IRAN - Israel is known for its advanced intelligence capabilities but, according to an Iranian cleric, that is because it uses sorcery. The comments by Valiollah Naghipourfar, a cleric and professor at Tehran University, were made in a recent interview he gave to Iran’s state broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) and were republished by the IranWire website.

GERMANY - The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, says allegations that a German man worked as a double agent for US intelligence are serious. "If the reports are correct it would be a serious case," Merkel told a news conference in Beijing, standing next to the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang. "If the allegations are true, it would be for me a clear contradiction as to what I consider to be trusting cooperation between agencies and partners." The case risks further straining ties with Washington, which have been sorely tested by revelations last year of large-scale snooping on Germany by the US National Security Agency.

GERMANY - Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is planning to scrap a no-spy agreement Germany has held with Britain and the United States since 1945 in response to an embarrassing US-German intelligence service scandal which has deeply soured relations between Berlin and Washington. The unprecedented change to Berlin’s counter-espionage policy was announced by Ms Merkel’s Interior Minister, Thomas de Maizière. He said that Berlin wanted “360 degree surveillance” of all intelligence-gathering operations in Germany. The intelligence services of the Allied victors, the United States, Britain and France, have hitherto been regarded as “friendly” to Germany. Their diplomatic and information-gathering activities were exempted from surveillance by Berlin’s equivalent of MI5 – the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND).

GERMANY - The German Trade Union Federation (DGB) unreservedly supports the foreign policy of the grand coalition government and its return to great power politics and militarism. This is clear from an article by the new DGB chairman, Reiner Hoffmann, published on a website of the foreign ministry. In May, foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD, Social Democratic Party) opened the website “Review 2014 — thinking further in foreign policy”, to promote the new foreign policy orientation announced at the beginning of the year.

GERMANY - Germany’s plan to bring back the nation’s gold reserves to Frankfurt by 2020 has fizzled, and instead has for now decided to leave $635 billion of gold in US vaults. Home to the world’s second largest gold reserves, worth $141 billion, Germany only keeps about one third of its gold ‘at home’, the rest is abroad. 45 percent is in the US Federal Reserve in New York, 13 percent in London, 11 percent in Paris, and only 31 percent in the Bundesbank in Frankfurt.

USA - The increase in police brutality in this country is a frightening reality. In the last decade alone the number of people murdered by police has reached 5,000. The number of soldiers killed since the inception of the Iraq war, 4489. What went wrong? In the 1970’s SWAT teams were estimated to be used just a few hundred times per year, now we are looking at over 40,000 military style “knock and announce” police raids a year. The police presence in this country is being turned into a military one with a clearly defined enemy, anyone who questions the establishment. If we look at the most recent numbers of non-military US citizens killed by terrorism worldwide, that number is 17. You have a better chance of being killed by a bee sting, or a home repair accident than you do a terrorist. And you are 29 times more likely to be murdered by a cop than a terrorist!

FRANCE - Not even we anticipated this particular "unintended consequence" as a result of the US multi-billion dollar fine on BNP (which France took very much to heart). Moments ago, in a lengthy interview given to French magazine Investir, none other than the governor of the French National Bank Christian Noyer and member of the ECB's governing board, said this stunner at the very end, via Bloomberg:

USA/EUROPE - Unbeknownst to the vast majority of Europeans and Americans, late-stage negotiations are under way to significantly water down all forms of financial regulation on both sides of the Atlantic. This is part of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Treaty (TTIP) being negotiated behind closed doors. However, contrary to popular wisdom, it’s not the US government that is leading the charge, but rather an unholy alliance between the European Commission, Wall Street, and the City of London. Quietly, the rules governing global trade and financial markets are being changed. Despite the enormous impact they have on our lives, the public is not consulted. Most people are not even aware it is happening.

USA - As the Obama administration continues to alienate almost everyone else around the entire planet, an increasing number of prominent international voices are starting to question why the US dollar should be so overwhelmingly dominant in global trade. John Williams of shadowstats.com recently said that things have never "been more negative" for the US dollar, and he was right on the mark. The power of the almighty dollar has allowed all of us living in the United States to enjoy an extremely high standard of living for decades, but as that power now fades it is going to have profound implications for the US economy.

RUSSIA - On June 10th, Sergey Glaziev, Putin's economy advisor published an article outlining the need to establish an international alliance of countries willing to get rid of the dollar in international trade and refrain from using dollars in their currency reserves. “We are discussing with China and our BRICS partners [Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa] the establishment of a system of multilateral swaps that will allow the transfer of resources to one or another country, if needed. A part of the currency reserves can be directed to the new system.”

VATICAN - Pope Francis issued a profuse apology to victims of sex abuse by Catholic clergy, including two Britons, denouncing the Church’s “complicity” in what he described as “execrable acts of abuse”. In the first such encounter of his papacy, the Pope held a series of “intense” one-on-one meetings with the six victims – two from the UK, two from Ireland and two from Germany. The Pope celebrated an early morning Mass with the three men and women in the chapel of Casa Santa Martha, his residence inside the Vatican, and then sat down to breakfast with them. The British and Germans chose not to have their identities disclosed, but an Irish victim said she was encouraged by the meeting, after years of “unbelievable” cover-ups by the Church.

JAPAN - A powerful typhoon has pounded southern Japan as residents took refuge from destructive winds, towering waves and storm surges. Airports closed and residents were evacuated from low-lying areas and shorelines as Typhoon Neoguri was passing through the islands comprising the southern Okinawa prefecture. The storm has sustained winds of 108mph per hour and gusts up to 154mph, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The storm was at its most powerful when passing Okinawa, some 1,600 km (1,000 miles) southwest of Tokyo today. More than 50,000 households in Okinawa lost power and an oil refinery halted operations. One Okinawa resident said the gusts are powerful enough to knock people off their feet.

UK - “Paedophilic interest is natural and normal for human males,” said the presentation. “At least a sizeable minority of normal males would like to have sex with children … Normal males are aroused by children.” Some yellowing tract from the Seventies or early Eighties, era of abusive celebrities and the infamous PIE, the Paedophile Information Exchange? No. Anonymous commenters on some underground website? No again. The statement that paedophilia is “natural and normal” was made not three decades ago but last July. It was made not in private but as one of the central claims of an academic presentation delivered, at the invitation of the organisers, to many of the key experts in the field at a conference held by the University of Cambridge.

EUROPE - The first secretary-general of NATO, Lord Ismay, once said the Western defense alliance was created "to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down". The task facing the European Union now might be described as to keep the British in, the Russians out and the Germans down. Prime Minister David Cameron's demand to redraw Britain's relationship with the EU and put the result to a referendum in 2017 means the next few years are bound to be dogged by haggling over Brussels' powers and about opt-outs for London. If Britain, Europe's third largest economy, main financial center and joint biggest military and diplomatic power, were to become the first country ever to leave the bloc, it would deal a severe blow to itself but also to the EU's global standing.

USA - The geeks worship a machine that has not yet been built. This machine will appear in about 2045 at a moment its worshippers call the Singularity. It will be the last machine we will ever build because, being superintelligent and able to redesign itself to be ever more intelligent, it will do everything we need, including make us medically immortal by curing all our ills, or, perhaps, genuinely immortal by uploading us into itself. Or it will kill us. The mood of the machine is as unpredictable as that of Prince Philip; it may be an Old rather than a New Testament god.

‘Singularity’ is a term derived from physics, where it means the point at the unknowable centre of a black hole where the laws of physics break down. For [Silicon] Valley believers, the tech version of this is where the rules and conventions that have previously ordered human life come to an end. It is the ‘trans-human’ moment at which we transcend our biological destiny.