ISRAEL - David Cameron has said he has Jewish ancestors. In a speech to the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, the Prime Minister said his great-great-grandfather was a Jewish man from Germany. The link gives Mr Cameron "some sense of connection" to the Israeli people, he said, as he hailed their "extraordinary journey" and history of persecution. In the address he pledged to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the "vulnerable" state against terrorism, and said the phrase "We are with you" in Hebrew. "My Jewish ancestry is relatively limited but I do feel just some sense of connection. From the lexicon of my great, great grandfather Emile Levita, a Jewish man who came from Germany to Britain 150 years ago to the story of my forefather Elijah Levita who wrote what is thought to have been the first ever Yiddish novel," he said.

BELARUS - With NATO actively building up its airforce support in Poland and the Baltic states in recent days in a flashback to cold war military escalation and deterrence, and even launching AWACS planes over Poland and Romania to monitor the Ukraine crisis and "enhance the alliance's situational awareness," the inevitable has finally happened, and other Russian neighbor states, ones not alligned with the military treaty, have escalated in turn only this time they are showing their allegiance not to the west but to Russia. RIA reported that Minsk will "adequately react to the strengthening of NATO forces near the borders of Belarus, and will offer to host up to an additional 15 Russian aircraft, according to the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko on Wednesday at a meeting of the Security Council of Belarus.

UKRAINE - Ukraine's acting president has said he would not wage war over Crimea as the ex-Soviet state's premier prepares to seek Barack Obama's help against Russia's expansionist threat. The first meeting between the US president and Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk comes with Europe's largest nation in danger of breaking apart when the predominantly ethnic Russian region holds a Moscow-backed referendum Sunday on switching over to Kremlin rule. Ukraine's acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said his heavily outnumbered army would never try to seize back the Black Sea peninsula from Russian troops who made their land grab days after the February 22 ouster in Kiev of pro-Kremlin leader Viktor Yanukovych.

ISRAEL - A weapons cache seized last week from Iran is serving as another warning to the West of the Islamic country's dangerous intentions. [Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said,] "So my message today is simple: those engaged in self-deception must awaken from their slumber. We cannot allow Iran to have the capability to produce nuclear weapons. Today, Israel thwarted the dangers to its people. Tomorrow if Iran's military nuclear program is not stopped the whole world could be imperilled."

USA - I have dealt with many governments in my life and I have come to understand you CANNOT and SHOULD NEVER put your opponent in a box publicly - for his own political livelihood is then on the line and he MUST respond or be overthrown. This is simple common sense in international politics and I have preferred to be an observer rather than a player.

USA - Today former US Treasury official, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, spoke with King World News about the ongoing danger the world faces because of the crisis in Ukraine. Dr Roberts warned “the very existence of the human race is on the line.” The interview ends with an ominous warning for the entire world. Below is what Dr Roberts had to say in this remarkable and timely interview.

USA - The desperation of the Anglo-American leadership, guided by the steady corrupt banker hands, has never been more acutely high, nor obvious in full view. The entire Ukraine situation is a travesty. It includes Langley agents killing police and street demonstrators from rooftops, the confirmation coming from the Estonian Embassy (translation of scripts).

USA - With increased troop movements in Ukraine, today former US Treasury official, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, warned King World News that the world is edging closer to nuclear war. Dr Roberts also warned that the mainstream media in the United States is only reporting lies. The interview ends with another ominous warning for humanity. Below is what Dr Roberts had to say in this remarkable and timely interview.

UK - The BBC has not been sufficiently sceptical on the European Union or immigration, according to John Humphrys, who said staff had let liberal bias shape the corporation’s news coverage. Humphrys, presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme, said the BBC had “bought into the European ideal”. Critics have long accused the BBC of liberal bias and of failing to acknowledge public concerns about immigration or Britain’s membership of the EU. Humphrys is the first current affairs presenter to admit such bias existed, although he said the situation had much improved. “We weren’t sufficiently sceptical – that’s the most accurate phrase – of the pro-European case. We bought into the European ideal,” he said. “We weren’t sufficiently sceptical about the pro-immigration argument. We didn’t look at the potential negatives with sufficient rigour.”

ISRAEL - Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has accused the international community of "hypocrisy" over Iran. Mr Netanyahu spoke as the Israeli military unveiled what it alleged was a cache of Syrian-made weapons being sent by Iran to militants in the Gaza Strip. He criticised EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who visited Tehran at the weekend, for her "smiles and handshakes" with Iran's leaders. Iran has dismissed as "failed lies" the accusation it was behind the shipment. On Monday, Mr Netanyahu said the world's apparent decision to downplay the discovery in favour of seeking improved relations with Iran was "evidence of the era of hypocrisy in which we are living. The ship was organised by Iran, dispatched by Iran, financed by Iran. The missiles were loaded by Iran, in Iran," he added.

USA - Recreational marijuana sales in Colorado yielded over $2 million in taxes for the state in its first month of legal pot transactions, according to new figures. Colorado collected $1.4 million from a 10 percent sales tax on marijuana, as well as $416,690 from the state’s normal 2.9 percent sales tax, the Colorado Department of Revenue reported Monday. Another $195,318 came in through an excise tax, which goes towards school construction in the state. All in all, the month’s figures point to over $14 million in total retail marijuana sales for January.

UKRAINE - Several, maybe even a few dozen ‘Igla’ man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) were stolen from Ukraine’s military depots during the incidents in this country, a senior Ukrainian military man told RIA Novosti. The new leadership of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry is taking urgent measures to “disguise this difficult situation” with old and experimental MANPADS, according to the source. ‘Igla’ man-portable air defense missile system is an extremely dangerous weapon designed to destroy low-flying air targets, so its dissemination is regulated by several international agreements, in particular by the agreements between Russia and the US. Such a weapon getting into the terrorists’ hands is extremely dangerous.

EUROPE - EU leaders are rapidly drawing up plans to send some of their stocks of Russian gas back to Ukraine and other eastern European countries that need it, if Vladimir Putin reacts to western sanctions over the Crimea crisis by starving the continent of energy. Russia’s largest gas producer, Gazprom, said on Friday that Kiev had missed a deadline to pay $440 million for gas received in February and threatened to cut off the country’s supply if it did not make the payment. Gazprom provides Ukraine with around half its gas, and other countries in eastern and southern Europe, including Poland and Greece, reportedly have low stocks of gas.

USA - Electric grid compounds across the country have faced an uptick in unauthorized intrusions by unknown individuals, causing concern that the US grid is “inherently vulnerable” to widespread sabotage, according to a recent oversight report issued by New Jersey’s Regional Operations Intelligence Center (ROIC), which monitors the threat level. Following at least eight “reports of intrusions at electrical grid facilities in New Jersey” from October 2013 until January 2014, the ROIC’s Intelligence & Analysis Threat Unit issued a report warning that the US electrical grid is “inherently vulnerable” to attacks that could wipe out power across large swaths of the country.

IRAN - The air force commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps was quoted by Iran’s Fars news agency as saying Tuesday that Iran’s military has its finger on the trigger to destroy Israel as soon as it receives the order to do so. In an article headlined “IRGC Commander: Iran’s Finger on Trigger to Destroy Zionist Regime,” Fars wrote that Brigadier General Hossein Salami had declared that Iranian military commanders are prepared to attack and destroy the Zionist regime of Israel as soon as they receive such an order. “Today, we can destroy every spot which is under the Zionist regime’s control with any volume of fire power (that we want) right from here,” Fars quoted Salami as telling a conference in Tehran Tuesday on “The Islamic World’s Role in the Geometry of the World Power.”