GMO giants DuPont have contracted dozens of retired law enforcement officers to begin patrolling farms in the US next year to spot any potential intellectual property theft. DuPont Co, the second-largest seed country in the world, is hoping to find farmers that have purchased contracts to use their genetically modified soybean seeds but have breached the terms of agreement by illegally using the product... 

Palestinians celebrate in Ramallah on November 29, 2012 after the upgrade of Palestine’s status at the United Nations by the UN General Assembly. The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to upgrade Palestine’s status at the UN from “observer entity” to “observer non-member state” despite strong opposition by Israel and the US. On Thursday, the 193-member assembly voted... 

Leading US strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski rejects Israeli pressure to form American national security policy by beating the drum for war on Iran. Washington would not blindly follow Tel-Aviv if Israel chooses to unilaterally strike Iran, he said. Brzezinski said he would not advise President Barack Obama to back military action against Iran if Israel initiates a war. The observation was made at a... 

What is arguably the very last bastion of totally free speech is once again under assault by the world’s tyrants, as the United Nations is now eying regulation of the Internet – as though it was in need of being regulated. Why? It’s an age-old story. Leaders of authoritarian regimes the world over hate the free flow of information that is disseminated via the Internet. They hate the fact that... 

Astronomers have discovered the most massive, for the time being, object in the universe. This is a supermassive black hole at the center of Galaxy NGC 1277 in the constellation of Perseus. The black hole is 228 million light years far from Earth. The discovery was made by a group of German scientists from the Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg during the analysis of the images of the galaxy obtained... 

A view of the Dutch parliament in The Hague The Dutch parliament will approve a motion to abolish a law that criminalizes blasphemy, mainly due to strong support by the Liberal Party (VVD). On Wednesday, a majority of parties in the Netherlands stated that the blasphemy law was no longer relevant in the 21st century. The VVD party had refused to support efforts to annul the law during the tenure of... 

Americans might once again be guaranteed the right to trial: a clause in the most recent draft of next year’s defense spending bill ensures that United States citizens aren’t stripped of their right to habeas corpus. Lawmakers have included provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 that relieves those worried with how last year’s bill allows for the indefinite... 

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has come under heavy pressure from Jewish and pro-Israeli groups after announcing that Canberra would abstain from a vote for the upgrading of the status of Palestine at the UN. Australia’s Jewish groups have demanded a meeting with the premier to express their anger over her decision and to urge her to vote against the bid which would upgrade Palestine’s... 

Russia seriously considers an opportunity to take up the role of a supplier of organic products within the scope of the World Trade Organization. Russian lawmakers are working on the bill to support the production of organic agricultural products. This law will help Russian farmers enter the EU market with organic products. As expected, the bill will be handed over to the Ministry of Agriculture of... 

Yakov Dubin is not likely to do anyone a good deed for a while, if ever again. Society has the New York City Police Department to thank for that. Dubin, 49, was acting more like a Good Samaritan than a petty thief when he was busted by plainclothes officers recently after taking $27 from an old purse he found lying in a local park. Police had left the money in the handbag, which Dubin described as... 

Egypt’s Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting the country’s new constitution has voted to keep “the principles of sharia” law as the main source of legislation in the country. The article’s language however, remains unchanged from the previous constitution used under the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak. The assembly gathered on Thursday to vote on each of the new draft constitution’s... 

A mountain pine beetle A beetle species has affected on the climate of British Colombia in Canada during past decade as caused recent warmer summers in the region. The destructive beetle, with the size of a grain of rice, by lowering the amount of water pumped into the air by plants has induced crucial alteration on local climate as forest fires. Researchers claim that due to decreasing summer evapo-transpiration,... 

The Fitch ratings agency has downgraded Argentina five notches, saying the country could default on its obligations to US creditors. That’s after a US judge ordered Argentina to set aside $ 1.3bn for debt repayment by December 15. The rating agency cut its long-term rating for Argentina to “CC” from “B,” with the short-term rating being cut to the level one step above default – to “C”... 

In reviewing all the breaking news over the last few months and looking for the “big picture” of where America is headed, one pattern has emerged with striking regularity: America has quietly become less free in many ways than nations like Cuba, China and even Venezuela. This is especially true in California, where “justice” has become a joke, and the power of the state is unleashed in personal... 

Bankia’s headquarters in Madrid Spain’s nationalized Bankia says it plans to cut 6,000 jobs by laying off about 28 percent of its staff over the next three years. The announcement on Wednesday follows a preliminary report on Madrid’s overall economy by the Spanish Central Bank suggesting that the country’s job-killing recession is expected to persist into the final quarter of 2012. Bankia’s...