The ambassadors who gathered in the library of the German Foreign Ministry the Thursday before last knew the situation was unusually serious. These diplomats are accustomed to seeing images of Chancellor Angela Merkel with a Hitler moustache drawn on her face, hearing vitriolic tirades about Germany's enforcement of austerity policies in Europe and experiencing tense diplomatic talks. For some time now, German diplomats have watched anti-German sentiment increase dramatically in many countries in the European Union.

Under these circumstances, the ambassadors who converged at the Foreign Ministry certainly didn't expect the meeting to be any kind of laid-back reunion, but what they encountered still caught them by surprise. Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut, Merkel's EU policy adviser, gave the diplomats an unvarnished picture of the Chancellery's concerns that matters may not improve any time soon. Merkel's adviser left the diplomats with a clear impression that the German government has given up hope of any appreciable progress in European policy before Germany's federal elections this September.

Officials in the Chancellery consider the culprit here to be neighboring France, the country that is meant to function together with Germany as the motor driving the EU as a whole. Paris, Meyer-Landrut said, isn't interested in reaching agreements with Germany on fundamental questions before September. The meaning behind his words was clear: French President François Hollande is counting on the German elections putting a new government in place in Berlin, one he hopes will be more willing to compromise. Hollande no longer expects anything from the current German government.

Among other controversial statements, the report argues that, "Christians should not be supporting any claims by Jews, or any other people, to an exclusive or even privileged divine right to possess particular territory." The report, titled "The inheritance of Abraham? A report on the 'promised land'", was prepared for the general assembly of the Church of Scotland, to be held in two weeks. It is the latest in a series of documents published over the last decade criticizing Zionism and the Christians that support it.

The report acknowledges the fact that the Church of Scotland was once a believer in the right of the Jews to the ancient land of Israel and a Scottish minister, Alexander Keith, may even have coined the famous phrase: "A land without a people, for a people without a land." Another celebrated Zionist Scottish minister, John Brown, father of Britain's former prime minister Gordon Brown, visited Israel and was an enthusiastic supporter of the Jewish state.

However, the latest report makes clear such affection is a thing of the past. It analyzes the various scriptural and theological claims of Jews to the land and rejects those verses in which the land is promised to the children of Abraham. Furthermore, it dismisses the "belief among some Jewish people that they have a right to the land of Israel as a compensation for the suffering of the Holocaust."

Germany holds more than 3,000 tons of gold bullion, which represents more than 75 percent of its foreign currency reserves. Germany accepted payments in the form of gold for its goods and services it sold overseas. During the Cold War, Germany moved large amounts of its gold holdings to the United States, the United Kingdom and France in order to protect its reserves from the growing Soviet military threat. Now Germany is in the process of moving that gold back within its border.

The fact that Germany is recalling some of its gold back is a serious blow to the Federal Reserve. Whatever the motives German central bankers may have, the fact of the matter is that this sends a sign of no confidence in the Fed’s services. This has triggered a wave and other nations are in a bee line.

It is the fear of future crisis behind the move to take back gold to Germany. According to the current situation, the dollar will weaken and gold will come back with a vengeance.

If you can believe it, in some areas of the country builders are actually holding lotteries to see who will get the chance to buy their homes. Wow – that sounds great, right? Unfortunately, this “housing recovery” is not based on solid economic fundamentals. As you will see below, this is a recovery that is being led by investors. They are paying cash for cheap properties that they believe will appreciate rapidly in the coming years. Meanwhile, the homeownership rate in the United States continues to decline. It is now the lowest that it has been since 1995.

There are a couple of reasons for this. Number one, there has not been a jobs recovery in the United States. The percentage of working age Americans with a job has not rebounded at all and is still about the exact same place where it was at the end of the last recession. Secondly, crippling levels of student loan debt continue to drive down the percentage of young people that are buying homes. So no, this is not a real housing recovery.

So the truth is that this is an isolated housing recovery that is being led by investors and that is being fueled by very reckless behavior by the Federal Reserve. It is not based on economic reality whatsoever. In the end, will the collapse of this new housing bubble be as bad as the collapse of the last one was?

The platoon of Chinese soldiers slipped across the boundary into India in the middle of the night, according to Indian officials. They were ferried across the bitterly cold moonscape in Chinese army vehicles, then got out to traverse a dry creek bed with a helicopter hovering overhead for protection. They finally reached their destination and pitched a tent in the barren Depsang Valley in the Ladakh region, a symbolic claim of sovereignty deep inside Indian-held territory.

So stealthy was the operation that India did not discover the incursion until a day later, Indian officials said. 'If they have come 19 kilometres into India, it is not a minor LAC violation. It is a deliberate military operation. And even as India protests, more tents have come up,' said Sujit Dutta, a China specialist at the Jamia Milia Islamia university in New Delhi. 'Clearly, the Chinese are testing India to see how far they can go,' he said.

Indian politicians accused the scandal-plagued government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of floundering in fear before China. 'China realizes that India has a weak government, and a prime minister who is powerless,' said Yashwant Sinha, a former foreign minister from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. He demanded a stronger response. 'A bully will back off the moment it realizes that it's dealing with a country which will not submit to its will,' Sinha said.

What we require, however, is not somebody to defend the current union — which is broken beyond repair — but to create a new one. The better analogy is with the 19th-century Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who created the Second German Empire out of the ruins of the old and ineffective German Confederation. Today, the eurozone needs a democratic Bismarck, probably though not necessarily from Germany. If we get one, the sight of more Pickelhauben helmets in newspaper cartoons will be a small price to pay.

This new Union would be a fusion of political cultures in which the German element will be hugely important and rightly so. Parts of it will need to learn the German willingness to balance books and pay taxes. These qualities are not unique to the Federal Republic, however. Some northern members of the eurozone are more “German” than the Germans themselves. Moreover, Germans would not dominate. The total population of a single eurozone state including Poland and other latecomers would be close to 400 million, of whom less than a quarter would be German.

Consumer group Which? says the change, which will affect some 13,500 UK customers, is 'wholly unfair'. The Bank of Ireland (BOI) has been contacting those affected - most of whom have a buy-to-let loan - about the changes, which take effect from today. BOI blames the rise on increased funding costs and the need for banks to maintain greater levels of capital. It has set up a phone line for anyone worried about the impact of the changes. The changes affect seven per cent of BOI's UK mortgage customers, the lender has said.

The bank said: 'This increase is permitted by a specific clause in these mortgage contracts, which allows an increase in the interest rate differential after the guarantee period (ie after 31 December 2006).'

'This clause was clearly referenced in the pre-sale offer document provided to the customer and the customer's intermediary prior to completion.'

A typical change will see a buy-to-let mortgage holder who is currently on a rate of 2.25% - made up of the base rate plus 1.75% - see it rise to 4.99% from today, representing the Bank rate plus 4.49%. It said customers were free to move to other providers and no early repayment charges would apply. However tightened mortgage criteria and falling house prices may mean some struggling to find new deals.

Here, it’s not oligarchs but middle-class entrepreneurs who have been devastated by the crisis, and the EU-imposed “haircut” on deposits of more than $130,000.

A $13 billion bailout was announced last month in return for Cyprus agreeing to close Laiki Bank, the island’s second largest, levying all uninsured deposits there, and possibly around 40 percent of uninsured deposits in the Bank of Cyprus, many held by wealthy citizens of other countries, including many Russians. Insured deposits of $130,000 or less are not affected.

The seizure of deposits has hardly touched Russian oligarchs: Thanks to the intricate structure of holdings registered in Pacific and Caribbean tax havens and ingenious schemes of share distribution, the oligarchs’ money accounted for an insignificant share of deposits held in Cyprus banks. Instead, it’s small and medium-sized businesses that were most often caught out.

The Crown corporation is factoring in developer feedback, hiring a product manager and consulting with the financial sector. “I would look on it very much as an alternative, and hopefully a replacement, for physical cash,” said David Everett, the British cryptographic expert hired years ago to work on the MintChip. “Today, people obviously use coins. They use bits of metal and bits of paper. The future is obviously going to be much more electronic.”

Speaking at Simon Black's Offshore Tactics workshop, the so-called modern day Cicero goes on to point out that France's Hollande is "the number 1 among idiots running countries around the world," and worries that Merkel's pending election means there will be more and more 'tough talk and action' as she shows the people she is in charge.

Simply put he warns, alongside Ron Paul, that if you have money in European banks, "Get your money out," because, "when the next phase of the disaster comes, they will come for you."