Nevertheless, Steinmeier’s appearance recalled Hitler’s speech to the Dusseldorf Industry Club on January 26, 1932. Like the soon to become Führer, Steinmeier made a direct appeal to German big business to support Germany’s rise to be a world power. He explicitly called on big business to support him and the government in pushing through a militarist foreign policy turn against the will of the people.

Steinmeier’s programme strongly recalls the German lust for power, once believed to be a thing of the past. “Germany should ‘lead Europe to lead the world’, ‘Europeanise Russia’ and ‘multilateralise the US’”, Steinmeier demanded, citing an essay that has been featured on an official web site of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for months. He added, “No small task!”

The implications of these words are unmistakable. Germany’s return to an aggressive foreign policy runs along similar channels as followed in the first half of the 20th century. The German elites once again see it as their “task” to dominate Europe in order to become a world power. Today, as before, this programme of German imperialism means conflict with Russia and the United States.

To “Europeanize Russia” means nothing other than to subordinate Russia to a Europe controlled by Germany. To “multilateralise the US” means to contest the role of the United States as the world hegemon. In other words, German foreign policy in the future will develop increasingly in opposition to the two powers against which it has already waged two world wars.

After the crimes of the Nazi regime, the German elites are, at least for now, still trying to present their programme of a third “grab for world power” as if it were being imposed on them from the outside. Every day, “the expectation of German involvement” is encountered from our “partners abroad”, Steinmeier protested at the Adlon.

When Steinmeier had finished, there was thunderous applause in the ballroom of Hotel Adlon.

The Temple Mount Trustees, Eretz Yisrael, Women of the Temple Mount and Students for the Temple Mount made the joint announcement and distributed flyers urging Jews to join in the celebrations in Al Haram Al Sharif. The celebrations will take place starting from December 14.

Residents of occupied East Jerusalem told Gulf News that ultraorthodox Jews are using the Hanukkah feast to provoke Palestinians and drag them into more violent clashes. Both the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman have said that the status quo of Al Haram Al Sharif should not be changed and said that Israelis who insist on rights to pray at Al Haram Al Sharif do not reflect the views of the Israeli government.

However, Palestnians say these groups have the full backing of the Israeli government and occupation forces will provide them cover and security. “The Israeli government must play an active role in controlling these ultraorthodox groups,” said Fakhri Abu Diyab, a member of the Higher Committee in Defense of Jerusalem, told Gulf News. “Violence will be confronted with violence and Al Haram Al Sharif will be protected under any circumstances,” he added.

A spokesman for Benjamin Netanyahu accused Abbas of promoting “impossible fantasies” and taking “maximalist positions.” Israel has a population of just over 8 million, more than a fifth of whom are Arabs. Israeli governments have consistently rejected Palestinian demands for a “right of return” for millions of descendants of former Arab residents of what is today Israel, saying that the demand amounts to a bid to destroy Israel by demographic means and that a Palestinian state would have to absorb them in the same way that Israel absorbed Jewish refugees who were forced to leave countries across the Middle East and North Africa when Israel was founded.

“Real peace will only come with leadership that demands from the Palestinians to accept the three pillars of peace,” Netanyahu said in a pre-recorded video message screened at the Saban Forum in Washington:

“One, genuine mutual recognition; two, an end to all claims, including the right of return; and three, a long-term Israeli security presence. Now, I will never give up on this triangle of true peace.”

This means that the EPA can no longer be advised on their own research regarding GMOs or pharmaceutical drugs like antibiotics or vaccines. Can you say circular reasoning, or insular logic? This ‘reform’ means industry-appointed experts will determine what is ‘safe’ and what is not safe for the public, and that the scientists with the most knowledge about the risks pertaining to GMOs and pharmaceuticals will be gagged.

This also means that while Monsanto hides the toxicity results on RoundUp Ready GMO crops and experts call GMO testing woefully inadequate, we now have yet another layer of bureaucracy to protect Big Biotech. If there was ever a question that our government has been completely infiltrated by extremely questionable interests, let it be known that the stakes have just been raised.

As well as detailing the controversial methods used by CIA operatives in an effort to extract information from high-value suspects, the report is expected to say harsh interrogations failed to deliver appropriate results. President Barack Obama halted the CIA interrogation programme when he took office in 2009, and has acknowledged that the methods used to question al-Qaeda prisoners amounted to torture.

During the presidency of George W Bush, the CIA operation against al-Qaeda - known internally as the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation - saw as many as 100 suspected terrorists held in "black sites" outside the US.

In an article published in The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, titled: Physicians can justifiably euthanize certain severely impaired neonates, Schüklenk argues that some lives are not worth living and that parents should have the right to decide to end the lives of newborns with disabilities.

Schüklenk states: “A quality-of-life ethic requires us to focus on a neonate's current and future quality of life as relevant decision-making criteria. We would ask questions such as: Does this baby have capacity for development to an extent that will allow him or her to have a life and not merely be alive? If we reach the conclusion that it would not, we would have reason to conclude that his life is not worth living.”

But this isn't a story about Sao Paulo; it's a report that dares to point out that human societies are incredibly short-sighted and nearly incapable of sustainably populating planet Earth. In numerous regions around the world - including California, India, Oklahoma, Brazil, China and many more - human populations are rapidly out-growing the capacity of their local water systems. Even though keeping populations alive requires food… and growing food requires water… almost no nation or government in the world seems to be able to limit water consumption of local populations to levels which are sustainable in the long term.

Instead, the endless greed of the "grow-consume-profit" business model that dominates the global economy leaves no room for any hint of balance with nature. The overriding philosophy of modern business is to dominate nature with chemicals, mining and monoculture to maximize profit while kicking any really large problems down the road for the next generation to deal with. The result is a world where nobody thinks about the long-term implications of today's trends because everybody's too busy trying to extract a buck or two out of the very system that will destroy their future.

Consider Las Vegas while you ponder all this: Here's a city with no water future whatsoever, continuing to build new casinos and grow its population even as the water level of Lake Mead has already dropped to emergency levels (and continues to plummet). What do the people of Las Vegas imagine they will drink when all the cheap, easy water is gone? Will they swallow dust and pretend it's water?

The sobering truth is that nearly everyone who lives in Las Vegas doesn't think about this. By definition, anyone who realized the truth about the disappearing water throughout Nevada, Arizona and California would have already sold their property and moved away. Those who still inhabit regions with unsustainable water supplies - such as Sao Paulo - are choosing to make believe the problem doesn't exist.

This delusional psychology is, of course, reflected across modern human civilization and its governments, where delusional rhetoric and make believe fantasies about "endless economic growth" keep the obedient masses toiling away day after day, hoping they are securing a future which has already been mortgaged away.

From the website of the Irgun Zvai Leumi – the Jewish underground movement before the State of Israel was founded: “One of the operations which undermined the prestige of the British authorities and made them the object of ridicule was the 'Wall' scheme, which concerned prayer arrangements at the Western Wall. In the late nineteen twenties, the Arabs had already begun to complain that blowing the shofar at the Western Wall was an insult to Islam.

In 1931, the King's Order in Council (the legislative authority of the Mandatory government) stipulated that the Moslems' ownership rights to the Temple Mount also encompassed the Western Wall area. As a result, Jews were banned from blowing the shofar at the Wall, despite the fact that this ceremony is an integral part of the Rosh Hashana (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) prayer services.

The ban deeply offended Jews, and the Irgun decided to act. After the imposition of the ban, Irgun and Betar members "smuggled" a shofar into the Western Wall area every Yom Kippur. There a volunteer was waiting to blow the 'Tekia Gedola', the blast which marks the end of the fast. This was not easily done, since large numbers of British policemen were stationed along the routes to the Wall and conducted careful searches of the belongings of the Jews visiting the Wall.

The shofar blower was usually arrested and jailed in the Kishleh, the police building in the Old City, which had served as a jail since the Turkish era. (The building is still standing and is now used by the Israeli police). The blowing of the shofar at the Wall at the end of Yom Kippur was not only a religious ceremony, but also bolstered national pride throughout the country. On Yom Kippur 5703 (September 1942), Menachem Begin visited the Wall and witnessed the British policemen bursting into the area in search of the Betarite who had blown the shofar.

In summer, 1944, the question of the shofar ceremony at the Wall was raised again. This time the Irgun decided not to confine itself to bringing in a single shofar-blower to mark the end of Yom Kippur. Several weeks before the High Holydays, the Irgun began to issue warnings to the British to keep away from the Wall, and announced that any policemen found near the Wall on Yom Kippur would be "punished.”

Signs were posted which read: “Any British Constable who will commit acts of violence near the Western Wall on the Day of Atonement and, in defiance of the moral law of civilized people, will disturb the worshippers assembled there and will desecrate the sanctity of prayer will be regarded and LISTED by the HEBREW Youth as a CRIMINAL OFFENDER.” The shofar was blown. The followers of Ze’ev Jabotinsky demanded Jews be allowed to blow the shofar at the kotel [the Wall]– whether or not it offended the Arab population – and fought for the right of Jews to do so.

One wonders how – especially with a Likud government in power - anyone can prevent Jews from praying anywhere in Jerusalem. Jews must have the right to pray at the Temple Mount.