ISRAEL - Thousands of Hamas-linked terrorists planned to invade Israel on the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah), which begins on September 24, according to an Israel security source. First reported by Ma'ariv, then in English by i24news, “thousands of terrorists were meant to cross over to Israel from Gaza through the tunnels and kill and kidnap as many Israelis as they could. The source added that the army learned about the huge planned attack during the interrogations of Hamas prisoners, captured during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.”

UK - A Conservative member of the Commons health select committee has said he is “absolutely convinced” of the benefits of astrology and called for it to be incorporated into medicine. David Tredinnick said he had spent 20 years studying astrology and healthcare and said it had a “proven track record” guiding people through their lives. The MP, a member of both the Commons health select committee and the science and technology committee, is a keen advocate of complementary therapies, and chairman of a Government working group on herbal medicine. On Friday he said more should be done to raise awareness among patients and healthcare professionals of the benefits of astrology.

GERMANY - Germany is to reject a multi-billion free trade deal between the European Union and Canada which is widely seen as a template for a bigger agreement with the United States, a leading German paper reported on Saturday. Citing diplomats in Brussels, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported that Berlin objects to clauses outlining the legal protection offered to firms investing in the 28-member bloc. Critics say they could allow investors to stop or reverse laws.

INDIA - India threatened on Friday to block a worldwide reform of custom rules, which some estimates say could add $1 trillion to the global economy and create 21 million jobs, prompting a US warning that its demands could kill global trade reform efforts. Diplomats from the 160 World Trade Organization member countries meeting in Geneva had been meant to rubber stamp a deal on "trade facilitation" that was agreed at talks in Bali last December in the WTO's first ever global trade agreement. But India, in an 11th-hour intervention, demanded a halt to the trade facilitation timetable until the end of the year and said a permanent WTO deal on food stockpiling must be in place at the same time, well ahead of an agreed 2017 target date. The ultimatum revived doubts about the future of the WTO as a negotiating body, and many diplomats said Delhi's stance could derail the whole process of world trade liberalisation.

NIGERIA - Nigeria says it has put all entries into the country on red alert after confirming the death of a Liberian man who was carrying the Ebola virus. The man died after arriving at Lagos airport on Tuesday, in the first Ebola case in Africa's most populous country. Surveillance has been stepped up at all "airports, seaports and land borders", says Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu. Since February, more than 660 people have died of Ebola in West Africa - the world's deadliest outbreak to date. It began in southern Guinea and spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone.

UK - Wake-up calls must be urgently sounded to help people plan how to cope with increased borrowing costs amid the prospect of the end of rock-bottom interest rates, a think-tank has argued. The Resolution Foundation warned that even a "relatively benign" move away from the current rate could double the number of households facing repayment problems in the coming four years.

UK - Written by Richard Littlejohn (author, broadcaster and journalist): Explain the difference. Paramilitaries fire a missile which brings down a civilian airliner over Ukraine. They are widely condemned as murderous gangsters and war criminals who must be hunted down and brought to justice. Another ruthless gang of paramilitaries fire missiles at a civilian airport in Israel. They are hailed as heroic ‘resistance fighters’ and receive widespread support in the West. Let’s just imagine, for a moment, that a rocket fired from Gaza had hit a plane coming in to land at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. What if a British Airways jet had been brought down over Israel, with a similar loss of life to the 298 people who perished on Malaysian flight MH17? Would it still be considered appropriate to hold yet another march through London this weekend, waving banners proclaiming ‘We are all Hamas now’?

USA - Al Qaeda, nation states, and criminals are preparing for major cyber attacks against US infrastructure that could be comparable to the devastating September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, a senior Justice Department official said on Thursday. “We’re in a pre-9/11 moment, in some respects, with cyber,” said John Carlin, assistant attorney general for national security in the Justice Department.

IRAN - Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated on Wednesday that the only solution for the region is the destruction of Israel, and that the armed confrontation must expand beyond Gaza. Meanwhile, revolutionary guards announced new missiles which could destroy Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. Fars News Agency, a media outlet run by the Iranian state, reported today that Khamenei addressed the conflict in Gaza in a meeting with Iranian college students. “These crimes which are beyond imagination and show the true nature of the wolfish and child killer regime, which the only solution is its destruction,” the ayatollah declared to his audience. “However, until that time, the expansion of the armed resistance of the Palestinians of the West Bank is the only way to confront this wild regime.”

ISRAEL - Violence broke out Thursday night near the Kalandia checkpoint, located in the West Bank between Jerusalem and Ramallah, as residents of the West Bank village clashed with police in protests against the IDF's operation in the Gaza Strip. Some 10,000 Palestinians protested near the checkpoint, throwing rocks, firebombs and fireworks at Israeli security forces, and setting tires ablaze. The IDF forces and Border Police were using crowd dispersal means on the masses.

ISRAEL - Israeli leaders have told Britain it should support its continuing war in Gaza because Hamas's rocket attacks are like the Blitz. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister, were speaking as they met the new Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, who is on a whirlwind tour of the Middle East. "I think you, as a representative of the UK, of Britain, have a special understanding, at least a historical understanding, of what Israel is undergoing," Mr Netanyahu said. "There's only been one other instance where a democracy has been rocketed and pelleted with these projectiles of death, and that's Britain during World War Two. Israel is undergoing a similar bombardment now."

ISRAEL - President Shimon Peres accused Qatar on Wednesday of becoming “the world’s largest funder of terror” due to its financial support for Hamas in Gaza. “Qatar does not have the right to send money for rockets and tunnels which are fired at innocent civilians,” the outgoing statesman told UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Jerusalem. “Their funding of terror must stop. If they want to build then they should, but they must not be allowed to destroy.”

GERMANY - Jewish people are being attacked and abused on the streets of Germany as though the country were back in the Nazi era, political and religious leaders warned yesterday. Escalating violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has prompted a disturbing rise in anti-Semitism in Europe in the last few days. Murderous slogans dating back to the days of Hitler have been chanted at pro-Palestinian rallies in Germany. Jewish-owned shops were attacked and burned in riots in France at the weekend. The Israeli ambassador to Germany, Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, said: ‘They pursue the Jews in the streets of Berlin… as if we were in 1938.’ Jewish groups expressed disgust over the tide of hate crimes and warned of ‘a new level of hatred and violence in all of Europe’. Foreign ministers from Germany, France and Italy yesterday issued a joint statement condemning the rise in anti-Semitic protests and violence and vowed to combat hostility against Jewish people.

NORWAY - Norway is boosting security because of an imminent threat from people linked to Islamist militants in Syria, the Norwegian intelligence chief says. The head of the PST security service, Benedicte Bjoernland, said it had "reliable information" about plans for some kind of attack "within days". She called the threat "non-specific" but "credible". Norway suffered a twin terror attack in 2011 when far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people. Norwegian police are stepping up their presence at airports, stations and border crossings because of the new threat. Other European governments, including the UK and France, have warned of the risk that "home-grown" Islamist volunteers may return from the Syrian conflict and carry out attacks.

USA - Google Inc has embarked on what may be its most ambitious and difficult science project ever: a quest inside the human body. Called Baseline Study, the project will collect anonymous genetic and molecular information from 175 people — and later thousands more — to create what the company hopes will be the fullest picture of what a healthy human being should be. The early-stage project is run by Andrew Conrad, a 50-year-old molecular biologist who pioneered cheap, high-volume tests for HIV in blood-plasma donations.