Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority has allegedly pulled out of talks because of possible public opposition to the meeting. Instead, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to meet with two lower-level Palestinian officials, chief negotiator Saeb Erekat and a top security official, Majed Faraj, so the lack of any tangible result was predictable. The brief summation of the results of the meeting said traditional words of “seeking peace”.

“Israel and the Palestinian Authority are committed to reaching peace,” the statement read. The Palestinian side submitted a letter with a list of demands they consider necessary for the resumption of talks. The Associated Press obtained the text of the letter which says that Israel must freeze all settlement construction and accept its pre-1967 war boundaries as a precondition for talks. Israel has repeatedly stressed that it will only go to the negotiation table if there are no preconditions.

But the next series of major cities and counties in danger of defaulting on their debt can hardly point to one single decision for their malaise. Whether it be Detroit, Miami or Providence, Rhode Island, their problems have a lot more to do with financial policies that put them on course to live well beyond their means. Municipal defaults have shot up since 2007 and are on pace for another high year in 2012, according to Richard Lehmann, publisher of the Distressed Securities Newsletter.

Many failures will be due to local politicians' willingness to give unionized local government workers lucrative pensions and health care benefits when times were good. For others, the housing bust was enough to destroy their real estate tax base. They almost all share the failure to prepare for a rainy day. Now, belt tightening by state and federal governments is adding to the pain - as contributions to governments at city and county levels get squeezed. Many of the places in the worst condition are in the Northeast, Midwest, California and Florida.

The new tide of defaults may worry some investors in the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market who have so far shrugged off the fiscal crises of local governments and yield cuts in local government services. "This is a lagging process," said Richard Ciccarone, managing director at McDonnell Investment Management. "Capitulation may not come for years. In the crash of 1929, the defaults did not come until 1934 or 1935."

The average number of earthquakes of magnitude 3 or greater in the US midcontinent - an area that includes Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas - increased to six times the 20th century average last year, scientists at the US Geological Survey said in an abstract of their research.

The abstract does not explicitly link rising earthquake activity to fracking - known formally as hydraulic fracturing - that involves pumping water and chemicals into underground rock formations to extract natural gas and oil. But the wastewater generated by fracking and other extraction processes may play a role in causing geologic faults to slip, causing earthquakes, the report suggests.

"A remarkable increase in the rate of (magnitude 3) and greater earthquakes is currently in progress," the authors wrote in a brief work summary to be discussed Wednesday at a San Diego meeting of the Seismological Society of America. From 1970 through 2000, the rate of magnitude 3 or greater quakes was 21 plus or minus 7.6 each year, according to USGS figures. Between 2001 and 2008, that increased to 29 plus or minus 3.5. But the next three years saw the numbers increase "much more spectacularly," said Arthur McGarr, of the geologic survey's Earthquake Science Center in California: 2009 had 50, 2010 had 87 and 2011 had 134 such events.

In addressing whites, Farrakhan issued his typically-offensive rhetoric. “They know you, but you don’t know them or yourself, so you’re always at a disadvantage when you sit down with white people to negotiate,” he told his predominately black audience. “We don’t ever come in their presence like we are some little weak things.”

He continued, going on to address Caucasians directly.“I know myself. I know you. And some of you white people – I know you better than you know yourself because God has revealed you fully,” he explained, going on to seemingly claim that he has a special, God-ordained ability to see what others cannot.

This, of course, was followed up with a cryptic warning to white Americans about their need to “change.” “It ain’t about hating you. We ain’t got no time for that. But we know who we’re dealing with. We know what we’re dealing with,” he said. “We know your origin in the world and we know how long you were set to live and unless you change, your end has come.”

It spewed red-hot fragments and lightly dusted cars and streets in some small towns in the state of Puebla, television images showed. Popocatepetl, which lies some 50 miles to the southeast of Mexico City, pumped out a cloud of hot air and particles in an emission lasting about 20 minutes on Tuesday. "It sounded like a loud cauldron releasing steam," said Reuters cameraman Roberto Ramirez.

Schools in at least five small towns near the volcano called off classes after Mexico's National Center for Disaster Prevention raised the alert level for the 5,450-meter (17,900-foot) Popocatepetl late on Monday. Carlos Gutierrez, head of operations at the center, told Reuters that the current alert could remain for several weeks or months until the activity decreases.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has repeatedly said Spain doesn't need or want an international bailout, and the European Union, which along with the IMF has already rescued Greece, Ireland and Portugal, also dismisses such talk. But economists believe that Spanish banks will have to turn to the euro zone's rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), for help in covering losses caused by a property market crash which has yet to end.

Likewise, investors are fretting about how Rajoy's centre-right government can enforce deep austerity while reviving a recession-bound economy at the same time. "They're going to need EFSF money to recapitalize the banking sector," said Carsten Brzeski, a senior economist at ING in Brussels. "I think we'll only see a real end to the Spanish misery if the real estate market stabilizes."

Madrid is likely to hold out for some time. "The underlying picture in Spain is dramatic, but is it dramatic in the way that it needs a bailout package tomorrow? No," Brzeski said. "But if you look ahead, let's say the next six months, I would not be surprised if they (the banks) have to get some kind of European support."

The IMF also warned that the eurozone would slide into another recession with output declining 0.3% as the sovereign debt crisis, a general loss of confidence and tough austerity measures across the region have an impact. The report comes amid resurgent fears over the health of the single currency bloc, with Spain in focus as the country's borrowing costs soar against a backdrop of high unemployment and swelling private debt.

While the IMF upgraded its global growth forecast from 3.25% to 3.5%, it warned the recovery would be "weak" and urged policymakers to continue implementing "fundamental changes" needed to achieve healthier growth. The UK will outperform Germany and France in 2012, which are expected to grow by 0.6% and 0.5% respectively, while Italy and Spain will drag the eurozone into recession with declines of 1.9% and 1.8% respectively.

Greece remains the biggest drag on the troubled region, with a 4.7% decline forecast for 2012, although this would be an improvement on the 6.9% drop in 2011. In a boost to Chancellor George Osborne, the IMF said "strong" fiscal tightening in advanced economies had made good progress. A Downing Street spokeswoman said: "The IMF report does show that their growth forecasts are in line with the Office for Budget Responsibility." Asked about the IMF's comments on the eurozone, the spokeswoman said: "The eurozone still needs to get its house in order."

The massive undertaking also includes control over key inland waterways and rivers that reach hundreds of miles upstream, and began with little fanfare when Obama signed an executive order in 2010 to protect the aquatic environment. “This one to me could be the sleeping power grab that Americans will wake up to one day and wonder what the heck hit them,” said Representative Bill Flores (Republican for Texas).

“This is pure administrative fiat,” said Senator David Vitter (Republican for Louisiana). “It’s very troubling.”

“This is purely a unilateral administrative action with no real congressional input or oversight,” Vitter said. “I think it clearly threatens to have a big impact on a lot of industry, starting with energy, oil and gas, and fishing.” But in his zeal to curb sea sprawl, lawmakers say the president’s executive order also gives Washington officialdom unprecedented reach to control land use as well. The order says they shall develop a scheme for oversight of oceans and all the sources thereof,” Flores said. “So you could have a snowflake land on Pikes Peak and ultimately it’s going to wind up in the water, so as a result they could regulate on every square inch of US soil.”

The effects of Obama’s far-reaching policy would be felt by numerous industries including wind farms and other renewable energy undertakings, ports, shipping vessels, and other marine commerce, and upstream it would also affect mining, timber, even farming. It will impact consumers directly through rules addressing recreational uses such as fishing and boating, and restricting the multiple use development of the ocean’s resources would also increase the cost of fuel and food, lawmakers say.

That's a record number since the Internal Revenue Service began publishing a list of those who renounced in 1998. It's also almost eight times more than the number of citizens who renounced in 2008, and more than the total for 2007, 2008 and 2009 combined. But not everyone's motivations are as lofty as Superman's. Many say they parted ways with America for tax reasons.

The United States is one of the only countries to tax its citizens on income earned while they're living abroad. And just as Americans stateside must file tax returns each April - this year, the deadline is Tuesday - an estimated 6.3 million US citizens living abroad brace for what they describe as an even tougher process of reporting their income and foreign accounts to the IRS. For them, the deadline is June.

On April 7, 2011, Peter Dunn raised his right hand before a US consular officer in Toronto and swore that he understood the consequences of giving up his US citizenship. Dunn, a dual US-Canadian citizen who has lived outside the United States since 1986, says he renounced because he felt American citizenship had become more of a liability than a privilege.

As an American, Dunn had to file tax returns and report all of his bank accounts - even joint accounts and his Canadian retirement fund. If he didn't, he would be breaking US law and could face penalties of up to $100,000 or 50 percent of his undeclared accounts, whichever is larger. Dunn says he was tired of tracking IRS policy changes, and he had no intention of returning to the United States. Renouncing his citizenship, as he puts it, was "a no-brainer."

The current occupant of the White House will likely go down in history as the most corrupt president in history, and that is really saying something. Almost every single day he adds something new to his list of corrupt deeds. He is a con man that deserves to be impeached for a whole host of reasons, but that will never happen because we have a Congress that is also deeply corrupt. But it is not just our politicians that are corrupt. Even the men that are supposed to be in charge of protecting the president are corrupt. A whole bunch of them were recently discovered sleeping with prostitutes in Colombia.

We also find very deep and very pervasive corruption in our financial institutions, in our judicial system, in our police departments and in our religious institutions. It is almost as if nearly the entire nation is saturated with filth and depravity. It is becoming harder and harder to find men and women of integrity, and our young people have very few positive role models to look up to. How long is our society going to be able to continue to function normally if all of this corruption gets even worse?

In 2010, the Michigan DNR outlawed feral swine — pigs classified as non-native, invasive, and said to be carriers of disease and overall harmful to the environment. Though groups fought adamantly to overturn the ban, it went into effect April 1. The new ISO now defines all open-range pigs raised on small family farms as illegal “invasive species,” and all farmers who raise them as felons. The MDNR declared that it would “destroy” all such pigs beginning in April, even indicating they would raid local farms with government-issued rifles.

The Farm to Consumer Defense Fund said: For more than a decade, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has worked politically to drive private hunting preserves out of business. However, the Michigan state legislature repeatedly rebuffed their attempts. Elected officials recognize how important private property rights are, and they were unwilling to prohibit landowners to raise and harvest animals in open areas. Now, backed by large Agribusiness interests in the state, DNR has done an end run around participatory democracy and declared swine with certain characteristics “feral” which not only includes animals raised at hunting preserves but thousands of other small farms across the state.

The intimidating thuggery, harassment, and destruction of private property practiced by MDNR agents has compelled Natural News editor Mike Adams to issue a call to arms: I am hereby calling for the armed citizens' arrest of DNR officials who must be brought to justice for their crimes against Michigan farmers. Every agent of the DNR that participated in these raids must be brought to justice to answer for their crimes. If the use of force is necessary to make a lawful and legal arrest of these criminal Michigan government agents, then such use of force is fully authorized under the United States Constitution as well as the Constitution of the State of Michigan. In Texas, the state Constitution even says that farmers have the right to use lethal force to prevent someone from committing a felony crime against their property. This includes shooting horse thieves, for example, and being in the right to do so.

As the uprising in Syria drags on, there are signs that some Alawites are beginning to move away from the regime. But most continue to fight for Assad - largely out of fear that the Sunni community will seek revenge for past and present atrocities not only against him but also against Alawites as a group. This sense of vulnerability feeding Alawite loyalty is rooted in the sect’s history.

The Alawites split from Shia Islam in ninth-century Iraq over their belief in the divinity of the fourth Islamic caliph, Ali bin Abi Talib, a position branded as heresy by the Sunnis and extremist by most Shias. The community began as a small collection of believers, and over the following centuries it suffered almost constant discrimination and several massacres at the hands of Sunni Muslims. In 1305, for example, following a clerical fatwa, Sunni Mamluks wiped out the Alawite community of the Kisrawan (modern Lebanon). As late as the mid-nineteenth century, in retaliation for the rebellion of an Alawite sheikh, the Ottomans ruthlessly persecuted the Alawites, burning villages and farms across what little territory they held.

Despite this long-standing persecution, the Alawites fought to integrate into modern Syria. In 1936, as the French mandate waned, Alawite religious leaders convinced their anxious followers to incorporate themselves into the new, overwhelmingly Sunni, Syrian state. Over the next several decades, Alawites moved away from the mountains to pursue educational and employment opportunities in the cities. Between 1943 and 1957, Alawite migration tripled the population of Hama, and between 1957 and 1979 it quadrupled the size of Latakia.

Many Alawites also joined the military. Since Ottoman times, Sunni Arabs had largely spurned army careers, but Alawites welcomed the opportunity for stable income. By 1963, they made up 65 percent of noncommissioned officers in the Syrian army. The rise of Alawites in Syrian society throughout the 1960s was assisted by political infighting among the Sunnis and the Baath Party coup of 1963, which united working-class Alawites and Sunnis under one banner.

The Alawites have consolidated their control of the country. According to the Syria scholar Radwan Ziadeh, they comprise the vast majority of Syria’s roughly 700,000 security and intelligence personnel and military officer core. In fact, they constitute so much of the country’s security apparatus that Syrians are said to often put on an Alawite accent when apprehended by intelligence officers in the hope of receiving better treatment.

The Supporting Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas Resources Executive Order seeks to create what amounts to a Presidential super committee that will oversee the regulation and development of the ‘unconventional’ natural gas industry for the purpose of ensuring a long-term natural gas supply for the United States, as well as to do so in a safe and environmentally responsible manner...

Now that the President has given the go ahead, there’s nothing holding the government back. The fracking industry stands to be impacted almost immediately, with federal agencies prepared to tear into operations nationwide in short order...

According to opponents of the legislation, by Presidential decree the federal government can now coordinate action through thirteen core federal agencies against any domestic natural gas production facility and according to standards determined to be appropriate not by law, but because of political agenda.

The target of the legislation is what many believe is the unrestricted and out-of-control drilling practices of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process which blasts water, sand and chemicals underground to stimulate the release of natural gas. Fracking has led to health concerns from environmentalists and others for its potential to pollute the air and contaminate drinking water. Some theories also suggest that fracturing may raise the likelihood of earthquakes in areas like the central United States, an argument that many scientists agree is plausible.

In November, US President Barack Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced plans to expand the US military presence in Australia. The two leaders had agreed to increase bilateral military cooperation and training in this way. Despite the fact that the US’s final military presence in the country is to grow into a 2,500-person Marine Air Ground Task Force, Australia’s defense minister Stephen Smith insisted Wednesday morning that the marines and their entourage cannot be qualified as a military base.

''We don't have United States military bases in Australia and we're not proposing to,'' he told ABC radio from Darwin, where he greeted the marines together with the US Ambassador to Australia, Jeffrey Bleich. The first group of marines is scheduled to conduct joint military exercises with the Australian Defence Force as well as traveling to some neighboring nations for the same purpose. The US contingent in Australia is expected to be a rotational force. Its different units will be moving through for short periods of time and will not be based in Australia permanently.

Chinese officials have already questioned whether the US’s new military alliances in the region are aimed at encircling China in order to prevent it from becoming a global power. Barack Obama dismissed these fears when announcing the deployment. Back then, he stressed that it was not an attempt to isolate China, adding that Washington welcomes "a rising, peaceful China." However, Stephen Smith did mention the rise of China and India in his speech, saying that the world needs to “come to grips” with this fact and respond adequately. He also added that having the US marines in Australia would enhance such efforts.

4,500 US troops are participating in an annual military exercise in the Philippines, just a week after a diplomatic incident that provoked a standoff between Chinese and Filipino warships. Simultaneously, thousands of Taiwanese troops are repelling a simulated Chinese attack on the island, whose independence its bigger neighbor refuses to recognize.

At first glance, China is entangled in regional disputes that have little consequence for the rest of the world. The South China Sea is potentially rich in oil, and already provides valuable shipping lanes and fishing stocks. China says it is entitled to treat the sea almost in its entirety as its own on the basis of a sixty-year-old claim, and in apparent violation of standard international maritime treaties. The Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei have counter-claims.

Last week a Filipino warship attempted to arrest two Chinese fishing boats operating in what it says is its segment of the sea. But two Chinese surveillance ships arrived and began to shield the fishing boats, preventing the arrests. Heated rhetoric followed from both Manila and Beijing. But this is essentially a commercial dispute, only slightly spiced up by nationalistic grandstanding.

Taiwan and Tibet’s sovereignty disputes are long-festering sores. But despite China’s insistence on reintegration, and the territories' drives for full independence, no sides are likely to take active steps to upset the status quo.