Speaking at the Western Wall for a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony, Netanyahu compared Iran’s nuclear program to a darkness that would be forced out by Israel, referencing a popular children’s song for the holiday. “We came to drive out the darkness, and the largest darkness that threatens the world today is a nuclear Iran,” he said. “We are bound to do all we can to prevent this darkness. If possible we will do this diplomatically, if not we will act as ‘a light unto the nations’.”

Netanyahu has been castigated at home and abroad for taking a harsh stand against the US and Europe for signing the deal, with critics claiming he is deepening Israel’s isolation while strengthening the Iranian regime. The prime minister, however, said he had “not given in to delusions” that Iran would pull back its nuclear program, comparing the nuclear deal to a failed diplomatic initiative meant to stymie North Korea’s nuclear program.

“I believe in speaking the truth, and standing for important principles in order to ensure peace in the world and our security, and of course our peace,” he said. “We will continue to act in this spirit.”

Beneath the inoffensive exterior Angela Merkel is a fanatic. She does not posture, she does not strut as most do. She does not shout the odds, rant or preach like so many. But her smooth destruction of her one-time patron and mentor Helmut Kohl gives the measure of her ruthlessness in pursuit of her goal.

That is the complete - and I mean total - unification of the countries of Europe, Germany included, into a single super-state. Nothing, absolutely nothing, must be allowed to stand in the way of that divine vision. And that includes the withdrawal of the UK from the EU. Because such a withdrawal would not end there.

Established in the European Free Trade Association with Norway and Switzerland, with guaranteed membership of the Single Market as now but without the wholesale removal of our sovereignty to Brussels, others might then find our situation enviable and wish to follow suit. That could start the unravelling of the woollen sleeve. And that for the quietly smiling German chancellor must never be allowed to happen.

If David Cameron wins in 2015 he has pledged to start "renegotiating" our terms of membership and, when he has achieved the best he can, to offer us a referendum on our choice of destiny: in or out. [If] the polls show we are going to vote to leave, then you will see that Mutti Merkel is not so mumsy after all.

For the third time in 100 years Germany has made up its collective mind on the future of Europe and does not intend to be gainsaid yet again by this blasted little offshore nation and its dreadfully disobedient people.

If land shortage led to hunger the people of Singapore would be starving. Those of Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea would have their begging bowls out. The Japanese would be raiding the garbage pails in order to eat. Yet all are among the wealthiest and best-fed people in the world. The starving are not those who lack land but those who lack prosperity. A prosperous society can feed itself. If Sir David's equation was right, we British would eat less well than the folk of Mali because their land is bigger. Well we eat better.

I have been in places with masses of land - Africa for example. The earth is rich, the rivers flow, the rains usually come, beneath even the arid land there are aquifers and lakes of fresh water. Yet the people drive their stringy cattle from muddy water hole to water hole - and drink the same water. They are desperately poor and thus hungry and, from drinking filthy water, diseased.

What is the solution? More aid? There is no end to the appetite of the corrupt. They appear in Europe: fat, sleek, limousine-carried while their wives empty Bond Street. And not one is living off his official salary. The cure? I do not know, but shoving their people full of contraceptive pills isn't it.

The new law would dramatically expand the definition of official secrets and journalists convicted under it could be jailed for up to five years. In reality, reporters covering Fukushima have long been harassed and censored.

The Australian, November 25, 2013 reported: Japanese press baulks at push for ‘fascist’ secrecy laws. Taro Yamamoto [an upper house lawmaker] said the law threatened to recreate a fascist state in Japan. “This secrecy law represents a coup d’etat by a particular group of politicians and bureaucrats,” he told a press conference in Tokyo.

“I believe the secrecy bill will eventually lead to the repression of the average person. It will allow those in power to crack down on anyone who is criticising them – the path we are on is the recreation of a fascist state.” He said the withholding of radiation data after the Fukushima disaster showed the Japanese government was predisposed to hiding information from its citizens and this law would only make things worse.

The Asahi Shimbun newspaper likened the law to “conspiracy” regulations in pre-war Japan and said it could be used to stymie access to facts on nuclear accidents.

What is the alternative to the present system of debt serfdom and rising inequality? Eliminate the Federal Reserve System and revert to the national currency (the dollar) being issued by the US Treasury in sufficient quantity to facilitate the production and distribution of goods and services.

Is this possible? Not in our Financialized, Neofeudal-Neocolonial Rentier Economy; What we are discussing is what will replace the current system after it self-destructs.

According to them, we are on the verge of another recession, and this one will be far worse than what we experienced during the last financial crisis.

Marc Faber, the noted Swiss economist and investor, has voiced his concerns for the US economy numerous times during recent media appearances, stating, “I think somewhere down the line we will have a massive wealth destruction. I would say that well-to-do people may lose up to 50 percent of their total wealth.” When he was asked what sort of odds he put on a global recession happening, the economist famous for his ominous predictions quickly answered... “100 percent.”

Faber points out that this bleak outlook stems directly from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s policy decisions, and the continuous printing of new money, referred to as “quantitative easing” in the media. Faber’s pessimism is matched by well-respected economist and investor Peter Schiff, the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital. Schiff remarks that the stock market collapse we experienced in 2008 “wasn’t the real crash. The real crash is coming.”

Schiff didn’t stop there. Most alarming is his belief that daily life will get dramatically worse for US citizens. “If we keep doing this policy of stimulus and growing government, it’s just going to get worse for the average American. Our standard of living is going to fall... People who are expecting Social Security can’t get all that money. People expecting government pensions can’t get all their money... We simply can’t afford to pay them.”

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.”