Gas Wars: The untold story driving the crisis The untold story behind the crisis is that this is an energy tug of war being fought between Russia and the west, with Ukraine caught in the middle.

Newly freed Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko has called on protesters not to abandon Kiev’s Independence Square, even though a deal with opposition leaders has already been signed. "You have no right to leave Maidan...Don't stop yet,” she told rioters in an emotional speech.

Florida Highway Patrol trooper Donna Jane Watts was just doing her job when she pulled over a Miami police officer for topping speeds of 120 mph, but the fallout has been anything but routine: She’s now suing her colleagues for harassment. According to the Florida-based Sun-Sentinel, Watts has filed a lawsuit against more than 100 police officers and agencies for illegally accessing her personal information and creating a “life-threatening situation.”

All blood relatives of North Korea’s erstwhile number two, who was executed a month ago, have apparently suffered the same fate, says the S. Korean Yonhap news agency. The report cites “multiple” unnamed sources in Pyongyang and has not yet been confirmed. According to it, Kim Jong-un is believed to have ordered the total elimination of his uncle’s biological relatives to demonstrate decisiveness and to clamp down on mutiny with an iron fist.

A senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has dismissed US claims of forcing Iran to the negotiating table through sanctions and threats as mere lies. “The United States which used to boast about its three power options, i.e. political and military and economic [power], is today lying that we (Americans) have forced Iran into negotiations through sanctions and threats or that the Islamic establishment has been undermined,” Major General Qasem Soleimani said on Sunday.

Last July, House members overwhelmingly passed new Iranian sanctions. A companion Senate bill didn't follow. Members of both parties want one. On December 19, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Robert Menendez (D. NJ) headlined his press release: "Twenty-Seven Senators Introduce the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act (NWFI)."

US Senator John McCain says the Senate is “very likely” to pass a new sanctions bill against Iran despite a deal that the US, Russia, France, China, Britain and Germany - the so-called P5+1 group of countries, reached with Iran over its nuclear energy program on November 24 in Geneva.

There is no remission to Washington’s belligerence towards Iran and no deal seems to be an antidote to this venom of spite secreted out on the part of the US officials on a daily basis. In a tone not unfamiliar to Iranian ears, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on board the USS Ponce, just 120 miles off the coast of Iran once again reminded the military men that the “threat of US military force still exists even though the Obama administration is pursuing a six-month long diplomatic process with Iran to freeze its nuclear program.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the recent nuclear ​deal struck between his nation and world powers would evaporate should the United States Congress impose new economic sanctions on Iran, even those that would take six months to emerge. Time Magazine reported Monday that Zarif said in an interview over the weekend that any new sanctions mean the Nov. 24 interim agreement - which calls for Iran to dial down its nuclear program in exchange for loosened trade barriers over the next six months - goes bust.

“The dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme is nothing more than a convenient excuse for the US to use threats to protect the 'reserve currency’ status of the dollar,” the newspaper, which calls itself the voice of the Islamic Revolution, said. “Recall that Saddam [Hussein] announced Iraq would no longer accept dollars for oil purchases in November 2000 and the US-Anglo invasion occurred in March 2003,” the Times continued. “Similarly, Iran opened its oil bourse in 2008, so it is a credit to Iranian negotiating ability that the 'crisis’ has not come to a head long before now.”

In what is likely a long overdue move, Iran has finally decided to give Europe a harsh lesson in game theory. Instead of letting Euro-area politicians score brownie points at its expense by threatening to halt imports and cut off the Iranian economy, the Iranian government will instead propose a bill calling for an immediate halt to oil deliveries to Europe. The move, with most reports citing the Iranian news agency Mehr, has come about in response to the EU agreement to impose sanctions against Iran, which were announced earlier this week. And why not? After all if Europe is indeed serious, sooner or later Iran will be cut off but in the meantime experience significant policy uncertainty, which is precisely what the flipflops on the ground need. The one thing that Europe, however is forgetting, is that all that whopping 0.8 Mb/d in imports will simply find a new buyer.Quickly.

Aviation Week's Defense Technology International has compiled a summary of all the current and probable conflicts of 2012, so I made this map*. The only conflict that is not in this map is the incoming Obama-Romney nuclear war.