Our justice systems are for the most part shameful, our societies misguided by media-driven consumerism, and our faith in the political future tarnished by the tainted leaders of the past who dig their nails as deep into the political structures as they can, so as to remain part of the present by force.

The EU has long struggled to please all of its members. Lowest common denominator politics has dominated, only to be reinforced by the most shameful of policies – not the UK’s rebate, but the opt-outs. Opt-out from Schengen, opt-out from the monetary union, opt-out from the legislation relating to freedom, justice, and security.

‘More union in our Union’ said President Juncker. A fair deal for not just the UK, but also for all the EU’s Member States when it comes to the UK. The European project has no future if it is to continue the path of lowest common denominator politics. It stands at a tipping point, but whether it tips in the direction of integration or disintegration is in the hands of promiscuous, power-hungry leaders.

Well, something like that has just happened in the world of Islam. Saudi Arabia, whose population is largely Sunni Muslim and is ruled by a Sunni government, executed a leading Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr. During protests in 2011–2012, Nimr called for protesters to resist security forces using "the roar of the word" rather than violence. He frequently protested (non-violently) the Saudi treatment of Shia Muslims.

As a result of this execution, new protests have erupted in countries where Shia Muslims are dominant, especially Iran. It is not clear if new "wars of religion" are about to erupt, but the attack on the Saudi Embassy in Iran is not a positive sign.

Both Christianity and Islam have fundamental divisions, be it Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant or Sunni/Shia. Ecumenism over the years has moved Christianity to a peaceful place, but the same has not been true of Islam.

Most NCR readers have some knowledge of the historical splits in Christianity. But the splits in Islam are not as well understood in the West, and they came very early in the history of that religious tradition. And they are deep. And today, it is almost impossible to understand the violence in the Middle East without understanding the Sunni/Shia divide.

The abrupt change in the Nordic nations is one of the most striking consequences of the surge into Europe of asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Africa and elsewhere this year. Sweden announced on Wednesday that it would temporarily reintroduce border controls, a move intended to bring order to the process of arrivals, officials said. Sweden has proportionally borne the biggest burden of the migration crisis and has been calling on its European partners for help.

The welcome mat will not be quite the same, either. Sweden decided last month to offer only three-year residence permits to many new asylum seekers rather than permanent status. The change was part of agreements the government had to make to get the votes it needed on a new budget.

On Friday, Denmark — which had already slashed benefits to new arrivals by about 50 percent, added language requirements and extended the waiting period for permanent residency — announced further restrictions. The changes include allowing the police to search asylum seekers’ luggage for cash or valuables that could be used to help pay for their stays, and requiring refugees to wait longer to bring family members to Denmark.

Norway has said it will cut benefits to refugees by 20 percent, increase the wait for permanent residency to five years from three and send people back if the situations improve in their home countries. Finland, faced with mounting numbers of asylum seekers from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, announced last month that it now considered some areas of those countries safe and began negotiations with the home countries to step up deportations.

Stronger systems are predicted starting Tuesday following light rain a day earlier. At least two more storms are expected to follow on Wednesday and Thursday, possibly bringing as much as 3 inches of rain. The National Weather Service issued a flash-flood watch for Northern California communities affected by several destructive wildfires last summer and fall.

The brewing El Nino system - a warming pattern in the Pacific Ocean that alters weather worldwide - is expected to impact California and the rest of the nation in the coming weeks and months. In recent weeks, a weather pattern partly linked with El Nino has turned winter upside-down across the nation, bringing spring-like warmth to the Northeast, a risk of tornadoes in the South, and so much snow across the West that even ski slopes have been overwhelmed.

As much as 15 inches of rain could fall in the next 16 days in Northern California, with about 2 feet of snow expected in the highest points of the Sierra Nevada, said Johnny Powell, a forecaster with the National Weather Service.

Schneier — who received a rare papal knighthood in 2014 for his work on religious freedom and international peace — told The Algemeiner the new text continued in the tradition of Pope Paul VI, who oversaw the adoption of the Nostra Aetate in 1965 absolving the Jewish people for the murder of Christ, and which was later upheld by John Paul II, Benedict XVI and now Francis.

“This in a way is a conclusion of years of relations that have evolved trying to improve the cooperation between Jews and Catholics,” said Schneier. “I feel that this reaffirms the ner tamid [eternal flame] in the synagogue,” he said, noting the significance of the document’s release on the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.

The theological text discusses issues that have arisen since Nostra Aetate. Among its core messages is a call on Catholics not to attempt converting Jews, and a rejection of supersessionism, or the Christian belief that the church supplanted the Mosaic covenant, thereby making the continued practice of Judaism a form of dissent. The text notes that passages in the New Testament have “no intention of proving the promises of the Old Covenant to be false, but on the contrary treats them as valid.”

Relations between the Vatican and Israel are overwhelmingly warm, despite some small issues. Earlier this year, the Holy See angered Israeli officials when it wrote “State of Palestine” in place of the Palestinian Authority on an official document, and Pope Francis offered up prayers at the Israeli security barrier between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, during his inaugural visit to the Middle East as pontiff. Additionally, the Vatican has delayed the canonization of Pope Pius XII amid complaints of the Vatican’s neutral role during the Holocaust.

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.