JAPAN - Japan’s conservative government is making the most significant change in interpretation to its pacifist Constitution since the US-written charter went into effect 67 years ago. That is generating a mixed reaction at home and abroad, especially in the countries that suffered from brutal Japanese colonialism in the first half of the 20th century. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is defending his controversial push to reinterpret the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution. Under the new rules approved by the Cabinet Tuesday, Japan's military would be allowed to exercise the right to "collective self-defense."

USA - In the meadow, four white-haired Shorthorn heifers peel off from the others, raising their heads at the same time in the same direction. Unsettling, when you know they are clones. From their ears dangle yellow tags marked with the same number: 434P. Only the numbers that follow are different: 2, 3, 4 and 6. The tag also bears the name of the company that bred them and is holding them temporarily in a field at its headquarters in Sioux Center, Iowa: Trans Ova Genetics, the only large US Company selling cloned cows.

USA - As negotiations continue for a new contract agreement covering 13,600 dockworkers at 30 ports stretching from San Diego, California, to Bellingham, Washington, a new study shows the US economy could lose as much as $2.5 billion a day if a prolonged West Coast port shutdown occurs. The study, conducted for the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Retail Federation by economists at the Inter-industry Forecasting Project at the University of Maryland, found that the economic repercussions of a port closure would grow with time. “A protracted dispute between the negotiating parties could lead to reduced or shuttered terminal operations for an extended period,” the joint study warned. “If such disruptions occur, the economic impact would be significant and widespread.”

ISRAEL - Israel has vowed retribution against Hamas, the militant Palestinian group it accuses of the kidnap and murder of three teenagers. The bodies of Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach were found on Monday evening, after they had been missing for more than a fortnight. Israel PM Benyamin Netanyahu said: "Hamas is responsible and Hamas will pay." Hamas denies any involvement.

ISRAEL - The tragic end to the kidnapping of the three Israeli teenagers should also spell the end for Hamas, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon (Likud Beytenu) said Monday evening. “The nation is strong and ready to absorb in order to allow an operation that will deal a fatal blow to Hamas,” he added. “We must stop terror and we should destroy the homes of Hamas activists, destroy their ammunition depots and stop any money that is used directly and indirectly to maintaining the flame of terrorism. We must discourage any organization that will even think about kidnapping an Israeli citizen or about threatening Israel.”

ISRAEL - The Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah is reportedly anticipating a large scale Israeli military assault in the wake of the murder of three yeshiva boys, with PA head Mahmoud Abbas attempting to forestall such a move. According to Sky News in Arabic, Abbas has been conducting “feverish” communications with the United States and other countries, to pressure Israel not to launch a large scale operation. He has reportedly transmitted a message of this nature to Israel through the Americans. Abbas spoke to several world leaders Monday night, hours after the bodies of the three kidnapped Israeli teenagers were found, and asked them for help in reining in an Israeli response. A campaign against Hamas would in any case be a continuation of Operation Brother's Keeper, which has been targeting Hamas infrastructures in Judea and Samaria over the last fortnight.

ISRAEL - Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman is threatening a menacing ultimatum - continued airstrikes or full occupation - an Israeli military-owned radio station quoted him as saying on Sunday. The comments came hours after the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched an airstrike on the Gaza strip in retaliation for what they said were projectiles fired from the Palestinian territory into the Negev desert. “Either with each round we attack terror infrastructure and they shoot, or we go to full occupation,” Lieberman said on the IDF-operated Army Radio, or Galei Tzaha.

MIDDLE EAST - A video purportedly shot by Islamist militants at a captured Iraqi border post on the Syrian border shows captured Iraqi soldiers and vehicles, while an English-speaking fighter reaffirms the declaration of an Islamic "caliphate." The fighter, Abu Safiyya from Chile, claims to be standing on the Iraq border with Syria. In the clip, titled The End of Sykes-Picot, Safiyya says that the ISIS will eventually break all of the Middle East borders to make way to Jerusalem. "This is not the first border we will break," he says of the border he is standing on. "God will break all barriers... Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon... all of them until we reach Jerusalem. This is the first of many barriers we will break."

MIDDLE EAST - The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), the terror army supported by Saudi Arabia, the CIA and trained by the Pentagon, has declared a caliphate in the Middle East. It has changed its name to the Islamic State, dispensing with Iraq, Sham and the Levant. The announcement was made on the first day of Ramadan, the Muslim holy day. An ISIS spokesman said Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the leader of the declared caliphate reaching from Syria into Iraq. The spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, said all Muslims worldwide will be required to pay allegiance to al-Baghdadi. “The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the caliph’s authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas,” explained al-Adnani. “Listen to your caliph and obey him. Support your state, which grows every day.”

RUSSIA - The industrial control systems of hundreds of European and US energy companies have been infected by a sophisticated cyber weapon operated by a state-backed group with apparent ties to Russia, according to a leading US online security group. The powerful piece of malware known as “Energetic Bear” allows its operators to monitor energy consumption in real time, or to cripple physical systems such as wind turbines, gas pipelines and power plants at will. The well-resourced organisation behind the cyber attack is believed to have compromised the computer systems of more than 1,000 organisations in 84 countries in a campaign spanning 18 months. The malware is similar to the Stuxnet computer programme created by the US and Israel that succeeded in infecting and sabotaging Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities two years ago. The latest attacks are a new deployment of malware that was first monitored by IT security companies at the beginning of the year.

UK - UK stock markets are approaching “coffin corner”, where even the slightest miscalculation could lead to a sharp correction or even a crash. “Coffin corner” is the point at which a passenger jet is flying at maximum altitude with engines at full throttle. This is when even the smallest mistake can lead to disaster, and it has startling relevance for today’s stock markets.

USA - The color guard leading the annual Gay Pride March down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Sunday carried flags of sky blue, navy blue, red-white-and-blue and rainbow. But, for these marchers, the colors that mattered most were the ones they wore. Khaki shirts, olive pants and rainbow neckerchiefs: the Boy Scout uniform, pride-style — a uniform that had never been seen on a group of marchers in New York City’s pride parade before. They had come to mark progress — the Boy Scouts of America’s breakthrough vote last year to end a decades-old policy of prohibiting openly gay youths from being scouts — and to call for more. However, the organization, a touchstone of traditional America, still bars openly gay adults from participating as troop leaders or volunteers. Ending that ban has become a signature cause for the gay-rights movement.

VATICAN - On June 28, Pope Francis received a delegation sent to Rome by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. The delegation was led by Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon, the co-president of the International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. After recalling his recent meetings with Patriarch Bartholomew in Jerusalem and in Rome, Pope Francis said that “we know very well that this unity is a gift of God, a gift that even now the Most High grants us the grace to attain whenever, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we choose to look at one another with the eyes of faith and to see ourselves as we truly are in God’s plan, according to the designs of his eternal will, and not what we have become as a result of the historical consequences of our sins.”

USA - In much of the world, the Predator drone symbolises US power. It is ubiquitous, stealthy and can strike at any moment. They patrol the skies of central Asia, north Africa, the Arabian peninsula – and now Iraq. Other countries have nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers. But nobody else can match the lethal ingenuity of America’s Hellfire missile. Little surprise that two US presidents – George W Bush, and now Barack Obama – have resorted to them so frequently. But their heyday is waning. America’s unipolar drone moment is ending.

ISRAEL - The three Israeli teenagers who went missing earlier this month in the West Bank have been found dead. An Israeli military spokesman said their bodies were found in a pit near the town of Halhul, north of Hebron. Naftali Frenkel and Gilad Shaar, both aged 16, and 19-year-old Eyal Yifrach were last seen at a junction near Hebron as they hitchhiked home. The teenagers' families have been informed, the military said. More information is expected to be released after an emergency cabinet meeting.

Israel had accused Hamas of abducting the three teens, which the Palestinian militant group repeatedly denied.

The teenagers' families have been informed, the military said. More information is expected to be released after an emergency cabinet meeting.