EUROPE - NATO officials are considering deploying a long-planned missile defense system - aimed at protecting Europe from attacks from the Middle East - against Russia as well, SPIEGEL has learned. Calls for such an expansion to the system's remit, which is backed by the United States, are growing in Poland as well as in NATO member states Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. In the run-up to next week's NATO summit, the four countries called for the remaining members to agree on language at the summit that would pave the way for the plan. They feel threatened by Russia's intervention in Ukraine. But the majority of NATO members, especially Germany, are opposed to the proposal, warning that it could result in an unnecessary provocation of Moscow.

NIGERIA- Boko Haram's leader said a town in the north east of Nigeria seized by the insurgents earlier this month has been placed under an Islamic caliphate, in a video obtained by AFP on Sunday. "Thanks be to Allah who gave victory to our brethren in (the town of) Gwoza and made it part of the Islamic caliphate," Abubakar Shekau said in the 52-minute video. The military however rejected the claim, saying in a statement the "sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Nigerian state is still intact". In a July video, Shekau voiced support for the leader of the Islamic State and the Levant (Isil) militant Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who in late June declared himself "the caliph" and "leader of Muslims everywhere".

MIDDLE EAST - The video of James Foley’s execution may have been staged, with the actual murder taking place off-camera, it has emerged. Forensic analysis of the footage of the journalist’s death has suggested that the British jihadist in the film may have been the frontman rather than the killer. The clip, which apparently depicts Mr Foley’s brutal beheading, has been widely seen as a propaganda coup for Islamic State miltant group. But a study of the four-minute 40-second clip, carried out by an international forensic science company which has worked for police forces across Britain, suggested camera trickery and slick post-production techniques appear to have been used.

USA - North Bay residents who were shaken by Sunday morning’s South Napa Earthquake haven’t been given much of a chance to settle down, based on United States Geological Survey measurements of seismic activity in the area. In just over 24 hours following the 3:20 a.m Sunday earthquake the USGS recorded 124 minor quakes and counting in the area. The seismic activity is clustered around the epicenter and to the north near the Geysers, a region known for regular ground shaking. The largest of the tremors was 3.6 magnitude, just hours after the initial earthquake. Seismologists believed there was a 5-percent chance of an even larger quake over magnitude 6.0 in the next few days.

USA - A strong earthquake that jolted residents of California's Napa Valley wine country from their beds on Sunday caused insured property damage likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but the region's total economic losses will be several times that, experts said on Monday.

USA - Government officials and community groups say hundreds of rural San Joaquin Valley residents no longer can get drinking water from their home faucets because California’s extreme drought has dried up their individual wells. The situation has become so dire that the Tulare County Office of Emergency Services had 12-gallon-per person rations of bottled water delivered on Friday in the community of East Porterville, where at least 182 of the 1,400 households reported having no or not enough water. The office’s manager, Andrew Lockman, says the supplies cost the county $30,000 and were designed to last about three weeks, but are only a temporary fix. To get future deliveries, officials are asking low-income residents to apply for aid and for bottled water donations like the one a local casino made a few weeks ago.

USA - A Bay Area company is being urged to fix its state of the art solar plant, after thousands of birds flying by the plant are being burned to death. Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant’s concentrated sun rays — “streamers,” for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair. Federal wildlife investigators who visited the BrightSource Energy plant last year and watched as birds burned and fell, reporting an average of one “streamer” every two minutes, are urging California officials to halt the operator’s application to build a still-bigger version. “Birds are bursting into flames, having their feathers singed, by the intense heat generated at that solar plant,” Garrison Frost of Audubon California told KPIX 5.

TURKEY - The mistake Western leaders make, is trying to hold out for Turkey the prospect of EU membership in exchange for Turkey getting involved in Syria and other places. Already we see that Turkey, whose Sunni Muslim population is moderate, is providing hospital treatment to ISIS fighters who supposedly want to recreate a new Caliphate.

GERMANY - From Kosovo to Afghanistan, German military deployments overseas have been the subject of much discussion. An unthinkable concept after World War Two, sending German soldiers to foreign lands evolved into a reality. The redevelopment of the German military after the end of the Nazi regime began in 1955/56, after the federal republic joined NATO. At the time, the return to arms was a highly controversial decision. Germany is currently debating the planned delivery of arms to the Iraqi army and Kurds in Iraq. The German government wants to support Kurds in their battle against the "IS" terrorists. Some politicians and observers regard sending weapons into an ongoing conflict zone as a taboo and the government's decision as a break with long-standing German foreign policy. Many ask whether parliamentary approval should be necessary before providing arms is permitted as it is before Bundeswehr troops can be deployed.

USA - We live in an era when politics keeps crashing into the world of economics. Good economic news contrasts starkly with the grim drumbeat of war in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Yet for a while, it appeared that markets were taking all of this in their strides, at least partly because even the crisis-hit areas made up a relatively small percentage of global GDP. Though in the case of Russia, Europe relies heavily on its energy supplies, so markets are finally starting to be affected.

INDIA - The fourth BRICS summit representing Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa was held on March 28-29, 2012 in New Delhi. Despite the limited timeline, its results might be defined as outstanding. In any case it’s obvious that the leaders of the member countries had no intention to confine themselves to purely symbolic resolutions, so the outcomes of the event look very impressive.

RUSSIA/CHINA - A lot has been written about a supposed Russian-Chinese rivalry in Central Asia, but in actuality, this is not the case, and it is nothing more than wishful thinking by those intending to split up the RCSP and see Russia and China butting heads over the region. Russia is in the process of politically and economically integrating with Kazakhstan and soon Kyrgyzstan under the auspices of the Eurasian Union, and it has mutual security commitments with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan (which also regularly partake in military drills).

TEMPLE MOUNT, ISRAEL - While Jews can’t pray on our holiest site, and police make sure no Israeli flags are taken up, Muslims have no problem bringing in and waving an ISIS flag on the Temple Mount.

Maybe we’ll allow them to run executions there too, while we’re at it.

MIDDLE EAST - Israeli cyber security forces foiled a major cyber attack by pro-Hamas hackers during Operation Protective Edge, but hackers remain determined to harm essential Israeli infrastructure. While the Iron Dome system intercepted missiles and IDF robots destroyed terror tunnels, the IDF and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) foiled an attack against Israel websites over the Internet. Hackers from around the world planned the attack with the help of Iran on Al-Quds Day, an annual event organized by Iranian leaders against Zionism.

USA - Meet a 22-year-old, southern criminology student with a three-year-old child. She calls herself the Femitheist and has a blog, YouTube channel, and is writing a book all about the “importance” of reducing the male population to roughly 1-10% in order to achieve world peace and “true equality.”