ISRAEL - During his tour of the Holy Land which starts on Saturday, Pope Francis is scheduled to meet with a leader from the Palestinian Authority who once called for the extermination of Jews. According to the Jewish & Israel News source, Algemeiner.com, the Pope will meet Mufti Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the most senior religious figure in the Palestinian Authority, who is described by Palestinian Media Watch as having "an ongoing record of vicious Antisemitic hate speech, which has been condemned internationally."

ISRAEL - Pope Francis will arrive this weekend in the land where Christianity was born — and where Christians are disappearing. This ancient community has dwindled to around 2 percent of the region's population as economic hardship, violence and the bitter realities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have sent Christians searching for better opportunities overseas. The Christian exodus, underway for decades, has reached critical levels in recent years. Emigration is a central concern to local Vatican officials, who are trying to stave off the flight with offers of jobs, housing and scholarships.

ISRAEL - Two days before Pope Francis arrives in the Holy Land, Israelis and Palestinians were putting the finishing touches Thursday on a flurry of festive preparations for the visit. In Jerusalem, preparations for the pontiff's arrival are somewhat more muted, overshadowed by a stepped-up security and police presence. Some 8,000 extra police officers are to be deployed on Jerusalem's streets for the duration of the visit. The three-day visit kicks off Saturday when Francis flies to Jordan. He will travel on to Bethlehem Sunday morning, then to Israel, where he will spend the rest of the day and Monday in Jerusalem before heading home.

EUROPE - Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has called for a radical shake-up of the EU on the eve of European parliamentary elections expected to result in big gains for populist parties. In a clear bid to rally voters to his centre-right UMP party, which is under threat of losing in France to the anti-EU National Front, Mr Sarkozy broke a two-year virtual silence on political issues to issue a ringing defence of the need for the union to preserve peace in Europe and beyond. Those who want Europe to break up “forget the lessons of history and will lead us to the abyss”, he wrote in a long article published in Le Point magazine and the German newspaper Die Welt on Thursday. “France and Europe are inseparable geographically, historically, culturally and, now, politically. Europe should be vibrantly saluted and supported.”

USA - In 2009, a French court found Monsanto guilty of lying; falsely advertising its Roundup herbicide as "biodegradable," "environmentally friendly" and claiming it "left the soil clean." We're now starting to understand just how false such statements are. For example, last summer, a groundbreaking study revealed a previously unknown mechanism of harm from glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup.

UK - There are several billion barrels of oil in shale rocks under large parts of southern England, a report published later is expected to say. But getting the oil out of the ground will involve the controversial process known as fracking. The study by the British Geological Survey (BGS) covers areas including Sussex, Hampshire, Surrey and Kent. The government is planning to offer more compensation for towns affected by fracking, according to press reports. A series of reports has concluded that locally, fracking for oil and gas is relatively benign, if done with care. But reports continue to emerge from the USA and Australia about careless fracking polluting air and water.

USA - The head of the FBI says he understands why people worry about the scope of the government's powers, and in fact, he agrees with them. “I believe people should be suspicious of government power. I am,” Director James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning. “I think this country was founded by people who were worried about government power so they divided it among three branches,” he added. Though the controversial surveillance raised privacy concerns and made people fret that the government was snooping on their behavior, Comey said that the FBI’s programs are run responsibly. He added that those operations had also helped to track down kidnappers and save children.

CANADA - The Anglican and United Church of Canada dialogue has issued an interim report that proposes “to explore what steps can be taken to make a mutual exchange of ministries between our two churches normative”. As a first step, the dialogue members propose to explore the interchangeability between the order of priests in the Anglican Church and ordained ministers in the United Church. The interim report, prepared in January, has been received by the respective churches and was published May 20. Approving the proposal, the two churches have asked the dialogue to report on its progress in time for the Anglican General Synod in 2016.

CHINA - There was some trepidation yesterday when, after the first day of Putin's visit to China, the two countries did not announce the completion of the long-awaited "holy grail" gas deal, and fears that it may get scuttled over price negotiations. It wasn't: moments ago Russia's Gazprom and China's CNPC announced, that after a decade of negotiations, the two nations signed a 30 year gas contract amounting to around $400 billion. And with the west doing all it can to alienate Russia and to force it into China's embrace, this is merely the beginning of what will be a far closer commercial (and political) relationship between China and Russia.

UK - Nick Clegg has defended the Prince of Wales over his comparison of Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler, saying the heir to the throne is 'entitled to his views' despite warnings from a Russian newspaper the remarks could “trigger an international scandal”. The Prince caused controversy when he told a woman in Canada that the Russian president "is doing just about the same as Hitler" in annexing Crimea in the Ukraine. Popular Russian daily paper Moskovskij Komsomolets (MK) said the comment risked complicating already "not unclouded" UK-Russian relations.

UK - Online auction site eBay is telling all 233 million of its users to change their passwords following a "cyber attack" which compromised a database of account information. Names, email addresses, home address, phone numbers and dates of birth of all users have been stolen by hackers, the company admits. But it reassured users in a blog post today that no financial data was accessed and that all credit card information is stored separately in an encrypted format. "Our customers are our highest priority; and to ensure they continue to have a safe, secure and trusted experience on eBay, we will be asking all eBay users to change their passwords," the company told the Telegraph this afternoon.

EUROPE - JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM), HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) and Credit Agricole SA (ACA) were accused today by the European Union’s antitrust arm of colluding to manipulate interbank lending rates. The trio received antitrust complaints alleging they participated in a cartel to rig Euribor. The so-called statement of objections is the next step in the EU enforcement process after the lenders dropped out of settlement talks last year. The European Commission “has concerns that the three banks may have taken part in a collusive scheme which aimed at distorting the normal course of pricing components for euro interest rate derivatives,” it said in an e-mailed statement.

USA - If you believe that the US economy is heading in the right direction, you really need to read this article. As we look toward the second half of 2014, there are economic red flags all over the place. Industrial production is down. Home sales are way down. Retail stores are closing at the fastest pace since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. US household debt is up substantially, and in 20 percent of all US families everyone is unemployed. In so many ways, what we are witnessing right now is so similar to what we experienced during the build up to the last great financial crisis. We are making so many of the very same mistakes that we made the last time, and yet our "leaders" seem completely oblivious to what is happening. But the warning signs are very clear.

USA - The White House will be “picking up the pace on executive actions,” as Congress focuses its efforts on the newly formed select committee investigating Benghazi, senior Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer declared Tuesday. In an op-ed for The Huffington Post, Pfeiffer argued that congressional Republicans are not interested in engaging on the economy, instead spending time “obsessively trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act” and “ginning up politically motivated investigations.” “Given this dynamic, President Obama has only one option — use every ounce of his authority to unilaterally improve economic security,” Pfeiffer said. “Next week, as congressional Republicans spend their energy on yet another partisan investigation, we'll be picking up the pace on the executive actions to help the economy,” Pfeiffer added.

EUROPE - When it meets on June 6, Spiegel has learned, the European Central Bank may implement a negative interest rate for financial institutions seeking to park their money at the Frankfurt powerhouse. The move is aimed at spurring loans. European Central Bank executive board member Peter Praet of Germany is expected to recommend that the bank cut its main refinancing rate from the current 0.25 percent to a record low of 0.15 percent when the bank's Governing Council meets on June 5.