CHINA - China told the United States on Tuesday to stay out of disputes over the South China Sea and leave countries in the region to resolve problems themselves, after Washington said it wanted a freeze on stoking tension. Michael Fuchs, US deputy assistant secretary of state for Strategy and Multilateral Affairs, said no country was solely responsible for escalating tension in the region. But he reiterated the US view that "provocative and unilateral" behaviour by China had raised questions about its willingness to abide by international law.

EUROPE - A majority in the European Parliament has approved former Luxembourg PM Jean-Claude Juncker to be President of the European Commission. He got 422 votes out of the 729 total cast in the secret ballot, despite strong opposition earlier from Britain. He told reporters in Strasbourg he was prepared to discuss repatriating some powers from Brussels to member states. A firm believer in EU integration, he will succeed incumbent Jose Manuel Barroso of Portugal in November. The presidency is the most powerful job in Brussels. The Commission drafts EU laws, oversees national budgets, enforces EU treaties and negotiates international trade deals.

QATAR - Qatar will buy US Patriot missiles for the first time in a major arms deal worth $11 billion, officials said Monday, as Washington awaits a decision by the Gulf state on a lucrative fighter jet contract. The sale will provide Qatar with roughly 10 batteries for Patriot systems designed to knock out incoming missiles, as well as 24 Apache helicopters and 500 Javelin anti-tank missiles, the US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP. Qatar was investing in missile defense systems to counter what it sees as the threat from Iran across the Gulf, as Tehran has built up its missile arsenal, officials said. Qatar has stepped up weapons purchases as it takes on an increasingly influential role in the region.

USA - Extreme heat from a massive supervolcano underneath Yellowstone National Park is melting a major roadway at the popular summertime tourist attraction. Park officials have closed the area to visitors. Firehole Lake Drive, a 3-mile-plus offshoot of the park’s Grand Loop that connects the Old Faithful geyser and the Madison Junction, is currently off limits. Park operators say the danger of stepping on seemingly solid soil into severely hot water is “high.” “It basically turned the asphalt into soup. It turned the gravel road into oatmeal,” Yellowstone spokesman Dan Hottle said. The affected roadway offers access to the Great Fountain Geyser, White Dome Geyser, and Firehole Lake. While thermal activity under the park often gives way to temperature fluctuations that can soften asphalt throughout Yellowstone, Hottle said the latest wave seems worse than usual.

GERMANY - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Friday that cooperation with Washington must be built not just on trust, but also on mutual respect, calling the dismissal of the CIA's top man in the country "a necessary step" in response to US spying. "We want our partnership, our friendship, to be renewed on an honest foundation," Steinmeier told reporters in Berlin. "We are ready for that in any case." The foreign minister called it an "illusion" to believe that Germany could resolve the dispute without US cooperation. Both Steinmeier and US Secretary of State John Kerry are scheduled to attend the latest round of talks on Iran's nuclear program in Vienna this weekend. The German foreign minister said he would express his concerns to his US counterpart when they meet in the Austrian capital.

ISRAEL - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel has "no choice" but to step up its air strikes on Gaza, after an Egyptian truce initiative failed to halt militant rocket attacks on Israel. "When there is no ceasefire, our answer is fire," Mr Netanyahu said. Hamas, which controls Gaza, has not responded officially to the initiative. Its military wing has rejected it. Israel launched its Operation Protective Edge eight days ago to try to halt the rocket attacks. It took six hours for the first attempt to broker a deal between Israel and Hamas to founder. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu had warned that if the rocket fire continued, Israel would hit back hard - and now it has.

ISRAEL - IAF to stop striking Gaza at 9:00 am - despite Hamas's refusal to adhere to the terms and conditions. The Security Cabinet has agreed to Egypt's proposal for a cease-fire with Hamas, beginning at 9:00 am IST - despite the fact that Hamas categorically rejected the offer on Monday night. "The cabinet has decided to accept the Egyptian initiative for a ceasefire starting 9 am today," Ofir Gendelman, spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Twitter. The decision came as a surprise to both ministers and political analysts, after Hamas categorically rejected the notion of a ceasefire just hours before. "A ceasefire without reaching an agreement is rejected. In times of war, you don't cease fire and then negotiate," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told AFP.

ISRAEL - The Hamas ‘Surprise’ Israel Knocked Out of the Sky – but Its Potential as a Weapon Is Frightening. An aerial drone launched by Hamas was knocked out of Israeli airspace Monday by an Israel Defense Forces Patriot missile battery, marking the first reported use by Hamas of an unmanned aerial vehicle as a weapon and a frightening development for Israel. “It was shot to smithereens,” IDF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner told the New York Times. Hamas’ military wing the Al Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for sending a “number of drones” into Israel and described the innovation as one of the “surprises” it has been preparing for Israel, the New York Times reported. “The Hamas group claimed its engineers had manufactured three types of unmanned aircraft, including those that could be armed or used as a guided missile, a kind of suicide drone. The claims of armed drones or overflights of Israeli military installations could not be confirmed,” the Post reported.

LIBYA - Libya is considering a deployment of international force to re-establish security amid a flare-up of violence in Tripoli which saw dozens of rockets destroy most of the civilian aircraft fleet at its international airport. “The government is looking into the possibility of making an appeal for international forces on the ground to re-establish security and help the government impose its authority,” a government spokesman, Ahmed Lamine said in a statement. The statement comes after deadly clashes led to the closing of the main international airport in Tripoli on Sunday, which came under a renewed rocket attack on Monday. According to the country’s government at least seven people have been killed at the airport since Sunday, and around 90 percent of aircraft parked at the hub were destroyed or made inoperable. The control tower was damaged as well as several Grad rockets struck the transit hub.

USA - On June 28, 1914, a chauffeur panicked after a failed bomb attack on his boss, took a wrong turn and came to a complete stop in front of a café in Sarajevo where Gavrilo Princip was sitting. Princip, discouraged at the apparent failure of the planned murder, seized the unexpected opportunity and fired the shots that began the First World War, a cataclysm which claimed over nine million lives, ended four empires and set in motion events from the Communist Revolution in Russia to the rise of Nazi Germany.

EUROPE - What we now call the European Union began rather modestly in 1952 with the European Coal and Steel Community, at the time called “the first step towards a more united Europe.” Five years later, five European nations signed the Treaty of Rome and a true European Economic Community was born. Today it’s called the EU, and it has 28 member states, a European Parliament and a (somewhat) common currency. But it’s still not a kind of United States of Europe. Bit by bit, though, integration is happening, and the latest involves electricity.

GERMANY - The German government has instructed its intelligence agencies to limit their cooperation with their American counterparts “to the bare essentials” until further notice, according to media reports. The move follows news that Berlin requested on Thursday the immediate removal from Germany of the United States Central Intelligence Agency chief of station — essentially the top American official in the country. The request came after two German citizens, one working for the BND, Germany’s main external intelligence organization, and one working for the country’s Federal Ministry of Defense, were allegedly found to have been secretly spying for the US.

MIDDLE EAST - Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is to ask the United Nations to put the state of Palestine under "international protection" in light of the worsening violence in the Gaza Strip, the PLO said Sunday. "President Abbas will present a letter to the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry, addressed to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to officially put the State of Palestine under the UN international protection system and to form a legal committee for immediate follow-up," it said in a statement.

FRANCE - Clashes erupted in Paris on Sunday as thousands of people protested against Israel and in support of residents in the Gaza Strip, where a six-day conflict has left 168 Palestinians dead. Several thousand demonstrators walked calmly through the streets of Paris behind a large banner that read "Total Support for the Struggle of the Palestinian People". But clashes erupted at the end of the march in Bastille Square, with people throwing projectiles onto a cordon of police who responded with tear gas. A small group tried to break into two synagogues in central Paris, a police source told AFP. Prime Minister Manuel Valls condemned the attempted synagogue stormings "in the strongest possible terms". "Such acts targeting places of worship are unacceptable," he said in a statement.

FRANCE - Serge Ben Haim, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Paris, told IDF Radio Monday morning about the attack on a Paris synagogue by a pro-Palestinian mob on Sunday. Ben Haim told his interviewer that the event was a watershed occurrence. “What existed in the past can no longer continue. We could have had something like Kristallnacht,” he said, referring to the infamous “night of broken glass” in 1938, when Nazis swept through Jewish towns and neighborhoods throughout Germany and Austria, murdering some 500 Jews, burning homes and synagogues, and destroying shops.