SAUDI ARABIA - Following a welcoming response from Iran regarding Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud bin Faisal’s May 13 statement that his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, could visit Riyadh “anytime he sees fit,” expectations regarding an imminent visit have increased. This despite indications from Faisal’s brother, Prince Turki bin Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief, that the statement wasn’t anything new and had reflected a prior invitation that had remained unanswered.

AUSTRALIA - The federal government has bagged an unprecedented $360 million from household bank accounts since a controversial change to unclaimed money laws, figures from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission show. Pensioners and others saving for a rainy day have reported trying to access their savings only to discover their money had been seized by the government because it had been dormant for three years or more. The government has collected more money from inactive bank accounts under the three-year rule than the total amount captured in the past five decades combined. Nearly $360 million from 80,000 accounts was funnelled into government coffers in the year to May after Labor lowered the threshold, eclipsing the $330 million netted between 1959 and 2012, during which time idle accounts could only be touched after seven years.

UK - An Ofsted investigation into classroom radicalisation has spread to schools in the north and south-east of England in the wake of the alleged Trojan Horse plot, inspectors confirmed today. The education watchdog said it was carrying out “dawn raid”-style inspections on schools outside Birmingham amid concerns over intimidation of staff, a narrowing of the curriculum and pupils becoming emotionally “dislocated” from the wider community. Sources confirmed that inspections had taken place – or were about to be staged – in Bradford, Luton and Tower Hamlets, east London, following evidence of concerns similar to those seen in the West Midlands. In one Luton primary inspectors have already found books promoting stoning, lashing and execution.

UK - For years, we all turned a blind eye to the segregation of Muslim pupils. Now it is time to stand up to propagators of barbarism and ignorance. Why this scandal in Birmingham where five overwhelmingly Muslim schools, some until recently judged to be outstanding, are to be put into special measures because they have sought to inculcate ideas that are repellent to this country?

USA - President Barack Obama is looking for new ways to act “administratively, unilaterally using his executive authority” to enact new gun control legislation, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said during a press conference Tuesday. The official was responding to a journalist’s questions about the President’s reaction to news of a shooting that occurred at an Oregon high school. Two people were killed, including the shooter. While the President is looking for ways to implement his gun control agenda unilaterally, Earnest stressed that the Administration would also like to see legislative action to increase gun control. “The President’s goal is to look for opportunities to act administratively, unilaterally using his executive authority to try to make our communities safer,” Earnest said.

ISRAEL - On June 4th, 2014 the holiday of Shavuot, Jews were forbidden by police from ascending the Temple Mount. Muslims on the Temple Mount had threatened violence should Jews ascend the Mount. On June 5th, Jews were permitted to return to the Temple Mount. Instead of throwing stones, Muslims were playing soccer on the sacred ground of the Temple Mount. Playing soccer on the Temple Mount is strictly forbidden by law… yet the police don't enforce the law. Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is guaranteed by Israeli law... yet the police don't allow it.

Time to stop playing games.

Time to ensure the right to pray.

Time to enforce the law on the Temple Mount.

ISRAEL - If the Jewish Temple is ever to be rebuilt in Jerusalem, the massive curtain – 66 feet high by 33 feet wide and 2 inches thick – that once hung in the Second Temple and was consumed by fire in AD 70, will need to be recreated. That task is already underway in the Jewish community of Shiloh, located in biblical Samaria about 40 minutes north of Jerusalem, reports Israel Today. For more than two years women from the community have been working to assemble the materials and learn the techniques needed to weave the veil that will hang between, and separate, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. The veil project mirrors another that has been underway for four years, recreating the priestly garments needed for Temple worship. Some Jews who claim priestly lineage have already purchased the special clothing. The weavers of the veil see their work as a “holy activity” that hastens the time of Israel’s redemption.

USA - The sun has had three major solar flares on its surface in the past two days that have affected communications on Earth and could send a shockwave through Earth this Friday, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The “solar events” caused brief blackouts in high frequency communications when they struck, twice on Tuesday morning and once this morning, all between the hours of 7 am and 9 am EDT. Solar flares are bursts of radiation on the sun’s surface. The disturbance to Earth’s atmosphere can disrupt GPS and communications signals, according to NASA. One of the flares created a “coronal mass ejection” that actually could come into contact with Earth on Friday, according to NOAA. The ejection is essentially a huge cloud of plasma that could hit the Earth and cause a shock wave, affecting communications systems.

USA - The extinct influenza virus that caused the worst flu pandemic in history has been recreated from fragments of avian flu found in wild ducks in a controversial experiment to show how easy it would be for the deadly flu strain to re-emerge today. Scientists said the study involved infecting laboratory ferrets with close copies of the 1918 virus – which was responsible for the Spanish Flu pandemic that killed an estimated 50 million people – to see how easy it can be transmitted in the best animal model of the human disease. But other researchers have denounced the research as foolhardy and dangerous. Critics said that any benefits of the attempts to recreate 1918-like flu viruses from existing avian flu strains do not justify the catastrophic risks if such a genetically engineered virus were to escape either deliberately or accidentally from the laboratory and cause a deadly influenza pandemic.

IRAQ - As many as 500,000 people have been forced to flee Iraq's second city of Mosul after Islamist militants effectively took control of it. Troops were among those fleeing as hundreds of jihadists from the ISIS group overran the city and much of the surrounding province of Nineveh. Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki responded by asking parliament to declare a state of emergency to grant him greater powers.

GERMANY - Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has warned David Cameron not to "threaten" her over the appointment of an arch-federalist as President of the European Commission. Mr Cameron has warned that the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker could make Britain more likely to leave the European Union in a referendum in 2017. Mrs Merkel said that "threats" went against the "European spirit" and she gave her public support for Mr Juncker, the former President of Luxembourg. Mr Cameron said that if Europe fails to heed his calls to reform it will be "unhelpful" ahead of his pledged referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union in 2017. He believes that the appointment of Mr Juncker, the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg, will damage his attempts to convince the British public that Europe should stay in the EU.

EUROPE - Euro-federalists have long dreamed of a united Europe. The Second World War provided them with the rhetorical justification: without continental federalism, racist totalitarianism and war are inevitable. They wish to transform the old continent into the United States of Europe, and the fact that this is an exclusively elite, top-down project without any basis in Europe’s millennia-old history is irrelevant. Indeed while most of Europe’s political establishment and intelligentsia is federalist, no one dares to tell their electorates to forego their respective national symbols.

IRAQ - The insurgent fighters who routed the Iraqi army out of Mosul on Tuesday did not just capture much of Iraq’s second-largest city. They also gained a windfall of arms, munitions and equipment abandoned by the soldiers as they fled — arms that were supplied by the United States and intended to give the troops an edge over the insurgents. The problem is not a new one, but it looms larger now that the United States is shifting its counterterrorism strategy away from using American armed forces directly, and toward relying on allied or indigenous troops and security forces supplied and trained by the United States. President Obama proposed last week that a $5 billion fund be set up to finance such efforts. The militants who swept into control of Mosul on Tuesday are believed to be connected to the main Islamist militant group fighting in Syria.

UK - Proposals to extend the use of Statin drugs should be scrapped, a group of leading doctors and academics says. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published draft guidance in February calling for their use to be extended to save more lives. It could mean another five million people in England and Wales using them on top of seven million who already do. But in a letter to NICE and ministers, the experts expressed concern about the medicalisation of healthy people. The letter said the draft advice was overly reliant on industry-sponsored trials, which "grossly underestimate adverse effects". The NHS currently spends about £450 million a year on Statins.

USA – Driven by surging obesity, an aging population and doubly high risks among blacks and Latinos, the American epidemic of diabetes has leaped to historic heights in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. Diabetes mellitus now afflicts 29 million Americans - 9.3% of the nation's population. And 1 in 4 don't know they have the disease, which is thought to increase the risk of heart attack or stroke as much as fourfold. Releasing a welter of new statistics on the disease, the agency said an additional 86 million American adults - nearly 1 in 3 - has prediabetes, a condition in which blood sugar levels are abnormally elevated but below the criteria for diagnosing diabetes.