USA - It is somewhat ironic, actually make that criminal, that two days after new SEC [The Securities and Exchange Commission] head Mary Jo White solemnly promised Congress under oath that the "markets are not rigged", the SEC comes out swinging and slaps the wrist of the NYSE with an intolerable $4.5 million fine for allowing market rigging "for a period of time from 2008 to 2012."

EUROPE - From Open Europe’s Daily Press Summary: "In an interview with De Standaard, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy argues that although the ‘United States of Europe’ is not a realistic scenario, the “whole European territory apart from Russia will in the long term be in some way involved with the EU”. He adds that “whether there is support for this among the public, I do not know. But we do it anyway.”

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - While entry to Muslim worshippers remains free flowing, Jews and tourists are forced to line up for short visits. The line, which begins at the Mugrabim Gate, snakes tens of meters past the Dung Gate, causing undue delays. Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick told Arutz Sheva that “It is hard not to believe that the State of Israel relates to Temple Mount like it is a Muslim site and that all non-Muslims are nuisances.”

JORDAN - A new Islamic fatwa permits millions of Muslims from around the world to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. The fatwa was issued during a two-day conference in Amman called the “Road to Jerusalem,” attended by more than 150 Islamic scholars as a way to discuss “defending Islamic and Christian holy sites,” the Jordanian daily Ad-Dustour reported. The fatwa called “Visiting Al-Aqsa Mosque Under the Occupation” encourages Palestinians who have foreign passports, as well as Muslims who live in non-Islamic countries, to visit the Temple Mount. It cautioned that normalization of the Israeli “occupation” should be avoided, meaning that visitors should only use Palestinian-provided services such as lodging, food, and transportation. Previous fatwas had prohibited Muslims from around the world from visiting the Temple Mount.

UK - We are in a colossal bubble once again. It is worse than 2008 on many indicators, though the epicentre of risk is ever more concentrated in sovereign debt, especially the debt of those countries without a central bank. Borrowing costs are back to 2008 levels, yet the debt burdens are massively higher, and still rising. As Mr Mellor reminds us, Germany has shot down any prospect of an EMU fiscal union, and the Draghi backstop plan for Italian and Spanish debt (OMT) has been declared a treaty violation and probably ultra vires by the German constitutional court. So unless you have a solution for all these problems – and you don’t – you have to pick your poison: perma-slump and mass unemployment, or perma-bubbles, champagne, and crossed-fingers, until a Black Swan comes along and eliminates the spare capacity.

USA - A wildfire in the hills near Los Angeles was more than 75 percent contained on Sunday, after blackening some 1,900 acres (769 hectares) of drought-parched shrubland and destroying five homes, officials said. The so-called Colby Fire, which officials said started from a campfire, was expected to be fully contained by Tuesday, said Nathan Judy, a spokesman for the Angeles National Forest & Fire Department. The blaze, centered in the San Gabriel Mountains on territory that is part of the Angeles National Forest, was 78 percent contained, Judy said.

ISRAEL - A Knesset Member said Thursday that Chief Sephardic Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef told him that the Prime Minister's bureau contacted him and asked to grant halakhic permission for Israel to hand over the Tomb of David to the Vatican. The startling news was revealed by the Knesset Member during a tour of the Tomb of David by four MKs – Yoni Chetboun of the Jewish Home, who initiated the tour, Moshe Feiglin (Likud-Beytenu), Nissim Ze'ev (Shas), and Meir Porush (United Torah Judaism – UTJ).

USA - Magma levels are slowly rebuilding inside Mount St Helens, a volcano in Washington state that erupted in 1980 and killed 57 people, although there was no sign of an impending eruption, US scientists said. The roughly 8,300-foot volcano erupted in an explosion of hot ash and gas on May 18, 1980, spewing debris over some 230 square miles and causing more than a billion dollars in property damage. Entire forests were crushed and river systems altered in the blast, which began with a 5.2 magnitude earthquake. "The magma reservoir beneath Mount St Helens has been slowly re-pressurizing since 2008," the US Geological Survey said in a statement on Wednesday.

VATICAN - He has railed against the "tyranny" of global capitalism and the "idolatry of money" but even Pope Francis needs a little corporate coin sometimes – as proven by the list of sponsors for Sunday's canonizations. An oil and gas giant, several banks and Switzerland-based food megacorp Nestle are among more than a dozen financial backers of the Rome event. Father Thomas Reese, a senior analyst with the National Catholic Reporter, said as such events brought income to businesses including hotels and restaurants it was "appropriate that they help." He added: "As one archbishop told me, 'You can't pay bills with holy cards'."

SAUDI ARABIA - Saudi Arabia concluded a large-scale military exercise with a display of its Chinese made Dongfeng 3 ballistic missiles this week, showcasing the missiles for the first time in a veiled warning to Iran, a defense expert told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday. The Dongfeng 3 (DF-3) has a range of up to 3,300 kilometers, and can carry two-ton warheads.

EUROPE - The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has come close to destroying the last good reason for Britain to stay in the European Union. Judges in Luxembourg seem no longer willing to uphold the integrity of the EU single market. Or rather, they seem complicit in subverting it. Stripping away a veneer of technicalities, the ECJ has signalled in a test ruling on the Financial Transaction Tax that it will not defend the City of London against assault by eurozone states, who are determined to muscle through their economic ideology, even when in breach of the "Four Freedoms" that have always underpinned the European Project. One of them is free movement of capital within the EU. "They are playing with fire," said Mats Persson, from Open Europe, a body that has been warning for months that this case is a watershed moment for Britain's future in Europe.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is whipping up a phony propaganda campaign that accuses Israel of “ethnic purification” of Jerusalem - pushing out Arab residents and replacing them with Jews. His ethnic-cleansing charges about Jerusalem population trends go in tandem with another big Palestinian lie - that Israel is threatening to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque atop Temple Mount and replace it with a third Jewish temple. Nothing of the sort is true – on both counts. Israel has been scrupulous in maintaining security and access for Al-Aqsa Mosque worshippers, while Arabs actually have flourished and grown in big numbers in Jerusalem.

ISRAEL - The Times of Israel: The Religious Affairs Ministry is crafting new regulations that would allow Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, Deputy Minister Eli Ben Dahan said Tuesday. “We have drafted regulations that will regulate prayer on the mount,” said Ben Dahan, of the nationalist Jewish Home party. “I expect the prime minister and the government of Israel to adopt and validate these regulations and allow all Jews who desire so to go up to the Temple Mount and pray there,” he told a conference of Liba, an organization that encourages Jews to visit the Temple Mount, via video address.

UKRAINE - Police and security service units defect to pro-Russian rebels as more government buildings are taken over in Luhansk and Donetsk. Ukraine's government has lost control of two regions in the country's east after police and security service units defected to pro-Russian rebels, the acting president admitted on Wednesday. Oleksandr Turchynov spoke hours after gunmen seized more police stations and administrative buildings in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the country's industrial heartland and now the centre of a pro-Russian insurgency. "I will be frank: today, security forces are unable to quickly take the situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions under control," said Mr Turchynov at a meeting with regional governors in Kiev. He described the Ukrainian security services as "helpless" and "unable to carry out their duties of protecting citizens".

China said on Wednesday it would conduct joint naval drills with Russia in the East China Sea off Shanghai in late May, in what it called a bid to deepen military cooperation. China's defense ministry did not give an exact location in the East China Sea, where Beijing is locked in an increasingly bitter dispute with Japan over the ownership of a group of uninhabited islets. "These drills are regular exercises held by China and Russia's navies, and the purpose is to deepen practical cooperation between the two militaries, to raise the ability to jointly deal with maritime security threats," the ministry said on its website. China and Russia have close diplomatic, security and economic ties, and regularly carry out military exercises together.