The mass attack on women that happened “in the middle of the city” around Cologne Central Station on New Year's Eve was “an intolerable situation,” Chief of Police Wolfgang Albers told reporters. So far the authorities in Cologne have received 60 complaints. The crowd of around 1,000 men attacked people in the city center in what Albers described as a “crime of a whole new dimension.”

According to reports up to 1,000 heavily intoxicated men of “Arab or North African” origin flooded the city’s famous square between its central train station and Gothic cathedral. Aged between 15 and 35, the crowd began throwing firecrackers and shooting fireworks as the new year arrived. While the festivities were happening to the sound of of cheers, some men began sexually assaulting women and pick-pocketing feasters. Some 60 criminal complaints have so far been officially filed, including at least one allegation of rape.

Meanwhile the leader of the North Rhine-Westphalia branch of Germany's main police union, Arnold Plickert, called the New Year's assaults “a massive attack on basic rights.” “Any refugees who have a problem integrating into our open society and respecting the rights of other people” must be dealt with using the “full force of the law,” Plickert told German press agency DPA.

"It was quicker and more widespread than any of us could have anticipated," said Chris Conlan, an ecologist with the San Diego County Vector Control Program. The yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti) and Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) can carry diseases linked to birth defects, painful illness and tens of thousands of deaths around the world each year.

The mosquitoes can be identified by their black-and-white striped bodies and aggressive behavior toward people, often following them indoors. These pests are smaller than average mosquitoes and distinguish themselves as daytime feeders. They're tough to eradicate, needing as little as a thimble of water to reproduce.

After months of tracking the growing population of yellow fever mosquitoes, local vector-control officials found the Asian tiger mosquito in September. Both species of the insect were first found near San Diego's shipyards, although it's unclear how they first came into the county.

West Nile virus remains a more immediate threat among mosquito-related illnesses, but that could change, said Marco Metzger, senior public health biologist in the vector-borne-disease section at the California Department of Public Health. "What we're dealing with is an emerging concern," he said. "If these [mosquitoes] become widely successful in California, we have the potential for disease transmission."

The question, as they ring in the new year, is not what to do about Mein Kampf as it enters the public domain. Rather, it is what Hitler means for Germany today. As Mein Kampf loses its copyright, German society is more complex than ever. One in five Germans today has immigrant roots and thus no family link to Hitler’s time. Many of the young know little history and find Hitler alien and fascinating. A few – somewhat more in what used to be East Germany – shout Sieg heil! at neo-Nazi rock concerts because they are drawn to Hitler’s ability to shock the establishment.

Other Germans have complex cocktails of emotions. They are extra-keen to do good – by helping refugees, for example. Yet they remain afraid of themselves and their compatriots. If a country can ever be said to be good, Germany today can. And yet Germans know that whenever others are angry with them, they will paint a Hitler moustache on posters of their chancellor. Many Germans are fed up with this – with being “blackmailed”, as Bild, the leading tabloid, complained this spring, when Greece unexpectedly brought war reparations into negotiations about bail-outs in the euro crisis.

Other Germans, mainly on the left, fret about a new “post-post-nationalism”, as Germany tentatively articulates its self-interest abroad. For most countries, this would count as normal. For Germany, it remains complicated.

He pleaded guilty to charges in September 2015 and was finally jailed in October. Ball had escaped justice over the same charges over 20 years earlier after he was given support by a member of the Royal family and establishment figures.

The Telegraph reports:

A Freedom of Information request by the Telegraph has led to the release of the letters written by some high profile figures in his support, they include former Lord Justice Anthony Lloyd, former Archbishop of Canterbury Donald Coggan and David Cameron’s late godfather Tory MP Tim Rathbone, who gave Mr Cameron his first work experience in the House of Commons.

Mr Rathbone, who died from cancer in 2002, aged 69, wrote that he found it “literally inconceivable” that Ball would ever become involved with anyone in the way described. Anthony Lloyd, who was a Lord Justice at the time, described Ball as a “saint” in one of more than 2,000 letters sent to the Crown Prosecution Service and Gloucestershire Police in his support from acquaintances.

It's no secret that Cumbria in northern England has been repeatedly hit by torrential rain and wind this month. But there has been little media focus on what this means for nuclear waste buried at Drigg, the UKs 'Low Level Waste Repository', located near the Sellafield nuclear site on the Cumbrian coast.

Yesterday the Environment Agency issued a flood alert for the River Irt which runs alongside the Drigg nuclear dump. The Environment Agency’s flood map illustrates the River Irt inundating the Drigg site on the southward side with floodwater also encroaching from the northward side.

Keeping the Drigg site open for continued dumping and extending the capacity of the site is something the nuclear industry are keen to do, seemingly at any cost to the environment.

Rabbi Sternbuch, vice president of the Rabbinical Court and head of the Eidah Charedit organization in Jerusalem, recently said that people should “put on their Shabbat clothes in preparation for the Messiah.” Touching upon a teaching taught by the Jewish sages, Rabbi Sternbuch reflected on the persecution the Jews will face from the Arab nations as part of the messianic process.

“It is also written that before the Messiah comes, Israel will suffer greatly from the sons of Ishmael (Arabs) and they will succeed in antagonizing us. We are at a crossroads and we need to pray to God to redeem us. We have to wake up and repent or, if not, God forbid, the Ishmaelites will overcome us.”

“This is precisely the time to repent and pray,” he said. “Messiah is just around the corner and is waiting to arrive.” Rabbi Amar quoted a teaching from the last Chabad leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in which he warned that the time before the messiah will intensify conflict around the world. “There will come a time when we won’t be able to sleep because of all the troubles that will befall us,” Rabbi Amar related.

How is it possible that a rabbi, even one of the chief rabbis of Jerusalem, can make a ruling in Jewish law that obligates God? Breaking Israel News posed this question to senior Chabad Rabbi Uri Kaploun who said, “All that comes to mind is the axiom in Chazal (the Jewish sages) that Lo BaShamayim Hi (it is not in Heaven): once the Torah was given, the earthly court makes the rulings, and the Heavenly Court is, as it were, bound by them.”

The satirical picture showing Saudi and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) executioners standing side-by-side, with English captions reading “Any differences?” was published on his official website on Saturday. Khamenei also released a statement on Sunday promising “divine” retribution against Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia – Iran’s regional archrival.

Nimr was among 47 people beheaded or shot by firing squad across Saudi Arabia on Saturday - the largest number of individuals executed in a single day since 1980. All but four of the condemned were convicted as Al-Qaeda members, while Nimr and three other Shias were accused of inciting riots among Saudi Arabia’s Shia minority between 2010 and 2012, when Nimr was arrested.

The execution of Nimr, a public figure popular with youths, alongside terrorists responsible for a series of bombings carried out between 2003 and 2006, provoked additional outrage in the Shia world. Iran summoned the Saudi ambassador, and just hours later, a mob set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran, chanting “Death to Al Saud!” – the ruling family of Saudi Arabia.

Britain’s benchmark index suffered its worst new year start in 16 years. The last time the FTSE 100 made such a bad start to the year was on January 4, 2000, when it sank 3.81 percent - its worst new year start in the FTSE 100's 31-year history. After suffering its worst year since 2011, the FTSE 100 closed down 158.89 points, or 2.39 percent, to 6,093.43. More than £38 billion had been wiped off Britain's leading companies when markets closed on Monday - compared with a total of £80 billion in the past 12 months.

The opening bell on Wall Street did not bring any relief, as the mayhem in China also rattled US markets. By 5.30pm, the S&P 500 had slipped 1.3 percent lower, while the Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq Composite index lost 2.2 percent and 2.7 percent respectively. The Dow, S&P and Nasdaq closed 1.6 percent, 1.5 percent and 2.1 percent lower respectively. The share price plunge followed weak data from China, which caused Asian shares to slump and triggered an early closure of the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets.

Mike van Dulken, of Accendo Markets, said: “Equity markets have made a rather negative start to 2016, with China making an early appearance to remind us of global growth woes and FX wars, keeping the commodities space under pressure, while geopolitical tensions in the Middle East are adding to existing volatility in the price of oil."

One was the very peculiar nature of that state visit in October, when the president of China was taken in a golden coach to stay at Buckingham Palace, down a Mall lined with hundreds of placard-waving pro China stooges, while the only people manhandled away by Chinese security guards were a few protesters against China’s treatment of Tibet and abuses of human rights.

Led by David Cameron, our politicians could not have fawned more humiliatingly on the leader of a country whose economy, before its recent wobbles, was predicted by the IMF to overtake that of the US as the largest in the world in 2016. While Britain once led the world in steel making and the civil use of nuclear power, the visit coincided with the crumbling of the remains of our steel industry before a flood of cheap Chinese steel, as our politicians pleaded for China’s help in building, to an obsolete design, the most costly nuclear power station in the world.

Three weeks later came the rather less prominent visit of Narendra Modi, prime minister of India, whose even faster-growing economy is predicted by financial analysts to become bigger than Britain’s within three years, and to overtake China’s as the world’s largest in the second half of the century. What we were seeing in 2015, more than ever before, were the signs of one of history’s great geopolitical shifts, as the centuries-old hegemony of the West gives way to the new powerhouses of the outside world.

Everywhere we see Western illusions colliding with reality, as when the reckless bid to suck Ukraine into the EU and Nato inevitably provoked a response from President Putin and a Russian sense of national interest that has left us looking pathetically impotent. Likewise, in his support for Syria’s President Assad, Putin has run rings round the West, just as the murderous regime in Iran ran rings round us in that recent “nuclear deal”, so meaningless that Iran’s “moderate” President Rouhani never even bothered to sign it, almost immediately authorising two illegal tests of nuclear-capable missiles, knowing that no action from the West would follow.

We then saw that even more meaningless “non-binding” deal in Paris, supposed to save the world from global warming. The very fact that it was the West that had dreamed up this scare in the first place was yet another symptom of how easily we fall for illusions; and again it was the outside world, led by China and India, that refused to buy such nonsense.

The reason why we do not see just how far our spoiled, emasculated, de-spiritualised societies in the West have lost the plot is that they are the bubble we live in. But these days there is a great big world out there, much less sentimental and much tougher than what we have become used to. Over the coming years, our world is going to change more than we can imagine.

On August 28, a three-story building was set on fire in a small town near the western German city of Hamelin. A family from Zimbabwe had just moved there. Firefighters soon found the cause of the blaze under the eleven-year-old son Alvin's bed: a Molotov cocktail. It had been tossed into the ground floor of the building. Hundreds of cases of such homicidal violence have occurred in Germany this year. To give a comparison: in 2011, 18 attacks on refugee accommodation were recorded and now, four years later, the number has gone up to more than 600.

The ethical idea of helping is now no longer the main force shaping public opinion on refugee policy. On December 8, refugee number 1,000,000 was registered. But Merkel's open-door policy actually met with resistance long before that: in her party, in her own cabinet, in German municipalities and on the street. German society has shown its deep division.

2015 clearly proves one thing: although right-wing extremists do not represent "the people" as they claim, they do constitute a part. And that part is growing.

No-one “doubts any longer” that Germany’s citizens should get used to the risk of an attack, Andy Neumann of the German Federal Office of Criminal Investigation has warned, saying that only a mixture of luck and skill has so far kept the country safe from a large Islamic extremist atrocity.

German interior minister Thomas de Maizière has now called for closer co-operation with foreign intelligence agencies following the terror threat, saying his government would work "closely with security organisations of other countries”. "The situation will continue to remain serious in the New Year," Mr de Maizière told Bild newspaper.

But that may change in 2016, when five of Germany's 16 states hold elections in the build-up to the next federal vote a year later. Not only is Chancellor Merkel looking more vulnerable than ever before because of her welcoming stance toward the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war in the Middle East, but the rise of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has injected a new element of surprise into the political landscape.

Add to that an unprecedented splintering of the electorate, which means that six parties have a legitimate shot of entering most state parliaments, and Germany's normally cozy, consensual politics begins to look a bit less predictable, and potentially more divisive, than it has in a long time.

The wild card is the threat of an attack by Islamist extremists on German soil, a risk highlighted on New Year's Eve when authorities received a tip that Iraqi and Syrian nationals were planning suicide bombings at train stations in Munich.

It could be fatal for Merkel; officials in Berlin acknowledge in private, if such an attack were carried out successfully by people who entered Europe with the flood of migrants, as was the case with two of the men involved in the November 13 attacks in Paris.

Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told a news conference in Riyadh that the envoy of Shi'ite Iran had been asked to quit Saudi Arabia within 48 hours. The kingdom, he said, would not allow the Islamic republic to undermine its security. Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran early on Sunday and Shi'ite Iran's top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, predicted "divine vengeance" for the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, an outspoken opponent of the ruling Al Saudi family.

Jubeir said the attack in Tehran was in line with what he said were earlier Iranian assaults on foreign embassies there and with Iranian policies of destabilizing the region by creating "terrorist cells" in Saudi Arabia. "The kingdom, in light of these realities, announces the cutting of diplomatic relations with Iran and requests the departure of delegates of diplomatic missions of the embassy and consulate and offices related to it within 48 hours. The ambassador has been summoned to notify them," he said.

Speaking on Iranian state television, Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in Tehran's first response that by cutting diplomatic ties, Riyadh could not cover up "its major mistake of executing Sheikh Nimr". The United States, Saudi Arabia's biggest backer in the West, responded by encouraging diplomatic engagement and calling for leaders in the region to take "affirmative steps" to reduce tensions.

Tensions between revolutionary, mainly Shi'ite Iran and Saudi Arabia's conservative Sunni monarchy have run high for years as they backed opposing forces in wars and political conflicts across the Middle East, usually along sectarian lines. However, Saturday's execution of a cleric whose death Iran had warned would "cost Saudi Arabia dearly", and the storming of the kingdom's Tehran embassy, raised the pitch of the rivalry.

The document, "About the Strategy of National Security of Russian Federation", was signed by President Vladimir Putin on New Year's Eve. It replaces a 2009 version, endorsed by then- President Dmitry Medvedev, the current prime minister, which mentioned neither the United States not NATO.

It says Russia has managed to heighten its role in solving global problems and international conflicts. That heightened role has caused a reaction by the West, it says. "The strengthening of Russia happens against the background of new threats to the national security, which has complex and interrelated nature," the document says.

Conducting an independent policy, "both international and domestic" has caused "counteraction from the USA and its allies, which are striving to retain their dominance in global affairs." That in turn is likely to lead to "political, economical, military and informational pressure" on Russia, the document says.