"The equipment was supposed to explode after being put to work, in order to dismantle all our systems," declared Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the security committee in Iran’s parliament. "But the wisdom of our experts thwarted the enemy conspiracy."

He said the measures were intended to slow down the country’s burgeoning nuclear program. Siemens issued a flat denial. "We have no business dealings related to the Iranian nuclear program," said company spokesman Alexander Machowetz, noting that the company has not worked with Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

The global financial crisis and double-dip recession in many countries has left Germany largely unscathed in recent years, but there are signs that trend may be reversing. Luxury German carmaker Daimler announced on Thursday that this year it would no longer reach the €5 billion ($6.52 billion) in operating profits it recorded in 2011. Prior to the announcement, the company had hoped to match last year's earnings.

"The overall market in Europe is deteriorating, with more negative developments than expected," Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche told reporters in Stuttgart. Bloomberg has also reported that the current European car market is the worst in 17 years and that problems are starting to spread into the luxury automobile sector, once thought to be immune from the crisis.

On Friday, the Financial Times Deutschland newspaper reported on alleged plans by Daimler to introduce €1 billion in cost-cutting measures.

Lord Rothschild, an elder member of the dynastic Rothschild banking family, has taken the position against the euro through RIT Capital Partners, the 1.9 billion pound investment trust of which he is executive chairman, according to a report in the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph.

As cynicism that the single currency is on its last legs continues to spread among some euro zone politicians and the public, the influential financier has used the currency as a form of hedge. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Mario Draghi, have both said that they will do whatever it takes to keep the euro zone together though concerns that the currency cannot survive the schism between the euro zone’s north and south and the gulf between debtors and paymasters gets deeper.

Well at least one person is now and he’s Manuel Barroso, no lesser figure than the President of the European Commission. In his State of the European Union address to the European Parliament last week he told us not to be afraid of the word ‘federation’ and not as some distant dream; he is already working towards a new European treaty, involving the transfer of massive new powers to the EU, which he wants in place as soon as 2014.

Following hard on the heels of the Barroso speech came a wide-ranging list of proposals from a group of 11 EU states - led by the German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle - that would go way beyond anything that any UK Government (not just this one) could sign up to.

The list is spectacular in both its breadth and ambition.

- There would be a directly elected European President and new powers for the European Parliament.

- There would be a pan-European foreign ministry with greatly expanded powers to run an EU foreign policy decided by majority voting (so no vetoes by the UK or anyone else).

- Defence policy would also be Europeanised, with the explicit aim that “this could eventually involve a European army”.

- There would be a new EU police organisation to guard all external borders, with all visas run from Brussels.

- Perhaps most controversially of all, in the future it’s proposed that EU Treaties could be changed by majority voting.

In other words, changes as significant as those in the Maastricht or Lisbon Treaties could simply be imposed on a country, whether it liked them or not. And in case anyone still really believes that the UK is ‘winning the debate in Europe’ the list of governments backing these proposals include every major EU state except… Britain.

As well as calling for a single, elected head of state for Europe, the bloc demanded a new defence policy, under the control of a pan-EU foreign ministry commanded by Baroness Ashton, which “could eventually involve a European army”. In order to “prevent one single member state from being able to obstruct initiatives”, a reference to British opposition to a European army, the German-led group demanded an end to existing national vetoes over foreign and defence policy. This would give the EU the power to impose a decision on Britain if it was supported by a majority of other countries.

The bloc also called for a new European police force patrolling the external borders of the Schengen passport-free zone and a single European visa. The plan, which has the backing of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Holland, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg and Portugal, is likely to increase calls for a British referendum on EU membership.

“I believe the time has come to give a sincere and decisive witness together against divisions, against violence and against war,” the pope said September 19 at his weekly general audience. Reviewing his September 14-16 trip to Lebanon, the pope told an estimated 7,000 people gathered in the Vatican audience hall that the “relaxed and constructive climate” of meetings with Lebanese religious leaders, government officials and crowds made up of Christians and Muslims was “a strong sign of hope for the future of humanity.”

Just think about it. We throw outrageous birthday parties for our kids and we shower them with gifts. Most of our "holidays" have become highly materialistic, and the biggest holiday of all in our society, Christmas, is an absolute orgy of materialism. We make lists of the "wealthiest Americans" and we glorify their achievements.

We spend most of our time either making money or spending it. Even the phrase "the American Dream" reveals how materialistic we are. When most people are asked what "the American Dream" is, they start talking about a house, a car, vacations, retirement, sending your kids to college, etc. The American Dream has become all about money and stuff. Sadly, no matter how big our homes are and no matter how many shiny new toys we accumulate, we never seem to be happy.

We always want more, and we always seem to be willing to go into more debt to get it. We are the most materialistic society in the history of the world, and our endless greed is going to end up swallowing us alive.

National Public Radio (NPR) published an article on its website last month claiming, “Ten years ago, a piece of ice the size of Rhode Island disintegrated and melted in the waters off Antarctica. Two other massive ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula had suffered similar fates a few years before. The events became poster children for the effects of global warming. There’s no question that unusually warm air triggered the final demise of these huge chunks of ice.”

NPR failed to mention anywhere in its article that Antarctic sea ice has been growing since satellites first began measuring the ice 33 years ago and the sea ice has been above the 33-year average throughout 2012. Indeed, none of the mainstream media are covering this important story.

A Google News search of the terms Antarctic, sea ice and record turns up not a single article on the Antarctic sea ice record. Amusingly, page after page of Google News results for Antarctic sea ice record show links to news articles breathlessly spreading fear and warning of calamity because Arctic sea ice recently set a 33-year low. Sea ice around one pole is shrinking while sea ice around another pole is growing. This sure sounds like a global warming crisis to me.

The new purchase is for .223 rifle ammunition, plus another 176,000 rounds of .308 caliber 168 grain hollow point boat tail (HPBT) rounds in addition to 25,000 rounds of blank .308 caliber bullets. “It is the type of ammunition and not necessarily the quantity that is troubling,” James Smith Prepper Podcast was quoted as saying.

“All of the sniper grade ammunition is being used by trained, or in-the-process-of-being-trained snipers,” wrote Smith. Adding up the number of lethal bullets tallies a potential 135,384 kills for the snipers, based on US Army and Marine figures from the Vietnam War, when soldiers used 1.3 rounds of ammunition for each verified kill.

Homeland Security’s purchases of the huge arsenal “is both worrying and ironic given that Americans are being harassed and treated with suspicion for buying a couple of boxes of ammo at their local gun store,” Watson wrote. Government officials have refused to comment.

It has infiltrated virtually all forms of travel within the US: Air, rail, bus and even freeway checkpoints. It is asserting its authority over major sporting events and other large venues. It is estimated that there are in excess of 270 million privately-owned firearms in the United States. The rate of saturation is approximately 88.8 firearms per 100 people. In contrast, total weapons among the nation’s police force number upwards of 897,000.

If every policeman fired his weapon 1,000 times per year (99.99 percent for proficiency training), the entire force would require 897 million rounds of ammunition. Let’s round it up to an even 1 billion rounds of ammunition for all the police forces across America. Why do non-military federal agencies (who answer directly to the President) feel that they also need to acquire well over 1 billion rounds of ammunition by the end of 2012? Why does the Social Security Administration need 174,000 rounds? Or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 46,000 rounds? About one billion rounds will go to DHS.

The majority of the Administration’s purchases, including for DHS, are for copper-jacketed hollow point bullets. According to Major General Jerry Curry (USA (Retired), “Hollow point bullets are so lethal that the Geneva Convention does not allow their use on the battle field in time of war. Hollow point bullets don’t just stop or hurt people, they penetrate the body, spread out, fragment and cause maximum damage to the body’s organs. Death often follows.”

So, the Administration is stocking up on lethal ammunition to use in the US, that even the military doesn’t use in Afghanistan or Iraq? This type of ammunition is never used for training purposes, by the way, because training ammo is much cheaper.

In Naples, the Royal Palace has fractures in its façade and once-glorious fountains in the city’s squares are covered in graffiti. Pompeii is at risk of becoming a wasteland as its ruins disintegrate to dust due to lack of maintenance. In Emilia Romagna, important churches and clock towers damaged in a series of springtime earthquakes will never be repaired. There simply is no money left in Italy’s tightened budget to take care of the country’s cultural heritage.

Austerity measures to combat Italy’s stifling public debt and save the country from default has meant there is little money left over for anything but the bare necessities. But the bigger problem is that basic maintenance on many of the country’s cultural gems has been neglected for years. Recent budget cuts are just the last nail in the sarcophagus. In reality, the culture budget has been the first to be cut for the last several years.

A full third - €1.42 billion - has been slashed from the culture budget in the last three years, meaning vital maintenance on some of the country’s most important monuments was never carried out.