EUROPE - Jean-Claude Juncker has taunted David Cameron, boasting that the British leader does not scare him and mocked the Prime Minister for failing to win his battles with the European Union.

GERMANY - Days before Germany is set to mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the way has been cleared for the former communists who ruled East Germany to return to power. The Left Party, widely seen as the successor to the SED, East Germany's communist party, is expected to head the government of a German state for the first time since reunification, after the Social Democrats voted to enter a coalition with them in the state of Thuringia.

USA - You know something is going on when the cautious Boston Globe publishes not one, but two, pieces dealing with the “double government.” This cryptic phrase encapsulates a serious claim about the American body politic: That a permanent and largely unaccountable bureaucracy keeps on doing what it wants to do, no matter who the voters elect to the White House.

UK – Lord Tebbit: “I was pleased to see the Republicans doing so well in the mid-term elections in America, particularly as it gives greater hope that we will not face the horror of Hillary Clinton cast in the role of leader of the free world during what may well be very difficult times ahead. However, in the short term, until after the presidential elections in 2016, there is now an even greater risk of a paralysis of government in both Washington and Westminster. That will no doubt be exploited both by Vladimir Putin and the various strains of Islamism led by Isil.”

ISRAEL - Whether the third intifada or a new spin-off, Jerusalem is in the throes of the worst spate of Arab violence against Jewish residents in over a decade. There’s a sense of free fall in Jerusalem, of events spinning out of control – they are no longer isolated incidents. And they’re not subsiding – riots on the Temple Mount, ongoing rock attacks on the light rail, rioting in Arab neighborhoods, the attempted assassination of Yehudah Glick, and on Wednesday another fatal sidewalk terrorist attack on the seam line between western and eastern Jerusalem.

UK - The BBC has caused anger after it posted a picture of the Temple Mount mosque with what appeared to be an Israeli flag flying from it. The picture was published on the BBC’s Middle East section of its news website and formed part of its coverage of the terror attack in East Jerusalem today. The story, headlined “Driver hits pedestrians in East Jerusalem” was live for some time but the link is no longer active. BBC viewer Ian Taylor said: “This is a blatant attempt to try and provoke anti-Israeli feelings. I’ve done a Google image search to see if the picture’s been lifted off of the internet but can’t find anything, which suggests that some idiot in the BBC has done this himself.”

USA - President Barack Obama came out swinging on Wednesday just 14 hours after a Republican wave swept over the US Congress in an election that largely repudiated his policies. 'Congress will pass some bills I cannot sign,' he said, threatening to dust off a veto pen that he has used only twice in nearly six years. And he hinted at executive orders that will enrage conservatives. 'I'm pretty sure I'll take some actions that some in Congress will not like,' he said. 'That's natural. That's how Democracy works.' He acknowledged that the GOP won Tuesday's elections, but framed the results as a mandate for Republicans to work with him, instead of the other way around. 'Obviously the Republicans had a good night,' he said.

UK - A Christian bakery firm which refused to make a cake supporting gay marriage with a picture of the Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie has been warned it will be taken to court unless it apologises and pays immediate compensation. Ashers Baking Co, based in Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland, was told by a Government equalities agency that it was guilty of “unlawful religious, political and sexual orientation discrimination” for its stance on the Sesame Street-themed dessert. But the family-run firm said it was ready for a “David and Goliath battle” over the cake insisting it was “what God would want us to do”. Simon Calvert, deputy director of the Christian Institute, which is supporting the firm, said: “It is simply baffling for a body supposedly working for equality to be threatening a Christian family with legal action, all because of a cake.

TURKEY - Recep Tayyip Erdogan's new residence is four times the size of Versailles, comfortably exceeding the grandeur of Louis XIV of France. Turkey’s new president has been accused of behaving like a “sultan” after he installed himself in the biggest residential palace in the world, built for a price tag of £384 million. Recep Tayyip Erdogan now resides in the White Palace, which was constructed in breach of court orders in protected forest land in the capital, Ankara. Boasting 1,000 rooms covering a total floor area of 3.1 million square feet, the palace is four times the size of Versailles, allowing Mr Erdogan to exceed the residential grandeur of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” of France.

UK - Anglicans are increasingly looking to the Vatican to take the lead in standing up for Christians around the world, a prominent bishop has said. The Right Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the former bishop of Rochester, also called on the West to put an international force of soldiers on the ground in Iraq to safeguard its religious minorities against Islamic State. In an address to the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, a body set up in 2011 allowing Anglicans to join the Roman Catholic Church, Bishop Nazir-Ali said that the Holy See was the main voice defending Christians under threat.

USA - The White House said today: “History shows that a free press remains a critical foundation for prosperous, open, and secure societies, allowing citizens to access information and hold their governments accountable. Indeed, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reiterates the fundamental principle that every person has the right ‘to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers’.”

SAUDI ARABIA - Bloomberg's Richard Breslow noted: Riyal forwards have jerked notably higher (implying weakness expected) and the Tadawul All Share Index has dropped 7% in the last 2 days after the killing of Shi'ites by unknown parties and now news that a pipeline has exploded. As Breslow warns, "if that indeed signifies the spread of Islamic State into Saudi Arabia, it would be the first time they crossed Saudi borders. That would be a big deal and a major escalation of problems over in that part of the world, far beyond what it would do to capital markets."

EUROPE - Critics attack the EU for demanding that David Cameron pays a £1.7 billion bill despite an official audit failing to give a clean bill of health to more than £100 billion of Brussel's spending. The European Union was last night accused of “breathtaking hypocrisy” for continuing to demand that David Cameron pays a £1.7 billion bill despite its own auditors failing to give a clean bill of health to more than £100 billion of spending by Brussels.

EUROPE - As the Continent's two largest economies find themselves in trouble for very different reasons, is it time they finally get punished? Paris and Berlin have flouted the EU's budget rules before. Will they get away with it again?

CANADA - Nine short months ago, the clever people running the show in Europe suggested a number of measures including "unpaid work for the young and unemployed up to 24 years old, so that companies would have a strong motive to hire young employees". 'Unpaid' work sounded a lot like slavery to us then but it seems the arrogance is contagious as Canada - that bastion of freedom - suggests that the employment situation is so bad that young people should consider working for free. As The Globe & Mail reports, Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz said 'Adult children stuck in their parents’ basements because they can’t find adequate employment should take unpaid work to bolster résumés as they wait for the recovery to take hold'.