EGYPT - The Arab League on Sunday backed Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, Al-Arabiya reports. The head of the Arab League, Nabil Elaraby, reportedly urged Arab countries to take a “firm stand” against Israel’s demand for the PA to recognize it as a Jewish state.

MIDDLE EAST - Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party is not ruling out a violent struggle against Israel, a senior member of the party recently said. “None of us, especially in Fatah, has ruled out the military options,” declared Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki in an interview which aired on February 26 on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.

UK - The First World War would not be fought today, according to Jeremy Paxman, because the younger generation are more concerned with their iPhones than any sense of ‘duty’. The BBC Newsnight host and historian said modern society is too ‘self-obsessed’ and ‘hedonistic’.

CHINA - Big Bubble Brutally Bursts … Bringing Bankruptcies, Bond Busts. The head of China’s sovereign wealth fund noted in 2009: “both China and America are addressing bubbles by creating more bubbles”. He’s right …global credit excess is worse than before the 2008 crash. The US and Japan have been easing like crazy, but – as Zero Hedge notes – China has been much worse: in the past five years the total assets on US bank books have risen by a paltry $2.1 trillion while over the same period, Chinese bank assets have exploded by an unprecedented $15.4 trillion hitting a gargantuan CNY147 trillion or an epic $24 trillion – some two and a half times the GDP of China! What has been going on in the global financial system is completely and totally unsustainable, and it is inevitable that it is all going to come horribly crashing down at some point during the next few years. It is just a matter of time.

SWITZERLAND - The amount of debt globally has soared more than 40 percent to $100 trillion since the first signs of the financial crisis as governments borrowed to pull their economies out of recession and companies took advantage of record low interest rates, according to the Bank for International Settlements. The $30 trillion increase from $70 trillion between mid-2007 and mid-2013 compares with a $3.86 trillion decline in the value of equities to $53.8 trillion in the same period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The jump in debt as measured by the Basel, Switzerland-based BIS in its quarterly review is almost twice the US’s gross domestic product.

UK - Neurodevelopmental disabilities, including autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, and other cognitive impairments, affect millions of children worldwide, and some diagnoses seem to be increasing in frequency. Industrial chemicals that injure the developing brain are among the known causes for this rise in prevalence.

In 2006, we did a systematic review and identified five industrial chemicals as developmental neurotoxicants: lead, methylmercury, polychlorinated biphenyls, arsenic, and toluene. Since 2006, epidemiological studies have documented six additional developmental neurotoxicants — manganese, fluoride, chlorpyrifos, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, tetrachloroethylene, and the polybrominated diphenyl ethers. We postulate that even more neurotoxicants remain undiscovered.

EUROPE - Tensions in Ukraine could pose a "very serious" threat to the rest of Europe, Mario Draghi has warned. The president of the European Central Bank (ECB) said the impact of the Ukranian crisis on the energy market, while minimal in the short term, could escalate. "If we look at the energy market in the next six months, the impact of the crisis is going to be very mild. If we look in a year-and-a-half, it could be very serious," he said. Russia supplies a third of Europe's gas, with 55 percent flowing through Ukraine.

RUSSIA - Vladimir Putin has mocked diplomatic efforts to end the Ukraine crisis as Russia threatened to disrupt European gas supplies by cutting off sales to Kiev over its unpaid debts. The Russian president said through his official spokesman that, despite deep disagreements with the West, he did not want a confrontation over Ukraine to spiral into a “new cold war”. Nevertheless Dmitry Peskov ridiculed Western demands for direct talks between the Kremlin and the new Kiev government, claiming that the loss of credibility involved “puts a smile on our face”.

USA - Geopolitical crises in Eastern Europe have been met with calls in the United States to use energy as a foreign policy tool. With US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz asking the industry to make a stronger case, however, it's domestic policies that may inhibit energy hegemony. "The industry could do a lot better job talking about the drivers for, and what the implications would be, of exports," Moniz told an audience at the IHS CERAWeek energy conference in Houston. EIA said the United States is a net exporter of most petroleum products, but crude oil exports are restricted by legislation enacted in response to the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s.

UK - The legislation of assisted suicide has moved a significant step closer after the Government made clear that it would not stand in the way of a change in the law. Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs and peers – including Coalition ministers – will be given a free vote on a Bill that would enable doctors to help terminally ill patients to die, The Telegraph can disclose. The proposed legislation will come before Parliament in the next few months. Richard Hawkes, chief executive of the disability charity Scope, said: “Many disabled people will be left feeling very concerned by suggestions that a change in the law on assisted suicide could be one step closer. The ban on assisted suicide sends a really powerful message countering the view that if you’re disabled it’s not worth being alive, and that you’re a burden. It provides crucial protection to any person who feels under pressure to end their life."

GERMANY - According to Peter Boehringer, Founder of the German Precious Metal Society, it appears that the German Bundesbank is backing away from a specific repatriation schedule for the nation’s gold. He sources this claim from a recent article written in the Handelsblatt, titled ”Silence is Golden.” So in other words, the Federal Reserve told them to get lost.

EUROPE - Over £320 million has been spent on developing European Union surveillance drones without proper democratic oversight and amid concerns over close links between industry and officials, a report from a civil liberties watchdog has found. Neither the House of Commons nor the European Parliament has been consulted over the development of EU unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) which are being designed to police Europe’s skies on law enforcement missions. The contribution from British taxpayers to the projects is estimated to be more than £46 million despite publicly declared opposition from David Cameron, the Prime Minister, to EU drones surveillance or air force owned or operated at the European level.

JAPAN - While the Fukushima nuclear disaster and its 'clean-up' remain oddly missing from most mainstream media headlines, the farce continues to unfold. As Reuters reports, Japan's nuclear regulator has criticized TEPCO for incorrectly measuring radiation levels in contaminated groundwater. The NRA blasted, "something like this cannot happen ... This data is what becomes the basis of various decisions, so they must do their utmost to avoid mistakes in measuring radiation." Of course, it doesn't really matter what the actual radiation levels are... we assume with the Olympics now set in stone that these "measurements" will be decided by fiat from now on.

UK - A Government adviser who has worked for confectionary giants says Britain will not act on World Health Organisation recommendations to cut people’s sugar intake by half. Last week the WHO issued the advice, amid increasing concern from scientists that high sugar intake is fuelling obesity and tooth decay. But the chairman of a UK committee on nutrition said Government officials in this country will not act on the WHO guidance, but instead follow the advice of his panel. The disclosure is likely to trigger controversy, because Professor Ian Macdonald, a nutritionist who has worked for Coca-Cola and Mars, is among five of eight members of the panel who have been accused by anti-sugar campaigners of “worryingly close” ties with the fast food and confectionary industry.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - Israel could be entering the final stages of negotiations to turn over control of Mount Zion to the Vatican, if recent reports by Israel National News are to be believed. According to the online news source, a secretive meeting took place this week between the Jerusalem Municipality, Prime Minister's Office, Ministry of Tourism and senior Catholic officials.