UK - Tony Blair has been criticised over his claim that the current generation of political leaders is to blame for the violence engulfing Iraq. He said that the refusal last year to intervene in Syria’s civil war had created the conditions for the al-Qaeda aligned ISIS movement to flourish in that country before advancing into Iraq’s major cities.

IRAQ - Having already cemented its status as the Middle East's most feared Islamist militant organisation, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) appear well-equipped to claim another distinction: the world's wealthiest terror group. With this week's capture of Mosul, the al-Qaeda splinter grouping is believed to have come into undreamed of new wealth after making off with 500 billion dinars - £256 million - from the northern Iraqi city's central bank. The radical group is also said to have made off with a large amount of gold bullion from the bank, which was left unguarded in the chaos accompanying the militants' takeover of the city, which is one of Iraq's main oil centres. Atheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of Nineveh province, said ISIS members had also seized many more millions from banks across the region. The newly-acquired booty has elevated it to the world's best-resourced terror organisation, according to the International Business Times.

UK - I have come to the conclusion that Tony Blair has finally gone mad. He wrote an essay on his website on Sunday (reproduced in the Telegraph) that struck me as unhinged in its refusal to face facts. In discussing the disaster of modern Iraq he made assertions that are so jaw-droppingly and breathtakingly at variance with reality that he surely needs professional psychiatric help.

UK - The alleged Islamic extremism seen in the 'Trojan Horse' scandal in schools in Birmingham is the same as that practised by Boko Haram, the Nigerian terrorist network, Tony Blair has said. The Trojan Horse 'plot' to bring hardline practices into Birmingham classrooms is part of a global extremist movement stretching from Britain to Africa to the Far East, the former Prime Minister claimed.

USA - The Obama administration is urgently considering an air assault on Islamic extremists that officials told the Guardian could be directed at targets in Syria as well as Iraq. President Obama announced on Friday that in the "days ahead" he will decide on a package of military and diplomatic options to halt the rapid advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis), as the jihadist army's march from Syria through Sunni Iraq has upended Obama's achievement of extricating the US military from the Iraq conflict. Obama has ruled out sending US soldiers and marines back to the Iraqi streets they patrolled from 2003 to 2011, but signalled a new, reluctant openness to returning the US to war in Iraq.

MIDDLE EAST - More cartoons in official PA paper, Fatah Facebook page, rejoice over kidnapping of three teenagers. In an odious distortion of the World Cup 2014 logo, the official Palestinian Authority daily printed Sunday a cartoon celebrating the kidnapping of three Israeli youths on Thursday night. Instead of the famous logo of the World Cup 2014, in which three victorious hands hold the globe, together creating the prestigious trophy, the PA cartoon shows a "trophy" of three hands holding three people with their hands up in surrender. Instead of the text "Brasil" below the "trophy," the word "Khalil" is written – Arabic for Hevron, a city near where the Israeli youths were kidnapped. The sickening cartoon illustrates the mixed messages sent by the PA; on the one hand, Abbas promised to help Israel find the abducted teens – even as a senior PA official denied his administration would take any responsibility for the kidnappings.

RUSSIA - Russia threatened to cut off Ukraine's gas later on Monday after the two sides failed to strike a deal that would have saved Europe from supply disruptions, stoking the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War. Ukraine hosted the last-gasp talks hoping to avoid an energy crisis compounding the new pro-Western leaders' problems as they confront a two-month separatist insurgency threatening the very survival of their ex-Soviet state. But a top official from Russia's state gas firm Gazprom said that the EU-brokered talks that stretched through the night had failed to bridge the two sides' acrimonious disagreement over price and how much debt Kiev exactly owed Moscow. "If we receive no pre-payment by 10:00 am (0600GMT), then we obviously will deliver no gas."

KENYA - Gunmen flying the flag of Somalia’s al-Qaeda affiliate roared into a Kenyan coastal town and opened fire indiscriminately on pedestrians, shop-owners and people watching the World Cup, leaving at least 48 people dead. Two banks, government buildings and a dozen vehicles were set alight as the Islamist attackers worked their way through the town of Mpeketoni, close to Lamu island, until Kenyan forces repelled them hours later. It was the boldest raid inside Kenya blamed on al-Shabaab since the terror strike against the Westgate Shopping Centre in the capital, Nairobi, last September, when more than 70 people died. Britain has advised tourists to avoid areas of Kenya's coast south of where the attack took place, including Mombasa island.

UK - Britain’s obesity crisis is so serious that hospitals are buying specialist equipment to keep bodies cool because they are too large to fit into mortuary fridges. Hospitals are also having to widen corridors, buy reinforced beds and lifting equipment in order to cope with the growing numbers of obese patients coming though their doors. Figures obtained by The Telegraph show that hospitals have spent at least £5.5 million over the past three years on adaptations to allow them to treat larger patients. Experts now warn the cost of treating overweight and obese patients could rise to at least £10 million a year as the nation's waistlines continue expanding. A quarter of adults in the UK are estimated to be obese and the number is expected to grow to account for more than half of the population in the next 30 years.

FRANCE - The EU should adopt a single foreign policy and back it up with a pan-European army that excludes the UK, France's former defence minister said last night. Charles Millon, who served under Prime Minster Alain Juppe, urged Brussels to abandon NATO and appease Russian premier Vladimir Putin instead. In a scathing attack on the transatlantic alliance, Mr Millon poured scorn on Washington's influence over Europe, claiming that abandoning NATO would prevent the EU from "bowing to US policy" which does not necessarily line up with its interests.

USA - An international conference of ecumenists concluded at Fairfield University in the US on Thursday with the signing of a covenant committing participants to the continued search for unity and reconciliation between all the Christian churches. Philippa Hitchen was at the conference and sent this report: This third Receptive Ecumenism conference was billed as a kind of ‘coming of age’ party for a movement born almost a decade ago at Durham’s Centre for Catholic Studies in the north of England. Based on the premise that partners in dialogues should discover what gifts they could receive from the other’s way of being and doing church, the idea was eagerly picked up by ecumenists struggling to recapture the energy and vision of the post Vatican II period.

USA - A dangerous “superbug” has made its way into the North American food supply for the first time, Canadian researchers announced Wednesday. Routine testing of raw squid, imported from South Korea, revealed a strain of bacteria resistant to carbapenems, a class of antibiotics used to treat life-threatening infections. This is concerning because carbapenems are a “last resort” antibiotic, one doctors turn to when common antibiotics fail. Health officials have been watching them closely; in April, the World Health Organization warned that antibiotic resistance had become a serious, global threat to public health, listing the spread of carbapanem resistance as a main reason for that.

UK - A tax on fizzy drinks, government targets to reduce sugar and advertising restrictions on processed foods are among a series of measures being suggested by the public health watchdog to help tackle rising levels of sugar consumption. The Telegraph has seen a document commissioned by Public Health England that contains several possible actions to reduce sugar in food and drink. The paper, which was discussed at a meeting between the quango and industry representatives this month, warns that coronary heart disease, strokes and cancer are the UK’s “leading killers”, partly driven by high blood pressure and excess weight — both of which have been linked to high sugar consumption. However, the food and drink industry is alarmed by the severity of some of the options in the document. It insists the causes of obesity are “far wider” than sugar and warns that a tax would hit the poorest families hardest.

VATICAN - Pope Francis has launched a scathing attack on the global economic system, warning it is near collapse because of a 'throwaway culture' of greed and the 'atrocity' of youth unemployment. The Roman Catholic leader openly blasted the 'idolatrous' economy for disregarding the young, which he says has led to shocking levels of youth unemployment and will lead to a lost generation. The 77-year-old also criticised the economy - which he said had 'fallen into a sin of idolatry, the idolatry of money' - for surviving on the profits of war.

EUROPE - With the increasing economic failures of Europe’s 38 member union, suffering from a combination of failed austerity, record low interest rates, mixed with debt-incurring government spending, political murmurs are rife with its eventual impact on the life of the European Union itself.