BRUSSELS, EUROPE - A leader of a movement for a United States of Europe says that a member of the European Parliament who opposes his group is closed minded.

AUSTRALIA - Apparently all it takes to kick the world out of a secular recession and back into growth mode, is for several dozen finance ministers and central bankers to sit down and sign on the dotted line, agreeing it has to be done. That is the take home message from the just concluded latest G-20 meeting in Syndey, where said leaders agreed that it is time to finally grow the world economy by 2% over the next 5 years.

ETHIOPIA - Urban hyenas are becoming a dangerous problem in the Ethiopian capital, where they attack rough sleepers. "Hyenas," says Stephen Brend, a zoologist with the Born Free Foundation, “are some of the fiercest predators on earth.”

USA - Over the last decade, America has quietly expanded its military presence throughout Africa in an attempt to counter Chinese and other emerging nations’ influence, while consolidating control over critical strategic resources and trade routes. The United States, like its allies Britain and France, has long maintained influence and indirect control in Africa through financial institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and African Development Bank. It has exerted political influence using aid organizations such as USAID and NGOs like the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House and others. However, recent years have seen an unprecedented military expansion which has gone almost entirely unnoticed by the US public.

VATICAN - Pope Francis has appointed 19 new cardinals at a ceremony in Rome - the first such appointments of his papacy. The BBC's David Willey in Rome says the appointments are being seen as a clear attempt to share decision-making in the church. The Pope is encouraging cardinals - old and new - to think outside the box in formulating new policies for the Catholic Church, our correspondent adds. The new recruits will join the more than 100-strong College of Cardinals, which has been meeting in plenary session behind closed doors at the Vatican.

USA - Today the American people, whether they know it or not, are mired in a silent war. It threatens the fabric of our communities, the health of our public square, and the endurance of our constitutional governance. It is a war against the propositions in the Declaration of Independence. It is a war against the spirit that motivated abolitionism. It is a war against the faith that motivated the Civil Rights struggle. It is a war against the soul of countless acts of charity. It is a war against the conscience that drives social change. It is a war against the heart that binds our neighborhoods together. It is a war against America’s best self, at America’s best moments. It is a war — a silent war — against religious liberty.

UKRAINE - Ukrainian Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman, called on Kiev’s Jews to leave the city and even the country if possible, fearing that the city’s Jews will be victimized in the chaos, Israeli daily Maariv reported Friday. “I told my congregation to leave the city center or the city all together and if possible the country too,” Rabbi Azman told Maariv. “I don’t want to tempt fate,” he added, “but there are constant warnings concerning intentions to attack Jewish institutions.” According to the paper’s report Azman closed the Jewish community’s schools but still holds three daily prayers. He said the Israeli embassy told members of the Jewish community to avoid leaving their homes.

USA - US gun makers led by Sturm Ruger & Co and Smith & Wesson Holding Corp (SWHC) churned out a record number of firearms in 2012, government data show, continuing a trend of robust production during Democratic presidencies. More than 8.57 million guns were produced in 2012, up 31 percent from 6.54 million in 2011, according to data released this week by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which has been tracking the statistics since 1986. Almost as many guns - 26.1 million - were produced during Democrat Barack Obama’s first term as president as during the entire eight-year presidency of his Republican predecessor, George W Bush, the ATF data show.

CHINA - China wants to make World War Two a key part of a trip by President Xi Jinping to Germany next month, much to Berlin's discomfort, diplomatic sources said, as Beijing tries to use German atonement for its wartime past to embarrass Japan. China has increasingly contrasted Germany and its public contrition for the Nazi regime to Japan, where repeated official apologies for wartime suffering are sometimes undercut by contradictory comments by conservative politicians. Ties between the two Asian rivals worsened when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine on December 26, which China sees as a symbol of Tokyo's past militarism because it honors wartime leaders along with millions of war dead.

UK - Onshore wind farms are being paid £30 million a year to sit idle during the windiest weather. The payments are made because the cables which transmit power from the turbines to the National Grid cannot cope with the amount of electricity they produce during stormy conditions. Ministers are launching a fresh crackdown on the compensation charges – which ultimately end up on customers’ bills - and are threatening to force power companies to reduce the cost of the payments. Michael Fallon, the Energy Minister, has written to renewable power companies warning that he is ready to change the law to force wind farms to lower their prices if they fail to cut the costs voluntarily.

UKRAINE - The deadly protests that have broken out on the streets of Kiev are no longer just a Ukrainian issue. They might soon be an American one, too. As is the case in several conflicts across the world, Ukraine is just the next proxy battle between the United States and Russia.

USA - In order for our current level of debt-fueled prosperity to continue, the rest of the world must continue to use our dollars to trade with one another and must continue to buy our debt at ridiculously low interest rates. Of course the number one foreign nation that we depend on to participate in our system is China.

VATICAN - This is a story that is classic Pope Francis: in late December he picked up the phone and called a Pentecostal bishop, Tony Palmer, to invite him to visit. By all accounts, they had been friends for a number of years already and this was just a social visit, so it wasn’t planned and facilitated by Vatican staff.

IRAN - As a country, it faces threats of terrorism, nuclear power and frosty international relations with world leaders. But Iran is focusing on another problem - a shrinking lake. Lake Oroumieh, one of the world's biggest saltwater lakes, is in danger of completely drying up because of climate change, nearby farms using it for irrigation and the damming of rivers. It has shrunk more than 80 percent to 1,000 square kilometers (nearly 400 square miles) in the past decade, experts say. Salt-covered rocks that were once deep underwater now sit in the middle of desert. Experts fear the lake - famous in years past as a tourist spot and a favorite stopping point for migrating flamingos, pelicans and gulls - could disappear within two years if nothing is done.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, the Imam of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, warned Israel on Friday against “harming” the mosque. Sabri, head of the Supreme Muslim Council, declared in a conversation with a Gaza-based news agency that Al-Aqsa was a “red line” for Arabs, adding, “We will not give up even one grain of earth (at the Al-Aqsa Mosque), since the Jews have no connection to it whatsoever.” Sabri’s comments are just the latest in a series of accusations that Arab leaders level at Israel concerning the Temple Mount and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.