Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki vowed to fight back against the jihadists and punish those in the security forces who fled offering little or no resistance. The insurgents are from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). ISIS, which is also known as ISIL, is an offshoot of al-Qaeda.