ACTA has – officially – been in the works since 2008, and was signed by the US, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea in 2011. All negotiations were held behind closed doors, and it is mostly thanks to Internet hacktivist groups like Anonymous that news of the potential damage ACTA could cause has spread.

Under this new treaty, Internet Service Providers will police all data passing through them, making them legally responsible for what their users do online. And should you do something considered "breach of copyright" like, for instance, getting a tattoo of a brand logo, taking a photo and posting it somewhere, you may be disconnected from the Internet, fined or even jailed.

This, of course, threatens the entire founding idea of the Internet – the free sharing of information. But ACTA doesn't stop there. It goes beyond the Internet, bearing down on generic drugs and food patents. If passed, ACTA will enforce a global standard for seed patenting, which would wipe out independent, local farmers and make the world completely dependent on the patent owners (read "big corporations") for supplies. The agreement states that it must be signed and ratified by 2013, but the seemingly late deadline is no cause for celebration. And if the secrecy surrounding this latest censor tool continues to hold, it may be put into effect without anyone noticing

The recent series of shocking accidents forced homeowners in one of the counties to watch as their houses and possessions burned to the ground. And the firefighters were right there watching, as well. All because the owners didn’t pay the US$75 “fire subscription fee”, known as the “pay for spray” charge.

In the US, fire policy varies from state to state, and from county to county. In South Fulton, Tennessee, the fire fee policy dates back 30 or so years. The county does not have a county-wide firefighting service, but South Fulton offers fire coverage to rural residents for a fee. Either you pay the city for fire protection, or face potential disaster. If you don’t pay, the firefighters do arrive, but only to stop the fire from spreading to the neighboring property, whose owner has paid the fire fee.

In a recent incident, the owners begged to make an exception, saying they were ready to pay whatever it took to put out the blaze. But they were told it was too late. A similarly shocking incident occurred in California, where police and firemen watched a man drown, saying they didn’t have proper certifications for water rescue, which would leave them open to possible lawsuits if they attempted to save him. So as the tragedy unfolded for over an hour, authorities just stood there and did nothing. Even after the surf brought Raymon Zach’s body closer to the shore, firefighters refused to get in the water and retrieve the corpse, so they waited until a passer-by volunteered to do the job.

And here lies a moral dilemma: rigid local rules versus the responsibility of the government to help its citizens when they are in trouble. Or rather, versus basic human compassion. The logic – you don’t get anything unless you pay – makes sense to a lot of Americans. But when you have money and rules on one side of the scale, and humanity, the human urge to help, on the other – and money wins – this is when one gets the sense that something is wrong with the way the system works.

“For now,” Socci writes, “he is saying that this may be true (Joseph Ratzinger’s personal assumption), but I hope the story does not reach the news. But this rumor is circulating high up in the Vatican and therefore deserves close attention. The Pope has not rejected the possibility of his resignation when he turns 85 in April next year.”

Socci recalls that the assumption he will resign, without any hitches, was the same thing Ratzinger talked about in an interview in the book “Luce del mondo” (Light of the World), when, in response to a question by interviewer Peter Seewald, he said: “When a Pope arrives at a clear awareness that he no longer has the physical, mental, or psychological capacity to carry out the task that has been entrusted to him, then he has the right, and in some cases, even the duty to resign.” Furthermore, in another passage, Benedict XVI wondered if he would be able to “withstand it all, just from the physical point of view.”

The 17 euro-zone countries have reached agreement on the contract for the permanent euro bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), clearing the way for the aid fund to be launched one year earlier than planned. Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the group of euro-zone finance ministers, announced the agreement following a Monday night meeting in Brussels. The ESM is now set to replace the temporary European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) on July 1, a year earlier than originally planned.

"I believe this is an important achievement," said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble after the meeting. "It demonstrates that the euro group and the European Union as a whole is capable of taking the necessary steps." Schäuble also said that agreement had been reached on the euro-zone fiscal pact, which would submit members of the common currency zone to stricter budgetary rules. "We aren't yet over the mountain," Schäuble said in reference to the ongoing euro-zone debt crisis. But he said there is "cause for optimism."

The ESM will be funded with €500 billion to help struggling euro-zone countries, with Germany providing the largest share - although Angela Merkel's recent refusal to consider upping that figure seems to be wavering under heavy pressure. Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti believes the ESM should be doubled to €1 trillion, while there have also been calls from French President Nicolas Sarkozy for Germany to put in more money. European Central Bank head Mario Draghi shares that view as does International Monetary Fund boss Christine Lagarde. "We need a larger firewall," Lagarde said at a Monday appearance in Berlin. "Without it, countries like Italy and Spain, that are fundamentally able to repay their debts, could potentially be forced into a solvency crisis by abnormal financing costs."

Euro-zone countries are required to provide a total of €80 billion (£66.8 billion) in cash capital to the new ESM, in the hopes that it will be more independent and more robust than its predecessor the EFSF, which was recently downgraded recently by US rating agency Standard & Poor's.

MK Tzipi Hotovely's (Likud) efforts in the Knesset Interior Committee paid off, demanding with Mk Aryeh Eldad (National Union) and MK Danny Danon (Likud) that the police allow the ascent. "The next step is to allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. That will demonstrate our possession of the Mount," she said.

New sanctions, announced last month by President Barack Obama and which the European Union announced Monday it would put into effect, have crippled the local currency and threaten to throw the economy into a tailspin. Western powers are hoping economic pressure can convince Iran to halt its unsupervised nuclear development and enrichment of high-grade uranium, a key ingredient for a nuclear weapon.

Iran last month responded to the plunge by prohibiting currency trading outside of banks and official exchange offices and banning the possession of foreign currencies. Simultaneously with the currency crisis, the price of gold has soared 25 percent in the last week. Iran continues to act as if nothing out of the ordinary is taking place. When the rial began its plunger earlier this month, officials said there was no connection with the sanctions, and officials reacted to the EU sanctions by saying they would only harm the West.

However, borrowing in December came in lower than expected, putting Chancellor George Osborne further ahead of a target set by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to bring borrowing down by 10 billion pounds to 127 billion pounds this financial year. The ONS said that public sector net borrowing, excluding financial interventions fell to 13.7 billion pounds in December, down from 15.9 billion pounds in the same period in 2010.

Sterling slipped slightly against the euro to 1.1918 following the news, after falling close to a four-week low on the back of better-than-expected eurozone PMI surveys. The pound also fell a quarter of a cent against the dollar, to 1.5534. Vicky Redwood, senior economist at Capital Economics, said that the 1 trillion pounds figure was "a reminder of the enormity of the challenge that still lies ahead to get the public finances back on a sustainable footing."

She added: "We expect weaker growth than the OBR is forecasting to make its future borrowing forecasts much harder to meet. Indeed, so far, it has been weaker spending growth helping borrowing to fall, whereas tax receipts are falling short of the fiscal forecasts."

Tehran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation. Tankers carrying 17 million barrels of oil pass through this waterway every day, accounting for 35 per cent of the world's seaborne crude shipments. At its narrowest point, located between Iran and Oman, the Strait is only 21 miles wide. Last month, Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, commander of the Iranian navy, claimed that closing the Strait would be "easy," adding: "As Iranians say, it will be easier than drinking a glass of water."

But USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered carrier capable of embarking 90 aircraft, passed through this channel and entered the Gulf without incident yesterday. HMS Argyll, a Type 23 frigate from the Royal Navy, was one of the escort vessels making up the carrier battle-group. A guided missile cruiser and two destroyers from the US Navy completed the flotilla, along with one warship from the French navy.

All three countries retain a permanent military presence in the Gulf, but a joint passage through the Strait of Hormuz by all of their respective navies is highly unusual. The flotilla will have passed within a few miles of the Iranian coastline. A western official denied this was a provocative move intended to increase the pressure on Iran. The goal was simply to "illustrate international resolve" to guarantee free movement of shipping through a vital artery of the world economy, he said.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman confirmed that "HMS Argyll and a French vessel joined a US carrier group transiting through the Strait of Hormuz to underline the unwavering international commitment to maintaining rights of passage under international law."

Foreign ministers' deal in Brussels could lead to soaring fuel prices and Iran closing the strait of Hormuz

The EU decided no further oil contracts could be struck between the member states and Iran while existing oil delivery deals would be allowed to run until July. Several countries shared reservations about the move, EU diplomats said. Greece was the trickiest problem since it imports a lot of Iranian oil on very favourable conditions. Given the financial collapse in Greece, it was in a difficult position and sought compensating measures from the rest of the EU. The impact of the embargo on countries such as Greece is to be reviewed in May.

Iran is Opec's second biggest oil producer after Saudi Arabia, and about 20% of its oil exports go to Europe. It has threatened to close the strait of Hormuz waterway if the oil embargo goes ahead, a move that would choke off global oil supplies and send international tensions soaring. The oil embargo represents a leap in the sanctions regime against Iran, following four earlier rounds of escalating penalties. Senior EU officials also concede that the move could be risky and send oil prices rocketing at a time of extreme economic difficulty in the west. "We need to ensure this does not destabilise the entire global oil market," said a senior EU official.

Mohammad Kossari, deputy head of parliament's foreign affairs and national security committee, issued the warning in respone to a decision by the European Union on Monday to impose an oil embargo on Iran over the country's alleged nuclear weapons program. "The pressure of sanctions is designed to try and make sure that Iran takes seriously our request to come to the table," EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said. However, with Washington's decision to deploy a second carrier strike group in the Gulf, the EU's attempt to pressure Iran economically could greatly increase the likelihood of all-out war in the region.

The Strait of Hormuz is the vital link between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. It is also one of the most strategic chokepoints in the world when it comes to oil transit. If economic sanctions sufficiently pressure Iran to retaliate by closing down the Strait, nearly 20 per cent of worldwide oil trade would be impacted, resulting in a massive spike in global energy costs. With over half a million regular forces and an additional 120,000 personnel in the country's elite Revolutionary Guard, analysts believe the consequences of a US-led war against Iran would dwarf recent Western-backed military incursions the Middle East.

Thus far, the US decision to maintain two carrier strike groups in the region has been described as "a routine activity" by Iran. But the vast US military buildup in the region, which was bolstered when the Pentagon dispatched an additional 15,000 troops to the neighboring nation of Kuwait, was only the latest step in an obvious attempt by Washington to strengthen its military capabilities in the region. However, the EU strategy of averting "chaos in the Middle East" by tightening the economic noose around Iran could spark the very conflagration it was ostensibly trying to avert.

Oil is priced in US dollars, and bypassing the greenback posed challenges for both parties. Two banks are reportedly involved in this deal: India's state owned UCO Bank and Turkey's state owned Halkbank. Both banks don't have any business with the US and therefore are less vulnerable to sanctions. According to the report, an Indian delegation has spent time in Tehran and finalized the details of the transactions.

The annual capacity of trade between these two countries is 12 billion dollars. With gold trading at around $1668, that is around 7.2 million ounces of gold. The step joins Russia and Iran's announcement to begin trading in their own domestic currencies rather than use the US dollar - a reserve currency. These details about the gold for oil deal come on the day that EU officials announce an oil embargo on Iran starting on July 1st. Tensions between Iran and the West are mounting and oil is already on the up.

The use of gold for buying the number 1 commodity, will likely have positive implications for the precious metal, if this report is confirmed and especially if the use of gold widens to China - the world's number 2 economy.

He's not even doing the one thing that you would expect from a man who knows a crippled currency when he sees one: shorting the euro, and perhaps even the US dollar, to hell. Quite the reverse. He backs the beleaguered euro, publicly urging European leaders to do whatever it takes to ensure its survival. "The euro must survive because the alternative - a breakup - would cause a meltdown that Europe, the world, can't afford."

He has bought about $2 billion in European bonds, mainly Italian, from MF Global Holdings Ltd., the securities firm run by former Goldman Sachs head Jon Corzine that filed for bankruptcy protection last October. Has the great short seller gone soft? Well, yes. Sitting in his 33rd-floor corner office high above Seventh Avenue in New York, preparing for his trip to Davos, he is more concerned with surviving than staying rich. "At times like these, survival is the most important thing," he says, peering through his owlish glasses and brushing wisps of gray hair off his forehead.

He doesn't just mean it's time to protect your assets. He means it's time to stave off disaster. As he sees it, the world faces one of the most dangerous periods of modern history - a period of "evil." Europe is confronting a descent into chaos and conflict. In America he predicts riots on the streets that will lead to a brutal clampdown that will dramatically curtail civil liberties. The global economic system could even collapse altogether.

"This would have disastrous implications for systemic stability," she said. Ms Lagarde said that the eurozone authorities needed "a clear and credible timetable" to fold the existing European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) into the new European Stability Mechanism (ESM), increase its size and ensure support from the European Central Bank. Her speech directly addresses one of the most central issues in the eurozone sovereign debt crisis - the size and scope of official bail-out funds designed to stop instability spreading.

The ESM, whose launch leaders are trying to bring forward to July, is planned at around 500 billion euros. That is unlikely to be large enough to finance big bail-out programmes for Italy and Spain, should they be required. A draft of the EU treaty setting up the ESM and seen by the FT sets the ceiling for the bail-out system at 500 billion euros, but gives members of the fund's board the right to raise the amount.

However, in a television interview on Sunday evening, Wolfgang Schauble, German finance minister, said that increasing the size of the fund was not under discussion at the moment. Although the IMF has not explicitly stated a target size for the eurozone bail-out fund, a paper presented last week to the fund's executive board implied that the eurozone would need to find an extra $500 billion on top of existing resources. The paper said there was likely to be an additional global demand for bail-out funds of around $1 trillion over the next two years, of which it said the IMF itself should aim to raise enough cash to meet half.

The solar flare spewed from sunspot 1402, a region of the sun that has become increasingly active lately. Several NASA satellites, including the Solar Dynamics Observatory, the Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), and the Stereo spacecraft observed the massive sun storm. A barrage of charged particles triggered by this morning's solar flare is expected to hit Earth tomorrow at around 9 am EST (1400 GMT), according to experts at the Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

According to NOAA, this is the strongest solar radiation storm since May 2005, and as a precaution, polar flights on Earth are expected to be re-routed within the next few hours, Kathy Sullivan, deputy administrator of NOAA, said today at the 92nd annual American Meteorological Society meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. Scientists call these electromagnetic bursts "coronal mass ejections" (CMEs), and they are closely studied because they can produce potentially harmful geomagnetic storms when the charged particles rain down on Earth's magnetic field lines.

In addition to generating stronger than normal displays of Earth's auroras (also known as the northern and southern lights), geomagnetic storms aimed directly at our planet can also disrupt satellites in orbit, cause widespread communications interference and damage other electronic infrastructures. "There is little doubt that the cloud is heading in the general direction of Earth," Spaceweather.com announced in an alert. "A preliminary inspection of SOHO/STEREO imagery suggests that the CME will deliver a strong glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on January 24-25 as it sails mostly north of our planet."

Sunday's solar flare was rated an M9-class eruption, which placed it just on the verge of being an X-class flare, the most powerful type of solar storm. M-class sun storms are powerful but mid-range, while C-class flares are weaker.

OxOmar has mocked allegations that he lives in Mexico and said no one ever can find out his location. OxOmar hacked an Israeli credit card website earlier this month, exposing thousands of details of their accounts. Israeli banks denied his claim that he hacked 400,000 credit card accounts. He was quoted in the Abu Dhabi-based Alittihad daily and other regional newspapers on Sunday as threatening to reveal secret information that Israeli espionage agents obtained.

"I can publish any information about Israel, but I am just waiting for the right time and place," he declared. "The end of Israel is very close... I will use all my powers and those of my supporters to achieve that. We had hacked some websites in the past but from now on, I, OxOmar, decided to hack only Israeli sites to harm it and make it suffer," he added. "I live in Riyadh and I am fighting for the children of Palestine... I want to tell these children to resist and that victory is very close."