The Syrian army on Monday thwarted a massive attack by a large number of terrorists who were trying to enter Syria through the Jordanian border, and also confiscated Israeli-made missiles and weapons from the armed rebels.

The army confiscated (from terrorists) Israeli-made LAV anti-tank missiles and several wireless equipment which were also made in Israel, Jahineh news website reported.

The Syrian army also prevented the armed rebels from crossing into Syria via neighboring Jordan.

Last month, the Syrian security forces confiscated Israeli-made weapons from an Al-Qaeda ammunition depot in al-Lirmoun area of the Aleppo city on Tuesday.

The weapons were found after heavy clashes erupted between the Syrian army and terrorists in al-Lirmoun area where many terrorists, including a Libyan national, were killed and many others fled the scene, Al-Arabi news website reported.

The army attacked the terrorist centers in different parts of Aleppo, including al-Sha'ar, an old district of Aleppo, and the city's outskirts where many terrorists were killed.

Throughout the last several days, terrorists have sought hard to make a number of Syrian cities unsafe for citizens, but the army has purged them from most neighborhoods and districts, killed tens of them and arrested many others.. see link for more.

Fourth drone attack in one week as Obama administration focuses on Yemen

At least three people were killed by a US drone attack in Yemen late Saturday in the fourth such strike in a week, local officials told Al-Jazeera.

The remote controlled aircraft fired missiles at a vehicle near the village of al-Manaseh in Rada, following similar attacks throughout Yemen against alleged militants throughout the course of the week. US drone strikes commonly take the lives of innocent civilians while US and Yemen officials claim the victims are militants, as the Washington Post recently reported.

The United States recently admitted responsibility for a September attack in Yemen that killed 11 civilians, including three children.

President tells France 'we will still ask more of those who have the most' after court rules proposed 75% rate unconstitutional.

François Hollande on Monday vowed to press on with his super-tax on the rich, despite a damning decision by France's top court to throw it out as unconstitutional. But it is uncertain when a new version of the tax will be introduced and whether it will be watered down.

In his televised new year's address, the French president deliberately did not mention the figure of a 75% tax on incomes over €1m (£800,000), leaving the way open for his deeply symbolic measure to be changed.

"We will still ask more of those who have the most," said Hollande. He added that the exceptional tax on France's wealthy would be "adjusted without changing its objective" but did not provide details of any new proposal.

The president, who is at record unpopularity levels in the polls as he faces a grim year of further economic gloom in France, suffered a major personal blow over the weekend when France's highest court threw out his tax proposal.

The temporary tax, which Hollande had described as an act of "morality" and "patriotism" by the wealthy, now faces a delay of at least a year, if not a mortal blow.

The measure was rejected as unconstitutional on the basis of a technical issue, leaving France surprised that the government could have overlooked the fine detail of its flagship measure. The embarrassed government was attacked for amateurism by political opponents to the right and left of Hollande.

State Department accused in Senate committee's report into deadly attack in Libya.

The State Department made a "grievous mistake" in keeping the US mission in Benghazi open despite inadequate security and increasingly alarming threat assessments in the weeks before a deadly attack by militants, a Senate committee said on Monday.

A report from the Senate homeland security committee on the 11 September attacks on the US consulate and a nearby CIA annex, in which Christopher Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans died, said intelligence agencies were at fault for not focusing tightly enough on Libyan extremists.

It also slated the State Department for waiting for specific warnings instead of improving security.

The committee's assessment, Flashing Red: A Special Report on the Terrorist Attack at Benghazi, follows a scathing report by an independent State Department accountability review board that resulted in a top security official resigning and three others at the department being relieved of their duties.

Joseph Lieberman, the independent senator who chairs the committee, said that in thousands of documents it reviewed, there was no indication that secretary of state Hillary Clinton had personally denied a request for extra funding or security for the Benghazi mission. He said key decisions were made by "mid-level managers" who have since been held accountable.

Planned Parenthood plans further challenges to state's attempts to cut its funding for women's healthcare provision.

Texas can cut off funding to the family planning organization Planned Parenthood's programs for poor women, a judge ruled on Monday. Judge Gary Harger said that the state can exclude otherwise qualified doctors and clinics from receiving state funding if they advocate for abortion rights, attorney general spokeswoman Lauren Bean said.

The state has long banned the use of state funds for abortion, but it had continued to reimburse Planned Parenthood clinics for providing basic healthcare to poor women through the state's Women's Health Program. The program provides check-ups and birth control to 110,000 poor women a year; Planned Parenthood clinics were treating 48,000 of them.

A Planned Parenthood lawsuit to stop the cut will still go forward, but the judge decided on Monday that the ban can go into effect for now.

"We are pleased the court rejected Planned Parenthood's latest attempt to skirt state law," Bean said. "The Texas attorney general's office will continue to defend the Texas legislature's decision to prohibit abortion providers and their affiliates from receiving taxpayer dollars through the Women's Health Program."

Ken Lambrecht, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, said he had brought the lawsuit on behalf of poor women who depend on its clinics.

"It is shocking that once again Texas officials are letting politics jeopardize health care access for women," Lambrecht said. "Our doors remain open today and always to Texas women in need. We only wish Texas politicians shared this commitment to Texas women, their health, and their well-being."

Americans are all but certain to face a broad hike in taxes on Tuesday for the first time in at least two decades, ending a prolonged period of declining taxation that has become a defining characteristic of the American economy.

Regardless of whether President Obama and Congress reach an agreement to avoid the "fiscal cliff," many Americans will see a higher tax bill because of the expiration of the payroll tax cut, which was enacted in 2011 as a temporary measure to boost economic growth. The tax holiday was preceded by a similar temporary cut in 2009 and 2010.

Lawmakers on Monday morning were locked in negotiations trying to close a deal that would, in part, prevent a separate tax - the income tax - from rising for all but the wealthiest taxpayers.

Unlike income taxes, which rise along with a worker's income, the payroll tax is a fixed percentage of an employee's salary. Allowing the tax cut to expire will increase taxes on salaries by 2 percent for every American worker. Up to $110,100 a year in salary is subject to the tax.

This jump in payroll taxes, combined with other tax increases affecting the very wealthy likely to take effect in the new year, would make for the largest increase in taxes in about half a century.

Look closely at the end-of-the-year lists of 2012's top news stories. What's missing? The 11-year-old war in Afghanistan and American-led counterterrorism efforts around the world.

The Pew Research Center's weekly polling on the public's interest in news stories showed such a low level of interest that the overseas conflicts didn't make the organization's list of the year's top 15 stories.

Nor did the Afghan war come up often when The Associated Press conducted its annual poll of editors and news directors in the United States. The only overseas stories voted to be the year's top news stories involved Libya and Syria.

Yahoo's list of the top news stories of the year also omitted the war, and so did a separate list of the top international news stories. Those lists were created by analyzing millions of searches by Yahoo users.

The absence of words like "Afghanistan" from year-end lists reflects both the national news media's scant coverage of the war and the public's disengagement with it.

"We are in a period where the American public is intensely focused on domestic economic concerns," said Michael Dimock, the associate director for research at the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. "On top of this, the public is having a hard time staying focused on foreign engagements that have been ongoing for over a decade."

Federal detectives won't need a warrant to eavesdrop on the emails and phone calls of Americans for another five years. President Obama reauthorized an intelligence gathering bill on Sunday that puts national security over constitutional rights.

President Barack Obama inked his name over the weekend to an extension of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, a George W. Bush-era legislation that has allowed the government expansive spy powers that has been considered by some to be dragnet surveillance.

With Chuck Hagel, a former senator from Nebraska, emerging as a front-runner to be President Obama's next secretary of defense, critics are taking aim at his record on Israel as well as remarks he made about pro-Israel lobbying groups in Washington.

Mr. Hagel, a Republican, has been skeptical about the efficacy of American sanctions against Iran, has opposed efforts to isolate militant groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and has spoken candidly about the influence of what he once referred to as the "Jewish lobby" on Capitol Hill.

Those comments, in particular, have drawn the ire of Jewish leaders, who say they raise questions about Mr. Hagel's commitment to Israel and have propagated unsavory stereotypes about Israel's influence over American foreign policy.

"He has a checkered past on Israel," said Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization. "At the least, it's disturbing; at worst, it's troubling."

Several of the groups are reaching out to members of Congress, circulating a list of Mr. Hagel's positions on issues related to Israel, Iran and the Palestinians. The goal, officials on Capitol Hill said, appears to be to pressure the White House to think twice about naming him.

Another day, another corporate titan suffering from devastating amnesia. This time, the memory-loss patient is none other than Angelo Mozilo, the former CEO of Countrywide Financial.

Deposed in the landmark lawsuit between the monoline insurer MBIA and Countrywide/Bank of America, Mozilo professed not to know the difference between "verified" income and "stated" income. He also made some incredible remarks regarding his notorious "Friends of Angelo" lending program, in which, among others, political figures like North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad and Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd received Countrywide mortgages on highly advantageous terms just because they were tight with the CEO.

As chief of Countrywide, Mozilo headed the single most corrupt subprime mortgage lender in America during the period preceding the crisis. Charged with mass fraud and headed for trial in October of 2010, Mozilo and the SEC ultimately settled four days before opening arguments were set to begin in Los Angeles. Ultimately, Mozilo got away with no jail time, paying a $67.5 million settlement, $20 million of which was covered by Countrywide, which by then had been acquired by Bank of America, a major bailout recipient. Just in the years between 2000 and 2008, Mozilo made over half a billion dollars - $521.5 million, according to one corporate research firm.