As in the 2011 war on Libya, it is supporting Islamist rebels today in Syria, who are seeking to topple a government combated by the West. Berlin's cooperation with Qatar on matters of foreign policy is being consolidated by economic cooperation. German companies benefit from lucrative Middle East contracts, while the Qatari ruling clan buys a significant amount of shares in major German companies, such as Volkswagen and Siemens.

Qatar has been linking its financial support in France to a large-scale public relations campaign in the suburban slums. German involvement in the war in Syria, will most likely also be a topic in these talks with Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabir al Thani in Berlin. A German Navy "reconnaissance" vessel is, currently, cruising again off the Syrian coast. Experts believe that Syrian insurgents are also profiting from information retrieved by this espionage.

National Defense Magazine’s Sandra Erwin explores the “physical intelligence” program this week, a research and development initiative launched back in 2009 in order to “to understand intelligence as a physical phenomenon and to make the first demonstration of the principle in electronic and chemical systems,” according to the Defense Department’s original solicitation. Erwin says that four years later, a team of scientists led by University of California, Los Angeles Chemistry Professor James K Gimzewski is just “inches away from the finish line” in terms of reaching their goal.

Gimzewski and crew have constructed a tiny machine, Erwin writes, that allows robots to attack independently. How independently? It won’t rely on conventional computer code used to program cyborgs and robots like the kind found in Hollywood sci-fi flicks, but instead use microscopic wires to emulate the electrical and chemical pulses sent from cell to cell within the human brain.

“Rather than move information from memory to processor, like conventional computers, this device processes information in a totally new way,” says the scientist. Erwin continues: “What sets this new device apart from any others is that it has nano-scale interconnected wires that perform billions of connections like a human brain, and is capable of remembering information,” Gimzewski said. “Each connection is a synthetic synapse. A synapse is what allows a neuron to pass an electric or chemical signal to another cell. Because its structure is so complex, most artificial intelligence projects so far have been unable to replicate it.”

The study, ‘The 2012 Corn Comparison Report’ by Profit Pro, was published recently on the website for ‘Moms Across America March to Label GMOs’, a group that says they wish to “raise awareness and support Moms with solutions to eat GMO Free as we demand GMO labeling locally and nationally simultaneously.” They are plotting nationwide protests scheduled for later this year. The report, writes the website’s Zen Honeycutt, was provided by a representative for De Dell Seed Company, an Ontario-based farm that’s touted as being a ‘Canadian only non-GMO corn seed’ company.

“The claims that ‘There is no difference between GMO corn and NON GMO corn’ are false,” says Honeycutt, who adds she was “floored” after reading the study. According to the analysis, GMO corn tested by Profit Pro contains a number of elements absent from traditional corn, including chlorides, formaldehyde and glyphosate. While those elements don’t appear naturally in corn, they were present in GMO samples to the tune of 60 parts per million (ppm), 200pm and 13 ppm, respectively.

Honecutt says that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (FDA) mandates that the level of glyphosate in American drinking water not exceed 0.7 ppm and adds that organ damage in some animals has been linked to glyphosate exposure exceeding 0.1 ppm. “Glyphosate is a strong organic phosphate chelator that immobilizes positively charged minerals such as manganese, cobalt, iron, zinc [and] copper,” Dr Don Huber attested during a separate GMO study recently released, adding that those elements “are essential for normal physiological functions in soils, plants and animals.”

“Glyphosate draws out the vital nutrients of living things and GMO corn is covered with it,” adds Honeycutt, who notes that the nutritional benefits rampant in natural corn are almost entirely removed from lab-made seeds: in the samples used during the study, non-GMO corn is alleged to have 437 times the amount of calcium in genetically modified versions, and 56 and 7 times the level of magnesium and manganese, respectively.

Moody's took the first step toward stripping Germany of its coveted AAA credit rating on Monday, cutting the outlook for Europe's largest and most pivotal economy to "negative." Delivering a stark warning that no one is immune from the eurozone's rolling crisis, the ratings agency lowered Germany's credit outlook from "stable" to "negative."

A similar move was announced for fellow AAA ranked economies, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Moody's said all three faced risks from Greece leaving the eurozone and from the need to stump up cash for potential bailouts for Spain and Italy.

In Germany, the finance ministry immediately shot back by saying the country remained the "eurozone's anchor of stability." The ministry said it had "taken note of Moody's opinion" while stating the "estimate" put the focus "on short-term risks, while stability prospects in the long term are not mentioned."

"The eurozone has initiated a series of measures which should lead to the durable stabilising of the zone," the ministry said. "Germany itself is in a solid economic and financial situation," it insisted in a statement.

Likewise, an envelope containing Ricin was mailed to Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi. Both letters were intercepted at the government’s off-site mail facility in Washington.

And CBS San Francisco, ABC 7, KTVU, NBC Bay Area, the San Jose Mercury News and other media outlets are reporting that someone using a high-powered rifle fired bullets at a Pacific Gas & Electric substation near San Jose, California, causing damage (including a leak of 10,000 gallons of oil) and a statewide emergency alert to conserve energy. About 15 minutes earlier, the same person(s) cut a Silicon Valley AT&T optic cable.

The vandal’s objective appears to have been “shutting down the system,” Sheriff Laurie Smith said at a news conference at the substation Tuesday afternoon. This feels a lot like 2001, when the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were followed by the anthrax attacks … creating an atmosphere of widespread fear.

These could be unconnected incidents. Or someone might be trying to orchestrate a nationwide terror campaign to cause panic among the American people once again.

Both Australia and Japan are set to start direct-trading in Chinese currency and they are not the only ones. There are almost 20 countries who have currency swaps in place with China all in order to side-step the US dollar in global trade. At the China Money Report, we have written extensively on the "Rise of the Renminbi".

What is new and largely unreported and what we will cover in this article is the "Rise of the Petroyuan," as China is now converting its oil imports into Chinese yuan as opposed to US dollars. This will be a new challenge and possibly the fatal blow to the US dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.

With their industrial base all but gone, the housing market bubble popped, and the Federal Reserve funding the majority of the government debt with printed currency, the American economy can ill-afford a new challenge to its currency's reserve status. It is this very reserve status which has led to America being able to consume more than it produces for decades upon decades as foreign countries were willing to trade consumer products for paper IOU's.

The dollar's reserve status came about naturally after WW2 as the US was the world's largest trading nation, exporter, and creditor. Today, China occupies all of these slots.

He noted that many people still seek a divine solution to counter the theories of curious physicists, and at one point, he quipped, “What was God doing before the divine creation? Was he preparing hell for people who asked such questions?”

He closed by outlining "M-theory," which is based partly on ideas put forward years ago by another famed physicist, Caltech’s Richard Feynman. Hawking sees that theory as the only big idea that really explains what he has observed.

M-theory posits that multiple universes are created out of nothing, Hawking explained, with many possible histories and many possible states of existence. In only a few of these states would life be possible, and in fewer still could something like humanity exist. Hawking mentioned that he felt fortunate to be living in this state of existence.

Hawking closed the event with a familiar plea for continued exploration of the cosmos: “We must continue to go into space for the future of humanity,” he said, adding, “I don’t think we will survive another thousand years without escaping our fragile planet.”

Some people are thought still to be trapped in buildings and a number of firefighters are reported missing. Emergency services officials said ammonia may have caused the explosion. It has been reported the company had 54,000 lbs (20 tonnes) of anhydrous ammonia on site.

An official confirmed there were deaths, but could not give a figure. Dean Wilson, of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told a news conference that they were still conducting house-to-house searches. He said the fire was still smouldering and that no firefighters were tackling it as there was the risk of further explosions. Half the town had been evacuated, he added.

The anniversary will be an occasion for Jews around the world to reflect on what a remarkable country Israel is: how it has survived attempts to destroy it, winning three wars against the armies of its Arab neighbours; how it has developed a successful hi-tech industry propelling it to the forefront of the global economy; how it has launched satellites and won prizes for medicine; and how, despite some recent blots on its democratic copybook, Israel remains by some distance the most vibrant democracy in the Middle East with a free and fearless press.

And yet all is not well with the world's only Jewish state. The Arab Spring has seen the rise of radical Islamist ideology amongst its neighbours. Egypt is now run by the Muslim Brotherhood, progenitor of Hamas which is in charge of Gaza and committed to Israel's destruction; Syria is in flames, and in Jordan Islamism is also on the rise.

Inside Israel divisions are growing: between rich and poor and between secular Jews and the rapidly expanding population of Israel's most religious Jews.

Ephraim Halevy, former head of the Mossad, told me: "Ideologically there cannot be an end to the conflict - ever. Both sides claim to have rights to this land and they claim they are the only ones who have rights on this land. No side can in any way forego its rights of every single inch of territory because it's holy land."

If this continues, Mr Halevy foresees "permanent conflict" which neither side could sustain.

A two-year study by the Constitution Project concluded that there was “no justification” for the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” deployed by the George W Bush administration, which it said violated both international and American law. “It is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture,” said the 577-page report by Constitution Project, a high-powered Washington watchdog.

“I had not recognized the depths of torture in some cases,” said James Jones, a former Democratic congressman who acted as co-chairman of the research team with Asa Hutchinson, formerly a senior official under Mr Bush. “We lost our compass.”

The report detailed numerous legal cases in which dubious treatment used by Americans on terror suspects after 2001 was prosecuted in the US or was denounced as torture by Washington officials when applied by other states. Legal justification drawn up by US government lawyers was derided as “acrobatic” advice to justify brutal interrogative methods, such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and chaining prisoners in painful positions.