The People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, stated in a September 11 editorial that reports about China’s recent long-range nuclear-missile tests, including a future multiple-warhead ICBM, are part of a major shift in its nuclear posture. “China must accelerate upgrading and strengthening its nuclear deterrent and make it real and believable,” the newspaper said.

The unusual statement was followed by another alarming comment: China should use its nuclear forces to coerce its enemies.

“China should change its past nuclear image, explore the possibility of using the nuclear deterrent to change China’s strategic environment peacefully but firmly, and make China a large country that no country dares provoke easily,” the newspaper said.

US officials said that China on July 24 conducted the first flight test of a new road-mobile ICBM called the DF-41 that will be fitted with between three and 10 warheads. It would be the first of China’s strategic missiles to be outfitted with multiple, independently targetable re-entry vehicles, or MIRVs. China’s military has had MIRV technology for years, after covertly acquiring the know-how during the administration of President Clinton, when similar technology used in launching multiple satellites was transferred to the Chinese.

Clashes continued in the early hours of Thursday morning. President Mohammed Mursi has appealed for calm, saying Egyptians "reject any kind of assault or insult" against the Prophet Muhammad. "I condemn and oppose all who... insult our prophet. [But] it is our duty to protect our guests and visitors from abroad," he said in a statement broadcast by state media. "I call on everyone to take that into consideration, to not violate Egyptian law... to not assault embassies."

Mitt Romney, Mr Obama's political foe, criticised his handling of the crisis. Ambassador J Christopher Stevens reportedly died of smoke inhalation after a crowd stormed the consulate. Three other Americans were also killed and the consulate set ablaze. Rocket-propelled grenades were reportedly fired during the assault on Tuesday night.

Correspondents say the film at the heart of the row, which appeared on Youtube translated into Arabic, is highly provocative and insulting to Muslims. An Islamic tenet bans the portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad. Cartoons featuring the founder of Islam sparked violent unrest among Muslims in 2005 when they were published by a Danish newspaper.

Libya is awash with weapons and armed militias - some of a salafist or extreme Islamic fundamentalist outlook - hold sway in many areas.

He said he is seeing with his own eyes military movements the likes of which he has never seen in his 20+ years in Israel .

What he called a massive redeployment and protective tactics of forces is underway. Over the last two days he has seen anti-aircraft missile deployments throughout the Jerusalem area including 3 mobile units that he can see from his office windows.

In addition, he has seen very large Israeli armored columns moving fast toward the Sinai where Egypt has now moved in Armor. There are reports of the top military leaders meeting with Israel’s Senior Rabbi which is something that has happened preceding every prior military campaign. His admonition is to watch carefully and pray for Israel and its people. He is convinced that barring something extraordinary Israel will attack Iran – with or without the US – and very soon.

It is the belief in Israel that [Mr] Obama does not stand with Israel but with the Arab countries. He has told me before that Israel will sabre rattle from time to time but that this time is very different from what he is seeing and hearing. He was at the Wailing Wall 2 days ago and there were hundreds of IDF soldiers there. As he was leaving he passed at least 20 military buses full of soldiers in route to the wall. He has never seen this before either.

[Mr] Imposimato presided over several terrorism-related cases, including the kidnapping and ultimate assassination of President Aldo Moro, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, other political assassinations and kidnapping cases and several cases against the Mafia. He is a former Senator who served on the Anti-Mafia Commission in three administrations.

[Mr] Imposimato is also a former legal consultant to the United Nations regarding institution of laws to control drug trafficking. This week, Judge Imposimato stated publicly in writing that 9/11 was just like the “strategy of tension” carried out in Italy.

Specifically, the former Italian Prime Minister, Italian judges, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence admit that NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and other European countries in the 1950s and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism.

As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: “You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security”

The fate of the euro will be decided in Germany. That's what legendary investor George Soros writes in an essay this week published first by the New York Review of Books and later by Spiegel Online in Germany. The 82-year-old believes that Germany either needs to be convinced or pushed to take greater action. And he argues that the country must either lead as a "benevolent hegemon" or leave the euro.

Soros, a native of Hungary, has emerged as one of the leading critics of the German government's policies in addressing the euro crisis. In light of the dramatic developments in recent weeks, the billionaire investor has once again sharpened his arguments.

Since the start of the global financial crisis after the collapse of United States investment bank Lehman Brothers, Chancellor Angela Merkel has been to a large degree responsible for the erosion of unity that befell the European Union, Soros writes. Merkel's demand that each country provide guarantees for its own financial institutions was "the first step in a process of disintegration that is now threatening to destroy the European Union."

At each point in time over the past three years, the crisis could have been solved relatively easily and inexpensively, Soros writes. Instead, Germany missed every opportunity to resolve the crisis, and the situation deteriorated to the point that the very survival of the euro came into question. Meanwhile, Europe "did only the minimum necessary to avoid a collapse of the financial system." Now this has all come back to haunt it.

But the Constitutional Court imposed conditions including a cap on Germany's contribution, which it said could only be overruled by the German parliament. Critics had argued that the ESM commits Germany to potentially unlimited funding of debt-ridden eurozone states. Some 37,000 people had signed a petition to the court asking it to block the ESM, and make it subject to a referendum.

Since Germany is due to contribute 27% of the fund, it cannot proceed without German ratification. But, after weeks of deliberation, the court's Chief Justice Andreas Vosskuhle said it "rejected the injunctions", since there was a "high probability" that the ESM did not violate the constitution. However, he said ratification of the treaty could only be allowed under certain conditions.

He continued: "No rule of the treaty must be interpreted in a way which would result in higher payment obligations by Germany, without the consent of the German representative." Correspondents said there would be huge relief in Brussels and European capitals at the verdict.

They would be given "full decision making powers" to impose EU law and to arbitrate disputes between Britain and the eurozone over the risks posed by British banks, according to the proposals being tabled on Wednesday at the European Commission. Decisions taken by the powerful body would be automatically binding unless Britain was able to win the unlikely backing of a majority and overturn them.

Rulings by the panel could create huge costs for the British government and banks if they were ordered to bail out a struggling institution, contribute to cross-border bail-out funds, or allow the EU to rule over breaches of European law.

The moves stem from proposals for a eurozone "banking union". The radical new EC blueprint for banking regulation at the EU level is focused on giving the European Central Bank new powers to supervise the eurozone's banks, in order to shore up struggling financial institutions in southern European countries such as Spain.

Bill Cash, the Tory chairman of the House of Commons European scrutiny committee, said: "This must be vetoed as an imperative. We have reached the endgame. It is imperative that there is a vote on this in the House of Commons."

Imagine a Middle Eastern country that is accused of developing a nuclear program. Then imagine its neighbor Israel, the only nuclear power in the region, gets worried and wants to permanently reassure itself – with the help of its long-time ally, the United States. But the United States isn’t too keen on striking just yet, so Israel decides to go solo, and destroys the nuclear reactor all by itself. Sound familiar? Anyone keeping up with the escalating tensions between Israel and Iran will say that it’s one of the possible shapes the situation could take – and perhaps, they’d be right.

But this particular incident isn’t a hypothetical. It already happened, back in 2007, when an Israeli air strike took out Syria’s al-Kibar nuclear reactor.

Ironically enough, even though former US President George W Bush wrote about the strike in his memoirs, Israel never officially admitted it – until one of the country’s lawmakers thought it might make a good illustrated threat to Iran.

"According to what was reported, then, too, President Bush was not enthused by an attack, did not agree to the United States taking part, and in any event the right step was taken," Environment Minister Gilad Erdan told Israel Radio. Erdan’s comment came after a question about whether Israel could afford to argue with their longest and toughest ally, the US, over Iran. The Netanyahu government has made clear that Israel is prepared to attack unilaterally if necessary, despite divided domestic opinion and calls to give diplomacy a chance.