American spending was reduced by 6.5 percent as part of measures to cut the US budget deficit, while the three biggest arms spenders after the US — China, Russia and Saudi Arabia — greatly increased their purchases. Saudi Arabia boosted its military investments the most, by 17 percent, while China’s arms spending rose by 9.7 percent to an estimated $216 billion.

The fast build-up of arms in areas such as the Middle East and Africa is “placing an increasingly high burden on economies,” SIPRI program director Sam Perlo-Freeman added. “These increases partly reflect worsening security situations, but in many cases they are also the product of corruption, vested interests and autocratic governance,” he said.

Familiar mega-banks and investing powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Macquarie Bank, Barclays Bank, the Blackstone Group, Allianz, and HSBC Bank, among others, are consolidating their control over water. Wealthy tycoons such as T Boone Pickens, former President George H W Bush and his family, Hong Kong’s Li Ka-shing, Philippines’ Manuel V Pangilinan and other Filipino billionaires, and others are also buying thousands of acres of land with aquifers, lakes, water rights, water utilities, and shares in water engineering and technology companies all over the world.

The second disturbing trend is that while the new water barons are buying up water all over the world, governments are moving fast to limit citizens’ ability to become water self-sufficient (as evidenced by the well-publicized Gary Harrington’s case in Oregon, in which the state criminalized the collection of rainwater in three ponds located on his private land, by convicting him on nine counts and sentencing him for 30 days in jail). Let’s put this criminalization in perspective:

Billionaire T Boone Pickens owned more water rights than any other individuals in America, with rights over enough of the Ogallala Aquifer to drain approximately 200,000 acre-feet (or 65 billion gallons of water) a year. But ordinary citizen Gary Harrington cannot collect rainwater runoff on 170 acres of his private land.

It’s a strange New World Order in which multibillionaires and elitist banks can own aquifers and lakes, but ordinary citizens cannot even collect rainwater and snow runoff in their own backyards and private lands.

Mr Summers has hailed the birth of the China-led institution as the moment the US lost its role as “the underwriter of the global economic system”. “I can think of no event since Bretton Woods comparable to the combination of China’s effort to establish a major new institution and the failure of the US to persuade dozens of its traditional allies, starting with Britain, to stay out of it,” opined the former president of Harvard and one time candidate to take over the US Federal Reserve. He is only the latest in a chorus of former Washington insiders who are heralding the Communist nation's attempts to rival US hegemony in the “soft power” stakes.

But it was the response of the United States which precipitated a diplomatic row of far greater significance than the establishment of a development bank. Washington’s closest European allies chose to openly flout the unsaid prohibitions over their membership. France, Germany, Italy and the UK will all now be founding members of the AIIB when it is due to launch at the end of the year.

Britain's decision to become the "first Western nation" to submit its interest drew an apoplectic response from the White House. “We are wary about a trend of constant accommodation of China, which is not the best way to engage with a rising power,” said one US official. Undeterred, much of the rest of the developed world has followed the UK’s lead and thrown their hat into the AIIB’s ring.

Washington, seeing the fledgling institution as a proxy in the Sino-US rivalry, spectacularly misjudged the mood of its transatlantic allies. The rush to participate in the AIIB highlighted that no major economy was willing to bypass the opportunity to co-operate with the globe's rising power.

Upon submitting its application for founder status, even Israel chose to rub salt in the wounds of its erstwhile ally, championing the AIIB as "one of the most important initiatives in terms of Chinese foreign policy and in particular for President Xi Jinping." Having failed so dramatically to corral its allies into shunning China's overtures, Mr Summers and many others are now urging the US to "wake up to the new economic era."

Dated April 2015 and drawn up to brief the Senate and House of Representatives on the impact of Britain’s General Election, the memo also warns that the UK faces turmoil if there is a hung parliament. The document – prepared by the Congressional Research Service, an in-house intelligence body that gives confidential analysis to legislators – states that while Britain and the US are likely to ‘remain key economic partners’, a ‘reassessment of the special relationship may be in order… because its geopolitical setting has been changing’.

The memo, edited by Derek E Mix, the CRS’s chief European affairs analyst, says that the development of organisations such as the G20 group of major economies has led to a decline in the ‘influence and centrality of the relationship’. The ‘special relationship’ has been deployed by generations of politicians – most notably Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher – to describe the close political, diplomatic, cultural, economic, military and historical relations between the two countries.

It was first coined in a 1944 speech by Winston Churchill, when he said it was his ‘deepest conviction that unless Britain and the United States are joined in a special relationship… another destructive war will come to pass’. Increasingly, however, the relationship has come to be seen as one-sided, with British Prime Ministers more keen to flag up the alliance than US Presidents.

Russ Koesterich, chief investment strategist and managing director at the world's biggest asset manager, said that while the "very gentle" tightening expected by the Fed was unlikely to rock markets in the same way as the "taper tantrum" did in 2013, a "flash crash" in benchmark US Treasury yields last October served as a warning that some investors could be left high and dry when the US central bank raises rates – perhaps as soon as this summer.

"The Fed hasn't raised rates for nine years," he said. "That means you've got almost half a generation of investors who've never lived through a tightening cycle. It's going to cause some angst among individual investors, and if you do see some liquidations, that's going to be one instance where we might be testing liquidity, how investors react and the market's ability to absorb that reaction.

"Investors who became very accustomed to this nice simple ride that we've all enjoyed do need to get prepared for a rougher ride… normal is going to feel difficult following this period of very easy markets." Mr Koesterich also warned that the world was running out of ammunition to deal with the next crisis, saying that one more shock could plunge advanced economies into deflation.

The Bank of England warned last month that a global liquidity storm could endanger financial stability if investors suddenly demanded their money back.

The North American Aerospace Command – NORAD, called the Rocky Mountains complex home. Staffers at the government complex were on constant alert while scanning the skies for the presence of Russian missiles. World War 3 concerns kept the Cheyenne Mountain Complex filled with activity until a decade ago when federal officials declared that Russia was “no longer a threat.”

The Pentagon is reportedly in the midst of “refurbishing” the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. The high-tech communications attributes at the facility will reportedly be protected from electromagnetic pulses, or EMP attack. The bunker buried within the mountain is situated 2,000 feet down and is believed to be protected from a 30 megaton nuclear blast. Pentagon officials announced earlier this week that the Cheyenne Mountain Complex will regain its prominence in the communications and tracking arena for the US Military.

Moving the high-tech and sensitive communication equipment to the facility in the Rocky Mountains will safeguard the servers from an EMP attack, according to statements released by military officials. The Raytheon Corporation was granted a $700 million Pentagon contract to oversee the NORAD, US Northern Command project at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex.

No, those are not the rants of a disheveled malcontent on the street wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt and waving an anti-Wall Street placard; that quote is taken from a study, published last year, conducted by two prestigious American Universities, Princeton and Northwestern. Are Americans so brainwashed and/or stupid that they fail to realize this? No, many are painfully aware of it. But think of the Soviet Union in its fading days some years before it collapsed.

The reference to the Roman Empire is more than just metaphor. The facts are disturbing. The data on stratification reveals that America is actually worse than ancient Rome. The 500 wealthiest Roman senators were roughly 10,000 times as rich as the average 'plebe' in the empire, generally a landless farmer or a slave. Big deal, each of the 500 wealthiest Americans is about 20,000 times as rich as the average person in the bottom 90 percent. If we focus only on financial resources, the average American in the top 500 has 40,000 times the wealth- power of the median citizen.

In Rome wealth and political power went together overtly. Today, in America money buys political offices and therefore the votes of the politicians, but usually quietly through the back door. At least the Romans admitted they were oligarchs, their American descendants try to hide the reality by spinning a tangled web of lies and half-truths.

In this kind of distorted socioeconomic looking-glass world, the ruling class uses the Constitution and Bill of Rights as toilet paper. But they and their minions are careful to pay lip service to the founding documents when in front of TV cameras. Privately they sneer up their sleeves as they hand John Q Public the new Social Contract in a sealed envelope. When he opens it, he reads, The Patriot Act... Tax Cuts for the Rich... Debt... Austerity ...Wars, Wars and more Wars. But apologists claim, the US is a democracy and every citizen has a voice when they cast their ballots in elections. Like all the other noble ideals, in the realm, it sounds good in theory but does not work in the real world.

He added: ‘Why not come and help the president of this country or the prime minister of that country?’ In the profile in the American magazine Newsweek, Mr Blair also praised the authoritarian military regime in Egypt, which has been accused of human rights abuses, saying: ‘Yes, democracy is important, but democracy is not on its own sufficient. You need effective government taking effective decisions.’

The article – which described Mr Blair’s ideas of leadership as ‘close to a benevolent dictatorship’ – added that Mr Blair had concluded from the foot-and-mouth crisis of 2001, when the army slaughtered ten million sheep and cattle, that soldiers were better at emergencies than governments. When asked about his future work plans, he grandly announced: ‘I’ve done British. I suppose where I think I can make most difference is on a global level, working on things that had interested me as Prime Minister but that I was not able to devote myself to.'

The 61-year-old has been working as a Middle East peace envoy while picking up international consultancy work that earns him millions of pounds a year. Talking about the group of ex-leaders he hoped to deploy in his business, Mr Blair suggested that only those who had risen to the top of their countries could properly relate to each other.

Currently, immunisation is a requirement to access childcare payments and the FTB supplement. But all parents have to do to dodge the requirements is sign a form confirming they have discussed immunisation with a GP and have a “personal philosophical, religious’’ reason not to vaccinate.

Current exemptions on medical or religious grounds will continue, but Mr Morrison said they would only exist where the parent was affiliated with the religious group, and the governing body had formally registered an objection and it had been approved by the government.

But Turkey has always disputed that figure and said the deaths were part of a civil conflict triggered by WW1. The row has continued to sour relations between Armenia and Turkey. The Pope made the comments at a Mass in the Armenian Catholic rite at Peter's Basilica, attended by the Armenian president and church leaders.

He said that humanity had lived through "three massive and unprecedented tragedies" in the last century. "The first, which is widely considered 'the first genocide of the 20th Century', struck your own Armenian people," he said, in a form of words used in a declaration by Pope John Paul II in 2001.

According to Greek Reporter, Konstantopoulou has said that the newly established “Debt Truth Committee,” will investigate how much of the debt is “illegal” with a view to writing it off. Proving that this is more than just a populist stunt, during a vote that took place early yesterday, out of the 300 Greek MPs, 156 voted in favor of establishing the public debt auditing committee.

“The committee will examine how Greece entered into the bailout agreements with its international lenders, as well as any other matter related to the memoranda’ implementation,” SYRIZA Parliamentary Secretary Christos Mantas had explained earlier. “We are fulfilling our commitment and the social demand to explore the causes and responsibilities of an unprecedented crisis that devastated the vast majority of society,” Mantas added.

If the Greek "Debt Truth Committee" indeed persists with determining how much of its debt is legal and enforceable, and ultimately decides to rescind some (or all) of it, the only question is how long until other countries around the world, all of which are burdened with massive, untenable debt loads across the government, financial and household sectors, decide it is time to do the same and declare a fresh start.

Because at the end of the day, the winners will be 99% of the population - or all those who have been trampled upon by the central banking regime and their crony capitalist, private bank and oligarch backers. The only losers will be that 0.01% of the population which benefited during the past 8 years of what is now obvious to all has been nothing more than a farcical global "recovery."

"I’m neither for nor against the outcome of the recent talks. According to the Iranian officials involved no measure has been taken yet and there are no binding results," said Khamenei during a televised speech on Thursday. Khamenei added that in light of past experience, he is not optimistic regarding the negotiations with the US, but allowed for the talks to take place anyway, stressing that he supports the ongoing negotiation, and would support a future agreement if it upholds Iran's honor and interests.

Khamenei also said that it's too early to tell if the talks will lead to an agreement, and called for restraint among Iranians on announcing victory or failure in the negotiations. "I fully trust our negotiating team, but I'm weary of the other side's attempt at deception. It's all about the details. The deceptive side may want to stab Iran in the back over the details; it is too early to congratulate," continued Khamenei, who also praised Iranian nuclear achievements thus far, and reiterated previous Iranian claims that its nuclear program has peaceful purposes. "I told President Rohani and Foreign Minister Zarif that any agreement must preserve Iran's right to scientific and technological development. They need to find a way for that to happen," Khamenei said.

According to Khamenei, the United States published a document that was "mostly false" after the latest round of talks. "I gave President Rohani my list of principles and red lines. Beyond that, I don't intend to get involved in details," although he also noted that he instructed the negating teams to make it clear to the Western powers that Iran will not allow IAEA inspectors into military facilities under the pretext of supervision of its nuclear program.

Indeed, following similar developments in Syria and Iraq, the conflict in Yemen is increasingly looking like a proxy war between Riyadh and Tehran. The two capitals are blatantly wrestling over supremacy in the region. Either Saudi Arabia, the traditional Western ally that is watching nervously as the United States slowly pulls back. Or Iran, which has been expanding its power in the region of late and which has just taken an historic step toward rapprochement with the US and its allies.

Thursday night saw Iran take another step forward. The Saudi monarchy, whose power is based on the country's vast oil reserves, were forced to watch from the sidelines in recent weeks as its historic ally America passionately pushed for a solution to the nuclear conflict with Iran. The deal was announced late on Thursday by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini - and means that Iran has now moved a bit closer to the West and, first and foremost, to the US.

The Saudis have dubbed their offensive "Operation Storm of Resolve." But they won't be able to win with air strikes alone; to avoid defeat, they must be prepared to fight on the ground as well. The country's army is hardly in a position to do so, but eyewitnesses have nonetheless reported seeing kilometer-long tank columns along the Saudi border while on the other side thousands of Houthi rebels prepare to do battle with the invaders.

Once before, back in the 1960s, a large regional power sent tens of thousands of soldiers into Yemen. But the operation ended in disaster. It is remembered by history as Egypt's Vietnam.

Trying to decipher this complex enemy — a hybrid terrorist organization and a conventional army — is such a conundrum that General Nagata assembled an unofficial brain trust outside the traditional realms of expertise within the Pentagon, State Department and intelligence agencies, in search of fresh ideas and inspiration. Business professors, for example, are examining the Islamic State’s marketing and branding strategies.

“We do not understand the movement, and until we do, we are not going to defeat it,” he said, according to the confidential minutes of a conference call he held with the experts. “We have not defeated the idea. We do not even understand the idea.”

You can call in all the marketing executives and Harvard academics all you like, but when the Obama administration — meaning the entire US government – as a matter of established policy refuses to acknowledge the ideology and intentions that our enemy publishes IN ENGLISH in the form of videos, audio recordings and magazines, and actively prohibits anyone in a government department or agency from discussing or speaking about said ideology, you really are beyond hope. And so is America.