ISRAEL - Israel’s agreement to some type of international force in Gaza after the fighting stops could create a precedent for demands for an international force in the West Bank as well, according to a Foreign Ministry document obtained by The Jerusalem Post. The seven-page paper, written by the ministry’s legal department, presents alternative models for the establishment of an international presence or mechanism in the Gaza Strip for the “day after” the fighting ends. The idea of a multinational force in the West Bank has been raised over the years by the Palestinians and others as a possible solution to Israel’s security concerns if it withdraws from the area. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has consistently opposed the proposals.

GERMANY - Largely unnoticed by the public, a commission of former defence politicians as well as military experts has been working to repeal the requirement that Bundeswehr (armed forces) operations abroad obtain parliamentary approval. The commission is headed by former defence minister Volker Rühe (CDU, Christian Democratic Union), his deputies are Walter Kolbow (SPD, Social Democratic Party), former parliamentary undersecretary of defence and Wolfgang Schneiderhan, former Bundeswehr inspector general. Their activity is closely related to the campaign to revive German militarism, and the stated aim of the government and the president that Germany must take on a greater role and responsibility in the world, including through the use of military means. The drive to abolish parliamentary approval for foreign military missions makes clear that the revival of an aggressive German militarism goes hand in hand with the dismantling of democratic checks and balances.

TURKEY - Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, won the country’s first direct election for president on Sunday, in a triumph for his bid to bolster his powers and change the system of government. Turkey’s high election board announced that according to preliminary results Mr Erdogan had obtained an absolute majority of valid votes, and that there was therefore no need for a second-round run-off. The race is seen as a turning point for a country that is strategically important, due to its location between the Middle East and Europe, but whose relationships with both the US and the EU have soured. His critics say his election will lead to a more authoritarian form of government – particularly after 14 months in which Mr Erdogan has cracked down on anti-government protests, largely derailed a corruption inquiry that he depicts as a coup attempt, and tried to ban Twitter. Both the US and the EU have highlighted their concern at such developments.

USA - Since January, Oklahoma has had 292 earthquakes that register a magnitude 3.0 or larger, more than any other state in the continental United States. That's nearly triple the 109 last year. Through 2008, Oklahoma averaged less than two a year. The unprecedented earthquake activity has put Oklahoma in the center of an emerging debate over whether the disposal of waste water from oil and gas production triggers earthquakes. It has prompted enactment of broad new rules that go into effect September 12.

UKRAINE - The New York Times reported almost in passing on Sunday that the Ukrainian government’s offensive against ethnic Russian rebels in the east has unleashed far-right paramilitary militias that have even raised a neo-Nazi banner over the conquered town of Marinka, just west of the rebel stronghold of Donetsk. That might seem like a big story – a US-backed military operation, which has inflicted thousands of mostly civilian casualties, is being spearheaded by neo-Nazis. But the consistent pattern of the mainstream US news media has been – since the start of the Ukraine crisis – to white-out the role of Ukraine’s brown-shirts. Only occasionally is the word “neo-Nazi” mentioned and usually in the context of dismissing this inconvenient truth as “Russian propaganda.” Yet the reality has been that neo-Nazis played a key role in the violent overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych last February as well as in the subsequent coup regime holding power in Kiev and now in the eastern offensive.

NIGERIA - Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram could severely hinder efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak sweeping Nigeria, because they are opposed to Western medicine, a US diplomat warned last night. The concern follows a declaration of "national emergency" by President Goodluck Jonathan, who pledged £6.5 million to tackle the virus. The former US ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell, told the Sunday Express: "There is no doubt that, when it comes to northern Nigeria, Boko Haram will make it very difficult. Boko Haram is intrinsically opposed to Western science and to Western medicine. It does not even recognise the existence of germs or viruses, because they are not mentioned in the Koran."

UK - Boris Johnson will today declare Britain has ‘nothing to be afraid of’ in pulling out of Europe – putting him dramatically at odds with David Cameron. In his most powerful intervention yet on the European Union, the London Mayor says the UK would have a ‘great and glorious future’ if it set itself free from ‘job-destroying’ Brussels. He will argue that if the Prime Minister’s hopes of renegotiating our relationship with the EU fail, we should consider leaving altogether and forging trade relationships with the rest of the world. Describing EU-inspired red tape as ‘back-breaking’ and ‘grinding’, he will claim our economy could surge if it leaves behind such regulatory burdens and enters into its own relationships with growing economies such as China and Brazil. ‘We have nothing to be afraid of in going for an alternative future, a Britain open not just to the rest of Europe but to the world,’ he will say. ‘If we get it right it’s win-win.’

MIDDLE EAST - Lying among a pile of papers at the hideout in Pakistan where Osama Bin Laden was shot dead was a carefully worded 21-page letter. It warned of the rise of a new and ruthless group of Islamic extremists capable of such extreme brutality that Al Qaeda should sever all links with them. In fact, it claimed the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or ISIS) had such complete disregard for civilian life that it could damage the reputation of Al Qaeda – if such a thing were possible for an organisation that has long traded in murderous terrorism. The document, written by one of Bin Laden’s senior officials in 2011, went on to catalogue some of its acts of barbarism – including the use of chlorine gas as a chemical weapon, bombing mosques and a massacre in a Catholic church in Baghdad. ISIS, now called Islamic State, has control of an area larger than Great Britain.

EUROPE - There is growing dissent in the EU over policies that led to a de facto trade war with Russia. Meanwhile the countries not toeing the line are reaping the benefits, irritating those who jumped on the sanctions bandwagon. Greek members of the European Parliament demanded Sunday that the EU cancel sanctions against Russia. MEPs Kostantinos Papadakis and Sotiris Zarianopoulos said in a letter to some senior EU officials that Russia’s ban on food import from the EU, which was Moscow’s response to anti-Russian sanctions, was ruinous to Greek agriculture. “Thousands of small- and middle-sized Greek farms producing fruit and vegetables and selling them primarily to the Russian market have been hit hard now as their unsold products are now rotting at warehouses,” the letter said.

MIDDLE EAST - Islamic State militants have directly threatened Turkey with violence as they swore to “liberate” Istanbul in order to reopen a dam on the Euphrates River. Water flow to parts of Syria and Iraq is at a record low. The apparent closure is especially unfavorable to the terrorist group, as its new ‘capital’ Raqqa, in northern Syria, is in that zone. This is creating a humanitarian catastrophe as water levels plummet in nearby Lake Assad. In a new Vice documentary episode on the IS militia, one member warns that if the Turkish government doesn’t open the Euphrates Dam back up, the group will do it for them by “liberating” Istanbul.

MIDDLE EAST - In an attempt to protect their secrets from being revealed to the Israeli security forces, Hamas has executed tens of Gazan tunnel diggers in the last few weeks. The mass execution is said to have taken place after attempts from Hamas to make sure that the excavators knew nothing of the locations in which they were digging. According to the Israeli website Mako, extreme precautions were used by Hamas.

MIDDLE EAST - The Foreign Press Association on Monday lodged a strong protest accusing the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas of harassment and of threatening foreign reporters working in Gaza. The association for journalists working in Israel and the Palestinian territories said Hamas authorities and their representatives employed "blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods" against visiting international journalists covering the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. The FPA, in a statement, protested "in the strongest terms".

IRAQ - They arrived bristling with heavy weapons and waving black flags from about a dozen Humvees, seized from the Iraqi army and supplied originally by the United States. When the terrified residents looked out of their windows, they saw that Kosho, their traditional walled village in the mountains of northern Iraq, had been surrounded by jihadists. More than 200 bearded militants had besieged the village. Then their leader – a local man from Mosul rather than the foreigners who make up more than a third of the ranks of the group now known as Islamic State – offered them a chance to save their lives. ‘He told us that either we become Muslims or they would kill us all,’ said Falah, mayor of the village made up mainly of members of the ancient Yazidi sect. ‘We offered money but they would not accept it.’

MIDDLE EAST - US spy agencies have begun to see groups of fighters abandoning al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and Africa to join the rival Islamist organization that has seized territory in Iraq and Syria and been targeted in American airstrikes, US officials said. The movements are seen by US ­counterterrorism analysts as a worrisome indication of the expanding appeal of a group known as the Islamic State that has overwhelmed military forces in the region and may now see itself in direct conflict with the United States. “Small groups from a number of al-Qaeda affiliates have defected to ISIS,” as the group is also known, said a US official with access to classified intelligence assessments. “And this problem will probably become more acute as ISIS continues to rack up victories.”

GERMANY - Germany has reacted cautiously to Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman’s call for Berlin to lead an EU inspection mission to Gaza. As a 72-hour ceasefire between Israel and Hamas expires today, German officials confirmed that Berlin, Paris and London had proposed reactivating an EU mission on the Egyptian border to Gaza with the aim of stabilising the Palestinian enclave.