Israel plans to build 3,000 new homes for its settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in defiance of a UN vote implicitly recognising Palestinian statehood there, Israeli media reported yesterday.

The Ynet news site said the move had been approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's inner council of nine senior cabinet members on Thursday, as the United Nations General Assembly upgraded the Palestinians to "non-member observer state" from "entity" - a resolution Israel and Washington had opposed.

The Haaretz news site carried a similar report, describing the new homes as a part of a "construction wave" planned by Israel, which deems all of Jerusalem its undivisible capital and wants to keep swathes of West Bank settlements under any eventual peace treaty with the Palestinians.

An alleged victim of the late Liberal MP, Cyril Smith - who has been accused of sexually abusing boys in his home town of Rochdale - has told the Guardian newspaper that he was assaulted by the MP in the Houses of Parliament as other politicians walked by, unaware of what was happening.

The man, who says he was 17 at the time the assault took place, says the incident followed 18 months of grooming by the MP.

The revelations came as former Liberal leader Lord Steel said he had heard rumours about Smith carrying out corporal punishment on boys, but said the party did not investigate the claims.

Lord Steel told the Guardian he had received no 'substantive complaints' regarding the MP.

The newest allegations are the first that claim Smith abused someone outside of his constituency.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says all the necessary physical infrastructure for absolute totalitarianism through the internet is ready. He told RT that the question now is whether the turnkey process that already started will go all the way.

­RT: So you've written this book 'Cypherpunks. Freedom and the Future of the Internet' based on one of the programs that you've made for RT. In it, you say that the internet can enslave us. I don't really get that, because the internet it's a thing, it's a soulless thing. Who are the actual enslavers behind it?

Julian Assange: The people who control the interception of the internet and, to some degree also, physically control the big data warehouses and the international fiber-optic lines. We all think of the internet as some kind of Platonic Realm where we can throw out ideas and communications and web pages and books and they exist somewhere out there. Actually, they exist on web servers in New York or Nairobi or Beijing, and information comes to us through satellite connections or through fiber-optic cables.

So whoever physically controls this controls the realm of our ideas and communications. And whoever is able to sit on those communications channels, can intercept entire nations, and that's the new game in town, as far as state spying is concerned - intercepting entire nations, not individuals.

Syria has effectively been cut off from the internet, with fierce clashes around Damascus airport.

Akamai, a firm that monitors global traffic, said internet traffic stopped from 1026 GMT, and that this supports the observation from another IT firm, Renesys, "that Syria is effectively off the Internet".

The internet going down coincided with reports that Syrian troops on Thursday evening had launched a major offensive in southeastern Damascus along the airport road.

The army attacked rebel strongholds in a string of towns along the highway and near the airport, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP by phone.

TSA Administrator John Pistole says he won't testify before a committee that lacks jurisdiction over his agency.

A congressional hearing Thursday on aviation security will be missing its chief witness, who declined to testify.

Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole had been asked to appear before the Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on aviation on the impact of his agency's policies on passengers and the airline industry.

But Pistole said he had no plans to attend, arguing the panel has no jurisdiction over TSA matters.

The TSA has been regularly criticized over the years by Republicans in the House, especially, for not becoming leaner and more efficient.

Dying woman: TSA spoils end-of-life trip TSA rescues kidnapped woman at airport Rep. Issa: TSA 'cooked the books' Man strips to protest TSA pat-down

"No representative from TSA will be present," Pistole said in a statement posted on the agency's website.

It is not common but not unheard of for an agency director to decline to testify at a congressional hearing outside of a scheduling conflict or another agreed-upon reason.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) constantly attacks the Obama administration for "government overreach" and "expanding big government" when it comes to health care, but he is currently writing an amendment to an upcoming defense bill that would allow the U.S. government to lock U.S. citizens in prison on the suspicion of terrorist association, without a trial, reports Mother Jones.

The amendment would support the U.S government's power to "detain under the law of war" any individual "who joins al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or an associated force" and "plans or participates in a belligerent act against the United States on behalf of such forces anywhere within the United States and its territories."

Sen. Graham's catch-all amendment is a response to the one proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) that would prevent the U.S. government from detaining Americans and legal permanent residents suspected of terrorism without charge or trial.

Amazon paid just £1.8m in corporation tax in the UK despite racking up a pre-tax profit of £74m on £3.35bn sales in 2011, according to figures the web giant wanted to keep secret.

MPs probing the company's minuscule corporation tax bill demanded to see Amazon's profit numbers as well as its sales performance, and published the details despite the company labelling them "non-public" and "confidential".

Amazon added its LoveFilm operation and "other business activities" to its UK sales, amassing a total of £3.35bn in 2011, up from the £2.91bn it had earlier admitted for the year, but its pre-tax profits were just £74m.

However, Amazon didn't even pay corporation tax on this figure in Blighty: instead it footed the tax bill for just its Amazon.co.uk Ltd subsidiary, which manages its warehouses, bringing its corporate tax payment to a bargain-basement £1.8m.

Israel suffered a humiliating defeat at The UN yesterday. The nations of the world stood up and said NO to the Jewish state - NO to Israeli occupation, NO to Israeli human rights abuse, NO to Jewish racism. In effect, they stood up and confessed to serious Zio-fatigue.

Despite Jewish success in constantly reminding Europeans of their tormented past, Europe yesterday delivered itself of its guilt and Israel's European allies such as Germany, France, Britain and Italy also delivered a clear messages to Israel - they are right out of patience. This is a very good news indeed.

But interestingly, this united opposition to Israel is not in response the Israeli strength. On the contrary, it is actually a reaction to Israeli weakness. In the last few months we have seen the complete and final eradication of the famed Israeli power of deterrence. For months, Israel gave the impression that it was ready and willing to attack Iran nuclear facilities, only to have to admit, even to itself, that it lacked both the means and guts to do so. Israel then launched a lethal attack on the people of Gaza. It called up 75.000 IDF reservists, only to find out that it didn't have the stomach to face Palestinian resistance.

So, just as Israel is learning to admit to its own cowardice, the rest of the world is at last finding the courage to realise that it can well do without a Jewish state that is nothing but trouble and a grave threat to world peace.

In spite of the powerful Jewish lobby, the Zionist-controlled media and Wall Street, the Jewish state and its Zionist backers have proved to be impotent. It may have the desire, the hope and even the pathos, but it just ain't stiff enough to deliver.

A leading member of republican socialist group éirigí was among four people brought before the Special Criminal Court last night charged with possessing weapons and ammunition.

Ursula Shannon, Inglewood Crescent, Clonsilla, and three men were charged with possessing two handguns and ammunition at Tullybeg, Rahan, Co Offaly on Tuesday night.

Éirígí general secretary Breandán Mac Cionnaith released a statement confirming "Ursula Ní Shionnain" is a member.

The party would not take steps to distance itself from Ms Shannon, he said.

"However," he added, "I have no doubt that some of the more sensationalist media outlets will try to exploit Ursula's arrest to insinuate all sorts of conspiracy theories and to engage in McCarthy-like 'reds under the beds' hysteria against éirígí. That, of course, will be nothing new."

Ben Swann takes a look at the statement last week by President Obama that "No country would tolerate missiles being fired from outside their borders". We compare the numbers on U.S drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan.