It seems there are still plenty of parties who would prefer that Arafat's death continues to be treated as a mystery rather than as an assassination.

It is hard, however, to avoid drawing the logical conclusion from the finding last week by Swiss scientists that the Palestinian leader's body contained high levels of a radioactive isotope, polonium-210. An inconclusive and much more limited study by a Russian team published immediately after the Swiss announcement also suggests Arafat died from poisoning.

It is time to state the obvious: Arafat was killed. And suspicion falls squarely on Israel.

Israel alone had the means, track record, stated intention and motive. Without Israel's fingerprints on the murder weapon, it may not be quite enough to secure a conviction in a court of law, but it should be evidence enough to convict Israel in the court of world opinion.

Israel had access to polonium from its nuclear reactor in Dimona, and it has a long record of carrying out political assassinations, some ostentatious and others covert, often using hard-to-trace chemical agents. Most notoriously, Israel tried to quietly kill another Palestinian leader, Khaled Meshal of Hamas, in Jordan in 1997, injecting a poison into his ear. Meshal was saved only because the assassins were caught and Israel was forced to supply an antidote. Israeli leaders have been queuing up to deny there was ever any malign intent from Israel's side towards Arafat. Silvan Shalom, the energy minister, claimed last week: "We never made a decision to harm him physically." Shalom must be suffering from a memory lapse.

There is plenty of evidence that Israel wanted Arafat - in the euphemism of that time - "removed". In January 2002, Shaul Mofaz, Israel's military chief of staff, was caught on a microphone whispering to Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, about Arafat: "We have to get rid of him."

Lobbying is the least of it: corporate interests have captured the entire democratic process. No wonder so many have given up on politics

It's the reason for the collapse of democratic choice. It's the source of our growing disillusionment with politics. It's the great unmentionable. Corporate power. The media will scarcely whisper its name. It is howlingly absent from parliamentary debates. Until we name it and confront it, politics is a waste of time.

The political role of business corporations is generally interpreted as that of lobbyists, seeking to influence government policy. In reality they belong on the inside. They are part of the nexus of power that creates policy. They face no significant resistance, from either government or opposition, as their interests have now been woven into the fabric of all three main political parties in Britain.

Most of the scandals that leave people in despair about politics arise from this source. On Monday, for instance, the Guardian revealed that the government's subsidy system for gas-burning power stations is being designed by an executive from the Dublin-based company ESB International, who has been seconded into the Department of Energy. What does ESB do? Oh, it builds gas-burning power stations.

On the same day we learned that a government minister, Nick Boles, has privately assured the gambling company Ladbrokes that it needn't worry about attempts by local authorities to stop the spread of betting shops. His new law will prevent councils from taking action.

Supporting the troops is increasingly used as a substitute for supporting unpopular wars, and the poppy appeal is part of that process.

One day this week I carried out a little experiment as I travelled around. I went by train from London to Hertfordshire and back, then journeyed on the tube across central London and later to my home in Hackney. I did a rough count and I reckon that no more than 1 in 20 of my fellow passengers were wearing red poppies. Contrast that with the pervasiveness of the poppy from virtually every 'official' source.

Everyone on television is wearing a red poppy. The BBC must get through boxes of them every day. Sports reporters, foreign correspondents, studio guests appearing for one minute, all magically wear a poppy.

It isn't just the media. The defendants in the News of the World phone hacking trial sport a fresh poppy every day. The train on which I travelled was decorated on the outside with appeals for the poppy. The station where I bought a ticket had collecting boxes on the counter. So do the supermarkets, so do university cafes and canteens. Today all the mainline railway stations in London will have service men and women selling poppies, blessed by the Tory mayor of London. The bar of one of London's most radical theatres has a poppy appeal box on its counter.

The discrepancy between this barrage of poppy selling and the actual take up has become more noticeable in recent years. It has ceased to be a symbol which people could choose to wear, but where there was no obligation to do so, to one where remembrance (as defined by the red poppy) is de rigeur, and anyone who chooses not to is deemed to be dishonouring the dead.

The president of Poland apologized to Russia on Wednesday for the attack by a nationalist mob on the Russian Embassy in Warsaw, calling the episode outrageous and unjustifiable.

"We need to apologize on behalf of the Polish state," President Bronislaw Komorowski told privately owned broadcaster Radio Zet.

Thousands of people paraded through Warsaw on Monday to mark the 1918 reunification of Poland after more than a century of being partitioned by Russia, Prussia and Austria.

A crowd of youths splintered away from the previously approved route and attacked the Russian Embassy, pelting it with rocks and firecrackers and setting alight the guards' booth.

Moscow called for an immediate apology from Poland and demanded that Warsaw pay for the damages and ensure that those responsible were brought to justice.

The incident in Warsaw drew an immediate reaction in Moscow, where a group of young men threw firecrackers and smoke pellets at the Polish Embassy.

Three men have been detained by Russian police.

Unregistered nationalist opposition party The Other Russia, which claimed responsibility for the attack, said in a statement that their actions were intended to show that "Russia should be treated with respect."

Russian authorities have not yet commented on the incident in Moscow.

The flagship of Russia's Pacific Fleet, the Varyag missile cruiser, docked on Monday at the Mediterranean port of Alexandria, making it the first Russian warship to visit Egypt since 1992.

The Varyag's arrival comes two days ahead of a visit by a Russian delegation led by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to bolster military and political ties with Egypt.

During the six-day stay, the warship's crew will exchange visits with local government and naval officials and take part in a series of cultural and sports events, said the Pacific Fleet's spokesman, Capt. 1st Rank Roman Martov.

Encouraged by territorial gains over jihadists in recent weeks, Kurds in Syria's northeast have announced the formation of a transitional autonomous authority.

Yet several major Kurdish factions have not signed on to the declaration, which was originally introduced in July, AFP reported.

"Today is an important day in the history of the Kurdish people," said Shirzad Izidi, a spokesman for the Syrian Kurdish group People's Council of Western Kurdistan.

The plan would divide Syria's Kurdish region into three areas, each having its own local assembly and representatives to a regional executive council.

The autonomous administration would prepare local and general elections, as well as various political, military, economic, and other issues.

The announcement comes amid growing Kurdish strength in neighboring Turkey, and increasing initiatives for independence in the Kurdish region of Iraq.

"What has been announced today is the beginning of implementing an interim administration in the areas of West Kurdistan," Izidi added, using the common name for Syria's Kurdish areas.

A reactor at one of the nation's largest nuclear power plants has been taken offline due to a radioactive leak within a containment building.

"Out of an abundance of caution," service was temporarily removed from Unit 1 at the Oconee Nuclear Station in western South Carolina early Monday, according to ONS spokeswoman B.J. Gatten.

A robot was used to confirm the leak over the weekend after it was first suspected Friday night inside Unit 1's containment facility, Gatten said.

Less than one tenth of a gallon of radioactive material is leaking per minute, though it is not yet known how long the leak has existed, she said, according to WYFF.

The leak remains solely inside the containment building, a steel-lined, airtight area with concrete walls several feet thick. No one works inside the containment building, Gatten said.

The leak is subject to ongoing repairs and analysis, though there is no estimate for when it will go back online.

Gatten claims the leak will not put any employees or the public in danger, nor will it affect service.

The UK is "by far the most important" player on the global financial secrecy market. While only ranked 21 on the Tax Justice Network index, the aggregated web of jurisdictions around the world makes Britain the top router of global financial secrets.

"Our index reveals that Britain plays a key role in the global market for financial secrecy," John Christensen, director of the Tax Justice Network said in a statement.

This, despite David Cameron's recent G20 drive to crack down on tax avoidance and promoting tax transparency.

"The City of London uses a web of satellite secrecy jurisdictions based on British crown dependencies and overseas territories to channel huge illicit flows which feeds London's mad property boom," Christensen added.

The findings by the non-aligned network of researchers and activists were presented to Britain's monarch Queen Elizabeth II before the index was released.

"Britain, taken together with its Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, is by far the most important part of the global offshore system of tax havens or secrecy jurisdictions," the letter read.

The note to the Queen also mentioned that the Prime Minister of the country, David Cameron, is doing little to deliver on his pledge to provide more transparency.

The death of the dollar is coming, and it will probably be China that pulls the trigger. What you are about to read is understood by only a very small fraction of all Americans. Right now, the U.S. dollar is the de facto reserve currency of the planet. Most global trade is conducted in U.S. dollars, and almost all oil is sold for U.S. dollars. More than 60 percent of all global foreign exchange reserves are held in U.S. dollars, and far more U.S. dollars are actually used outside of the United States than inside of it. As will be described below, this has given the United States some tremendous economic advantages, and most Americans have no idea how much their current standard of living depends on the dollar remaining the reserve currency of the world. Unfortunately, thanks to reckless money printing by the Federal Reserve and the reckless accumulation of debt by the federal government, the status of the dollar as the reserve currency of the world is now in great jeopardy.

As I mentioned above, nations all over the globe use U.S. dollars to trade with one another. This has created tremendous demand for U.S. dollars and has kept the value of the dollar up. It also means that Americans can import things that they need much more inexpensively than they otherwise would be able to.

The largest exporting nations such as Saudi Arabia (oil) and China (cheap plastic trinkets at Wal-Mart) end up with massive piles of U.S. dollars...

Instead of just sitting on all of that cash, these exporting nations often reinvest much of that cash into low risk securities that can be rapidly turned back into dollars if necessary. For a very long time, U.S. Treasury bonds have been considered to be the perfect way to do this. This has created tremendous demand for U.S. government debt and has helped keep interest rates super low. So every year, massive amounts of money that gets sent out of the country ends up being loaned back to the U.S. Treasury at super low interest rates...

And it has been a very good thing for the U.S. economy that the federal government has been able to borrow money so cheaply, because the interest rate on 10 year U.S. Treasuries affects thousands upon thousands of other interest rates throughout our financial system. For example, as the rate on 10 year U.S. Treasuries has risen in recent months, so have the rates on U.S. home mortgages.

Our entire way of life in the United States depends upon this game continuing. We must have the rest of the world use our currency and loan it back to us at ultra low interest rates. At this point we have painted ourselves into a corner by accumulating so much debt. We simply cannot afford to have rates rise significantly.

A new investigation has revealed that the United States' ethanol mandate is severely harming the environment without producing enough tangible benefits.

Since the Obama administration began implementing the ethanol mandate - requiring a certain level of the biofuel to be added to the gasoline supply - the Associated Press found that the damage done by the program has dwarfed any suspected benefits, many of which failed to materialize in the first place.

Since President Obama took office, roughly five million acres of land set aside for conservation have been lost in the drive to harvest more corn for ethanol, the investigation found. Farmers have plowed into land previously unused for farming, releasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the air that would take native plants decades to reduce naturally.

Billons of pounds of fertilizer were also used on land, some of which has leaked into drinking water, rivers, and has expanded the Gulf of Mexico's dead zone, which can no longer support life.

"This is an ecological disaster," said Craig Cox with the Environmental Working Group to the AP. Cox's group, once a White House ally, now opposes the administration's ethanol policies.