In Israel, there is a tremendous amount of concern that whatever is agreed upon at this conference will immediately be used as the basis for a UN Security Council resolution that would permanently divide the land of Israel and create a Palestinian state.  But things would have to move very rapidly in order for that to happen, because Barack Obama’s time in the White House comes to an end on January 20th, and Donald Trump has already made it exceedingly clear that he would never support such a resolution.

The UN Security Council resolution that was passed on Friday was one of the most significant events that we have witnessed in decades.  Resolution 2334 made all Israeli settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem illegal, it set the 1967 ceasefire lines as the border between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and it granted every single inch of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.  But it stopped short of giving official UN Security Council recognition to a Palestinian state, and that is why this conference on January 15th is so important.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry will lay out a plan which many believe will serve as the blueprint for the upcoming conference in Paris.  This is something that I discussed yesterday.  Apparently Kerry has been working on this for quite some time, and according to the Times of Israel, Jewish officials are fearful that he may propose something drastic…

The volcano, situated just 40 miles from Peru’s second most populous city Arequipa in the Andes, returned to life at 8.24am on Monday just over a week after it began activity on December 16. Local authorities have warned the local inhabitants they are likely to be affected by the ash from the 20,000-ft (6,000m) volcano whose name translates at ‘tongue of fire’ in the local dialect of Quechua.

Sabancaya sits on top of the South America tectonic plate which when it clashes with the neighbouring Nazca plate, spews magma to the surface. The stratovolcano had been dormant for around 200 years until it began erupting in the 1980s. Sabancaya is covered with several glaciers and located in the saddle between the older volcanoes Ampato and Hualca Hualca.

Worryingly, Peru is suffering from two active volcanoes at the same time, the first time this has occurred in recorded history. The Ubinas volcano is only 60 miles away and is currently active as well, spewing an ash cloud into the atmosphere around two miles high. The stratovolcano is Peru’s most active volcano and was last active in April 2014. It had been dormant for 40 years before starting activity in 2006. Authorities have began a mass evacuation of the surrounding area of the volcano.

That resolution declared that all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal, it stated that the Security Council recognizes the 1967 ceasefire lines as the border between Israel and “Palestine”, and it officially gave East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.  But it stopped short of formally recognizing a Palestinian state.  Resolution 2334 speaks of a Palestinian state in the future tense, but this new resolution that John Kerry is reportedly working on would give immediate and permanent UN Security Council recognition to a Palestinian state.

If there is a UN Security Council resolution that officially establishes a Palestinian state prior to January 20th, there will be no question that it will represent “the dividing of the land of Israel” at the United Nations that so many of us have been watching for.

It is being widely reported that John Kerry will deliver a speech within the next few days that will set out a specific plan for a “two-state solution”.  That same article from the Times of Israel says that Netanyahu is deeply concerned that Obama “will seek to have a resolution enshrining those parameters adopted by the UN Security Council” before the end of his term on January 20th… It would be hard to overstate how dangerous this is. 

The investment corporation was levied the “civil penalty to settle charges that it often tried to manipulate a global dollar benchmark for interest rate products over a five-year period,” the report states. Citing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s report, Reuters stated Goldman-Sachs engaged in its illegal activity in an attempt to “manipulate the US Dollar International Swaps and Derivatives Association Fix benchmark,” and was ordered to cease from doing so in the future by taking measures to prevent a recurrence.

According to CFO’s Sean Allocca, “The investment bank used its own traders, including the head of Goldman’s Interest Rate Products Trading Group, to manipulate and create false reports concerning fixed-interest-rate swap rates over a five-year period. The traders bid, offered, and executed transactions ‘deliberately designed’ in both timing and pricing to influence the global benchmark, the US Dollar International Swaps and Derivatives Association Fix (ISDAFIX).”

In other words, it appears as though the investment firm was manipulating the value of the dollar, globally, for its own profit.

What this Goldman Sachs case represents is the entirely unaccountable nature of the banking elite. The measly $120 million ‘punishment’ is nothing when compared to the billions made off of manipulating the dollar. In fact, such an insignificant fine actually provides an incentive for Goldman Sachs and other corrupt banks to cheat the system. Banks can make trillions ripping off the public and they know, without a doubt, that none of them will be arrested or do anything other than pay the government a portion of their take.

He told Cypriot financiers London’s rivals, including Frankfurt and Dublin, are in prime position to supposedly benefit from Britain ditching the crumbling superstate. But Barry Gardiner, Labour’s international trade secretary, said: “Wilbur Ross’s comments are a stark reminder that the trade deals Britain will agree in future will not depend on goodwill from our partners, but on their own shrewd political and economic calculations.”

It comes after Mr Ross reportedly said trade deals with the UK is high on the list of priorities of the President-elect as he prepares to be sworn in next January.

The study – by an organization not hitherto noted for playing down environmental scares – will come as a major blow to climate alarmists.  For decades, they have cited Antarctica as one of the bellwethers of global warming catastrophe and have claimed – as the IPCC’s most recent Assessment Report did – that its land ice mass was slowly melting into the sea.

But the satellite measurements used in the latest NASA report tell a different story. Unlike previous studies – many largely based on guesswork because the continent is so vast and inhospitable, meaning that data is extremely limited – they use satellite altimeters to calculate changes in the surface height of the ice. What they show is that the amount of ice lost by glaciers collapsing into the sea has been exceeded by the gain in ice mass from accumulated snow.

The Cardinal made the warning on 12th September during a special celebration for the "Holy Name of Mary" Church festival, which was first introduced 333 years ago to commemorate victory over the Ottomans in the Battle of Vienna (1683).  The Cardinal said, according to the Archdiocese of Vienna: "Will there be an Islamic conquest of Europe? Many Muslims want that and say: Europe is at its end." He asked God to have mercy on Europe and to show mercy to its people, which he said "are in danger of forfeiting our Christian heritage". 

Schoenborn explained that people could already feel this loss, "not only economically, but above all, in human and religious matters."  The Archdiocese of Vienna also recently published a brochure to ask migrants to respect Christian symbols, traditions and culture.

There are lots of things we already know will happen in 2017. But what are the genuine black swans –  that is, events that are way off the radar right now, but which could disrupt the financial markets?

Obviously, by definition, they are virtually impossible to predict. But every year one or two come along. Very few people thought that Leicester City would win the Premier League, that Opec would finally get its act together and start driving the oil price back up, or that political leaders from David Cameron to Matteo Renzi to Francois Hollande would find themselves on the scrap-heap by the end of 2016!

The Federal Press Office in the Chancellery, which has a staff of over 500 professionals, will take the leading role in establishing the fake news defense center, Der Spiegel reported quoting a note from an anonymous Interior Ministry staff member. 

Earlier, German lawmakers called on new laws and tougher new measures against social media platforms which disseminate fake news. Justice Minister Heiko Maas called on the government to set “legal consequences” for internet giants. “We expect clear improvements in Facebook's removal practice. The standard must be German law,” Maas told Suddeutsche Zeitung.

Social Democratic Party parliamentary chairman Thomas Oppermann called for social media outlets to be prosecuted for their role in validating fake news. “If, after the relevant checks, Facebook does not immediately, within 24 hours, delete the offending post then [it] must reckon with severe penalties of up to 500,000 euros,” Oppermann told Der Spiegel.

The vote was able to pass the 15-member council on Friday because the United States broke with a long-standing approach of diplomatically shielding Israel and did not wield its veto power as it had on many times before - a decision that Netanyahu called "shameful". "I instructed the Foreign Ministry to complete within a month a re-evaluation of all our contacts with the United Nations, including the Israeli funding of UN institutions and the presence of UN representatives in Israel," Netanyahu said in broadcast remarks.

"I have already instructed to stop about 30 million shekels ($7.8 million) in funding to five UN institutions, five bodies, that are especially hostile to Israel … and there is more to come," he said. The Israeli leader did not name the institutions or offer any further details.

For decades, it has been the policy of the US government to veto all anti-Israel resolutions at the Security Council, and the Israeli government had been expecting that Barack Obama would not suddenly change that policy at the very end of his second term.  Most of the news headlines about resolution 2334 refer to “Israeli settlements”, but the reality of the matter is that this resolution is about much more than that. 

The truth is that this resolution has established legally binding parameters for a “two-state solution” that Israel will never accept, and this includes giving every inch of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians. …The UN Security Council is saying that unless the Palestinians agree to give it up, every single inch of East Jerusalem (including the Temple Mount) belongs to the Palestinians.

As I have explained before, UN Security Council resolutions are considered to be legally binding on the parties.  Now that the Palestinians have been granted full legal ownership over East Jerusalem, does anyone actually believe that they will ever willingly relinquish that? Today, more than half a million Israelis live in East Jerusalem and the 137 settlements that are scattered throughout the West Bank. Where are they all supposed to go?

This UN Security Council resolution never should have happened.  President-elect Donald Trump made it abundantly clear that he would have vetoed this resolution, but instead of deferring to the next administration Barack Obama decided to viciously stab Israel in the back.  This is the greatest betrayal of Israel in American history, and according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the Obama administration has been plotting this for quite a while…