NORWAY - More than 20,000 crops from more than 100 nations have arrived at a "Doomsday vault" in the Arctic Circle. The latest delivery coincides with the sixth anniversary of the frozen depository in Svalbard, which now houses more than 800,000 samples.

IRAN - A prudent US foreign and defense policy would assume that Iran's nuclear weapons program is probably on a par with North Korea's. For several years now, myself and others have been warning that Iran probably already has the bomb. Contrary to Obama Administration promises that they will know when Iran crosses "the red line" to build the bomb, we have warned that such claims are false. US intelligence is not good enough to so precisely and with such high confidence monitor and verify the status of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

VENEZUELA - Pope Francis on Wednesday called for an end to violence in Venezuela that has killed at least 13 people and urged politicians to take the lead in calming the nation's worst unrest for a decade. Both political camps were marching in cities around the country, with the focus being rallies in different parts of the capital Caracas: one by female opposition supporters and another by agricultural workers who support the socialist government. Students and other opponents of President Nicolas Maduro are demanding he quit over grievances including high inflation, shocking levels of violent crime, shortages of basic foodstuffs, and what they say is his repression of political rivals.

USA - Cattle futures rose to a record high as ranchers struggle to boost the US herd from a 63-year low, and hogs climbed to a 34-month high after a virus that kills piglets spread, spurring concerns that meat supplies will shrink. Beef output in the US, the world’s top producer, will fall 5.3 percent this year to 24.35 billion pounds (11.04 million metric tons), the lowest since 1994, the Department of Agriculture has forecast. At the start of this year, the cattle herd fell to 87.7 million head, the lowest since 1951, following drought and high feed costs. Porcine epidemic virus has killed more than 4 million pigs, according to an industry group.

USA - Although whites outnumber blacks in Mississippi by nearly 2-to-1, 71.67% of the babies aborted in Mississippi are black, while 26.6% are white. Based on data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 39,052 black babies were killed by abortions in Mississippi between 1995 and 2010. During that same time period, 14,529 white babies were aborted in the Magnolia State.

ISRAEL - Third-term German Chancellor Angela Merkel and 16 ministers in her new coalition government arrived Monday evening for inter-governmental consultations with Israeli counterparts in Jerusalem. Hosted by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, the Merkel-led delegation is by far the largest of five Cabinet-level consultations held in the past several years and marks 50 years of bilateral diplomatic ties.

ISRAEL - German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed public support Tuesday for Israel’s security requirements and its demand to be recognized by the Palestinians as a Jewish state, giving a boost to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s flagship positions while also backing ongoing peace talks. Merkel, in the country for an intergovernmental meeting, also reiterated her opposition to Israeli expansion of West Bank settlements, saying they make a positive outcome of the talks less likely. “We in the federal government support a two-state solution – a Palestinian state and a Jewish state of Israel,” the German leader said at a press conference in Jerusalem’s King David Hotel. “We also support Israel’s security requirements to be able to finally live in secure borders.”

VATICAN - Pope Francis's shake-up of the sclerotic Vatican has begun. Today he appointed the Australian Cardinal George Pell to head a new department: he'll leave Sydney to become Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy “which will have authority over all economic and administrative activities within the Holy See and the Vatican City State”. The new Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, effectively the Vatican's prime minister and foreign secretary, is making very significant cuts to his operations. This is from a priest contact in Rome: “The new secretary of state has written a letter to all offices saying that massive cuts are being imposed on all Vatican offices. All temporary contracts are being eliminated and no new employees are being hired.”

UNITED NATIONS - Former Deputy Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the US Danny Ayalon has appeared in a new video entitled "The truth about the UN (United Nations)." In the video, Ayalon reveals the structural flaws that have turned the international body into a critic and enemy of the Jewish state.

ISRAEL - Economics Minister and Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett recently appeared on the BBC, where he argued the two-state solution has failed, and that Israel needs to reaffirm its Jewish nature.

GERMANY - In the aftermath of the Western-oriented putsch in Kiev, German politicians are preparing German public opinion for the disastrous deterioration of the Ukraine economic situation. Even though it was most recently suggested that the country could only expect a thriving development by linking up to the EU, it is now - truthfully - being announced that Ukraine is practically bankrupt.

RUSSIA - Those tracking the developments in the Ukraine, and specifically the Russian response to this weekend's coup, will be interested to note that according to the Russian flot.com website, the large landing ship Nikolai Filchenkov, previously known for its participation in the Syrian naval arms build up, is expected to arrive in the Crimean port of Sevastopol carrying 200 armed soldiers, sent from the nearby Black Sea town of Temryuk. This appears to not be an isolated move as the naval build up seems to be escalating. In a concurrent release, Izvestia Kiev reported that out of Kubinka, four ships carrying special forces, are being relocated to Anapa. From there, in four hours, they will depart for Sevastopol at a speed of 10-15 knots, citing "Izvestia in Ukraine" as a source.

EUROPE - Africa is expected to be the next target of GM food companies, as European scientists and policymakers travel to Ethiopia to boost the prospect of growing more of the controversial crops on the continent. Anne Glover, the chief scientific adviser to the European commission, and other prominent pro-GM researchers and policymakers from European countries including Germany, Hungary, Italy and Sweden will this week meet Ethiopian, Kenyan, Ghanaian and Nigerian farm ministers as well as officials from the African Union. Critics, however, said the meeting was a thinly disguised attempt to promote GM farming at a governmental level, whether or not it was good for local farmers.

USA - The US Federal Reserve knew about Libor rigging three years before the financial scandal exploded but did not take any firm action, documents have revealed. According to newly published transcripts of the central bank’s meetings in the run-up to and immediate aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a senior Fed official first flagged the issue at a policy meeting in April 2008. William Dudley expressed fears that banks were being dishonest in the way they were calculating the London interbank offered rate – a global benchmark interest rate used as the basis for trillions of pounds of loans and financial contracts.

VENEZUELA - The game changed in Venezuela last night. What had been a slow-motion unravelling that had stretched out over many years went kinetic all of a sudden. What we have this morning is no longer the Venezuela story you thought you understood. Throughout last night, panicked people told their stories of state-sponsored paramilitaries on motorcycles roaming middle class neighborhoods, shooting at people and storming into apartment buildings, shooting at anyone who seemed like he might be protesting. What we saw were not “street clashes”, what we saw is a state-hatched offensive to suppress and terrorize its opponents.