The US economy is sluggish with fears of a new recession. The Democrats and Republicans once more cannot agree on what to do about the alleged "fiscal cliff" that threatens to further unravel the economy, even as analysts say that the whole notion of going over the "cliff " has been fabricated by the right to force more cuts in social benefits.

Consumer confidence is dipping in this festive season of global shopping---not a good sign, since consumption and spending at the malls is an economic driver with 70% of economic activity based on getting consumers to buy even when it means they must go deeper and deeper in debt using credit cards and loans.

What can the Obama government do? The political stalemate has blocked new jobs and stimulus programs so reliance on Federal Reserve Bank interventions has grown, but they are not printing enough money to turn things around.

This is what's behind the pressure for new wars that primes the spending pump with national security always used as the pretext. Largely unreported has been a quite escalation of selling arms and advanced weaponry, using threats from terrorists and Iran as the way to get a nervous public on board.

The White House has dipped into the Bush Administration Iraq playbook to seek out a new threat that can justify intervention. Non-Existent WMDs were used then to prepare the political/psychological conditions for the taking on Saddam Hussein. Now, the danger of Syria's alleged use of "chemical weapons" is being trotted out and reinforced daily in briefings happily carried on our media.

'Assessor' for SponsoraScholar.co.uk Mark Lancaster worked on massive overhaul of the British military computer network

The man revealed by The Independent to be running a website offering to pay the tuition fees of female students in return for sex can today be named as a highly paid computer consultant who claims to have top-level Ministry of Defence security clearance and access to top secret material.

Mark Lancaster, 39, who presented himself as an "assessor" for the SponsorAScholar.co.uk website, has worked as a contractor on a massive overhaul of the IT network used by UK armed forces, military sources confirmed last night. He is also thought to have worked on computer systems used by British forces during the invasion of Iraq.

The Independent this week tracked down the married father-of-two to his £460,000 home on the edge of the South Downs national park in Hampshire after he was filmed asking an undercover reporter to undergo a "practical assessment" with him to prove the "level of intimacy" she could provide for the website's claimed clients.

Revelation emerged in testimony to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee

The blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise was partly bankrolled by rich British investors trying to avoid paying tax, it has been revealed.

Members of a legal tax avoidance scheme used a loophole in legislation, designed to increase investment in making British films, to buy the world distribution rights to two of the hit Hollywood movies which already been made.

It was suggested that they were then able to write-off their investment against British tax liabilities - potentially resulting the taxpayer subsidising the American film.

The revelation emerged in testimony to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee as part of its on-going inquiry into tax avoidance schemes.

The US has conducted a nuclear test in Nevada to examine the effectiveness of its atomic weapons stockpile amid the growing global urge for nuclear disarmament.
The US Energy Department announced that the Wednesday nuclear test was aimed at providing "crucial information to maintain the safety and effectiveness of the nation's nuclear weapons."

The subcritical experiment, known as Pollux, was conducted by the staff from the Nevada National Security Site, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories.

Subcritical nuclear tests examine the behavior of plutonium when shocked by forces produced by chemical high explosives.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir Abdollahian lashed out at certain countries for supplying military aid to the Syrian rebels, and voiced Iran's steadfast opposition to foreign military intervention in Syria.

Speaking on Thursday, Amir Abdollahian reaffirmed Iran's support for a political solution to the Syria unrest and warned that foreign interference could further endanger security in Syria and the region.

As regards reports that Syria might have plans to use chemical weapons during the ongoing turmoil in the country, the Iranian official said certain countries bring up such allegations to achieve their vicious objectives.

He said that Syria will neither use chemical weapons nor allow "foreign-backed irresponsible" militants to possibly use such weapons.

Syria is past the period of security crisis but certain parties send weapons into this country and allege that Syria might use chemical weapons in a bid to pursue specific objectives, Amir Abdollahian added.

His remarks came a few days after US President Barack Obama claimed that Syria intends to use chemical weapons against the militants and warned against the consequences of such a move.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen also warned on Tuesday that any use of chemical weapons by Syria's government against gunmen would prompt an immediate military response.

Damascus has strongly rejected the allegations.

As President Obama insists on a speedy end to the war in Afghanistan, his administration has other plans. A facility owned by the private security force once known as Blackwater has been awarded a $22 million contract to house US troops through 2015.

The private military company Academi - formerly Blackwater and, more recently, Xe - is the proud winner of a no-bid contract that will keep them profiting off Uncle Sam's wars for the next few years. Under a deal first reported by Wired.com's Danger Room, Academi will assist the recently created US Special Operations Joint Task Force - Afghanistan with housing facilities and office space on their massive 10-acre compound in Kabul named Camp Integrity.

According to Danger Room reporter Spencer Ackerman, Academi won the rights to lease Camp Integrity to the special ops team through May 2015, providing accommodations for some 7,000 elite troops.

US Pres. Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have both insisted in recent weeks that the United States' war in Afghanistan will end by 2014 and all combatant forces will be removed. Despite a deadline firmly in place, though, the Pentagon has plans to keep upwards of 10,000 troops overseas in order to conduct so-called training and counterterrorism operations for the unforeseeable future. Now thanks to Academi, thousands troops within those Special Operations Forces will be provided a place to stay on their privately-owned and operated facility.

"We've seen these kind of close, intertwined relationships in the field between the public and private forces before," Peter Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, explains to Ackerman. "The US military and the CIA, reportedly, have hired these companies to do everything from building bases, running the facilities and logistics, to serving as the guard forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan. You get to a certain point where you wonder where the US military and private military roles begin and end. But to me, the interesting question is what have we actually learned from these past experiences?"

Thai authorities have announced plans to charge former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva with murder over the 2010 death of a taxi driver who was shot by government soldiers during civil unrest in Bangkok.

The intent to charge Mr Abhisit and his former deputy was announced after a meeting of Thailand's Department of Special Investigation (DSI), police and Thai prosecutors.

"The tripartite meeting has decided to charge former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and former deputy Suthep Thaugsuban under article 288," said DSI chief Tarit Pengdith, referring to the murder provision under Thailand's criminal code.

In September, an inquest found that taxi driver Phan Kamkong was shot and killed by Thai soldiers during political violence around anti-government Red Shirt protests in 2010.

An earlier court ruling found the taxi driver was killed in a volley of army bullets when he ran out of an apartment building to see what was going on after hearing gunfire.

Mr Abhisit and Mr Suthep are expected to be questioned next week.

About 90 people were killed and nearly 1,900 were wounded in a series of street clashes between demonstrators and security forces, which culminated in a bloody military crackdown.

Military drones used to track terrorists or insurgents in Afghanistan have also been flying across the U.S. homeland. Newly released documents show U.S. drone flights by the Air Force, Marine Corps and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for the first time.

The Air Force has tested drones in U.S. skies ranging from hand-launched Ravens to the larger Reaper drones responsible for targeting and killing people overseas - all recorded through the Federal Aviation Administration licenses required to fly in national airspace. That information became public through a Freedom of Information Act request from the nonprofit digital rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

"The FAA recently announced it wants to slow down drone integration into U.S. skies due to privacy concerns," the EFF said. "We are hopeful this indicates the agency is finally changing its views."

But the advocacy organization noted that the FAA documents don't show any oversight of how drone flights could affect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans.

The advocates run a U.S. drone census that aims to track drone flights made in the homeland by the U.S. military, law enforcement agencies, local police departments and universities. Part of that effort has involved requesting the FAA to release documents showing what agencies and organizations applied for licenses to fly drones in U.S. national airspace.

A veteran BBC TV and radio presenter was charged with three counts of indecent assault by British police on Wednesday, the latest high-profile figure to be questioned since a sex scandal erupted at Britain's publicly funded broadcaster.

The charges will be a further embarrassment for the BBC, which was thrown into turmoil when it was revealed in October that one of its former top stars, the late Jimmy Savile, had been one of Britain's most prolific child sex offenders.

Stuart Hall, 82, best known for hosting the popular TV programme "It's a Knockout" in the 1970s and 80s and who still appears on radio, was not charged with rape, police said.

"The offences are alleged to have been committed between 1974 and 1984 and to involve three girls aged between 9 and 16 years," police said in a statement.

From the start, I thought it was a bit useless to petition the FDA to label genetically modified food. There has been plenty of documented evidence of the FDA's charge forward on releasing GMOs to the American public despite safety concern amongst FDA scientists when GMOs were first introduced into the food supply.

Regardless, I drank the Kool Aid that the Just Label It campaign was pouring. Why not? At least, it would be good for awareness.

When JLI submitted over 1 million signatures to the FDA asking them to label GMOs, and the FDA only counted them as 394 official comments, the people got pissed. What did you expect from the FDA? Did anybody really think they would implement immediate GMO labeling?