ISRAEL - Israel has proposed a deal to rescue the peace talks, offering to release 26 prisoners if the Palestinian leadership “cancels” its bid for greater international recognition. Yuval Steinitz, the Israeli Intelligence and Strategic Affairs Minister, told The Daily Telegraph that this exchange could be a way of continuing the negotiations brokered by John Kerry, the US Secretary of State.

USA - In an attempt to recover after US Secretary of State John Kerry blamed Israel for peace talk failures on Tuesday, US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki quickly stated Kerry did not intend to point the finger at the Jewish state. "Secretary Kerry was clear when he said that both sides took unhelpful steps, and at no point did he take part in the blame game," claimed Psaki.

USA - The caribou have vanished on Wall Street and the wolves are in a feeding frenzy against each other. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Goldman Sachs is considering shuttering its Sigma X dark pool, a business that brought in $7.17 billion from equity trading in 2013, before accounting charges. There are only three reasons that a Wall Street mega bank shutters a $7 billion business instead of selling it: it’s crazy; its regulators told it to shutter it; there’s more bad news ahead about this business and the firm is trying to get out in front of the fallout.

USA - Mini-storms of tumbleweed have invaded the drought-stricken prairie of southern Colorado, blocking rural roads and irrigation canals, and briefly barricading homes and an elementary school. Firefighters even had to cut a path through them to get to a pregnant woman who feared she'd be trapped in her home if she went into labor. The invasion of the tumbleweed, an iconic symbol of both the West's rugged terrain and the rugged cowboys who helped settle it, has conjured images of the Dust Bowl of 80 years ago, when severe drought unleashed them onto the landscape. Irrigation ditches that crisscross the region have snagged tons of tumbleweed. All of it will have to be cleared so that farmers and cattle ranchers can water their fields and pastures.

ISRAEL - Israel has threatened to take "unilateral" action over a Palestinian bid to join 15 UN agencies, including the Geneva Conventions. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made the announcement, which prompted scorn from US and Israeli officials, last week. "The Palestinians' threats to appeal to the UN will not affect us," stated Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "The Palestinians have much to lose by this unilateral move. They will achieve a state only by direct negotiations, not by empty statements and not by unilateral moves. These will only push a peace agreement farther away and unilateral steps on their part will be met with unilateral steps on our part," the Israeli leader stated. Critics pointed to such moves as showing the farce of the so-called peace talks.

USA - As we have discussed numerous times, nothing lasts forever - especially reserve currencies - no matter how much one hopes that the status-quo remains so, in the end the exuberant privilege is extorted just one too many times. Headline after headline shows nations declaring 'interest' or direct discussions in diversifying away from the US dollar... and as SCMP reports, Standard Chartered notes that at least 40 central banks have invested in the Yuan and several more are preparing to do so. The trend is occurring across both emerging markets and developed nation central banks diversifiying into 'other currencies' and "a great number of central banks are in the process of adding yuan to their portfolios." Perhaps most ominously, for king dollar, is the former-IMF manager's warning that "The Yuan may become a de facto reserve currency before it is fully convertible."

UK - Proposed new powers that will allow HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) to dip into individuals' bank accounts to reclaim money owed to the Exchequer have faced fresh criticism. The Treasury select committee heard that the new powers, contained in the detail of last month's Budget, were "excessive" and potentially illegal. In a written submission to MPs, Frank Haskew, head of the tax faculty at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW), said the plans were "of considerable concern to many taxpayers and accountants". He said it was "a fundamental tenet of our English law and our democratic society" that money "cannot be grabbed from somebody’s account without a judge agreeing to the move".

UK - Hundreds of millions of pounds may have been wasted on a drug for flu that works no better than paracetamol, a landmark analysis has said. The UK has spent £473 million on Tamiflu, which is stockpiled by governments globally to prepare for flu pandemics. The Cochrane Collaboration claimed the drug did not prevent the spread of flu or reduce dangerous complications, and only slightly helped symptoms. It concluded that the drug reduced the persistence of flu symptoms from seven days to 6.3 days in adults and to 5.8 days in children. But the report's authors said drugs such as paracetamol could have a similar impact.

USA - Another horrific stock market crash is coming, and the next bust will be “unlike any other” we have seen. That’s the message from Jeremy Grantham, co-founder and chief investment strategist of GMO, a Boston-based firm with $117 billion in assets under management.

USA - The Lone Star State can't seem to stay out of the heat. In a new drought report by the Texas Water Development Board, the state saw worsening conditions that now affect two thirds of Texas. About 25 percent of the state is suffering under "extreme" or "worse" drought conditions and two-thirds of Texas suffers from "moderate" or "worse" drought conditions. Just four months ago, 46 percent of the state was dry enough to qualify as undergoing at least a "moderate" drought. The percent has risen to 67 percent today. The northern and northeastern portions of the state are getting hit the hardest, and much of the state has seen less than 50 percent of normal rainfall. The drought is slowly taking a toll on the state's reservoirs. By the end of March, storage levels were 472,740 acre-feet less than the same month last year.

SYRIA - A predicted drought in Syria could affect the next harvest and put 6.5 million lives at risk, the World Food Program said in a report released Tuesday. Syria was affected by a drought in 2008, which lasted until 2010. Food shortages and rising prices came prior to the civil war, which began in 2011. The potential of a looming drought in northwest Syria could lead to acute food shortages and requests for humanitarian aid, according to the “WFP Special Focus Syria.” Rainfall in the area has been only one-half inch since September, said WFP spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs, adding, “There is only one month left in the rainfall season that lasts until mid-May and with three quarters of the rainfall season gone, it is unlikely there will be a significant recovery in this agricultural season.”

EUROPE - European Parliament chief Martin Schulz has admitted that some of London's concerns about the EU are valid and that it is no longer acceptable to dismiss those who are critical of the EU as simply being eurosceptic. In a press conference to mark the new year Schulz said he shared some of the "unease" with the EU that UK prime minister David Cameron outlined in a widely-reported speech earlier in the week. "This unease with the EU as it now is, is something that I share. I think there are many people in Europe who also have this unease" said Schulz. "And that's why I would really recommend that we don't label everyone who criticises the EU as a eurosceptic. The EU is not in a good state. We have to do better."

USA - Last month, The Wall Street Journal gave us quite a scare. "The US could suffer a coast-to-coast blackout if saboteurs knocked out just nine of the country's 55,000 electric-transmission substations on a scorching summer day," Rebecca Smith wrote. It's no secret that North America's three massive power grids, the interconnected systems that transmit electricity from power plants to consumers, are not invincible. In other words, the grid may be not be the "right" size — big enough to distribute power efficiently, but small enough to prevent widespread blackouts, such as the 2003 blackout that cut power to 50 million people in the US and Canada for two days. The US power grid is, in fact, big enough to fail.

USA - The former United States president appeared on Wednesday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” He ended up discussing, among other things, extraterrestrial life. Given the size of the universe, and the continued discovery of new planets, Clinton believes we’re not alone. “If we were visited someday I wouldn’t be surprised,” Clinton said. “I just hope it’s not like ‘Independence Day.’” Clinton went on to discuss some of the potential benefits to an alien invasion, framing his argument around the 1996 sci-fi disaster movie. “It may be the only way to unite this increasingly divided world of ours … all the differences among people of Earth would seem small if we felt threatened by a space invader,” Clinton said.

USA - Tensions between China and the United States were on full display on Tuesday as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel faced questions in Beijing about America's position in bitter territorial disputes with regional US allies. Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan, standing side-by-side with Hagel, called on the United States to restrain ally Japan and chided another US ally, the Philippines.