JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah visited the Temple Mount on Monday. His visit takes place amid rising tensions in Jerusalem, which have increased following last Wednesday when a Palestinian man carried out a terror attack by slamming his car into pedestrians at a Jerusalem light railway stop, resulting in the death so far of an infant and a woman.

EUROPE - The European Commission on Tuesday fined four major financial institutions 93.9 million euros, or about $120 million, over two types of activity that it deemed as cartel behavior. In one case, the European Commission fined JPMorgan Chase €61.7 million euros for manipulating the Swiss franc Libor benchmark interest rate in an “illegal bilateral cartel” with the Royal Bank of Scotland. RBS, however, was granted immunity and avoided a fine of €110 million after it revealed the existence of the cartel to the commission. “Anti-cartel enforcement is a top priority for the commission and no sector is exempt, including the financial sector,” the European Union said in a statement. Global financial institutions have paid more than $6 billion in fines over manipulating benchmark rates.

EUROPE - Aftershocks from the EU budget bombshell at the Brussels summit are still being felt - and the pain will linger for some time. Several countries complained last week about being asked to come up with hefty top-up payments into the EU budget by the start of December. Soon EU finance ministers will have to wrestle with the figures, amid huge pressure to cut the UK's 2.1 billion-euro (£1.7 billion) bill.

AFGHANISTAN - In 2006, when the British Army was first deployed to fight in Helmand province of Afghanistan, the then Defence Secretary John Reid made a statement now notorious for its ignorance and complacency. ‘We are [going there] to help and protect the Afghan people construct their own democracy,’ he said. ‘We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years and without firing one shot.’ Eight long and bloody years later, as Britain prepares finally to pull out of that benighted country, those words should make him and the whole political class cringe with shame.

UK - Defence Secretary Michael Fallon provoked a furious row yesterday after warning that communities were being ‘swamped’ by European immigrants. Last night he was reprimanded by Number 10 for his use of the word and rival politicians lined up to criticise what they called his ‘excessive language’. Tory backbenchers, however, said it was appalling that a minister had been told to retract comments when all he had done was speak out frankly on immigration. During a TV interview, Mr Fallon said some towns were ‘under siege’ from ‘huge numbers’ of migrants and that action was needed to tackle free movement rules. He spoke of trying to ‘prevent whole towns and communities being swamped by huge numbers of migrant workers’.

UK - A looming energy crisis this winter could force power giants to dim the lights in so-called 'brown outs' - with devastating results. Imagine if the lights went dim and then stayed like that for several hours — or perhaps even several days. That would certainly be something to worry about. Such events are called ‘brown-outs’, because they are one step short of a full black-out. They occur when the voltage to a home or office — the amount of electrical energy being supplied — drops below its normal level. Brown-outs are set to become a frequent and unwelcome feature of our lives.

GERMANY - The German government intends to massively expand its military engagement in the Middle East, including in both Iraq and Syria. On Wednesday, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, citing government sources, reported that the foreign and defence ministries are reviewing plans for the German Army to train Kurdish militias fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The German government already began supplying weapons to Iraq in September. It plans to arm a total of 10,000 Peshmerga fighters with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank missiles and vehicles. Now a German Army training team is to follow with the task of instructing the militia on how to use the weapons.

EUROPE/GERMANY - We’ve known for some time about the tension between the European Central Bank, charged with guiding the economies of the 18 countries that use the euro, and Germany, the largest and richest member of that zone. A news report sheds light on just how dysfunctional that relationship has become. It’s not an overstatement to say that the future of Europe depends on how this conflict is resolved.

EUROPE - A group of 25 banks have failed European health checks, while up to 10 of those continue to have a capital shortfall, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday, providing a snapshot of the health of the region's lenders. The health checks, led by the European Central Bank, found that banks in countries including Greece, Cyprus, Slovenia and Portugal had fallen short of a minimum capital benchmark at the end of last year and that up to 10 remained in difficulty now, the sources said. Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank passed the ECB-led stress test by a wide margin with a core equity ratio of 8.8 percent compared to a minimum requirement of 5.5 percent, two sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

VATICAN - Pope Francis will address the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, November 25. The Parliament's president, Martin Schultz, made the announcement September 11, and the Vatican immediately confirmed it. According to Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, Pope Francis will travel to Strasbourg and back to Rome the same day, and his brief trip should not be considered a pastoral visit to France.

TURKEY - In response to an invitation sent by Patriarch Bartolomeo I of Constantinople, Pope Francis will make a three-day trip to Turkey, during which he will visit the cities of Ankara and Istanbul. Announced in September following the reception of an official letter of invitation signed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the trip will take place November 28-30, and falls just days after Pope Francis’ November 25 address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The visit was largely made in response to an invitation sent to Pope Francis by Patriarch Bartolomeo I asking him to participate in the celebration of the feast of St Andrew, who is the founder of the Eastern Church and patron of the Orthodox world.

GERMANY - A demonstration organized by German far-right groups has erupted into violence as protesters clashed with police in the heart of the western city of Cologne. Police say they are using water cannon and pepper spray in an attempt to calm the situation after protesters threw bottles and fireworks at officers. Police spokesman Andre Fassbender says there are no figures on injuries or arrests yet. Some 2,000 people attended Sunday's demonstration against Islamic extremism. It was organized by neo-Nazi groups and members of Germany's football hooligan scene.

IRAQ - From the battlefield near Baiji, an Islamic State jihadist fired a heat-seeking missile and blew an Iraqi Army Mi-35M attack helicopter out of the sky this month, killing its two crew members. Days later, the Islamic State released a chilling series of images from a video purporting to capture the attack in northern Iraq: a jihadist hiding behind a wall with a Chinese-made missile launcher balanced on his shoulder; the missile blasting from the tube, its contrail swooping upward as it tracked its target; the fiery impact and the wreckage on a rural road. The helicopter was one of several Iraqi military helicopters that the militants claim to have shot down this year, and the strongest evidence yet that Islamic State fighters in Iraq are using advanced surface-to-air missile systems that pose a serious threat to aircraft flown by Iraq and the American-led coalition.

MIDDLE EAST - In June the leader of Islamic State declared the creation of a caliphate stretching across parts of Syria and Iraq - Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi named himself the caliph or leader. Edward Stourton examines the historical parallels and asks what is a caliphate, and what is its appeal?

UK - Some readers of the News Letter may have noticed that the European Commission changed its President this week. Jean-Claude Juncker replaced José Manuel Barroso. Now normally if a President is being sworn in, those who vote for him or her would know all about it. But this is not a normal President. This is a President who will not have been voted for by even one citizen of any of the 28 countries making up the European Union.