The demonstrators had attempted to take over vacant buildings to use as their headquarters, they also broke into City Hall and tried to occupy a YMCA. Police spokesman Jeff Thomason told media most of the arrests came around 8 pm local time. Police took many protesters into custody as they marched through the city's downtown area, with some entering a YMCA building.

Officials say, at one point protesters began tearing down perimeter fences around the Henry J Kaiser Convention Center, as some attacked police officers, throwing rocks, bottles and other objects. Police declared an unlawful assembly and used force, according to the Oakland Tribune newspaper. While police were taking people into custody near the YMCA, about 100 officers surrounded City Hall, while others swept the inside of the building for protesters who had broken in. Inside the building, protesters burned flags, broke into an electrical box and damaged several art structures, according to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan.

Up and down West Coast, protesters have begun a massive blockade on the Pacific Ocean ports as part of a day of action under the umbrella of the Occupy Wall Street movement. In cities such as Oakland, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Seattle and Anchorage, demonstrators awoke early Monday morning to storm shipping facilities in America’s ports, in what organizers say is an attempt to “disrupt the economic machine that benefits the wealthiest individuals and corporations."

The ongoing anti-greed Occupy protests have seen too many instances of police using brutal tactics against demonstrators. Some says the US is militarizing its police force and squashing the very freedoms it is so keen to preach internationally. In recent months, US police officers have made an enemy out of those citizens using their freedom of speech to protest against corporate greed and corrupt politics, reports RT’s Marina Portnaya.

Today’s breed of law enforcers are dressed in riot gear and armed with heavy weaponry, body armor, flash bangs, tear gas, and potentially lethal projectiles. As tens of thousands of Americans assemble, cops have been accused of creating confrontation, not defusing it. Some veterans of the force can’t help but resent the situation. “It’s a travesty of democracy, the way the police are totally suppressing the people’s right to assemble and to protest. I joined the force to protect people’s rights to assemble and protest, not to squash them,” said Ray Lewis, retired Philadelphia police captain.

He told the prime minister that he will face a rebellion if he pushes ahead with plans to allow fully-fledged gay marriages. Marriage is set in history and the government cannot change it overnight, the second most senior cleric in the Church of England added. The Archbishop believes marriage must remain a union between a man and a woman.

Dr Sentamu said: ‘I don’t think it is the role of the state to define what marriage is. It is set in tradition and history and you can’t just change it overnight, no matter how powerful you are. We’ve seen dictators do it in different contexts and I don’t want to redefine very clear social structures that have been in existence for a long time and then overnight the state believes it could go in a particular way.’

The Government will open a consultation on its marriage reform bill in March, but the Church of England has already warned that same-sex couples will be able to have church weddings if David Cameron goes ahead with the plans. The Church’s lawyers last month said that weddings will have to be offered to same-sex couples under any scheme to open the full privileges and title of marriage to gays and lesbians.

The “Austere Challenge 12” drill, which is designed to improve defense systems and cooperation between the US and Israeli forces, was postponed on January 15 for what Israel said was “technical” reasons.

Ma’ariv reported that the postponement was initiated by Israel and was agreed upon by the Americans. After the drill was postponed, the report said, security officials denied that the postponement was linked to economic reasons and suggested that “at this time of year we should not attract attention and prepare for complex challenges” which lay ahead.

Ma’ariv also noted that in preparation for the drill, US military officers will arrive in Israel next week. About 3,000 US soldiers are expected to arrive in Israel to take part in the large-scale exercise, the report said, and they will be joined by about 2,000 IDF soldiers.

“The eurozone is a slow-motion train wreck,” Mr Roubini said. “Countries – and not just Greece – are insolvent. I think Greece will leave the eurozone in the next 12 months, and Portugal after.” The New York University professor of economics was speaking at one of the final sessions of the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos.

“There is a 50 per cent chance that the eurozone will break up in the next three to five years. This doesn’t look like a G20 world it looks like a G-Zero world because there is no agreement on global imbalances, how to change the international monetary system, international trade, banking regulation, on all the fundamental issues.”

The economist also warned that if the US and Iran went to war, oil prices would spike 50 per cent and there’ll be a global recession. “In the UK there is recession, even the US is not doing great, in India there’s a slowdown and they’re worried about that. In China, exports, infrastructure investment, real estate is slowing down, so there’ll be a significant slowdown in China this year,” he concluded.

The move will mean Greece losing control over its own budget, after Germany and the International Monetary Fund laid down increasingly harsh conditions for the indebted nation to receive its second £100 billion eurozone bail-out. With the country on the brink of default, Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the IMF, yesterday revealed that a “fiscal compact” was set to be signed by European Union leaders at their summit tomorrow.

The move to closer integration between the eurozone economies comes just days before Tory Euro-sceptics launch a campaign to repatriate powers over policing and justice already handed to the European Union. Conservative MPs will put pressure on the Prime Minister to harness a “block opt-out” that will allow Britain simultaneously to withdraw from European Arrest Warrants, compulsory sharing of data with other police forces, and more than 100 other laws handed to Brussels.

They will be angered by the EU’s new powers over eurozone countries, which will see institutions paid for by all of Europe’s taxpayers concentrating more of their staff and resources on members within the zone. Euro-sceptics also strongly oppose harmonisation of taxes. But global leaders see closer integration of the eurozone economies as the only answer to the ongoing debt crisis.

Mrs Lagarde, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said: “In addition to having a monetary zone, the eurozone needs to develop this fiscal consolidation compact that is currently under work and that we hope will be validated on Monday at the leaders' summit.”

The 30,000-pound "bunker-buster" bomb, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, was specifically designed to take out the hardened fortifications built by Iran and North Korea to cloak their nuclear programs. But initial tests indicated that the bomb, as currently configured, wouldn't be capable of destroying some of Iran's facilities, either because of their depth or because Tehran has added new fortifications to protect them.

Doubts about the MOP's effectiveness prompted the Pentagon this month to secretly submit a request to Congress for funding to enhance the bomb's ability to penetrate deeper into rock, concrete and steel before exploding, the officials said. The push to boost the power of the MOP is part of stepped-up contingency planning for a possible strike against Iran's nuclear program, say US officials.

The Defense Department has spent about $330 million so far to develop about 20 of the bombs, which are built by Boeing Co. The Pentagon is seeking about $82 million more to make the bomb more effective, according to government officials briefed on the plan. Some experts question if any kind of conventional explosives are capable of reaching facilities such as those built deep underground in Iran. But US defense officials say they believe the MOP could already do damage sufficient to set back the program.

US Trade Representative Ron Kirk told Reuters that the team, announced by Obama last week, will include intelligence officials as well as representatives of other agencies in order to beef up US resources and crack open markets. "We want to make sure we aren't resource-constrained. Other countries know our budget and our resources... and so they'll game the system because they know that we're very discriminating on which cases we make," Kirk said in an interview.

"We don't want them to make... that bet that we don't have the resources to come after them if they're intentionally and unfairly discriminating against American exporters," Kirk said, speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

He did not identify countries that could attract the attention of the unit, but Obama is under pressure to show business and voters he is taking a tough stance against China. Republican presidential candidates have slammed Obama's handling of Beijing ahead of November's elections. The US trade deficit with China is expected to have hit a record of about $300 billion in 2011.

Greek Education Minister Anna Diamantopoulou called the German plan "the product of a sick imagination". The European Commission said the budget "must remain the full responsibility of the Greek government". A German official told the Associated Press eurozone finance ministers were discussing the plan.

Stephen Evans BBC News, Berlin, comments: "The leaked document is a draft and the European Commission has already voiced its unease. But it clearly reveals the direction of German thinking: much tighter control of Greek policy-making. To control big economic decisions is to control much else.

But questions arise: what if a decision by a democratically elected government in Athens were vetoed by an unelected budget commissioner in Brussels, perhaps seen as the voice of Berlin? How might a decision be enforced?

The German government believes the nub of the Greek situation is that the government in Athens has over-spent, so must cut its spending. But politics may be less black and white. Democratic legitimacy plus the feeling of ordinary people are also factors - in a potent political mixture."

The European Commission says it wants to reinforce its monitoring of Greek finances, but Greece should retain sovereign control. Meanwhile, Greece and its private investors are close to a deal which will pave the way for a second bailout. Negotiators say a tentative agreement could be finalised next week.

Greece must reach agreement in the next few days in order to receive the next tranche of funds from its first bailout. It needs the money to pay off a significant number of bondholders whose bonds mature in March. Without the bailout funds, Greece could be forced into an uncontrolled default from the euro.

Mark Lowen BBC News, Athens, comments: "In reality, Greece's finances are already to a large extent controlled by foreign forces. The debt-stricken country has received enormous bailouts from the EU and IMF conditional on deep cuts and fiscal reforms drawn up largely by officials in Brussels. This new German proposal is clearly prompted by the widespread concerns that Greece is not succeeding in bringing its budget into order. Reforms have been slow and the budget deficit remains above target.

But ceding more control to Brussels would be deeply unpopular here. Most Greeks are against the austerity programme demanded by the EU and IMF. And much popular anger is directed at Germany as Europe's paymaster general. The fact that Berlin has raised this latest plan won't soften sentiments here."

Reviving Western concerns that his government is still contemplating unilateral military action against Iran, Ehud Barak gave one of the clearest signs yet that Israel's support for new US and EU sanctions remains strictly limited.

"We are determined to prevent Iran from turning nuclear," he told the World Economic Forum in Davos. "And even the American president and opinion leaders have said that no option should be removed from the table. "It seems to us to be urgent, because the Iranians are deliberately drifting into what we call an immunity zone where practically no surgical operation could block them."

Although Israeli intelligence and military officials have privately spoken of Iran's nuclear programme entering a "framework of immunity", it is the first time that a senior figure in Benjamin Netanyahu's government has done so in public. Israel's fears that it might soon be too late to launch military action were bolstered earlier this month when Iran announced that it had begun to enrich uranium at its Fordow plant, which is buried so deep within a mountain it may be impossible for Israeli warplanes or missiles to destroy.

“The United States says it will not allow Iran to be nuclear, but it is so blind that it hasn’t noticed that Iran has already become a nuclear state,” Khatami was quoted by Channel 10 News as having said. He added that the US has become isolated in the region, after its four “slaves” were removed from power. He was referring to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, former Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi, former Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Khatami also addressed the EU’s embargo on Iranian oil imports, which was announced this week, and said that the Europeans decided to wait with the implementation of the sanctions until July because their economic situation is no better than Iran’s. “Why did the Europeans decide to wait half a year before implementing the sanctions? The answer is simple - the Europeans have their own serious trouble - they were hit by the financial crisis,” he said.

Khatami added the embargo will hurt Europe more than it will hurt Iran, because Saudi Arabia will not be able to provide the required amount of oil to Europe, while the sanctions will only hurt 18 percent of Iran’s oil exports.

"What if an Argentinian force was able to secure the Mount Pleasant airfield? Then our ability to recover the islands now would be just about impossible," says General Jackson, who was Chief of the General Staff until five years ago and led the army into Iraq. "We are not in a position to take air power by sea since the demise of the Harrier force."

Britain no longer has an aircraft carrier and the Harrier fleet which performed with such distinction during the Falklands War has been sold to the US Marine Corps. "Let us hope we do not live to regret that decision," says General Jackson, responding to what he calls "disagreeable noises coming from Buenos Aires" as the 30th anniversary of the war approaches.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has restated Argentina's claims to sovereignty over the islands it calls the Malvinas, saying, "We are going to get them back." General Jackson believes they could still fall to a surprise attack.

Defence sources have confirmed that if violence were to return to British cities, especially during the Olympic Games, the Paras would be "ideally placed" to provide "short-term" support to police forces around the UK. Such a request would have to be made by the Home Office and would have to have Prime Ministerial approval, according to the source.

During the exercises at the Lydd training base in Kent, the elite troops were pelted with petrol bombs and missiles and "fought" running battles with gangs of protesters as part of the battalion's "public order training". The battalion is the lead unit in the Airborne Task Force - the Army's premier rapid response unit and can be called on to deal with a wide range of emergency situations - from hostage rescue to riot control - around the world.

Sources have stressed however that being riot-trained does not necessarily mean the Paras will be deployed onto British streets in the event of future wide-scale public disorder; instead the move was described as "prudent contingency planning". There is not understood to have been a specific request from the Home Office or police for the training to be carried out.

The riot training could be used if soldiers were called in to evacuate British nationals or embassies in the face of public disorder in a foreign country.

Since the start of the ongoing winter season, at least 7,069 people have reported suffering from symptoms similar to those of swine flu. Lab tests are still underway and have so far confirmed 1,456 cases of the disease, which is officially known as A/H1N1.

According to Mexico’s Health Ministry (SSA), at least twenty-nine people have died of swine flu so far this season. While no health emergency has been declared, officials expect the death toll will rise in the coming weeks as Mexico also faces A/H3N2 and B influenza.

The H1N1 influenza virus emerged in the Mexican state of Veracruz in April 2009 and quickly spread around the world, causing the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a global flu pandemic in June 2009. At least 18,000 people have died of the disease since, although the actual number is believed to be far higher.

But that line doesn't make sense, and the sanctions will not achieve their goals. Iran is far from isolated and its friends – like India – will stand by the oil-producing nation until the US either backs down or acknowledges the real matter at hand. That matter is the American dollar and its role as the global reserve currency.

The short version of the story is that a 1970s deal cemented the US dollar as the only currency to buy and sell crude oil, and from that monopoly on the all-important oil trade the US dollar slowly but surely became the reserve currency for global trades in most commodities and goods. Massive demand for US dollars ensued, pushing the dollar's value up, up, and away. In addition, countries stored their excess US dollars savings in US Treasuries, giving the US government a vast pool of credit from which to draw.

We know where that situation led – to a US government suffocating in debt while its citizens face stubbornly high unemployment (due in part to the high value of the dollar); a failed real estate market; record personal-debt burdens; a bloated banking system; and a teetering economy. That is not the picture of a world superpower worthy of the privileges gained from having its currency back global trade. Other countries are starting to see that and are slowly but surely moving away from US dollars in their transactions, starting with oil.

If the US dollar loses its position as the global reserve currency, the consequences for America are dire. A major portion of the dollar's valuation stems from its lock on the oil industry – if that monopoly fades, so too will the value of the dollar. Such a major transition in global fiat currency relationships will bode well for some currencies and not so well for others, and the outcomes will be challenging to predict. But there is one outcome that we foresee with certainty: Gold will rise. Uncertainty around paper money always bodes well for gold, and these are uncertain days indeed.