The decision to deploy forces must be approved by the federal government. Severe restrictions on military deployments were set down in the German constitution after Nazi-era abuses. The court says the military still cannot shoot down a hijacked passenger plane - fighter jets would have to intercept the plane and fire warning shots to force it to land.

After World War II the new constitution ruled that soldiers could not be deployed with guns at the ready on German soil, the BBC's Stephen Evans reports from Berlin. The court has now changed that, saying troops could be used to tackle an assault that threatens scores of casualties.

The judges had in mind a terrorist incident involving armed attackers in public places. German troops have been deployed abroad since the war, but it has been a gradual process. German warplanes have been used in the Balkans and troops are on the ground in Afghanistan, protecting construction workers, but able to return fire if attacked.

It is alleged Mortgage Miracles, in Canning Vale in Western Australia, obtained investment loans for customers by using falsely inflated earnings and assets. Ms Thompson admits that is exactly what she did. “I would get upfront commission. I would get a trailing commission. I was probably earning about $5 million a year. It was great. It was wonderful. But it was all a lie,” she said.

But she was not alone. “Hook me up to a lie detector test and hook them up. I’ll lay my evidence on the table. They will fail a lie detector test miserably. They are corrupt. They are protecting each other,” Ms Thompson said. Along with similar claims before a parliamentary inquiry in Canberra last week, her evidence has the potential to rock the finance industry.

Consumer advocate Denise Brailey says there needs to be a royal commission into the banking sector. She says she has received about 500 loan application forms from people in trouble with low-doc loans and not one is clean. "The figures fudged, the details forged, by brokers or bank officers themselves," she said.

She says banks were targeting pensioners, people who were asset rich, but income poor. "These people are losing their homes. There is nothing I can do now except tell it like it is."

The move by the OIC, which represents 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, is aimed at further isolating Assad’s embattled regime. Syria was suspended from the Arab League last year over its clampdown on the uprising that Assad characterized as a plot by Western and rival powers to overthrow his regime.

The meeting called for the “immediate implementation of the transitional peace plan and the development of a peaceful mechanism that would allow building a new Syrian state based on pluralism, democratic and civilian system.” It also urged the UN Security Council to “assume fully its responsibility by stopping the ongoing violence and bloodshed in Syria and finding a peaceful and lasting solution to the Syrian crisis.”

[Mr] Peres, who has no direct role in governance and whose job as president is largely ceremonial, made the remark during an interview with Israel’s Channel Two television in what government insiders described as the result of long-simmering tensions between the two men. "It's clear to us that we can't do it alone," [Mr] Peres told Israel’s Channel Two television. "We can only delay [Iran's progress]. Thus it's clear to us that we need to go together with America.”

"Israel should rely on itself, but that doesn't mean we should give up our friends," he added. Several Israeli newspapers called the [Mr] Peres interview a bombshell and one opinion writer said it would force [Mr] Netanyahu to rethink his Iran strategy.

But Rabbi Hier said he does not "subscribe at all with those who say this is a legitimate form of rhetoric. The only way to stop what's happening in Iran is for at least the United States and her allies to say, 'How long are we going to sit by and take this threat'?" he said.

The Iranian president has also described the Holocaust, when 6 million Jews were killed by German Nazis and their collaborators during World War II, as a "myth." "Most intellectuals in 1939 and 1938 did not think Hitler was serious, they thought they knew better, but they didn't know better, and we paid a dear price that we were not on the right side of history," he said.

Middle East media confirm that during a recent rampage, Muslim Brotherhood operatives “crucified those opposing Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi naked on trees in front of the presidential palace while abusing others.” Raymond Ibrahim, a fellow with the Middle East Forum and the Investigative Project on Terrorism, said the crucifixions are the product of who the Middle Eastern media call “partisans.”

“Arabic media call them ‘supporters,’ ‘followers’ and ‘partisans’ of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Ibraham said. Ibrahim also says the victims can be anyone, including Egyptian Christians. Ibrahim said extra brutality is reserved for Christians, but the crucifixions are because of Islamic doctrine and are required by the Quran. The time and other details about the crucifixions were not readily available.

Center for Security Policy Senior Fellow Clare Lopez cited chapter and verse from the Quran to explain that crucifixions are not simply normal for Islam, they’re demanded. “Crucifixion is a hadd punishment, stipulated in the Quran, Sura 5:33, and therefore an obligatory part of Shariah,” Lopez said. “It’s been a traditional punishment within Islam since the beginning, even though it’s not exclusively Islamic. The Romans used it too.”

“So, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood haven’t the option to not include crucifixion within their legal code. It’s obligatory to comply with Shariah. And yes, it’s for shock value also to be sure,” Lopez said.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday that Israel was an “insult to humanity” and “a cancerous tumor” and called for “a new Middle East with no trace of Americans or Zionists” in honor of the annual International al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day that brought millions of Iranians to the streets in solidarity with the Palestinians against Israel’s sovereign control of Jerusalem.

“The secretary-general is dismayed by the remarks threatening Israel’s existence attributed over the last two days to the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Khamenei] and the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the UN press office said, and he “condemns these offensive and inflammatory statements.”

The leaders of the region should “use their voices at this time to lower, rather than to escalate, tensions,” the press statement continued. “In accordance with the United Nations Charter, all members must refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”

“The existence of the Zionist regime is an insult to all humanity," Ahmadinejad said. He was addressing worshippers at Tehran University after nationwide pro-Palestinian rallies, an annual event marking Quds (Jerusalem) Day on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.

The comments are "REMINISCENT" OF A LETTER WRITTEN ABOUT THE JEWS AND SIGNED BY ADOLF HITLER IN 1919, Rabbi Marvin Hier, Founder and Dean of the Simon Wisenthal Center, says. "Even though Ahmadinejad is attacking the state of Israel, we know what he means," Rabbi Hier said.