Christopher Layne in the American COnservative.

The dollar's vulnerability is the United States' geopolitical Achilles' heel. Its role as the international economy's reserve currency ensures American preeminence, and if it loses that status, hegemony will be literally unaffordable. As Cornell professor Jonathan Kirshner observes, the dollar's vulnerability "presents potentially significant and underappreciated restraints upon contemporary American political and military predominance."

Friday Lunhc CLub quoteing Al-Hayat.

Al-Hayat reports, citing a Russian source, that Russian President Vladimir Medvedev is to visit Syria on May 11 to discuss promoting Syria-Russia military and other cooperation. According to the paper, in accordance with contracts signed between the two, Russia has supplied Syria with S-300 and Iskander missile defense systems, and there are contacts between the sides for the provision of new models of MiG aircraft and air defense systems.

BBC report.

Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian-born British resident, was arrested in the UK shortly after the attacks amid claims that he was a key member of the plot.

He was held in custody for nearly five months before being released when a judge found there was no evidence to link him to any form of terrorism.

Glenn Greenwald comments on Salon.

It requires an extreme level of irrationality to read what happened to Hatfill and simultaneously to have faith that the "real anthrax attacker" has now been identified as a result of the FBI's wholly untested and uninvestigated case against Bruce Ivins. The parallels are so overwhelming as to be self-evident.

[...]

[...] the Obama administration is actively and aggressively blocking any efforts to investigate the FBI's case against Ivins through an Obama veto threat, based on the Orwellian, backward claim that such an investigation "would undermine public confidence" in the FBI's case "and unfairly cast doubt on its conclusions."

[...]

As several people noted in comments, Obama's rationale for threatening to veto an anthrax investigation (investigations would undermine the State's credibility and thus dilute its authority) is very similar to the Catholic Church's explanation for why it concealed reports of so many abusive priests (disclosure would undermine the Church's credibility and thus dilute its authority).

New York Times report.

Asked by reporters after his testimony whether he believed that there was any chance that Dr. Ivins, who committed suicide in 2008, had carried out the attacks, the microbiologist, Henry S. Heine, replied, "Absolutely not." At the Army's biodefense laboratory in Maryland, where Dr. Ivins and Dr. Heine worked, he said, "among the senior scientists, no one believes it."

Global Research article by Finian Cunningham.

In this game of high-stakes poker, how is it that Iran can stay so composed? It is because Iran holds the ultimate weapon, not a weapon of mass destruction that the US claims it is seeking, but a weapon of mass disruption firmly within its grasp and ready to trigger immediately -- the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

BBC report.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has again rejected US calls to halt construction in occupied East Jerusalem.

He spoke as US Middle East envoy George Mitchell arrived in the region for separate talks with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Yahoo! news report.

Georgia's president said his country had seized a shipment of highly enriched uranium, blaming Russia for creating the instability that allows nuclear smugglers to operate in the region.

Russia dismissed the claims Thursday and said Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili's comments were "unsubstantiated" and amounted to propaganda. Saakashvili gave few details of the seizure during an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press, saying only that the uranium was intercepted last month coming into his country in the Caucasus region of southeast Europe.

BBC report.

It comes a day after data showed a worse-than-expected budget deficit of 13.6% of gross domestic product.

Credit rating agency Moody's also cut its rating on Greek debt on Thursday.

BBC report.

The X-37B, which has been likened to a scaled-down space shuttle, blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 0052 BST (1952 EDT).

[...]

The precise objectives and cost of the programme are secret. But the first few flights will allow officials to evaluate the vehicle's performance and ensure components and systems work the way they are supposed to.

From Ellen Brown's Web of Debt.

HFT rigging helps explain how Goldman Sachs earned at least $100 million per day from its trading division, day after day, on 116 out of 194 trading days through the end of September 2009. It's like taking candy from a baby, when you can see the other players' cards.

Reuters report.

Doubts are growing within the U.S. defense and intelligence community about allegations that long-range Scud missiles from Syria have been shipped to the Hezbollah guerrilla group in neighboring Lebanon, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

Lawrence Sellin on UPI's Outside View.

Was Bruce Ivins the sole perpetrator of the anthrax mailings as the FBI claims or did his suicide result from the pressure of the investigation and the possible revelation of damaging personal information as occurred in the Hatfill case? Did Ivins, like Hatfill before him, simply fit the profile?

In the opinion of many, the Amerithrax investigation still appears far from conclusive.

Laura Rozen on Politico.

Amid recent reports that Syria intended to transfer Scud missiles to the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah, U.S. officials to date have been careful to say they do not know for a fact that the missiles were actually transferred to Lebanon, while Israeli officials have said they believe that they were.

[...]

But today, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.), chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, says she thinks there is a "high likelihood" the missiles were sent to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Guardian report.

The military manoeuvres, in a waterway crucial for global oil supplies, coincided with rising tension between Iran and the west, which fears Tehran's nuclear programme is aimed at developing bombs. Iran denies the charge.

Yesterday, the Pentagon said US military action against Iran remained an option even as Washington pursues diplomacy and sanctions to halt Iran's nuclear activities.

Register article.

The first person jailed under draconian UK police powers that Ministers said were vital to battle terrorism and serious crime has been identified by The Register as a schizophrenic science hobbyist with no previous criminal record.

His crime was a persistent refusal to give counter-terrorism police the keys to decrypt his computer files.

The 33-year-old man, originally from London, is currently held at a secure mental health unit after being sectioned while serving his sentence at Winchester Prison.