Threatening emails, accusations of racism and walkout by George Galloway follow motion at students' union

Students at Oxford University will this week vote on a controversial motion to boycott Israel, after a tumultuous week that has seen hate mail, accusations of racism and a furious exit from a debate by MP George Galloway .

The Oxford University Students' Union (OUSU) meets on Wednesday to decide finally on a motion backing the boycott of Israel, its companies and institutions. The motion, which would be tabled at the National Union of Students conference in Sheffield in April, calls on the student body to join the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, in protest at Israel's treatment of Palestinians and its hindrance of attempts to create a Palestinian state.

Both the proposer and the seconder of the motion have received threatening emails: the seconder has withdrawn his support and the proposer has requested that her name not be publicised.

Smoking in public places will be banned in Russia after President Vladimir Putin signed a tough new bill into law.

Under the new legislation, smoking in restaurants, long-distance trains and housing block entrance halls will be illegal.

The government has made reducing smoking one of the cornerstones of its bid to improve public health.

Russia has one of the highest smoking rates in the world, with more than four in 10 Russians considered smokers.

Parliament passed the bill earlier in February, with only one deputy in the State Duma voting against the legislation.

The law "On protecting the health of citizens from the danger of passive smoking and the consequences of the use of tobacco" will come into force in stages, beginning on 1 June.

The greatest nation on earth exposed as among the worst in the West... on all life indicators.

For the glory of the Empire

But all the crusading and invading simply plays into al-Qa'ida's hands - just ask the French

Mohamed al-Zawahiri, younger brother of Osama bin Laden's successor, Ayman, made a particularly intriguing statement in Cairo last month. Talking to that wonderful French institution Le Journal du Dimanche about Mali, he asked the paper to warn France "and to call on reasonable French people and wise men not to fall into the same trap as the Americans. France is held responsible for having occupied a Muslim country. She has declared war on Islam." No clearer warning could France have received. And sure enough, one day later, suicide bombers attacked occupied Gao, while, exactly 10 days later, France lost its second soldier in Mali, shot dead by rebels in a battle in the Ifoghas mountain range. That's where, according to the tired old rhetoric of President Hollande, there had been a battle with "terrorists" who were "holed up" in the area during an operation which was "in its last phase". The phraseology is as wearying - you could listen to the same old wording in almost every US pronouncement during the Iraqi war - as is the West's incomprehension of the new al-Qa'ida.

Only Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel could match this. "They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere ..." But who, exactly? The leader of which particular groupuscule of al-Qa'ida-inspired gunmen in Mali? Indeed, our lords and masters seem to have not the slightest idea who they are talking about. A few weeks ago, when many of us didn't even known the name of the Malian capital - admit it, O readers - we were all under the impression that al-Qa'ida's resurgence was in Iraq, where it's back to almost daily suicide bombing against Shias.

rench President François Hollande was awarded UNESCO's Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize for "valuable contribution to peace and stability in Africa" according to the United Nations website: www.un.org. Former Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano, chaired the Jury of the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize stated that "After analyzing the global situation, it is Africa that held the attention of the Jury with the various threats affecting the continent" with instability affecting Northern Mali by various Al-Qaeda elements created by the west, gave France an opportunity to invade the former colony. "Having assessed the dangers and the repercussions of the situation on Africa, and on Mali in particular, as well as on the rest of the world, the Jury appreciated the solidarity shown by France to the peoples of Africa."

Does appreciating "the solidarity" shown by France mean killing hundreds of Malian people since the invasion? France has killed many civilians that includes children. The human rights organization Amnesty International has accused French forces of killing civilians since there was "evidence that at least five civilians, including three children, were killed in an airstrike." UNESCO's Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize is similar to the Nobel Peace Prize whose past winners were known for war crimes.

With urban farming becoming more popular and more common, people are starting to consider their front and back yards as a potential space for growing healthy, organic produce. Yet, front yards may actually be off limits if you're thinking of starting a food garden. Various city ordinances and, in some neighborhoods, your Home Owner's Association (HOA) may threaten you with a misdemeanor and hefty fines if you incorporate unusual, tall or non-decorative plants into your front yard.

Is this a benign effort to protect property values and to conform to a certain standard, or is this a sign of a larger conspiracy by mega-food companies to protect their market stronghold by exerting influence over local government?

Edible Landscaping

Growing plants that produce food in tandem with plants that support the ecosystem and attract native bugs and pollinating bees is an effective method of creating an edible landscape, and an important part of bringing about an equitable food system. Vegetables and flowers mixed together in geometrically-positioned raised beds, planters and containers, or in-ground lots can make for a very productive and attractive front yard garden.

I was in the Swiss village of Begnins outside Geneva shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. I spent three days there with Axel von dem Bussche, a former Wehrmacht major, holder of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for extreme battlefield bravery, three times wounded in World War II, and the last surviving member of the inner circle of German army officers who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

I was reminded of my visit with von dem Bussche, whom I was interviewing for The Dallas Morning News, by the 70th anniversary of the execution of five Munich University students and their philosophy professor who were members of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany. The BBC last week interviewed the 99-year-old Liselotte Furst-Ramdohr, who hid leaflets for the group in her closet and helped make stencils used to paint slogans on walls. [Click here to hear the interview or click here to see the BBC's article based on the interview.] The six White Rose members managed to distribute thousands of anti-Nazi leaflets before they were arrested by the Gestapo and guillotined. The text of their sixth and final set of leaflets was smuggled out of Germany by the resistance leader Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, who was arrested in 1944 and hanged by the Nazis in January 1945. Copies of the leaflets' language were dropped over Germany by Allied planes in July 1943. Furst-Ramdohr, who was widowed during the war when her first husband was killed on the Russian front, also was arrested by the Gestapo. She was imprisoned but eventually released.

Damascus: On 3/26/2013 Iran is expected to meet with other world powers in Astana, Kazakhstan to discuss its nuclear program. Discussions that the occupiers of Palestine fervently hope will not be successful. It is toward this end that their key demand this week to the US Congress, the White House and the European Union is "to cast responsibility on the Iranians by blaming them for the talks' failure in the clearest terms possible."

According to the Al-Monitor of 3/19/13, Israel also demands that the countries meeting in Kazakhstan "make it perfectly clear that slogans such as 'negotiations can't go on forever' are their marching orders to the White House, and they want the Kazakhstan attendees to act "so severely that the Iranians realize that they face a greater threat than just Israeli military action." "The message must be that this time the entire west, behind Israel's leadership, is contemplating the launch of a massive military action." Unsaid is that "the entire West" is expected to confront Iran militarily while Tel Aviv's forces will mop up Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Syria if necessary.

Pending the above arrangements, Israel this week is further demanding that the Obama White House issue another Executive Order dramatically ratcheting up the US-led Sanctions against Iran and Syria while it prepares for a hoped for " game changing international economic blockade, including no-fly zones enforced by NATO.

The United Kingdom's top cardinal, Keith O'Brien, is to step down, effective immediately, according to a statement published on the website of the Scottish Catholic news office.

Cardinal O'Brien, who is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland and the U.K.'s most senior Roman Catholic, was due to take part in the election of the next pope next month to succeed Pope Benedict XVI, a process known as the "conclave.' He said in a statement that he will not attend.

He is resigning due to allegations surrounding inappropriate behavior toward priests dating from the 1980s. He contests the allegations.

Quietly, behind the scenes, the groundwork is being laid for federal government confiscation of tax-deferred retirement accounts such as IRAs. Slowly, the cat is being let out of the bag.

Last January 18th, in a little noticed interview of Richard Cordray, acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Bloomberg reported "[t]he U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [CFPB] is weighing whether it should take on a role in helping Americans manage the $19.4 trillion they have put into retirement savings, a move that would be the agency's first foray into consumer investments." That thought generates some skepticism, as aptly expressed by the Richard Terrell cartoon published by American Thinker.

Days later On January 24th President Obama renominated Cordray as CFPB director even though his recess appointment was not due to expire until the end of 2013.

One day later, in the first significant resistance to President Obama's concentration of presidential power, a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington DC unanimously said that Obama's Recess Appointments to the National Labor Relations Board are unconstitutional. Similar litigation testing the Cordray appointment to the CFPB is in the pipeline.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) created by the 2,319 page Dodd-Frank legislation is a new and little known bureau with wide-ranging powers. Placed within the Federal Reserve, a corporation privately owned by member banks, the CFPB is insulated from oversight by either the President or Congress, its budget not subject to legislative control. It is not even clear that a new President can replace the CFPB director on taking office.

Unusual legal and political environments have a significant impact on the CFPB. With Cordray's recess appointment in doubt several questions remain unanswered.

1) What will become of the CFPB when Cordray's appointment is found invalid? An indicator comes from the NRLB, which operated unconstitutionally for years without a quorum. In 2007 the Senate threatened no NLRB nominations reported out of committee.

The NLRB continued operating with two members. Then a Supreme Court ruling in June of 2010 invalidated the NLRB decisions for lack of a quorum. Fisher & Phillips give the details about what was done next.

But recovery from the Supreme Court's sting was quick, with Liebman and Schaumber still on the Board and with two new Members confirmed, ... the suddenly full-strength Board simply added a new Member to the "rump panel" of the original decisions and managed to rubber-stamp many of the disputed Orders - at a record-setting pace - with the same result...

This may explain why President Obama renominated Cordray a year early. Once confirmed Cordray can rubber-stamp decisions made while he was unconstitutionally appointed. Otherwise those decisions will be invalidated.

2) What will the CFPB do with your money? The CFPB incursion into individual personal savings, in order to control how you invest your money, isn't a new idea. Current proposals grew from a policy analysis as disclosed by Roger Hedgecock.

On Nov. 20, 2007, Theresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, presented a paper proposing that the feds eliminate the tax deferral for private retirement accounts, confiscate the balance of those accounts, give each worker a $600 annual "contribution," assess a mandatory savings tax on every worker and guarantee a 3 percent rate of return on the newly titled "Guaranteed Retirement Accounts," or GRAs.