UNITED NATIONS - The Gaza fence separates a sovereign state from terrorists. There can be no parity between a sovereign state acting proportionately in its self-defense and a terrorist organization that sanctifies murder and the death of Israelis, was Israel’s answer to the UN call for an independent inquiry into the 17 Palestinian deaths in riots against the Israeli border on Friday. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that there will be no inquiry into the Gaza border deaths, as demanded by the Israeli left and the UN secretary: “I don’t understand the chorus of hypocrites that want a commission of inquiry. They are confused and thought Hamas organized the Woodstock festival and we needed to give them flowers,” Lieberman wrote on Twitter.

USA - California has been rocked by three earthquakes which have hit almost the same spot in less than 24 hours along the notorious ‘Big One’ San Andreas fault line, according to the United States Geological Survey. All the quakes struck about 30 miles from south of San Jose, California, on the Western coast of the US. The shakes were only minor, with no one injured. But the area affected runs along San Andreas Fault, which is due for a major quake dubbed the ‘Big One’. California’s most recent powerful earthquake was estimated to be 7.8 magnitude and happened in 1857.

UK - Earlier this week, the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council published a blistering attack on Labour’s leader Jeremy Corbyn for facilitating anti-semitism in his party. A demonstration they called outside Parliament, which brought around 2,000 mainly Jewish people onto the streets, produced the extraordinary sight of dozens of Labour MPs turning up to express solidarity against their own leader, demanding that he purge the party of the anti-semitism now rampant within it.

ISRAEL - US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman slammed the Palestinian leadership in an interview Wednesday, saying that the aging Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is replaceable and if he continues to show no interest in negotiating with Israel, the process will go on with someone else. “If Abbas creates a vacuum, I am convinced that someone else will fill it, and then we will move forward with [the peace process]” Friedman added.

ISRAEL - Seven Palestinians were killed and some 500 were wounded by Israeli tear gas, rubber bullets and live fire in the Gaza Strip on Friday, Palestinian sources said, as a series of massive protests along the security fence around the Hamas-controlled enclave intensified and turned violent. Protesters were calling for Palestinians to be allowed to return to land that is now inside Israel. “Seventy years ago we left and today we have decided to return to our country”… No Israeli government would ever be likely to accept this demand, since it would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish-majority state. Israel’s position is that Palestinian refugees and their descendants would become citizens of a Palestinian state at the culmination of the peace process, just as Jews who fled or were forced out of Middle Eastern countries by hostile governments became citizens of Israel.

MIDDLE EAST - Turkish Prime Minister Saadeddine Al-Othmani joined a number of world leaders in solidarity with Palestinians amid Israeli attacks on civilians in Gaza. "According to Palestinian Ministry of Health, 14 were martyred and more than 1400 were injured in clashes with the Zionist Israel. We eagerly wait for the day when Palestinians will achieve their freedom and independent state,” Al-Othmani said on Twitter, Anadolu reported. He also offered condolences for those killed in the attacks and wished a recovery for the injured. Kuwait also condemned the attacks on Palestinian demonstrators, an official source at that country’s foreign ministry said Friday.

GERMANY - The Good Friday ban on Muslim circumcision parties in Germany raises larger religious questions. Germany's Good Friday laws on noise and festivities are controversial. The law's reach into Muslim circumcision parties raises questions about separation of church and state that could end up in Germany's top court. Good Friday is a so-called "silent holiday" protected under Germany's Basic Law. It means that a "Tanzverbot" (dancing ban) has to be observed, but regulations differ across Germany's 16 states according to regional laws. The ban is only in place there from 4am to 9pm on Good Friday. Penalties vary, but violators risk fines of up to €1,500 ($1,860).

SOLOMON ISLANDS - A Earthquake has rocked the Solomon Islands and put the Pacific Ring of Fire on alert. The quake struck around 13 miles from the town of Honiara, which is home to 56,000 people. The volatility on the Pacific Ring of Fire over the past month or so has increased fears for the Big One: a major earthquake in a highly-populated area on the US west coast or in Japan. And countries across the bloc stretching from Chile in South America to New Zealand are preparing for more chaos and possible aftershocks and tremors after weeks of eruptions and quakes.

JAPAN - Tokyo has been hit by an earthquake as buildings shook in the Japanese capital and promoted a slew of residents to express their worries on social media, it has emerged. Early reports are stating the ground shaking quake was of a 5.3 magnitude. The USGS confirmed the earthquake and downgraded it to a 5.0 magnitude. One resident declared that they saw buildings shake in the city while others expressed relief that “everyone is okay”.

GERMANY - Deutsche Bank is in big trouble as they continue to fail! Josh Sigurdson talks with author and economic analyst John Sneisen about the most recent news regarding Deutsche Bank as the massive global bank based in Frankfurt, Germany reaches its epic end.

VATICAN - So ran the riveting headline on the Drudge Report of Holy Thursday. Drudge quoted this exchange, published in La Repubblica, between Pope Francis and his atheist friend, journalist Eugenio Scalfari. Scalfari: “What about bad souls? Where are they punished?”

USA - Fake news may have already influenced politics in the US, but it’s going to get a lot worse, warns an AI consultant to the CIA.

Sean Gourley, founder and CEO of Primer, a company that uses software to mine data sources and automatically generate reports for the CIA and other clients, told a conference in San Francisco that the next generation of fake news would be far more sophisticated thanks to AI. “The automation of the generation of fake news is going to make it very effective,” Gourley told the audience at EmTech Digital, organized by MIT Technology Review. In recent interviews, Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, suggested that the company would use AI to spot fake news. According to Gourley, AI could be used in the service of the opposite goal as well.

UK - It’s an annual row that seems to start earlier and earlier – the great Easter egg debate. Social media becomes awash with companies forced to defend their Easter products from an army of people claiming that they do not feature the religious aspects of the festival prominently enough, or have been made halal. The debate has become increasingly politicised, with many rightwing groups amplifying the message. “It’s amazing that in such a politically correct society we can’t call Easter eggs Easter eggs anymore”, the official Ukip Twitter account said on Monday.

UNITED NATIONS - Imagine an International Court of Justice for Water, where ‘water justice’ rulings are made to control and allocate water to sustain life. The United Nations has fully set its sights on controlling all the water of the world. Further, it has tightly integrated water policy into the Sustainable Development Goals.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA - A huge 6.9 magnitude earthquake has rocked Papua New Guinea, putting the Ring of Fire on alert this evening. Papua New Guinea's New Britain island was hit by an earthquake at 10.25pm BST. Downgraded from an initial magnitude of 7.2, the 6.9 earthquake struck 96 miles from the town of Kokopo which is home to 20,000 people. In its latest update, the body said: Hazardous tsunami waves are forecast for some coasts. It is the third earthquake to have hit the region in 24 hours, each one increasing in strength.