BRUSSELS, EUROPE - An attempt by Britain to rewrite the EU rulebook to reflect domestic interests could make the European Union fall apart, its top official has warned. EU council president Herman Van Rompuy told the Guardian newspaper that London's quest to repatriate powers from Brussels could spark other member states to do the same.

UK - Forty years ago this week, the Union Flag was raised at the EEC’s headquarters in Brussels to mark the United Kingdom becoming a full member. We joined at the same time as Ireland and Denmark. Edward Heath, then Tory Prime Minister, was to regard securing Britain’s entry as his greatest achievement. The aim from the very outset was a political integration, which included a common currency and a common defence and security policy. The institutional structure was designed for powers to go the centre, but never to be returned. The political integration now needed to make the eurozone work is so great that it has become inevitable for this country to reconsider its membership of the EU.

EUROPE/UK - One of the key architects of the European single market today admitted Britain would be better off leaving the European Union. Mr Delors's radical U-turn comes 22 years after he infuriated Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and other Eurosceptics by trying to force European federalism on the UK.

UK - Judges have been accused of diluting the rights of Christians after a key judgment on whether they can refuse to work on Sundays. A new ruling by a High Court judge - the first on the issue in nearly a decade - says that Christians have no right to decline working on Sunday as it is not a “core component” of their beliefs.

BELGIUM - The Belgian king has provoked a sharp response to a Christmas message in which he drew parallels with the rise of fascism in the 1930s. [King] Albert II warned against the dangers of populists seeking scapegoats for current economic difficulties.

USA - Americans are living in an Orwellian state argue Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick, as they sit down with RT to discuss US foreign policy and the Obama administration’s disregard for the rule of law.

USA - Whether or not the "fiscal cliff" impasse is broken before the New Year's Eve deadline, there will be no post-cliff peace in Washington. With the political climate toxic in Congress as the cliff's steep tax hikes and spending cuts approach, other partisan fights loom, all over the issue that has paralyzed the capital for the past two years: federal spending.

USA - Investors fearing a stock market plunge - if the United States tumbles off the "fiscal cliff" next week - may want to relax. But they should be scared if a few weeks later, Washington fails to reach a deal to increase the nation's debt ceiling because that raises the threat of a default, another credit downgrade and a panic in the financial markets. "I think there will be a tremendous fight between Democrats and Republicans about the debt ceiling," said Jon Najarian, a co-founder of online brokerage TradeMonster.com, in Chicago. "I think that is the biggest risk to the downside in January for the market and the US economy."

WASHINGTON, USA - American soldier suicides continue to outnumber combat-related deaths in 2012, and the trajectory for soldier suicides continues to get worse. Statistics released by the Department of the Army show that through November potentially 303 active-duty, Reserve and National Guard soldiers committed suicide. As of December 7, Stars and Stripes reports that 212 soldiers have died in combat-related deaths in Afghanistan.

USA - Most have very fond memories of their college going years. Going off to college is one of the few rites of passage that we have in the United States ushering future generations into official adulthood. Yet the cost to attend this passage has gotten astronomically expensive. Many are unable to service their debt payments. Income based repayment plans may defer payments deep into the future but that only means that problems are pushed out a few more years. We have about ten cans that we are now kicking down the road. At a certain point, you run out of cans and with $1 trillion in student debt floating in the market the clock is ticking on this bubble.

USA - What is the actual collateral backing this gargantuan market which is about 10 times greater than the world's combined GDP, because as the "derivative" name implies, all this exposure is backed on some dedicated, real assets, somewhere? Luckily, the IMF recently released a discussion note titled "Shadow Banking: Economics and Policy" where quietly hidden in one of the appendices it answers precisely this critical question. The bottom line: $600 trillion in gross notional derivatives backed by a tiny $600 billion in real assets: a whopping 0.1% margin requirement! Surely nothing can possibly go wrong with this amount of unprecedented 1000x systemic leverage?

GERMANY - German pensioners are being sent to care homes in Eastern Europe and Asia in what has been described as an ‘inhumane deportation’. Rising numbers of the elderly and sick are moved overseas for long-term care because of sky-high costs at home. Some private healthcare providers are even building homes overseas, while state insurers are also investigating whether they can care for their clients abroad. Experts describe a ‘time bomb’ of increasing numbers unable to afford the growing costs of retirement homes. ‘We simply cannot let those people, who built Germany up to be what it is, be deported,’ [political party] VdK’s president Ulrike Mascher told The Guardian. ‘It is inhumane.’

UK - Girls are still being brought up to believe that raising children is more important than their own ambitions, the president of the Girls' Schools Association has said. They should be told that they have freedom to make different choices if they want to, says Hilary French.

JAPAN - Within a day of Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party sweeping to power in elections this month, elite bureaucrats in Japan's central bank rushed to ready what amounted to a surrender offer. Abe had won a mandate for more forceful monetary easing, and Japanese taxpayers were frustrated with an economy slipping back into its third recession in five years. BOJ's policy-setting board are ready to take risks and test unorthodox and unproven measures that BOJ Governor Shirakawa had long resisted, such as an unlimited debt-fuelled monetary expansion, officials familiar with their thinking say.

USA - If you relied on Uncle Sam to have a happy holiday season, you’re not alone: in much of America, more people are receiving government assistance than actual paychecks. In 11 of the 50 states in the US, residents dependent on the government outnumber private sector workers.