ISRAEL - Standing next to a secretive Israeli atomic reactor earlier in the week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to “wipe out” his enemies. In a speech that many will see as the Jewish state breaking its long silence over the possession of nuclear weapons, the Likud leader warned that it has the means to destroy its enemies. “Those who threaten to wipe us out put themselves in a similar danger, and in any event will not achieve their goal,” he said on Wednesday during a ceremony to rename the complex, near the desert town of Dimona. The site has long been suspected to be the location where Israel has been developing nuclear weapons. Iran hit back by describing Netanyahu as a “warmonger”. The threat “atomic annihilation” against the Islamic Republic was denounced as “beyond shameless in the gall”.

IRAN - Iran Stuns Enemies By Moving Ballistic Missiles To Iraq - Within Easy Striking Distance of Tel Aviv. In what is sure to be a realization of one of Netanyahu's worst nightmares, and deeply awkward for US advisers to Baghdad, Iran has transferred ballistic missiles to Shia proxy forces in Iraq, according to Western and Iraqi intelligence sources cited in a new Reuters report.

UK - Currencies in Turkey, India and Argentina have plummeted sparking fears of a global economy crash. Stock markets have been rocked after the Argentine peso nose-dived 12 percent, triggering a 60 percent interest rate hike by the nation’s central bank. This followed a tumble from the struggling Turkish lira in what has been a fourth day of declines. India followed suit when its rupee slumped to a record low against the US dollar today, which had toppled more than 11 percent since the beginning of the year. Also in Asia was the Indonesian rupiah which hit a three-year low after a series of terrifying earthquakes throughout the whole of August that destroyed Lombok and neighbouring Bali.

USA - The United States is ending all funding for the UN's Palestinian refugee agency, the US State Department says. It described the organisation, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), as "irredeemably flawed". The US administration has "carefully reviewed" the issue and "will not make additional contributions to Unrwa," spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. Earlier this year, [the US] threatened to cut aid to the Palestinians over what was called their unwillingness to negotiate with Israel. The US and Israel also disagree with Unrwa on which Palestinians are refugees with a right to return to the homes they fled following the 1948 war. Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, said earlier this week that Unrwa exaggerated the number of Palestinian refugees, and needed to reform.

USA - After a little bit of a lull, the international currency crisis is back with a vengeance. Currencies are collapsing in Argentina, Brazil, India, Turkey and other emerging markets, and central banks are springing into action. It is being hoped that the financial chaos can be confined to emerging markets so that it will not spread to the United States and Europe.

USA - President Donald Trump said he would pull out of the World Trade Organization if it doesn’t treat the US better, targeting a cornerstone of the international trading system. “If they don’t shape up, I would withdraw from the WTO,” Trump said Thursday in an Oval Office interview with Bloomberg News. Trump said the agreement establishing the body “was the single worst trade deal ever made.” A US withdrawal from the WTO potentially would be far more significant for the global economy than even Trump’s growing trade war with China, undermining the post-World War II system that the US helped build. Trump said last month that the US is at a big disadvantage from being treated “very badly” by the WTO for many years and that the Geneva-based body needs to “change their ways.”

VATICAN - The pope is facing mounting pressure to quit as ultra-conservative members of the Catholic Church hierarchy continue to accuse him of covering for a cardinal in a sex abuse scandal. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a former Vatican envoy to the US, dropped an 11-page bombshell at the weekend accusing Francis of ignoring abuse allegations against prominent US cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Pope Francis 'knew from at least June 23, 2013, that McCarrick was a serial predator,' Vigano alleged. 'He knew that he was a corrupt man, he covered for him to the bitter end.' The timing of the letter's release - right in the middle of Francis's landmark trip to Ireland - immediately raised speculation about a possible plot against the Argentine pontiff.

VATICAN - A group of prominent Catholic women wrote to Pope Francis Thursday, charging him with providing an “inadequate” response to a recently released report that accuses the pope of ignoring sanctions placed on the former archbishop of Washington, DC, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, despite knowing that McCarrick had sexually abused priests, seminarians, and minors. The Catholic women, among them seminary professors, theologians, evangelists, and missionaries, boldly assert to Pope Francis their decision to pen a letter to him is based upon his own words regarding a desire for “a more incisive female presence in the Church.”

USA - Now that the attack on InfoWars has emboldened the radical Left, Democrat politicians like Senator Chris Murphy are already calling on Big Tech to deepen their censorship efforts. Murphy, a Democrat from the deep blue state of Connecticut, recently declared on Twitter that the “survival of our democracy” depends on more censorship and suppression. “Infowars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart. These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it,” the senator tweeted. In another Twitter statement, Murphy applauded Silicon Valley corporations for taking down InfoWars and silencing Alex Jones. “They are private companies that shouldn’t knowingly spread lies and hate. They took a good first step today by removing Infowars,” he wrote.

PAKISTAN - Ten thousand Islamic radicals have rallied in Pakistan against a ‘Draw Mohammed’ contest being hosted in the Netherlands by Geert Wilders, as the South Asian country’s politicians demand global blasphemy laws. Islamists defied the authorities to march on the Pakistani capital of Islamabad from the city of Lahore chanting “we will die to protect the honour of the prophet” to protest Wilders’ contest, according to The Washington Post. As a known critic of Islam, Wilders has lived under heavy security for many years — with other Dutch critics of the Middle Eastern religion such as filmmaker Theo van Gogh and politician Pim Fortuyn having been killed on the street by Muslim assassins. Wilders ...has managed to lead the PVV to become the second-largest party in Dutch politics and believes he will be able to take pole position in the next national election.

USA - More than 200,000 teens had plastic surgery last year, and social media had a lot to do with it. When children younger than 18 come to see Debra Johnson, a plastic surgeon with a private practice in Sacramento, California, she considers many factors before accepting them as patients. Many teenagers today are seeking plastic surgery, according to guidelines published Tuesday in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the official medical journal of American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Some 229,000 cosmetic procedures were performed on patients aged 13 to 19 in 2017. Cosmetic surgery procedures at large jumped 11% in 2017, with patients spending more than $6.5 billion.

USA - Facebook removed a post from the Anne Frank Center about the Holocaust for “violating standards,” and subsequently apologized for the action. Facebook removed a post from the Anne Frank Center about the importance of Holocaust education this week. The post, which focused on the lack of state laws that require Holocaust education, was allegedly removed for including photographs of naked Holocaust child victims. The post, which was made to both Facebook and Twitter, was only removed by Facebook.

USA - Warren Buffett says he could fix the US deficit problem very quickly. Here’s his not-entirely serious (but not entirely joking either) plan, as told to Becky Quick during this morning’s live interview on CNBC: “I could end the deficit in five minutes. You just pass a law that says that any time there’s a deficit of more than three percent of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election… now you’ve got the incentives in the right place, right?”

NIGERIA - Fulani Muslim militants launched raids on eight villages in central Nigeria this week, burning alive a Christian pastor along with his wife and three of their children. In the village of Abonong in Plateau State, the Islamic raiders, armed with machetes and AK47 rifles, looted and destroyed 95 houses, along with farmland and three churches. They killed Pastor Adamu Gyang Wurim and his family by setting fire to their house while they were inside and shot the pastor’s wife in the bathroom. The assailants killed two other villagers as well, wounding several others. The attack, which began Tuesday evening around 8:00 pm, lasted over four hours before security personnel finally arrived on the scene. By then the attackers had razed much of the villages of Abonong and Ziyat, and stolen valuables including electronics, mattresses, food, and livestock.

USA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) asked Maine officials on Wednesday for permission to build a large grave to mark the site of a truck crash that resulted in thousands of lobsters spilling out onto a highway. PETA hopes to memorialize the “countless sensitive crustaceans” who were killed during the August 22 crash in Brunswick, the animal rights group said. Police said 7,000 pounds of live lobsters were destroyed and it’s suspected it was more than 4,500 lobsters that died, according to the Portland Press Herald. The grave would “remind everyone that the best way to prevent such tragedies is to go vegan,” the animal rights group said.