IRAN - Senior Advisor to the Iranian Parliament Speaker Hossein Amir Abdollahian underlined that the restrictions imposed by Israel on the Palestinian people in al-Aqsa mosque will lead to a new Intifada. Imposing oppressive rules which limit entering of real owners of Palestine to al-Aqsa mosque will create a new Intifada in the occupied lands, Amir Abdollahian said on his telegram account on Saturday. The Islamic Republic supports the recent position of the Palestinian resistance leaders in condemning the Zionist regime's crimes, he noted.

USA - It could be argued that there’s never been a time in history, where so many Americans thought that we were on the brink of another major war. If you pay attention to the constant news stream of stories regarding Syria, North Korea, or Russia, you’d be hard pressed to deny it. In fact, a recent poll found that 76% of Americans are worried that another war will break out in the next 4 years, and 80% were afraid that we could be embroiled in a conflict with North Korea in the near future.

USA - The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff no longer believes Russia can be "singled out" regarding Washington's perceived national security threats. North Korea, Iran, and China also top the list of challenges. During confirmation hearings for his current post as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford described Russia as "the greatest threat to our national security," saying that Moscow's "behavior" was "alarming." Two years later, Dunford reassessed his original analysis of the alleged Russian threat, claiming that there are other actors threatening US national security, with North Korea now constituting the "number one challenge."

ISRAEL - The Israeli army will put thousands of extra troops on alert in the West Bank ahead of Friday prayers at Jerusalem's Temple Mount, fearing that clashes over security measures implemented at the holy site will spread. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Thursday that it would be putting five extra battalions on call in the West Bank, adding that they could be deployed if backup is needed, the Jerusalem Post reported. The army fears that clashes could erupt on Friday, as Muslims make their way to the Temple Mount for prayers. Jerusalem police will also be reinforced by thousands of special police forces, according to Haaretz. 

USA - CIA Director Mike Pompeo on Thursday evening offered some of the most aggressive comments yet from the Trump administration with regard to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Although Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has in the past said the US was against forcing Kim out of power or the collapse of his government, Pompeo said that the administration needed to find a way to separate Kim from his growing nuclear stockpile. "It would be a great thing to denuclearize the peninsula, to get those weapons off of that, but the thing that is most dangerous about it is the character who holds the control over them today," Pompeo said.

ISRAEL - The Israeli military on Wednesday unveiled the scope of its humanitarian assistance in Syria that has dramatically mushroomed over the last year to include treating chronically ill children who have no access to hospitals, building clinics in Syria, and supplying hundreds of tons of food, medicines and clothes to war-ravaged villages across the border.

GREECE - The Greek holiday island of Kos on Saturday was struggling to recover from a quake that killed two people and injured hundreds, with tourists facing flight delays and the damaged main harbour closed for a second day. The 6.7-magnitude tremor also left hundreds more injured in the Turkish resort of Bodrum, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) across the sea from Kos. "Given the amount of people outside at the time, having only two victims is a miracle," deputy Kos mayor David Yerasklis told Kathimerini daily. The undersea quake struck at 1:31 am Friday (2231 GMT Thursday) between Kos and Bodrum.

GREECE - A powerful earthquake killed at least two people and injured scores when it struck near major Turkish and Greek tourist destinations in the Aegean Sea early on Friday, officials said. Local officials said 100 people were injured on the Greek holiday island of Kos, a destination favored by British holidaymakers. The identity of the victims was not immediately known.

ISRAEL - The agreement reached between Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and senior ultra-Orthodox rabbis is a necessary, vital development, but also a worrying one. Among the city’s secular residents, there’s a popular myth that Jerusalem is en route to becoming completely ultra-Orthodox. As far back as the 1980s, angry secular prophets were screaming that Jerusalem was destined to become a poor, closed-off, ultra-Orthodox city with a dwindling and oppressed secular minority.

ISRAEL - The Fatah movement, headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, called for a “Day of Rage” on Wednesday to protest new security measures installed by Israel at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem starting Sunday, two days after a terror attack by three Israeli-Arabs killed two Israeli police officers. Following Friday’s terror attack, Israel closed the compound for the first time in decades, reopening it to Muslims on Sunday and to non-Muslims on Monday. The “Day of Rage” announcement came amid a night of unrest in East Jerusalem and the Old City as Palestinian rioters clashed with police, hurling stones and firebombs and blocking roads.

MIDDLE EAST - The Jerusalem Post reports: The Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki on Monday made ambiguous statements about Palestinian preconditions for reviving peace talks. In one part of an interview with the Chinese daily Xinhua, Maliki said that the Palestinians’ only precondition for reviving talks is that Israel commit to the two-state solution. “We are ready to engage in negotiations when Israel announces that it is committed to the two-state solution as the primary and only solution,” Maliki said, speaking from Beijing, where he is accompanying PA President Abbas on a four-day visit. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he supports a two-state solution, but many ministers and members of his government strongly oppose it.

USA - Continuing the immoral, unethical (and probably unconstitutional) practice of “asset forfeiture” by Attorney General Jeff Sessions is bad enough. Now President Trump’s top lawman said he plans to increase the practice, which involves law enforcement seizing the personal property from suspected criminals without them having ever being charged with a crime.

USA - The FBI has issued a warning to parents about the dangers of hi-tech toys that can connect to the internet and contain technology such as microphones and cameras. The US security agency said criminals could use the technology in smart toys to gather sensitive information about children, such as their location, name and what they look like. It sent out an alert for parents that said connected toys could put children "at risk" of being targeted by criminals for identity theft or exploitation. 

UK - New Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show that mothers born outside the UK accounted for 28.2 per cent of live births in England and Wales in 2016. Of the 696,271 live births in England and Wales recorded for the year, almost 200,000 were to mothers who were themselves born outside the United Kingdom – the highest proportion on record. Birth rates in migrant communities tend to be above the national average. Considered alongside annual gross immigration approaching and sometimes exceeding 600,000, this suggests that the United Kingdom will undergo a major demographic shift as older generations begin to pass away and be replaced with migrant and migrant-descended families.

USA - In a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine, tech millionaire turned LGBTQ activist Tim Gill said he’s aiming to punish Christians who don’t want to participate in same-sex weddings. For more than two decades, the software programmer has poured an estimated $422 million into various gay rights causes. After the Supreme Court ruled gay marriage legal in all 50 states in 2015, Gill turned his attention and resources to targeting Christians. The election of Donald Trump, who claims to support gay rights but stocked his administration with anti-LGBTQ extremists, has only emboldened those looking to erase the gains of the past decade. Gill refuses to go on the defense. ‘We’re going into the hardest states in the country,’ he says. ‘We’re going to punish the wicked.’