The former US Ambassador to Israel predicts that war between with Iran is likely to occur in early 2013.Martin Indyk, the former Ambassador, said there may be about six months left to negotiate a solution that would avoid war - but he thinks this is unlikely. Joining a roundtable of foreign policy experts to discuss the latest Middle East protests and Israel's concern over Iran, Indyk's predictions were dire.

"There is still time, perhaps six months, even by Prime Minister Netanyahu's own time table to try to see if a negotiated solution can be worked out," he said on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday. "I'm pessimistic about that. If that doesn't work out - and we need to make every effort, exhaust every chance that it does work - then I am afraid that 2013 is going to be a year in which we're going to have a military confrontation with Iran."

While Indyk said that Iran does not have nuclear weapons at this point, it is only a matter of time before the US will need to take military action.

France is to maintain a temporary ban on the cultivation of genetically modified crops, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Saturday, dealing a blow to farmers and seed companies who say the move is unjustified and economically harmful.

The ban, which targets Monsanto's MON810 maize, the only genetically modified organism (GMO) currently allowed in Europe, was introduced in March after a previous moratorium was annulled by France's top court last November.

"The government is keeping its moratorium on the cultivation of GMO seeds currently authorized in the European Union," Ayrault told an environmental conference in Paris.

An intelligence source on the ground in Libya told Fox News that there was no demonstration outside the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi prior to last week's attack -- challenging the Obama administration's claims that the assault grew out of a "spontaneous" protest against an anti-Islam film.

"There was no protest and the attacks were not spontaneous," the source said, adding the attack "was planning and had nothing to do with the movie."

The source said the assault came with no warning at about 9:35 p.m. local time, and included fire from more than two locations. The assault included RPG's and mortar fire, the source said, and consisted of two waves.

The account backs up claims by a purported Libyan security guard who told McClatchy Newspapers late last week that the area was quiet before the attack.

"There wasn't a single ant outside," the unnamed guard, who was being treated in a hospital, said in the interview.

While Fox News still can't seem to say enough bad things about President Obama, they haven't exactly been uncritical of Mitt Romney lately. In fact, the criticism of Romney has been downright jaw-dropping considering where it's come from.

On today's Fox News Sunday, the panel was unanimously critical of Romney, including host Chris Wallace, an obvious Romney supporter - or at least he plays one on TV. Yet, as the panel criticized Romney for not being clear enough on what actual policy alternatives he'd enact and not discussing Afghanistan during the convention, Wallace noted that Romney is "losing ground," "not campaigning with a bold agenda" and asked - with obvious disapproval - why Romney had "absolutely no plans" to give a major foreign policy speech before the debates.

Nothing tests one's intellectual honesty and ability to apply principles consistently more than free speech controversies. It is exceedingly easy to invoke free speech values in defense of political views you like. It is exceedingly difficult to invoke them in defense of views you loathe. But the true test for determining the authenticity of one's belief in free speech is whether one does the latter, not the former.

The anti-US protests sweeping the Muslim world have presented a perfect challenge to test the free speech convictions of both the American right and the Democratic party version of the left. Neither is faring particularly well.

Cuts will affect startups, universities, and various government labs

Whether you're developing a cure for cancer, or dreaming up solutions to put a human on Mars, there's a chance that you could be out of a job next year.

Earlier this year, the Iranian nuclear program was attacked by a powerful and targeted form of cyber weaponry known as the Stuxnet Trojan. Then in May, a cyber-surveillance tool called Flame was uncovered and was later called "the most sophisticated cyber weapon yet unleashed" by researchers at Kaspersky Labs.

It was later discovered that US military and intelligence agencies - including the CIA and NSA - had worked together with the Israeli military to craft this malicious software in an attempt to impede Iran's nuclear plans.

Today, Reuters reports that researchers have discovered three more computer viruses in the wild which were developed by the US military possibly for purposes of espionage and cyber warfare.

These new findings are another indication that the US government plans to continue its pursuit of cyber warfare as an extension of national security, particularly where matters in the Middle East are concerned.

Researchers from both Symantec Corp and Kaspersky Labs have say that they've found evidence indicating that those behind the Flame project have also collaborated on at least three other pieces of malware which, though identified, have not yet been classified.

These researchers found this information as the result of intensive forensic investigation of the control servers used in Flame. These servers were hidden to appear as publishing platforms for a service called "Newsforyou." Later, the servers were programmed to erase any digital footprint that it may have left behind, making tracing this tool extremely difficult.

According to the Kaspersky Labs blog post, the creators of this malware designed the UI to look as bland and boring as possible, so as to make it appear "generic and unpretentious."

The White House has asked the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals to place an emergency stay on a ruling made last week by a federal judge so that the president's power to indefinitely detain Americans without charge is reaffirmed immediately.

On Wednesday, September 12, US District Court Judge Katherine Forrest made permanent a temporary injunction she issued in May that bars the federal government from abiding by the indefinite detention provision in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, or NDAA. Judge Forrest ruled that a clause that gives the government the power to arrest US citizens suspected of maintaining alliances with terrorists and hold them without due process violated the Constitution and that the White House would be stripped of that ability immediately.

Only hours after Judge Forrest issued last week's ruling, the Obama administration threatened to appeal the decision, and on Monday morning they followed through.

Police in New York have made "multiple" arrests during marches and protests ushering in the first anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Around 300 people were estimated to have taken part in a rally Saturday, which saw activists head towards Zuccotti Park - the lower Manhattan site which served as base camp for months of demonstration.

It was part of three days of action celebrating the anti-capitalist movement, which burst into life a year ago but has long since seen its momentum wane.

The main anniversary event will take place on Monday, when activists are expected to attempt to surround the New York Stock Exchange and disrupt morning rush hour traffic in Manhattan's financial district.

Iran has confirmed for the first time that forces from its revolutionary guards corps (IRGC) are in Syria helping Bashar al-Assad's government crush rebels, and warned that it would get involved militarily if its Arab ally came under attack.

In a clear public signal of Tehran's continuing support for Assad, the commander of the Islamic republic's elite military formation said that a number of members of the IRGC's Qods force were in Syria, though General Mohammad Ali Jafari gave no further details and claimed this did not constitute "a military presence".

It was a surprisingly candid response to persistent claims by western countries, the Syrian opposition and Israel that Iran is actively helping the regime in the 18th month of a bloody war. Lakhdar Brahimi, the veteran Algerian diplomat who replaced Kofi Annan as UN envoy to Syria earlier this month, met Assad in Damascus on Saturday but warned afterwards that any progress would be slow and halting given the yawning gap between government and opposition. "The crisis is dangerous and getting worse, and it is a threat to the Syrian people, the region and the world," said Brahimi.