This week, the chief nuclear officers of around 100 American nuclear power plant reactors are taking a field trip. They are travelling to Japan and then taking a bus to Fukushima. There, dressed in protective suits, they will walk through the ruins left behind by the earthquake of the century, the tsunami of the century and the resulting triple nuclear reactor meltdown that occurred in March 2011.

"I can assure you when they get back from this trip, all of these chief nuclear officers will double their safety precautions," says Dale Klein, who has made the same trip and describes it as "very sobering." Klein, who was head of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission until 2009, now serves as chair of the Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee, which advises Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the company that once ran the Fukushima power plant and is now responsible for cleaning up the site.

In the eyes of industry experts and the Japanese public alike, the company has proved one thing unequivocally - that it is in far over its head in trying to handle the aftermath of the disaster. Klein is generally a polite man, but he recently announced in public exactly what he thinks of the company that hired him. "You do not know what you're doing," Klein told company president Naomi Hirose in person. "You do not have a plan."

In accordance with Japanese custom, the company head, thus chastised, inclined his head and replied, "I apologize for not being able to live up to your expectations." TEPCO has been stumbling "from crisis to crisis," Klein says. And with no improvement in sight, it had recently become clear that Japan would find itself, out of necessity, doing something that is generally considered very un-Japanese: asking for foreign help. Klein said there were signs that the government was planning on inviting experts from Europe and the US in to help.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Tuesday after meeting with Russian parliament speaker that his government quickly "agreed to the Russian initiative." Al-Moallem added that Syria did so to "uproot US aggression."

His statement sounded more definitive than his remarks Monday, when he said that Damascus welcomed Russia's initiative. Meanwhile, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Russia is now working with Syria to prepare a detailed plan of action, which will be presented shortly.

Lavrov said that Russia will then be ready to finalize the plan together with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

There's a reason you're only getting snippets about Assad's supposed "chilling warning" of "repercussions" to the US if his country is invaded, it's because he calmly and succinctly exposed Obama and the US government's hypocrisy through and through. For one, Assad says there's no evidence his regime used chemical weapons, but notes such illegal weapons were used by the US in Iraq and Israel in Gaza.

Assad recollects that the last time the US presented "evidence" of WMDs was Colin Powell at the UN making the case Iraq had WMDs (and could "nuke us within 45 minutes"), which we all know now was a fabrication.

The report in Bild am Sonntag, which is a widely read and influential national Sunday newspaper, reported that the head of the German Foreign Intelligence agency, Gerhard Schindler, last week told a select group of German lawmakers that intercepted communications had convinced German intelligence officials that Assad did not order or approve what is believed to be a sarin gas attack on August 21 that killed hundreds of people in Damascus’ eastern suburbs.

The Obama administration has blamed the attack on Assad. The evidence against Assad was described over the weekend as common sense by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “The material was used in the eastern suburbs of Damascus that have been controlled by the opposition for some time,” he said. “It was delivered by rockets, rockets that we know the Assad regime has, and we have no indication that the opposition has.”

Russia has questioned that logic, announcing last week that in July it filed a 100-page long “technical and scientific” report on an alleged March 19 chemical weapons attack on a suburb of Aleppo that it says implicates rebel fighters.

The flying bomb was discovered last week when police, following a tipoff, raided the homes of four suspects and a neo-Nazi meeting place in south western Germany, prosecutors in the city of Freiburg said. Although the plans appeared to be at a very early stage, the target was clear, Wolfgang Maier, a spokesman for the Freiburg prosecutor's office, told The Associated Press. "They want to use it against left-wing or anti-Nazi activists."

A 23-year-old man with known links to far-right extremists was arrested on suspicion of commissioning the bomb. A 42-year-old man alleged to have built the bomb was detained but later released on bail. Police are also investigating two other men, aged 22 and 24, with far-right links as part of the case.

The main suspect, who wasn't named, had previously thrown a firework at anti-Nazi counter-demonstrators during a protest by a fringe far-right party on August 31, prosecutors said. Five people suffered what officials described as "acoustic trauma" in that incident.

But the bomb-rigged plane could have caused considerably more harm had it been used, said Maier. "It could have caused damage in a 20-30 meter (65-100 foot) radius," he said. According to official figures, Neo-Nazis committed over 800 violent crimes in Germany last year.

We are risking our lives bringing you this report on the high level intel and connecting the dots here to what Lindsay is saying. You won’t hear about this in the mega media unless we force them to cover it, and it’s up to us to get this out there. For the first time, we may be able to utilize this high level intelligence to get answers and stop a potential attack.

Yesterday, after the archaeologists found an ancient golden medallion at the the foot of the Temple Mount, Prime Minister Netanyahu contacted Hebrew University's Dr Eilat Mazar, who made the stunning discovery of two bundles of treasure containing thirty-six gold coins, gold and silver jewelry, and a gold medallion with the menorah (Temple candelabrum) symbol etched into it. Also etched into the 10cm medallion are a shofar (ram’s horn) and the image of a Torah scroll.

The Prime Minister said, "This is a magnificent discovery. Nationally, it attests to the ancient Jewish presence and to the sanctity of the place; this is as clear as the sun and it is tremendous." Netanyahu continued to praise the discovery by saying, "This is very moving. This find is the essence of our heritage."

"It is interesting that even then, over 500 years after the destruction of the Second Temple, we see the menorah in an original illustration. This is historic testimony, of the highest order, to the Jewish People's link to Jerusalem, to its land and to its heritage – menorah, shofar, Torah scroll. The essence of the Jewish People could not be any more succinct and clear. This is a wonderful gift to the Jewish People. Thank you."

Only a minority of people now view marriage as the starting point for bringing up children, with support for that view almost halving in less than 25 years. The wide-ranging study, which is in its 30th year, also revealed a dramatic shift in attitudes toward sex, politics, economics, and issues such as welfare and Britain’s relationship with Europe, since it first began in the early 1980s.

But some of the most dramatic changes are in the area of family and relationships, with views once classed as permissive now becoming the norm. Moral disapproval of matters such as sex outside marriage and homosexuality has fallen sharply since the Thatcher era, it shows.

That has been accompanied by a profound decline in religious attachment, with only a minority of people in the UK now identifying themselves as Christians, despite the effects of immigration which has boosted Church attendance.

Almost two thirds of the British public opposed same-sex relationships because they believed they were morally “wrong” 25 years ago. But, according to the latest British Social Attitudes survey, only one in five people now disapproves of gay or lesbian relationships in principle. The speed of change is all the more striking given that during the 1980s the number of people who objected to homosexuality was on the rise.

In the early 1980s more than half the population did not think it was “acceptable” for a gay or lesbian person to be a teacher and more than four out of 10 people did not believe they should hold a “responsible position in public life”. The latest survey found that 56 per cent of those polled supported gay marriage, which is now on the Statute Book.

The report describes the change in public opinion as “perhaps the most dramatic attitude shift of all” in the last 30 years.

Members of the conference were presented accounts of international experts, Syrian public figures and Russian news reporters covering the Syrian conflict, which back Russia’s opposition to the US plans, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The speakers argued that the suspected sarin gas attack near Damascus on August 21 was likely a provocation of the rebel forces and that a military action against the President Bashar Assad government will likely result in civilian casualties and a humanitarian catastrophe affecting the entire region.

Russia is convinced that the chemical incident was a provocation by rebel forces, which staged a false flag attack to drag the US into the conflict and capitalize on the damage that the Syrian army is likely to sustain in the American intervention.

An increasing number of reports are backing Russia’s position, with local witnesses, US and British former intelligence professionals and Europeans recently released from rebel captivity all speaking for a provocation scenario.

At first glance, the Alternative for Germany's (AfD) campaign ad seems about as threatening as a commercial for the local optician. It features outraged, but pleasant-seeming citizens - a father and his daughter, a newspaper-reading businesswoman and a cyclist - looking thoughful while asking questions. "Why is all our money going to Greece, instead of being invested in damaged streets and bridges?", one person asks. "Why are pensioners left with an ever-smaller amount of money in their wallets?", "Who is paying for the debt that our politicians are accruing?", asks another.

The party is also trying to send a positive message at campaign events. During a demonstration in Hamburg several weeks ago, a young mother was captured on camera by an AfD campaigner. "There aren't any populists taking part here," she says, blinking into the sunlight. Party leader Bernd Lucke, who made an appearance in a casual polo shirt, encouraged people to "demonstrate peacefully".

Just two weeks before the general election, the anti-euro party is hopeful about its prospects. In a survey published earlier this week, the AfD, for the first time ever, came close to achieving the five percent vote-share required to win seats in the German parliament, the Bundestag.

As the Chancellery-financed think tank explained, the foreign states' "financial and logistic support" of parties to a civil war, violate "the intervention prohibition." Berlin supports the insurgents in Syria in various ways, ranging from medical treatment of wounded insurgents at hospitals of the Bundeswehr or the supply of "protective vests" or even reconstruction work in insurgent-controlled areas of the country.

Military training of militiamen and deliveries of weapons, by various allies of Germany, also violate the UN Charter's prohibition of the use of force. Punitive military operations are in contravention of international law. However, Berlin's think tank does not expect this will have a major impact on war plans currently being forged by the West. "The question of international legality will not be decisive in determining whether the operation will be carried out." The think tank in Berlin assumes that there will be no attempts to make reference to international law in an all-out attempt to legitimize a manifestly illegal use of force.

It is "to be expected that, like back in 1999 with NATO's intervention in Kosovo, the states involved will use no explicit legal arguments." This will be a repeat of what happened - at the behest primarily of Germany - in the war on Yugoslavia: the replacement of international norms with the law of the jungle.

The US proposal was little more than an off-the-cuff remark made by John Kerry, the US secretary of state, during a press conference in London. But it gave Russia and Syria an opening to try to delay any American-led attack. The Kremlin quickly took the opportunity, with foreign minister Sergei Lavrov urging Assad to place Syria's chemical weapons "under international control". Syria then responded by "welcoming" - although not accepting - Russia's idea.

The move, the first time the Assad regime has been offered a chance to avert an attack, threatens a new diplomatic headache for the White House just as it is struggling to persuade a sceptical US Congress to back military action.

Mr Kerry was also criticized on Monday for saying that any US-led military strikes would be "unbelievably small", language that some Republicans claimed sent the wrong message to the Syrian president. Assad himself gave an interview to American television on Monday, warning the US to expect "everything" if it carried out air-strikes on his country. The latest diplomatic developments were triggered by a press conference at the Foreign Office with Mr Kerry and William Hague, the Foreign Secretary.

Speaking during his Angelus address, the Pope also condemned the proliferation of wars and conflicts and questioned whether they were wars about problems or commercial wars to sell arms on the black market.

His remarks came just hours after thousands of people attended a prayer vigil in St Peter’s Square on Saturday evening as part of the events for the special day of prayer and fasting for peace in Syria and the world that was called by the Pope and was marked by people across the globe in different ways.