Khamenei told a crowd in Tehran that Iran would not capitulate to Western demands. When the crowd started shouting, “Death to America,” the ayatollah responded: “Of course yes, death to America, because America is the original source of this pressure. They insist on putting pressure on our dear people’s economy,” he said, referring to economic sanctions aimed at halting Iran’s nuclear program. “What is their goal? Their goal is to put the people against the system,” he said. “The politics of America is to create insecurity,” he added, referring both to US pressure on Iran and elsewhere in the region.

Khamenei’s comments contrasted with those of Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who said “achieving a deal is possible” by the March 31 target date for a preliminary accord. Kerry was more circumspect, as he spoke to reporters after six days of negotiations in the Swiss city of Lausanne. The talks, made “substantial progress,” he said, but “important gaps remain. We have an opportunity to get this right,” Kerry said, as he urged Iran to make “fundamental decisions” that prove to the world it has no interest in atomic weapons.

But France, which raised last minute objections to an interim agreement reached with Iran in 2013, could threaten a deal again. It is particularly opposed to providing Iran with quick relief from international sanctions and wants a longer timeframe for restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activity. “France wants an agreement, but a robust agreement,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told French radio. “That is to say, an accord that really guarantees that Iran can obviously have access to the civil nuclear (program). But to the atomic bomb? No.”

“You reach a tipping point,” said Daniel C Kurtzer, a former American ambassador to Israel and Egypt. “It’s the culmination of six and a half years of frustration, including some direct hits at the president’s prestige and the office of the presidency.” The aggressiveness underlines a calculation by Mr Obama that an international accord with Iran to rein in its nuclear program is within reach despite Mr Netanyahu’s adamant opposition, and that there is little value in being more conciliatory toward him.

In a congratulatory call to Mr Netanyahu on Thursday that Mr Obama waited two days to place, the president chided the prime minister for his pre-election declaration that no Palestinian state would be established on his watch. Although Mr Netanyahu has since tried to backtrack on those comments, Mr Obama said that they had nonetheless forced his administration to reassess certain aspects of its policy toward Israel, according to a White House official.

This is not the only intelligence assessment, and in the Pentagon’s intelligence report Iran and Hezbollah do appear as threats yet one cannot but raise an eyebrow in the face of the NIA assessment, especially after Clapper’s public statements about Iran’s advanced capability to develop a nuclear bomb.

The explanation for the change in direction lies in the report itself, which praises Iran for its part in the war again Sunni terror organizations, ie the Islamic State, and for aiding countries like Iraq that are fighting it. Concerning Iran, Washington’s approach distinguishes between the war on terror and the atom, thus eliminating one of the pillars on which Israel bases its persuasion campaign against the Iranian atom.

Nor is the United States very concerned about the fact that Iran is equipping Iraq with advanced Fajr-5 missiles (of the sort fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip) and Fatah-110 missiles to help the Iraqis fight against the Islamic State — also known as ISIS or ISIL — in the city of Tikrit. “We are following Iran’s supply of arms to Iraq,” was the laconic response from the State Department. “Following” is short for “we know about it and agree,” and Washington knows that Iran is supplying not only missiles but also training, armaments, funding, command and communications systems to the Iraqi army and to Shi’ite militias that are operating under Iranian direction and command.

Even without a signed agreement, Iran is an integral and active part of the international coalition woven together by United States President Barack Obama. It is attacking Islamic State targets from the air, with the knowledge of the coalition forces and apparently there is also indirect coordination via Iraq between the Western forces and Iran’s in order to avoid combat encounters in the skies of Iraq.

The indirect military cooperation between Iran and the United States in the war against the Islamic State is not the only taboo that was broken during this past year in the course of the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program in parallel to the Islamic State’s conquests in Iraq and Syria. The existence of direct dialogues between representatives of the United States and of Iran, such as those between Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, or between American Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz – a nuclear physicist – and Ali Akbar Salehi, Iranian representative to the Atomic Energy Organization, in Lausanne are already taken for granted, as though there had not been a complete severance of ties between the two countries for more than 35 years.

Supporters and naysayers alike have attempted to blow the speech off as an election ploy, but the White House said it warranted a "reassessment" by the US of its role. To counter the fallout from his comments, Netanyahu launched a US counter-offensive by stressing his support for the two-state solution to MSNBC, a liberal television channel known to be supportive of President Barack Obama.

Speaking to NPR in an interview broadcast Friday, Netanyahu offered some clarification about the two seemingly contradictory statements. "What I said was that under the present circumstances… it's unachievable because I had laid out very clearly what my conditions were for a two-state solution in the 2009 speech I gave at Bar-Ilan University. And I haven't changed; I haven't retracted that speech, at all.

"I said that the implementation of that vision is not relevant right now," Netanyahu said, citing "the decision of the leadership of the Palestinian Authority last year to forge a pact with Hamas" and recent changes in the Middle East – namely the Syrian civil war and ISIS, but also Iranian control over Gaza.

Netanyahu then referenced the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza Strip, saying "We vacated and we didn't get peace." However, the brave unilateral step undertaken by iconic Israeli leader Arik Sharon occurred long before the Arab Spring and was unrelated to the radicalization of Islam in the region, suggesting Netanyahu was just attempting to placate the Obama administration. "I don't want a one-state solution. But I certainly don't want a zero-state solution, a no-state solution, where Israel's very existence would be jeopardized. And that's what the people of Israel overwhelmingly elected me to do," Netanyahu stressed.

Key differences between Iran and the P5+1 group - made up of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Britain, China, France, Russia and the US, as well as Germany - include the process of lifting sanctions and the amount of uranium Tehran would be allowed to enrich for its nuclear power plants. "The meeting was to take stock of the situation so as to have a clear, coordinated European position as March 31 nears," an EU foreign affairs spokeswoman told the AFP news agency. Iran denies developing nuclear weapons and says its nuclear ambitions are peaceful.

The US president faces an uphill battle in convincing the hawkish Republic Party, which controls the Congress, to agree on a deal. The United States also has close security and economic links with Iran's arch foes Saudi Arabia and Israel. Hardliners inside Iran are also skeptical of inking a deal with the US which since the 1979 revolution has been hailed as "The Great Satan" for propping up previous oppressive regimes in Iran.

But optimists say a rapprochement between Tehran and Washington would help the US interests in the long-term, noting that Tehran has been able to expand its influence in Iraq and Afghanistan after the US invaded both countries and brought down their rulers. "There is going to be a rise of Iran, no matter which way you cut it," Hillary Mann Leverett, a former advisor on the National Security Council in Washington, told AFP recently. "The question is: can the US work with Iran for the constructive peaceful rise of Iran in a region that works more together, economically, politically and in security terms for the next generation."

The study by Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley broke new grounds in the future of remote-controlled drone technology. The backpack consists of a microprocessor and battery pack, which is strapped onto the beetle using organic beeswax - harmless and easily removed.

Six electrodes from the microprocessor are connected to the beetle's optic lobes and flight muscles and wireless signals influence the insect to take off, turn left or right, or even hover in mid-flight. The high-tech backpack cost less than £5 to make with off-the-shelf components.

It’s a good time for companies: in the US, corporate revenues are at their highest point in 40 years. The problem, Tudor points out, is that as profit margins grow, so does income inequality. And income inequality is closely linked to lower life expectancy, literacy and math proficiency, infant mortality, homicides, imprisonment, teenage births, trust among ourselves, obesity, and, finally, social mobility. In these measures, the US is off the charts.

“This gap between the 1 percent and the rest of America, and between the US and the rest of the world, cannot and will not persist,” says the investor. “Historically, these kinds of gaps get closed in one of three ways: by revolution, higher taxes or wars. None are on my bucket list."

Ultimately, Tudor hopes, the free market will take hold and reward the companies that are the most just. “Capitalism has driven just about every great innovation that has made our world a more prosperous, comfortable and inspiring place to live. But capitalism has to be based on justice and morality… and never more so than today with economic divisions large and growing.”

This is not an argument against progress, Tudor emphasizes. “I want that electric car, or the jet packs that we all thought we’d have by now.” But he’s hoping that increased wealth will bring with it a stronger sense of corporate responsibility. “When we begin to put justness on par with profits, we get the most valuable thing in the world. We get back our humanity.”

He said that there was no example for Europe to follow or to give: "We need to build Europe together with all these nations, those who can really understand Europe," said Juncker. He underlined it was important for the EU to concentrate on big issues.

"We need to deepen our economic and monetary union for a very simple reason - the monetary union we have is not optimal. We have an independent central bank, but we do not have a European government, so we need regulations and rules to replace the European government that does not exist," Juncker said. He also mentioned the energy union and digital market as "big issues" the Commission should concentrate on.

Juncker said he was concerned over the EU spending too much on importing gas and oil which threatens the future of industry. "If we could interconnect our networks in Europe, we would be able to save 40 billion euros ($42.97 billion), while today we spend 1 billion euros a day and our electricity prices are 40 percent higher than in the United States," he said.

Juncker said introducing a digital market in Europe would be a source of income for Europe, and lead to the creation of 1.5 or 2 million jobs in the next five years.

Now, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants to expand on that cutting-edge work to build other potential breakthrough medical technologies, including a pacemaker-sized device that might someday improve the memory of troops who suffered a traumatic brain injury. Think of it as a hard drive of sorts for the brain.

"We know we need a next-generation device that doesn't exist today," said Justin Sanchez, a program manager in DARPA's Biological Technologies Office in Arlington, Virginia. "That's what these new programs are all about - not only understanding the brain and these conditions, but building the hardware that enables us to address those issues. You need both."

Mr O’Neill was commissioned by the Christian Institute, which is supporting the bakery’s legal defence, to provide a legal opinion on the implications of the case, which is due to come before a court in Belfast later this month. He said the arguments upon which the legal action is based could also justify forcing a T-shirt company with a lesbian owner to print tops denouncing same-sex marriage as an “abomination” or an atheist web designer to build a website claiming the world was made by God in six days.

The row over the Bert and Ernie cake has divided opinion sharply in Northern Ireland, where the bakery is based, and led to attempts to introduce a so-called “conscience clause” into law in the province. The proposal, put forward by members of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), would give businesses an exclusion from discrimination law enabling them to refuse to provide services if they go against their religious convictions. Supporters claim it is needed to protect freedom of belief but opponents say it would be nothing more than legalised discrimination against gay people.

Colin Hart, director of the Christian Institute, said: “The strength and clarity of the advice from Mr O’Neill, who has a national reputation for his human rights expertise, should set off the alarm bells in this Government quango. It spells out the very real dangers and far-reaching implications for freedom of speech. But the equality watchdog seems determined to force people to use their creative skills to promote a political cause they fundamentally disagree with. This family run bakers serve gay customers all the time but they didn’t want to promote gay marriage.”

"When I called to let them know that Jordan had broken her arm, the last thing they said was, 'Can we pray for you right now and pray for your family?'" Jonathan Adams recalled. "And they did, right there on the phone." With just over 100,000 members, Medi-Share is part of a small, but growing, movement of health care-sharing ministries. These organizations are not insurance companies and offer no guarantee of payment.

But their members are exempt from having to pay penalties for lacking health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as ObamaCare. And that is driving much of the growth of health care-sharing ministries, according to Tony Meggs, CEO of Christian Care Ministry, the nonprofit organization that runs Medi-Share. "Our organization allows an individual to comply with the law in a legal way, but do it in a way that often is more affordable and doesn't violate their conscience," Meggs said.

As bizarre as it sounds, laws restricting property owners from "diverting" water that falls on their own homes and land have been on the books for quite some time in many Western states. Only recently, as droughts and renewed interest in water conservation methods have become more common, have individuals and business owners started butting heads with law enforcement over the practice of collecting rainwater for personal use. (Access to the rainwater that falls on your own property seems to be a basic right, wouldn't you agree?)

Even though these laws restricting water collection have been on the books for more than 100 years in some cases, they're slowly being reversed thanks to efforts by citizens who have decided that enough is enough. Because if we can't even freely collect the rain that falls all around us, then what, exactly, can we freely do? The rainwater issue highlights a serious overall problem in America today: diminishing freedom and increased government control.

It is a calculated escalation that Islamic State is pursuing. It may even be that the images of destroyed artifacts are more effective than those depicting executions, because they are televised everywhere and not relegated to the depths of the Internet. And because we can understand the images of destruction - unlike the photos and videos of executions, which we see as acts of insanity beyond the scope of rational thought. We aren't just able to kill in the present, that is the message of these images, we are also able to destroy the past: We are the masters of both time and space. The caliphate's goal is to expand its path of destruction into the fourth dimension.

The global press uses terms like "monsters," "acts of barbarism" and "breaking taboos" to describe the actions of the IS terrorists. But is Islamic State really on an irrational rampage against the modern age? Are they really trying to bring back the Middle Ages? Or is it perhaps a rational plan, a propaganda trick calculated to pull the West into what the apocalyptic visionaries of IS see as the final battle? There is a widely held view that a jihadist who strikes a Mesopotamian statue with a hammer or uses a drill to destroy a winged bull from Nineveh is destroying the cradle of civilization, and this is certainly true. But it is also true that all of this didn't begin in February 2015 or in 2013, when Islamic State first appeared on the radar of Western media.

It began on March 20, 2003, when the American-led "Coalition of the Willing" invaded Iraq. It was this illegitimate war that created the "failed state" of Iraq in the first place, and today's threat arose from its ruins. The vacuum of power was what enabled the Islamists' fury to develop in the first place. The war on terror created today's terror being perpetrated by IS.

The argument holds that the IS approach, including its destruction of ancient cultural sites, can be viewed as more than merely the act itself. Instead, there is a tactic behind its actions, an escalation for the sake of escalation. Instead of a message from the 6th century, it is more of a military program intended to serve further conquests or the chance to finally draw the West into a last battle. After all, the logic behind Islamic State, and the logic underpinning the caliphate it has established, is that of constant conflict. A slowing of the expansion is not part of the plan.

All of this is evident in the scope of destruction: a methodical, nihilistic act of terror, perpetrated by an organization that in no way seeks broad support or even any form of sympathy. As Wood writes, it is important to take the apocalyptic desires of IS seriously. It's about the fight for "Rome," as IS says itself.

But some Palestinians see a silver lining to Mr Netanyahu’s election victory on such promises, arguing that it lays bare his – and Israel’s – lack of commitment to the two-state solution. That plays directly into the hands of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which since December has been accelerating efforts to secure Palestinian rights through the International Criminal Court (ICC) and other international bodies rather than through negotiations.

“What Netanyahu said wasn’t electioneering – that’s him,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters in East Jerusalem Thursday afternoon. “Today the international community, and Israelis who believe in two states, must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us in order to preserve the two-state solution.”

Mr Erekat spoke directly after a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee, which Thursday set up a committee to implement a March 5 decision to end PA security coordination with Israel. While prominent Palestinian politicians have routinely threatened to end such coordination, which is widely credited with keeping calm in the West Bank and thwarting terrorist attacks against Israelis, Erekat says this time it’s for real.

He promised that there would be action within two weeks and that the PA would stop upholding its obligations for security coordination under the Oslo accords, though he declined to offer specific scenarios. However, he held out hope for a return to negotiations if Netanyahu apologized on television and said he would recognize the Palestinian state and end settlement activity.

Netanyahu was already trying to walk back his comments on Thursday, saying in an interview with MSNBC that his position had not changed, and that he supported “a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution,” while adding the caveat that under current circumstances it is “not achievable.” The Palestinian leadership, however, is by no means giving up. Rather it is underscoring that it’s more urgent than ever to achieve a Palestinian state along 1967 borders, living side by side with Israel, due to the rising extremism in the region and Netanyahu’s resort to “racist” rhetoric. “So we cannot sit still,” says Mr Zumlot, senior foreign policy adviser for the Palestinian Fatah Party. “We must provide an alternative for both the Palestinians and Israelis because evidently the Israelis are leaderless.”

The move follows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decisive re-election Tuesday after the incumbent publicly abandoned his commitment to negotiate a Palestinian state — the basis of more than 20 years of US diplomatic efforts — and promised to continue the construction of settlements on occupied territory. The development also reflects deepening pessimism over the prospect of US-brokered negotiations delivering peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Shortly before this week’s election, the United States informed its diplomatic partners that it would hold off any moves in the UN Security Council designed to put Israel on the spot at the United Nations in the event that Netanyahu’s challenger, Isaac Herzog, won the election. But US officials signaled a willingness to consider a UN resolution in the event that Netanyahu was re-elected and formed a coalition government opposed to peace talks.

The United States has not yet circulated a draft, but diplomats say Washington has set some red lines and is unwilling to agree to set a fixed deadline for political talks to conclude. “The more the new government veers to the right the more likely you will see something in New York,” said a Western diplomat.

In the wake of Israel’s election, UN and Israeli officials exchanged sharp words after UN spokesman Farhan Haq called on the new Israeli government to halt “illegal settlement-building in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” In response to the statement, Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, snapped back: “If the UN is so concerned about the future of the Palestinian people, it should be asking … why Hamas uses the Palestinian people as human shields.”