ISRAEL - The Times of Israel reports: The former head of the IDF’s military intelligence said Thursday that the firing of a pair of missiles from Syria into the Sea of Galilee a day earlier was likely an effort by the Islamic State group to draw Israel into a confrontation with the Syrian regime. The missiles crashed into the lake mere dozens of meters from groups of tourists, according to eyewitnesses, and were initially thought to be spillover fighting from intense battles taking place just over the border in Syria, where regime forces backed by Russian air power are attempting to gain control of a last pocket held by jihadists. But Amos Yadlin, a former IDF general, said it seemed the Islamic State had deliberately targeted Israel, looking to take advantage of the IDF’s policy of striking forces belonging to Syrian President Bashar Assad in response to spillover violence.

SAUDI ARABIA - Saudi Arabia and other key Arab countries have told the Trump administration they won’t be able to support its plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace if it doesn’t include a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. The Saudi position was first reported by Reuters on Sunday, and was later confirmed to Haaretz by two diplomats involved in conversations on the peace plan. The Saudi position was expressed by King Salman during a number of recent communications with senior US officials, as well as in conversations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other Arab leaders in the region. It contradicts many media reports over the past year about a Saudi willingness to adopt Trump’s peace plan even if it is unacceptable to the Palestinians.

RUSSIA - With 2,000 tons of gold in reserves, Russia’s bullion holdings are approaching the Soviet peak seen in 1941. Moscow is striving for financial independence and escape from US dollar hegemony, analysts told RT. Russia’s gold purchases increased during the US presidential race and did not stop despite Donald Trump's victory even though he seemed a more preferable candidate for the Kremlin, Anton Makhnovsky, CEO of ICBF told RT. The analyst says he thinks Russia will continue ramping up its reserves. Over the last decade, the share of gold in reserves has soared tenfold. Russia also reduced its holdings of US Treasuries from $96.1 billion in March to just $14.9 billion in May. Bullion reserves are now worth $460 billion with the central bank aiming to increase that figure to $500 billion.

UK - Theresa May has suggested the public should take “comfort” from Government plans to stockpile medicines and food for a “no deal” Brexit as she said “we don’t know what the outcome is going to be”. Critics have accused ministers of trying to scare MPs into backing Mrs May’s Brexit vision with talk of hoarding essential supplies, but Mrs May said such precautions were only “responsible and sensible”. However, Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister accused Mrs May of “bravado”, insisting Britain “cannot afford” to crash out of the EU. Simon Coveney said walking away from negotiations with Brussels would have “significant… negative implications” for Britain.

EUROPE - Michel Barnier effectively killed off Theresa May’s customs plan in Brussels on Thursday as he warned that the European Union would never accept British officials collecting duties on its behalf after Brexit. The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator refused to accept that Britain had “evolved its position” and he offered no concessions in return for the Prime Minister’s soft Brexit plan, which led to the resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson after crunch Cabinet talks at Chequers. Instead, he said that the UK could still join “a customs union”, which would mean Britain could not make its own trade deals after Brexit.

ETHIOPIA - It was an embrace of monumental consequence. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki warmly greeted the new Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as he arrived in the Eritrean capital of Asmara. Photos from the historic meeting show the start of a warm friendship between these two major Horn of Africa leaders. A joint statement confirmed that the war so bitterly fought from 1998 to 2000, and the no-peace, no-war situation, plaguing both countries and contributing towards destabilizing the entire Horn of Africa, was finally over.

SYRIA - Syrian government forces on Thursday raised the flag in the buffer zone separating Syrian-held territory from the Israeli Golan, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Syria’s southwestern Quneitra province includes the Syrian Golan Heights, on the border of the territory held by Israel. The part of the province to the east of the buffer zone fell almost totally under regime control after a brief military offensive followed by deals under which the rebels surrendered or were evacuated from the region. The rocky plateau known as the Golan Heights overlooks Israel’s Galilee region and the Sea of Galilee to the south and west. Israel took control of 1,200 square kilometers (460 square miles) of the Golan from Syria during the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognized internationally.

USA - Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney accused previous White House administrations of withholding foreign aid from countries in sub-Saharan Africa to secure compliance with left-wing policy initiatives on “abortion [and] gay marriage.” He offered his remarks on Tuesday at the State Department’s Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in Washington, DC.

USA - Technocrats should back up a few steps and look at the foolishness of their plans: To power America with 100% renewable energy they propose 500,000 wind turbines, 18 billion square feet of solar panels, 75 million residential rooftop systems, 50,000 wind and solar farms. The projected cost is a minimum of $15.2 Trillion. However, we are already fully powered with enough oil, natural gas and coal resources to last another 200 years.

UK - Julian Assange and WikiLeaks perform a valuable public service and should be praised rather than vilified, former CIA and FBI agents told RT America, adding that prosecuting Assange would be a disgrace for freedom of the press. “Julian performs a function that no longer exists in the mainstream press, and he should be rewarded rather than vilified,” former CIA analyst Ray McGovern said, appearing on RT America’s Debate Week news special. “He’s been promoting the truth. He even got a left-handed compliment from the US intelligence people by saying that the reason WikiLeaks is believed is because they don’t adulterate any of the information they have,” McGovern added.

USA - Twitter might have packed in more characters per tweet — but the move hasn’t helped it assemble more users. In its second-quarter earnings report, the company announced it had 355 million monthly active users, down 1 million from the first quarter. Wall Street closely watches Twitter’s user count as a proxy for the health of the company. Twitter shares dropped 20.5 percent to $34.12 Friday, wiping $6.6 billion off its value. While not as momentous as Facebook’s historic $119 billion loss in market capitalization following an earnings report that showed a slowdown in user growth, it’s the largest drop Twitter’s stock has seen in two years. During that period, CEO Jack Dorsey had started to win back Wall Street by improving the company’s financial performance and user numbers.

USA - Facebook’s shareholders have reportedly drawn up a proposal to remove Mark Zuckerberg as the company’s chairman. Trillium Asset Management, a group that controls approximately $11 million worth of Facebook stock, has drawn up a new proposal to remove Mark Zuckerberg as chairman of the social media company that he founded. The proposal was filed hours before Facebook’s recent brutal earnings report on Wednesday which saw Facebook’s stock price drop by as much as 24 percent. This devalued Facebook by approximately $148 billion.

USA - An expert in smart meter microwave transmission power has published new research showing that, contrary to the official government narrative, the radiation emitted from smart meters directly interferes with normal heart function. To come to this conclusion, Warren Woodward connected himself to an EKG monitor while lying near an Elster smart meter, which was connected to a high-frequency analyzer that measures microwave frequencies.

USA - “…Some of the biggest states, that are in deep water,” Mitch Daniels, a Republican, said during an interview with FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on Thursday.  “I think it is irretrievable.  Pensions is the core of it. It’s not the only fiscal recklessness that they have practiced, but in some of those cases, the bill are genuinely unpayable.” Connecticut isn’t the only state struggling with a debt crisis: California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York are unable to make pension payments to retired government workers. New York’s more than $356 billion in debt; New Jersey more than $104 billion; and California more than $428 billion.  “They’re just one of a number of states, including some of the biggest states, that are in deep water,” Daniels said. 

USA - As the White House convenes a policy meeting on Iran Thursday involving senior Pentagon officials and cabinet advisers under national security adviser John Bolton, and after a week of intense saber-rattling by President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani, a new bombshell report by Australia's ABC says the White House is drawing up plans to strike Iran's alleged nuclear facilities as early as next month.