North Korea announced in April that it would revive its aged research reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex - which experts say is capable of producing plutonium for bombs - but said it was seeking a deterrent capacity.

"The Agency continues to monitor developments at the Yongbyon site, mainly through satellite imagery," International Atomic Energy Agency head Yukiya Amano said. "Activities have been observed at the site that are consistent with an effort to restart the ... reactor," Amano told a closed-door regular meeting of the IAEA's board of governors.

Pyongyang carried out its third nuclear test in February, sparking international condemnation and raising tensions on the Korean peninsula for months. Two months later, it boasted that it would restart all facilities at Yongbyon to bolster its atomic arsenal.

If confirmed, the move would dramatically escalate tensions already running high after the United States, Japan and South Korea all ignored the declaration, which was made at the weekend. China had insisted that any planes traversing the area should submit flight plans or face “emergency defensive measures”.

Washington responded by sending in two unarmed B52 bombers into the zone on Tuesday, while Japan and South Korea yesterday flew military aircraft into the area in defiance of Beijing. The Chinese military vowed to carry out "emergency defensive measures" against any aircraft that failed to comply with its demands.

Given the rapid recent expansion of the Chinese air force, Okumura said, there is a very real possibility that a relatively inexperienced Chinese pilot could make an error of judgement in a confrontation with Japanese aircraft.

In an interview published Wednesday in Hamas publication Falastin, Salah said that "we will continue to monitor all of the Israeli plans that have as their goal the city of Al Quds [Jerusalem] and the Al Aqsa Mosque. The Knesset's intervention in the matters of Al Aqsa is null and void, and anything that stems from something that is null and void, is null and void itself."

Salah called for adoption of a strong Arab and Islamic line toward the Knesset's decisions regarding the Al Aqsa mosque. The so-called Arab Spring, he said, despite "difficulties" that it has involved, will assist Jerusalem and Al Aqsa in the long run and is "the hope" for the future. He blamed Israel for trying to duplicate, on the Temple Mount, the current arrangement between Arabs and Jews at the Cave of Machpela in Hevron. Israel wants to enable Jewish ritual on the Temple Mount, he claimed, and is trying to change Jerusalem's geography and demography.

Salah's comments come amid Muslim anger over a bill by Religious Affairs Minister Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan (Jewish Home), which seeks to put an end to the ban on Jewish prayer at Judaism's holiest site.

Doctors at the CIA and Department of Defense consulted on medically acceptable forms of waterboarding, sleep deprivation and "abuse interrogation" techniques, such as confinement conditions to render prisoners disoriented, the study shows. The report also claims the presence of medical staff at interrogations has been covered up by re-classifying doctors as "safety officers," a title that offers them leeway in their role in the interrogation.

The 19-member panel behind the piece, "Ethics Abandoned: Medical Professionalism and Detainee Abuse in the War on Terror," conclude doctors and psychologists have neglected their professional duty by collaborating in the intelligence gathering process when they engaged in or sanctioned inflicting harm on individuals in US custody.

Additionally, the study says psychologists were enlisted to assist in the interrogation of detainees and enabled intelligence officers access to detainees' medical and psychological information, for use in interrogation. Doctors also play a key part in force-feeding of hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay, even when it goes against their medical judgment.

The council has criticized Israel on 27 separate occasions, in resolutions that grant effective impunity to Hamas, Hezbollah and their state sponsors. Obsessed with condemning Israel, the Council in its first year failed to condemn human rights violations occurring in any of the world’s 191 other countries. In its second year, the Council finally criticized one other country when it “deplored” the situation in Burma, but only after it censored out initial language containing the word “condemn.” It even praised Sudan for its "cooperation."

The Council’s fixation with Israel is not limited to resolutions. Israel is the only country listed on the Council’s permanent agenda. Moreover, Israel is the only country subjected to an investigatory mandate that examines the actions of only one side, presumes those actions to be violations, and which is not subject to regular review.

“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world,” he wrote. “This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.”

He couldn't be much clearer. The pope has taken a firm political stance against right-leaning, pro-free market economic policies, and his condemnation appears to be largely pointed at Europe and the United States.

Taken in the context of the last half-century of Roman Catholicism, this is a radical move. Fifty years ago, around the time of the Second Vatican Council, Church leaders quietly declared a very different economic enemy: communism. But Pope Francis’s communitarian, populist message shows just how far the Church has shifted in five decades — and how thoroughly capitalism has displaced communism as a monolithic political philosophy.

We need to ask two critical questions: What will the Saudis do now? What will the Israelis do now?

The Saudis have been signaling in recent weeks that they are losing confidence in their alliance with the US, they are increasingly prepared to buy nuclear weapons from Pakistan, and they might even create a tacit alliance with Israel and the Gulf states as a bulwark against Iran. Is all that bluster, or is Riyadh serious?

Meanwhile, the initial consensus among most Mideast analysts is that Israel is now constrained from launching a pre-emptive military strike lest the Netanyahu government risk a massive backlash from the international community that has just agreed to an “interim” agreement with Iran, pending a “comprehensive” agreement in 2014. But this deal makes a preemptive strike more likely, and possibly even inevitable, especially if the Saudis will help. Is this true, or just the bluster of those frustrated by what they perceive as the world’s betrayal?

I’m deeply concerned that the world powers just let themselves be hoodwinked by the mullahs in Iran, and that the world has suddenly become a much more dangerous place, with Iran in a better position to build and deploy nuclear weapons. There are many variables here. And there are likely to be many twists and turns on the road ahead.

This is despite the deal Tehran signed with world powers over the weekend. According to a fact sheet released by the White House, as part of the deal agreed to in Geneva, Iran “committed to no further advances of its activities at Arak and to halt progress on its plutonium track.”

However, Iran has disputed the version of the agreement put out by Washington, and some experts have said loopholes in the text could allow the Iranians to continue construction offsite and then install components there later. The Arak facility became a sticking point in negotiations in a previous round of negotiations with Iran earlier in November, with France reportedly scuppering a deal with Iran because its terms vis-à-vis Arak were unsatisfactory.

Zarif also said that Iran would continue to enrich uranium at levels from 3.5 to 5 percent, but would not construct new enrichment sites, according to Press TV. Iran and the P5+1 nations, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, reached an interim deal Sunday dubbed the Joint Plan of Action whereby Iran agreed to curb much of its nuclear activity for six months, during which the sides will negotiate a final agreement.

Brigadier General Hossein Salami, the lieutenant commander of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), made the critical weapons announcement just days after Iran and the West signed a deal aimed at curbing the country’s nuclear activities. Salami claimed that “Iran is among the only three world countries enjoying an indigenous ballistic missile technology,” according to the state-run Fars News Agency.

“Many countries may have access to cruise missiles technology, but when it comes to ballistic missiles, I am confident that only the US and the [former] Soviet Union could master this technology, and now we can announce that we own this technology as well,” Salami told Fars. The IRGC leader said that Iran is quickly developing advanced military know-how.

“While we did not have any knowledge about drones, we have developed and acquired drones that travel 2,000 kilometers, conduct their operations, and then land in our desirable regions,” he was quoted as saying. Iran’s claim to ballistic missiles would be a major development for a country known to use its military machinery as a means of intimidating its regional neighbors.

Former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said Iran’s ballistic missile announcement is no surprise. “Iran’s ballistic missile program has always been to provide the delivery vehicles for nuclear warheads,” Bolton said. “The timing of the IRGC announcement is no coincidence.”

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel assured his Japanese counterpart in a phone call that the two nations' defense pact covers the small islands where China established a new airspace defense zone last week and commended Tokyo "for exercising appropriate restraint," a Pentagon spokesman said.

China's declaration raised the stakes in a territorial standoff between Beijing and Tokyo over the area, which includes the tiny uninhabited islands known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. The United States defied China's demand that airplanes flying near the islands identify themselves to Chinese authorities, flying two unarmed B-52 bombers over the islands on Tuesday without informing Beijing.

It was a sharp reminder to China that the United States still maintains a large military presence in the region despite concerns among US allies that President Barack Obama's "pivot to Asia" strategy has borne little fruit. In a previously announced trip, Vice President Joe Biden will visit China, Japan and South Korea next week. He will seek to ease tensions heightened by China's declaration, senior administration officials said.

Washington does not take a position on the sovereignty of the islands but recognizes that Tokyo has administrative control over them and the United States is therefore bound to defend Japan in the event of an armed conflict.

Local media reported that although China’s air defence zone was aimed at Japan, it turned Korea into a "piggy in the middle" as Beijing tries to expand its defence zone to the east and Tokyo to the west. “Korea has become sandwiched [between Beijing and Tokyo] as China and Japan flex their muscles,” said a report in the conservative Seoul-based newspaper JoongAng Ilbo.

On Thursday, South Korea’s foreign minister Yun Byung-se said the issue of China and Japan’s ADIZ had emerged as a situation that further intensified tensions in Northeast Asia. China’s air defence zone overlaps with some 3,000 square kilometres of South Korea’s and Seoul has told Beijing that it cannot accept what it sees as Beijing’s unilateral decision.

The inclusion of a disputed rock, known as Ieodo, that is controlled by Seoul but also claimed by Beijing as Suyan Rock, in China’s zone has also caused an outcry in South Korea. Korea’s defence ministry announced that it would consider adding Ieodo into its own defence zone, which is not sovereign airspace but serves as a buffer for the military to respond to potentially hostile aircraft.

The impact of most of these “chemicals of emerging concern” on the health of people and aquatic life remains unclear. Nevertheless, the commission report concludes that better water treatment is needed. “The compounds show up in low levels – parts per billion or parts per trillion – but aquatic life and humans aren’t exposed to just one at a time, but a whole mix,” said Antonette Arvai, physical scientist at the International Joint Commission and the lead author of the study. “We need to find which of these chemicals might hurt us.”

More than 1,400 wastewater treatment plants in the United States and Canada discharge 4.8 billion gallons of treated effluent into the Great Lakes basin every day, according to the study. The scientists reviewed 10 years of data from wastewater treatment plants worldwide to see how well they removed 42 compounds that are increasingly showing up in the Great Lakes.

Six chemicals were detected frequently and had a low rate of removal in treated effluent: an herbicide, an anti-seizure drug, two antibiotic drugs, an antibacterial drug and an anti-inflammatory drug.

On Friday night, a group called Western Maryland: A New State Initiative met to discuss the secession of Western Maryland. They say their mission is “to form a new state comprised of Maryland’s five western counties.”

The Washington Times reported, “People are feeling ‘the pinch’ of overbearing state regulations from the largely Democratic majority in Maryland. Western Maryland is a more conservative segment of the state, and their views are well reflected in their website which points to gun control regulations and high taxes as the primary grievances of the citizenry.”

Western Maryland’s five counties, Allegany, Carroll, Frederick, Garrett, and Washington, only make up 11 percent of the state. Some Colorado residents are also interested in seceding. Conservative citizens dislike the anti-gun legislation that plagues the state — some are also concerned by the fact that marijuana and gay marriage is legal.

It is unlikely that either Maryland or Colorado’s secession movements will be successful — in order to do this, the state legislatures would have to approve it and Congress would need to recognize the new, independent states. However, this growing movement does demonstrate a significant polarization of ideologies in America.

In a decision buried in routine business in the Canada Gazette, Environment Canada said it had granted a US biotechnology firm, AquaBounty Technologies Inc, permission to export up to 100,000 GM fish eggs a year from a hatchery in Prince Edward Island to a site high in the Panamanian rainforest. The decision marked the first time any government had given the go-ahead to commercial scale production involving a GM food animal.

The move clears the way for AquaBounty to scale up production of the salmon at its sites in PEI and Panama in anticipation of eventual approval by American authorities. The Food and Drug Administration is expected to render a decision in the near future on the sale of GM salmon, and in due course some 30 other species of GM fish currently under development, campaigners and industry figures said.

The Canadian government said in its decision that the GM fish presented a high risk to Atlantic salmon, in the event of an escape, and a spokesman was adamant there would be no immediate sale or consumption of GM salmon eggs in Canada.

Most bacteria in the human body are kept in check by the body’s immune system. But bacteria are constantly evolving to survive and reproduce. Either the immune system successfully adapts to new threats, or the body risks being overrun. Sometimes the immune system will fail to respond to a novel bacterial threat, allowing the bacteria to kill the host.

Before antibiotics were widely available, any accident, injury, or medical procedure that allowed pathogenic bacteria into the body was potentially deadly. One in nine skin infections was fatal. One in three cases of pneumonia led to death. Invasive surgeries including caesarean sections left the patient open to killer infections. Insect bites, burns, and blood transfusions frequently became a source of infection. Antibiotics kill bacteria, which meant wounds were no longer death sentences. Yet when Fleming won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1945, he warned of the dangers of antibiotic resistance:

“It is not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicillin in the laboratory by exposing them to concentrations not sufficient to kill them… There is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant.” [NobelPrize.org]

Fleming’s prediction was right. Penicillin-resistant bacteria arrived while the drug was still being given to only a few patients. Each new class of antibiotics since then has soon been greeted by resistant bacteria. If the problem continues to grow, the US and other countries will have to invest a whole lot more in antimicrobial technologies, or create incentives for Big Pharma to do so. Like the zombie apocalypse, the post-antibiotic world would not be a pretty place to live in.