After a week-long lull, almost, Tehran has shifted gear in its rhetoric and approach to the crisis in Iraq and Syria. The innuendos and dark hints in the Iranian statements so far have given way to open criticism of the Saudi Arabian backing for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIL].

Two prominent members of the Majlis commission on foreign and security policies lashed out at Riyadh - "Saudi Arabia is the spiritual, material and ideological supporter of the ISIL and the Saudi King had tasked the country's former intelligence chief [Prince Bandar] with a special mission to support the ISIL." (Mohammad Hassan Asafari). It is extremely rare that King Abdullah is nailed by name in an Iranian statement. Again, another prominent MP Mohammad Saleh Jokar implicitly warned Riyadh that it is throwing stones from a glass house - "Instead of interfering in Iraq's affairs and implementing the US plots, Saudi Arabia had better deal with its own internal affairs."

The Iranian line is that the succession struggle in the Saudi royal family is becoming acute. Significantly, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei repeated an expression which was coined by Imam Khomeini in the early years of the Iranian revolution to refer to Saudi Arabia as a poodle of the US and a covert accomplice of Israel. Khamenei said while addressing a group of Quran reciters in Teheran on Sunday that there is a difference between "American Islam" and true Islam - "The American Islam, despite having Islamic appearance and name, complies with despotism and Zionism... and totally serves the goals of Zionism and the US."

Welcome to IS. No typo; the final goal may be (indiscriminate) regime change, but for the moment name change will do. With PR flair, at the start of Ramadan, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS, or ISIL - the Islamic State of the Levant - to some) solemnly declared, from now on, it will be known as Islamic State (IS).

"To be or not to be" is so ... metaphysically outdated. IS is - and here it is - in full audio glory. And we're talking about the full package - Caliph included: "the slave of Allah, Ibrahim Ibn 'Awwad Ibn Ibrahim Ibn 'Ali Ibn Muhammad al-Badrial-Hashimi al-Husayni al-Qurashi by lineage, as-Samurra'i by birth and upbringing, al-Baghdadi by residence and scholarship". Or, to put it more simply, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

IS has virtually ordered "historic" al-Qaeda - yes, that 9/11-related (or not) plaything of one Osama bin Laden - as well as every otherjihadi outfit on the planet, to pledge allegiance to the new imam, in theological theory the new lord over every Muslim. There's no evidence Osama's former sidekick, Ayman "the doctor" al-Zawahiri will obey, not to mention 1.5 billion Muslims across the world. Most probably al-Qaeda will say "we are the real deal" and a major theological catfight will be on.

French banking giant BNP Paribas has agreed to plead guilty to two criminal charges of violating US sanctions, and will pay a record-breaking $8.8 billion settlement.

Prosecutors allege BNP conducted "long-term, multi-jurisdictional conspiracy." A lawyer representing the bank appeared in New York state court on Monday to answer for both charges, reports Reuters.

The settlement represents the largest criminal penalty in US history, and will practically wipe out BNP's entire 2013 pre-tax income of $11.2 billion, reports the BBC.

The size of the looming fine had been decried by the French government. The country's foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, previously said the amount would be "an extremely serious problem," an "unfair and unilateral decision" and "not reasonable."

"BNP went to elaborate lengths to conceal prohibited transactions, cover its tracks, and deceive US authorities. These actions represent a serious breach of US law," US attorney general Eric Holder said in a statement.

More accustomed to schmoozing with world leaders or vacationing with his superstar wife, Carla Bruni, France's former President Nicolas Sarkozy has found himself in entirely different company today: police custody.

In what French media are calling unprecedented for a contemporary former French head of state, Mr. Sarkozy has been questioned this morning by French anticorruption investigators over allegations of influence-peddling. The political saga has implications for Sarkozy's personal political comeback and his center-right party - and has put the ruling Socialists on the defensive as well about their political motivations in the case.

Sarkozy was quizzed Tuesday morning in Nanterre, west of Paris, as part of an investigation over whether he used his influence to attain information in another case against him. That one revolves around whether the late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi funded Sarkozy's 2007 election bid. Sarkozy denies this.

Vladimir Putin said that the Western powers should allow countries around the globe "to live at their own discretion, not under someone's haunting dictation." Here are the Top 10 quotes from the president's meeting with Russian diplomats.

Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania is the latest to take heat from the Israel Lobby, mainly because he once attended a meeting with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), and also refused to sign a letter written by AIPAC. So they created a TV ad that tries to tie him to terrorism. Never mind the fact that Sestak acted on his conscience in both instances - anybody who flaunts the dictates of the Israel Lobby has to be punished.

The people who are promoting this latest experiment in intimidation are pretty open about what they're doing, and why. "We're the pro-Israel wing of the pro-Israel community," exults neo-con godfather William Kristol. So here's the crazy part - we're not supposed to acknowledge that there's an Israel Lobby, even though its main players talk openly about their activities! No, as Abraham Foxman pointed out in his book "The Deadliest Lies," the existence of an Israel Lobby is a scurrilous falsehood made up by anti-Semites.

Got that? There's no Lobby, but you'd better do what the Lobby says.

The "Middle East" invented by British and French colonial powers almost a century ago is fast dissolving as ISIS carves a vast piece of real estate from the suburbs of Aleppo to Tikrit and from Mosul to the Jordanian/Iraqi border.

Artificial geography, established in the midst of World War I, via the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, is at risk; and it's no accident the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) itself, although dreaming of a Caliphate, is also graphically emphasizing the point. Those states carved out of the fragmented Ottoman Empire are all at risk. In this geopolitical vortex the ultimate free electron is definitely the notion of a Greater Kurdistan.

"Iraq is breaking up before our eyes and it would appear that the creation of an independent Kurdish state is a foregone conclusion." The analysis might have come straight from ISIS - but in fact came from none other than former bouncer and unreformed Zionist, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

What the invariably truculent Lieberman told US Secretary of State John Kerry this week pertained mostly to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq, an autonomous region that - quite handily - is also exporting oil to Israel (the KRG angrily denies it.)

Russia's president has blamed the turmoil in Ukraine on the country's newly-elected leader Petro Poroshenko. Vladimir Putin also criticized the West for its intention to turn the planet into a "global barracks."

Russia's president has laid the blame for the ongoing turmoil between Kiev and south-eastern regions squarely at the feet of Petro Poroshenko, after the Ukrainian leader terminated the ceasefire.

He has stressed that Russia and European partners could not convince Poroshenko to not take the path of violence, which can't lead to peace.

Massive artillery shelling and airstrikes have resumed in Eastern Ukraine after Kiev terminated a shaky ceasefire with local militias. There are reports of yet another Ukrainian bomber jet downed.

"Starting this morning the active phase of the antiterrorist operation has resumed. Our forces are conducting strikes," announced Aleksandr Turchinov, Ukrainian parliament speaker and former acting president.

Reports of night gunfight and explosions came Tuesday morning from Donetsk, the capital of Donetsk Region.

There were also causalities in Kramatorsk, where a bus was fired at early in the morning, with four people reported killed by militia sources. Five people were reportedly injured in the incident.

Meanwhile near the village Snezhnoye one of Ukrainian bomber jets was shot down by an anti-aircraft cannon, militia claimed.

The incident was not immediately confirmed by Kiev, but the militia has a record of taking down Ukrainian military aircraft.

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" - Patrick Henry

Imagine living in a country where armed soldiers crash through doors to arrest and imprison citizens merely for criticizing government officials. Imagine that in this very same country, you're watched all the time, and if you look even a little bit suspicious, the police stop and frisk you or pull you over to search you on the off chance you're doing something illegal. Keep in mind that if you have a firearm of any kind while in this country, it may get you arrested and, in some circumstances, shot by police.

If you're thinking this sounds like America today, you wouldn't be far wrong. However, the scenario described above took place more than 200 years ago, when American colonists suffered under Great Britain's version of an early police state. It was only when the colonists finally got fed up with being silenced, censored, searched, frisked, threatened, and arrested that they finally revolted against the tyrant's fetters.

No document better states their grievances than the Declaration of Independence. A document seething with outrage over a government which had betrayed its citizens, the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, by 56 men who laid everything on the line, pledged it all - "our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" - because they believed in a radical idea: that all people are created to be free.

Labeled traitors, these men were charged with treason, a crime punishable by death. For some, their acts of rebellion would cost them their homes and their fortunes. For others, it would be the ultimate price - their lives. Yet even knowing the heavy price they might have to pay, these men dared to speak up when silence could not be tolerated. Even after they had won their independence from Great Britain, these new Americans worked to ensure that the rights they had risked their lives to secure would remain secure for future generations. The result: our Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.