In the news:

There are several updates from previous stories in addition to a few new ones:

Lieberman: Unilateral steps require unilateral responses

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday warned the Palestinian Authority against its planned UN statehood bid, saying "unilateral steps will require unilateral responses."

Lieberman said at a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that their were "a variety of possible responses that the Foreign Ministry is prepared to present to decision-makers," but he failed to say specifically what unilateral moves Israel was planning in response to the PA statehood bid.

Below we see yet another "peace summit" scheduled for September:

U.S.-French plan Israeli-Palestinian Paris peace summit Sept. 2

The Obama and Sarkozy administrations are working together on a plan to convene an Israel-Palestinian peace summit in Paris on Sept. 2 shortly after the Libyan war is brought to a close, DEBKAfile's Washington and Paris exclusive sources disclose.

If they can pull it off, Presidents Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy will join Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at a summit in the French capital to announce the restart of Israel-Palestinian peace talks, thereby calling off the unilateral Palestinian request for UN recognition of an independent state.

To clear the way for the Paris summit, Ross recently put before Netanyahu Obama's revised formula for the starting-point of negotiations with the Palestinians: Israel would accept the 1967 borders with territorial swaps in exchange for Palestinian recognition of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people. Just this week, the Israeli prime minister said that if the Palestinians recognized Israel as the Jewish homeland, the other outstanding issues could be easily and quickly resolved.

Analysis: Iran's nuclear steps deepen Western suspicions

Expanding uranium enrichment, a new atomic energy chief said to have military expertise, missile tests -- Western analysts see fresh signs that Iran may be seeking to develop the means to build nuclear warheads.

"Although developments elsewhere in the Middle East have dominated media attention, Iran has been working hard in several ways to advance a nuclear weapons capability," London-based proliferation expert Mark Fitzpatrick said.

During a military exercise last week, Iran test-fired 14 missiles on one day alone, including some it says are capable of hitting its arch foe Israel and US bases in the Middle East.

The IAEA, the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog, is also voicing growing concern about possible military links to Iran's nuclear activities and Western diplomats expect it to firm up its suspicions in reports due later this year.

Iran's nuclear program helped by China, Russia

The foundation of Iran’s nuclear program can be traced to extensive Chinese and Russian cooperation in the 1990s, according to a former U.S. intelligence official who specialized on Tehran’s program.

“Russian and Chinese cooperation in the 1990s with Iran created the foundation of the Iranian nuclear program today,” said Susan Voss, a former nuclear engineering analyst with Los Alamos National Laboratory who has worked closely with the U.S. intelligence community.

In the case of Russia, many of Iran’s engineers were trained at Russian nuclear labs in the 1990s as well, she said.

An element of Russian cooperation with Iran was disclosed first in 2009 by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) when the private group wrote a technical paper describing how the Iranian Arak facility contained an element of its structure that appeared to be a copy of the Soviet-era fuel rod system used in a heavy water reactor to make plutonium.

It looks like Portugal will be the next Greece:

Portugal's credit rating slashed

Portugal’s credit rating has been slashed by four levels to the bottom investment grade known as junk territory.

The move by Moody’s Investors Service, one of the three big ratings agencies was made among heightened concerns Lisbon will not be able to achieve its goals of reducing deficit and stabilising its debt.

Portugal’s new centre right Prime Minister, Jose Passos Cuelho has pushed through a package of austerity measures including a new one off tax to meet the financial assistance agreement with the EU and International Monetary Fund.

This news bit below comes during a time that Agenda 21 is being discussed. Will this "discussion" be used to push Agenda 21, now that the UN is identifying that we are reaching the brink of a "Planetary Catastrophe"?

Un Warns of "A Major Planetary Catastrophe"

Humanity is close to breaching the sustainability of Earth, and needs a technological revolution greater – and faster – than the industrial revolution to avoid “a major planetary catastrophe,” according to a new United Nations report. The world is facing exploding population, an energy crisis, global climate change, increasingly destructive natural disasters and increasing starvation.

Major investments will be needed worldwide in the developing and scaling up of clean energy technologies, sustainable farming and forestry techniques, climate-proofing of infrastructure, and in technologies reducing non-biological degradable waste production, according to The World Economic and Social Survey 2011: The Great Green Technological Transformation, published today by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).

There is much more to this article, but it serves as a basis to implement Agenda 21. Speaking of which, Gulag Bound has a highly pertinent commentary on this UN Agenda:

Agenda 21 - Ending Liberty in America

The picture above represents the kind of structure we’ll soon be herded into – you, me, our families – everyone in America. Well… everyone except the powerful politicians and elites who are working to corral us into these government housing tenements. The streets will be replaced with trains and the cars will be gone.

And don't think it can't happen. As communism started taking country by country back in the middle of the last century, this is exactly what happened - and it can happen again.

Unbelievable you say? You think it’ll never happen? The planning is going on right now in your community and in every region throughout the United States. This is Agenda 21. This is what they mean by Sustainable Development, Smart Growth, ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives), etc. It’s already embedded into the general plan of every community. The transformation will be complete within 25 years and it’s funded with our tax dollars and funds from George Soros and Van Jones’ radical left organizations like OSI, the Tides Foundation, Apollo Alliance and Green For All.

And this:

Agenda 21 is not a Republican or Democrat issue; it is a Progressive Marxist globalist plan from the UN that’s supported by the global elites

You might be thinking Agenda 21 is too complex and there’s no way it’ll be fully implemented. Not so. It’s already being implemented and my goal is to provide information which shows some of the ways they’re getting us there. To describe how this works, it is presented below in the form of seven questions and answers.

Read the rest of the article - these questions and answers are worthwhile.

Our Politicians Are Selling Off Pieces Of America To Foreign Investors

All over the United States, politicians are selling off key pieces of infrastructure to foreign investors and big Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs are helping them do it.

Amazingly, many politicians continue to insist that selling off pieces of infrastructure that have already been fully paid for by taxpayers is a wonderful thing. In fact, there are actually some politicians that have the gall to call it a "conservative" thing to do.

The sovereign wealth funds of nations such as Saudi Arabia, China, Kuwait, Libya, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates are eagerly investing in highways, ports, toll roads and even parking meters all across America.

Sadly, much of our own infrastructure is not even built in this country anymore.

For example, a 2,050 foot bridge that is going to connect San Francisco and Oakland is actually being built in China and is being shipped over to the U.S. piece by piece.

Massive corporations that are either fully or partially owned by the Chinese government are deeply integrating themselves into the U.S. economy.

The United States is drowning in debt from coast to coast and pieces of the country are literally being auctioned off. The looting and the "privatization" are only going to intensify as our state and local government debt problems get even worse.