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.

TEMPLE MOUNT, JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - “Is the Temple Mount in Israel’s hands? If the nationalist Knesset members don’t provide the answer, the Arab MKs will do so in their place. Who is the sovereign on the Temple Mount? Official Israeli claims, of course, are that it is the sovereign. But in practice, the sovereignty is being transferred to Jordan – both on the ground and by ignoring international treaties that are being signed behind Israel’s back.”

EUROPE - George Soros is set to ignite a fresh row over Europe this week with the launch of a new book in which he alleges that “self-righteous” and “hypocritical” German economic policy is a threat to the European Union. The billionaire investor tells Dr Gregor Peter Schmitz in a series of interviews collected in “The Tragedy of the European Union” that Europe is now dominated by tensions between “creditor” and “debtor” nations.

EUROPE - George Soros, the billionaire investor, believes the banking sector is a “parasite” holding back the economic recovery and an “incestuous” relationship with regulators means little has been done to resolve the issues behind the 2008 crisis.

EUROPE - With European Parliament elections scheduled for May, the European Commission is set to get a new president. Some member states have growing concerns about the frontrunners - and now tempers are getting heated.

AUSTRALIA - A senior government staffer who demanded a new healthy food rating website be taken down is married to the head of a lobbying outfit that works for the junk food industry, it has been revealed. In senate question time on Tuesday, Assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash admitted that both she and her chief-of-staff, Alastair Furnival, had personally intervened to insist health department staff pull down the new “health star rating” site on the day it was launched.

ISRAEL - An ongoing partial strike of the Foreign Ministry may make Pope Francis's first visit to Israel in May "impossible," according to Yigal Palmor, a spokesman of the ministry. "Imminent planned visits by foreign leaders, including (British Prime Minister) David Cameron next week or the pope in May, will be complicated, and perhaps impossible," Palmor told AFP on Friday. The strike stepped up a notch on Tuesday, potentially shutting off the state to diplomatic visits. The pope announced his visit in January. In response to the strike the Vatican has clarified it has no plans to cancel the trip. Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi noted the strike "is likely to cause complications in preparing for the trip. There's nothing more to it."

MIDDLE EAST - Palestinian sources report that at a meeting that was held about a week ago in Paris between Secretary of State John Kerry and Chairman of the Palestinian Authority Abu Mazen, the Palestinian leader threatened to ‘turn over tables’ and sent Kerry back to the United States to draw up a new peace proposal. Senior officials in the PA asserted, “The American proposal is outrageous”. According to the newspaper [“Al-Quds”], the American proposal included the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, the maintenance of Israeli control over the Jordan Valley, and the necessity of the presence of an international security force in the new Palestinian state as its conditions. In addition, Kerry pressured Abu Mazen to allow for the annexation of 10 Israeli settlements as part of the land swaps within the agreement.

USA - Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee slammed the White House for its weakness on foreign policy, saying the United States' standing in the world has diminished under President Barack Obama and its next leader faces a tough task in rebuilding America's might. He pointed to the current situation in Ukraine during his 10-minute speech at the Conservative Political Action Committee gathering in Maryland, and blasted Obama for allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin to take advantage of our weakness. He said, "No one trusts us, no one listens to us, no one respects us, no one fears us." Huckabee, who is weighing a possible presidential campaign in 2016, says the United States has reduced its military power and other nations have taken advantage of it.

LIBYA - Western countries voiced concern on Thursday that tensions in Libya could slip out of control in the absence of a functioning political system, and they urged the government and rival factions to start talking. Two-and-a-half years after the fall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi, the oil-rich North African state is struggling to contain violence between rival forces, with Islamist militants gaining an ever-stronger grip on the south of the country. "The situation in Libya is very worrying," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters on the margins of a conference in Rome to discuss the Libyan crisis. He said the uncertain security position, especially in the south, worsened an unstable political situation which required Libyan political forces to come together to reach a solution.

NORTH KOREA - China declared a "red line" on North Korea on Saturday, saying that China will not permit chaos or war on the Korean peninsula, and that peace can only come through denuclearization. China is North Korea's most important diplomatic and economic supporter, though Beijing's patience with Pyongyang has been severely tested following three nuclear tests and numerous bouts of saber rattling, including missile launches. "The Korean peninsula is right on China's doorstep. We have a red line, that is, we will not allow war or instability on the Korean peninsula," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters on the sidelines of China's annual largely rubber-stamp parliament.