From 1962, when John F Kennedy instituted PAL encoding on nuclear weapons, until 1977, the combination to fire the devastating missiles at the height of the Cold War was just 00000000. This was chosen by Strategic Air Command in an effort to make the weapons as quick and as easy to launch as possible, as reported by 'Today I Found Out'.

The Permissive Action Link (PAL) is a security device for nuclear weapons that it is supposed to prevent unauthorized arming or detonation of the nuclear weapon. JFK signed the National Security Action Memorandum 160 in 1962 that required all nuclear missiles to be fitted with a PAL system.

But nuclear experts claim the military was worried about the possibility of command centers or communication lines being destroyed in real nuclear war, stopping soldiers getting the codes or authorization to launch missiles when they were actually needed. So they simply left the security code for the weapons as eight zeros, getting around the security safeguards.

Officers assigned to the store were alerted to a dispute in the parking lot between two women. An on-duty Linden Fire Department captain on scene monitoring the crowd situation told an officer that one of the women had a stun gun.

Police spoke to a victim, a 42 year old from Staten Island, who told officers that she and another woman were having an argument over a shopping cart when the other woman pulled out a stun gun and activated it in a threatening manner.

Police say the woman with the stun gun, Latosha Mathis, 34, of Elizabeth, New Jersey was arrested after officers found the TW-11 stun gun in her purse. She was charged with illegal possession of a stun gun, and is due back in court on December 6, 2013. She faces up to 18 months in jail and a $10,000 fine.

Upset with the United States, senior Saudis have hinted at a range of possibilities, from building strategic relations with other world powers to pushing a tougher line against Iranian allies in the Arab world and, if world powers fail to foil Tehran's nuclear ambitions, even seeking its own atomic bomb.

While Jordan was a senior diplomat in the administration of President George W Bush, some Saudi analysts also say the kingdom is well aware of what major foreign policy shifts would involve - particularly any pursuit of nuclear weapons.

This could end up casting Saudi Arabia as the international villain, rather than its regional arch-rival Iran, and Riyadh has no appetite for the kind of isolation that has forced Tehran to the negotiating table. "Saudi Arabia doesn't need to become a second Iran," said a Saudi analyst close to official thinking. "It would be a total reversal of our traditional behaviour, of being a reliable member of the international community that promotes strategic stability and stabilizes oil markets."

Sharyn Mittelman, senior analyst at Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, noted in the Canberra Times that the UN General Assembly by the end of its annual legislative session is expected to enact 22 resolutions condemning Israel, as opposed to 4 on the rest of the world combined. Bishop's spokesman criticized the UN resolutions, saying Australia's abstention "reflected the (Australian) government's concern that Middle East resolutions should be balanced."

UN condemnation of Israel has reached the point that recently a UN interpreter was caught on an open mic expressing shock at the excessive criticism. The interpreter said "I mean, I think when you have five statements, not five, like a total of ten resolutions on Israel and Palestine, there's gotta be something, c'est un peu trop, non? [It's a bit much, no?] I mean I know... There's other really bad stuff happening [around the world], but no one says anything, about the other stuff."

Ed Miliband buries his head in the sand and won't say what he thinks about our national destiny. Nick Clegg desperately brands Brexit supporters as "unpatriotic". The national mood is understandably angry. The prospect of the imminent arrival of thousands of Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants after January 1 when border restrictions are lifted will rapidly concentrate political minds.

Amid all the opinion polls on the next wave of EU immigration, one finding, from the Harris/Daily Mail survey earlier this month, leaped out. A stunning 64 per cent of the public want David Cameron to go further: to refuse the Romanians and Bulgarians entry to the UK even if it means defying the full majesty of EU law, to which the UK is now subservient.

Whatever happens over immigration, Britain is rapidly moving closer to the exit. We are already being taken to the European Court of Justice over the modest conditions we currently attach to benefits for EU migrants. We cannot go on like this.

I don't know how long we will remain an increasingly recalcitrant member of the European club. But I do know how we got into this predicament and I believe I do know how we can thrive again as an independent nation state outside the EU.

The four-nation survey of attitudes to Europe carried out by Opinium shows British people regard the EU much more negatively than citizens of other countries.

Research from Germany, France and Poland also suggests citizens of other countries think Britain brings few benefits to the union. According to the study, more people on the continent seem happy to see Britain leave than seem keen for the UK to stay.

It is a day when the rest of the world makes fun of Americans for behaving like "rabid animals" and "zombies" as we indulge in a tsunami of greed. It truly is a shameful orgy of materialism for a morally bankrupt nation.

It is being projected that approximately 140 million Americans will participate in this disgusting national ritual this year. Sadly, most of them have absolutely no idea that they are actively participating in the destruction of the economic infrastructure of the United States. If you don't understand why this is true, please be sure to read this entire article all the way to the end.

The amount of merchandise that is purchased on Black Friday is absolutely staggering. For example, just consider how much stuff is sold at Wal-Mart alone... Wal-Mart said it recorded more than 10 million register transactions between 6 pm and 10 pm Thursday in its stores and nearly 400 million page views that day on walmart.com. It sold 2.8 million towels, 2 million televisions, 1.4 million tablets, 300,000 bicycles and 1.9 million dolls. Big-ticket electronics like big-screen TVs and new videogame consoles were among the top sellers.

At the beginning of this article, I stated that those who go shopping on Black Friday "are actively participating in the destruction of the economic infrastructure of the United States". How could that possibly be? Aren't they helping the economy by spending their money? Actually, it isn't that simple. Just think about it for a moment. Where are most of the "advertised specials" that people go crazy over on Black Friday actually made?

If you guessed "China", you would be correct. In fact, it is very difficult to find any "Black Friday specials" that are actually made in the United States. When you buy stuff made in China, you support workers and businesses in China. As I mentioned in a recent article, the US economy loses approximately 9,000 jobs for every 1 billion dollars of goods that are imported from overseas. Overall, the US has run a total trade deficit with the rest of the world of more than 8 trillion dollars since 1975. So when you look around and see lots of unemployed people, it should not be a surprise to you.

And every single American that went shopping on Black Friday and bought Chinese-made goods actively participated in the ongoing destruction of the US economy. Good job America. You are a nation that is utterly consumed by materialism and greed, and you don't even realize that you are destroying yourself with your own foolishness.

Sift through your memory bank and you'll find the memories you cherish rarely involve earning a living, filling the car, lagging the loft or posting something trivial on Facebook. The golden moments, the vivid vignettes, almost always encompass time spent with parents and siblings, shared jokes, outings great and small, being rained out of tents, sliding down the stairs on a tea tray... Children need their parents' company to thrive and flourish. Parents need to revel in their children's presence to feel they are doing a good job. Thirty six minutes a day means something is rotten in the state of British family life.

Galloping to the rescue astride a milk white stallion comes the nation's Fairy Godmother Mary Berry. Mary knows how to solve our family time famine. She wants us in the kitchen, chopping onions together, peeling apples, mixing pastry, rinsing blackberries and generally preparing food from scratch, then sitting around the scrubbed pine table to eat the scrumptious fruits of our labours. Mary of course is absolutely right. The family that cooks together eats together and the family that eats together chats, argues, discusses and debates, teaching and learning without even realising it.

As long as you eat together, talk about your day, have a laugh, a tiff and hatch a plan for the weekend, you've achieved your object. Ditto with a takeaway. Chomp your fish and chips in happy unison, no need for a table, the sofa will do, just turn off the telly and concentrate on getting to know one another again. You don't need to impress your flesh and blood with your culinary skills. The true winners are those who realise 36 minutes a day does not constitute a worthwhile family life and take steps to do something about it.

While the rest of the nation coped with an unprecedented squeeze on incomes, City workers were enjoying the high life, with the top 2,700 taking home an average of £1.6 million each. The figure – which makes Britain’s financial elite the highest paid in Europe – flies in the face of the banks’ repeated claims that they have scaled down enormous pay rewards in the wake of the financial crisis.

Last night there were claims that the sector had learned nothing from the greatest financial crash for decades – a crisis that their own greed and incompetence was in part to blame for. The figures also follow a string of scandals at the country’s lenders over miss-selling, failing to help struggling small businesses, and rigging lending rates. Campaigners said that while City salaries have soared, ordinary families are still facing the worst squeeze on household income in living memory.

Deborah Hargreaves, chairman of campaign group the High Pay Centre, said the report made a mockery of the banks’ claims to have reined in lavish payouts. ‘This goes to prove that the idea that banks are cutting back is a lie,’ she said.

‘They claim they are showing restraint – but everyone else is suffering from cuts in living standards while bankers are living the high life.’ John Mann, the Labour MP and member of the Treasury Select Committee, said: ‘The banks are failing to lend and giving themselves staggering increases in pay. This is despite the fact that the reason they are doing well is because of quantitative easing – in other words taxpayers lending them money.’

"Future world wars will be mainly focused on water needs, knowing the current unavailability. We don't want to reach that and have to work to avoid it," he said. "We are threatened with this intriguing issue and have to co-operate to come up with long-term solutions for it."

Shaikh Khalid was speaking during the launch of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) - the Regional Bureau for Arab States (RBAS) report on water governance at the Sheraton Hotel yesterday. He called for an agreement with neighbouring countries on water boundaries so projects could be implemented whenever funding was available.

"We in the Gulf have excellent financial resources, but still need to work on getting more human resources that are qualified and experienced to preserve water," said the minister. "Water scarcity and rarity doesn't just concern one country or several in the region, but the whole Arab world, and this is why we need to get financing from banks like the African Arab Bank and the Islamic Bank for Development."

He attributed the vast bubble to "symptoms of excess liquidity." Faber said the markets, which have reached record highs, could still rise before the bubble bursts, if stimulus programs such as the Federal Reserve's massive monthly bond purchases and super-low interest rates continue. "Now can the market go up another 20 percent before it tumbles?" Faber said on "Squawk Box". "Yeah, it can go up even more, if you print money."

Warning investors that they could see disappointing long-term returns in equities, Faber said he thought a correction in equities was overdue when the S&P 500 index crossed 1,600 points. The benchmark index surpassed 1,808 points this week.

Official media said that Japan is the "prime target" and it is an "urgent task for China to further train its air force to make full preparation for potential conflicts." Japanese lawmakers, meanwhile, are pushing for a bill "demanding an immediate withdrawal of China's ADIZ."

While the Western world goes on its merry way buying S&P futures, China's concluding message rings its most defiant so far, "We are willing to engage in a protracted confrontation with Japan. Our ultimate goal is to beat its willpower and ambition to instigate strategic confrontation against China."

Iran will not dismantle its nuclear facilities, President Hassan Rouhani said in an interview with The Financial Times published on Friday, after a historic deal between Tehran and world powers. Asked by the newspaper whether dismantling Iran's atomic facilities was a "red line" for the Islamic republic, Rouhani replied: "100 per cent".

Israel has bitterly opposed the deal struck in Geneva last weekend, saying that any pact with Tehran must have the sole purpose of dismantling Iran's nuclear capability. Pending negotiations for a broader agreement, the deal struck in Geneva early November 24 calls for a six-month's freeze of Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for limited sanctions relief.

But it does not call for dismantling Iran's nuclear facilities.

D’Souza explains, “One of the predictions is that Obama would spend money promiscuously to raise the debt in virtual indifference to the impact of the debt on American citizens. In fact, Obama has been racking up the debt at the rate of $1 trillion a year. The debt has doubled in Obama’s term in office.”

Obama’s plot to “drag the economy down” and redistribute American wealth to the rest of the world – and financially cripple the nation – he explains, “is a transfer of hundreds of billions, in fact trillions of dollars, out of the United States and into other countries.” In his addition to the film, D’Souza also explains exactly why and how. “Obama wants to shrink the influence of American foreign policy” by “undermining our allies and … allowing our adversaries to remain in power.”

In an email announcing the film update, D’Souza wrote, “There are those within our country that seek to undermine America's exceptionalism and ‘take us down a notch.’ What’s worse is that one of those people happens to be the president of the United States. “When I directed ’2016: Obama’s America’ over a year ago, I prayed that I would be wrong. The damage that I predicted Obama would do to our country could never be worth an ‘I told you so.’

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t wrong. Wielding a weaponized national debt and a disdain for our standing in the world, President Obama draws us nearer and nearer to the dystopia that I warned against in 2016.”

For years, Chinese naval officers have told their US counterparts they are uncomfortable with America's presence in the western Pacific - and Beijing is now confronting strategic assumptions that have governed the region since World War Two. China's recent maritime muscle-flexing in disputes over the Paracel islands and Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea and over Japanese-administered islands in the East China Sea has stirred concern and extensive backroom diplomacy in Washington.

But it took the events of the last week to spark an immediate and symbolic response from the United States - the unannounced appearance in the zone of two unarmed B-52 bombers from the fortified island of Guam, the closest US territory to the Chinese coast. China's unilateral creation of the zone - accompanied by warnings that it would take "defensive emergency measures" against aircraft that didn't identify themselves - has raised the stakes in a territorial dispute with Japan over tiny, uninhabited islands in the area.

Even as some suggest Beijing's move is already backfiring, experts in China say it is a part of a long-term effort, carrying broader historic significance for the United States as the traditional provider of Japanese security.