Laura Rozen on Politico.

[...] one reason UAE authorities are so ticked off about the assassination is because they were quietly cooperating with Israel on Iran intelligence. Indeed, an Israeli minister was in the UAE the day the assassination took place.

New York Times article.

As Greece's debt troubles batter the euro, Britain has done its utmost to stay above the fray.

Until now, that is. Suddenly, investors are asking if Britain may soon face its own sovereign debt crisis if the government fails to slash its growing budget deficits quickly enough to escape the contagious fears of financial markets.

Mark Hosenball in Newsweek.

After Abdolmalek Rigi--the suspected leader of the anti-Iranian jihadist group Jundullah--was arrested by Iranian authorities last week, he made a startling public claim: the Obama administration offered to give his group money and munitions to help in their efforts to undermine the government of Iran. Obama administration officials say Rigi is making up stories. They insist the United States has never had a relationship with Jundullah, a little-known group of Sunni jihadists based along Pakistan's border with Iran. The group has carried out deadly bombing attacks that have killed hundreds of Iranian soldiers and civilians.

Yet there appears to be at least some brief history between the U.S. and Junduallah. Declassified has learned that several years ago, the group did in fact try to cut a deal with U.S. officials--but were rebuffed.

Friday Lunch Club quoting an Israeli news site.

Until the second Lebanon war, Israeli companies and organizations prefered to build up information sites within Israel due to a relatively easy access and operation, resulting from geographical proximity....

However, threats missiles, Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as fear of earthquakes, brought a radical change in the perception of security and storage of information. Israeli companies began to realize that one should preferably have backup sites and data locations abroad....."

Times article.

The world's most powerful investors have been advised to buy farmland, stock up on gold and prepare for a "dirty war" by Marc Faber, the notoriously bearish market pundit, who predicted the 1987 stock market crash.

The bleak warning of social and financial meltdown was delivered today in Tokyo at a gathering of 700 pension and sovereign wealth fund managers.

Gary Sick comments.

It turns out, the move in and out is a routine operation of no strategic significance that requires about half an hour. The material is now back underground, so the NYTimes can relax its maximum alert status.

What a total farce!

Reuters report.

Iran has moved a stock of enriched uranium back underground after drawing what it needed to refine the material up to 20 percent purity, Tehran's envoy to the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Monday.

Craig Murray writes.

At 2pm today Alisher Khakimjanov faces a fast track asylum hearing and possible immediate deportation to Uzbekistan. Alisher's father was arrested by police following the Andijan massacre by Uzbek troops of anti-regime demonstrators. The family's home was confiscated by the State and militia have been looking for Alisher, who was a student in the UK.

Article by George Smith in the Register.

When the US government closed the anthrax case recently, the committee to clear Bruce Ivins and all the conspiracy theorists again emerged from the closet. Because the case took so long and the bioterrorist was at the center of the US biodefense research community, careers and reputations were made and lost on it.

George Friedman in STRATFOR.

To recap, the United States either can accept a nuclear Iran or risk an attack that might fail outright, impose only a minor delay on Iran's nuclear program or trigger extremely painful responses even if it succeeds. When neither choice is acceptable, it is necessary to find a third choice.

BBC report.

Iran is not co-operating with the UN nuclear watchdog's investigation into the country's nuclear programme, the new head of the agency has said.

Iran's insistence its nuclear programme was peaceful could not be confirmed, Yukiya Amano told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.

Mr Amano is taking a much more critical line than the organisation has done before, correspondents say.

Report on Ynetnews.

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton sent a message to Beirut that Washington cannot prevent an Israeli strike in Lebanon as long as arms smuggling to Hezbollah continues.

London-based al-Hayat newspaper reported on Monday that the message was conveyed via US Ambassador to Lebanon Michele Sison to Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

Gavin Hewitt on the BBC News site.

However, the believers out there are few. Giant hedge funds have placed their bets; the euro will drop further. In their view the euro's inherent weaknesses are not being addressed. Most senior European officials believe some kind of bail-out will be needed.

Novosti report.

Iran's deputy foreign minister has officially apologized for intercepting a Kyrgyz passenger plane in Iranian airspace, Kyrgyzstan's foreign ministry said on Monday.

On February 23, Iranian air force fighter jets forced a Kyrgyz air carrier "Kyrgyzstan" plane on a flight from the United Arab Emirates to Bishkek to land in the Iranian city of Bandar Abbas.

The plane was only released after two of its passengers were reportedly detained by Iranian special services.

Iranian media reported that one of the detainees was Abdolmalek Rigi, the leader of Iranian Sunni insurgent group Jundallah, who was scheduled to meet U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, at Kyrgyzstan's Manas Air Base.

Reuters article.

Iran's accusations that Jundollah operated from bases in Pakistan's Baluchistan province have been a cause of friction with Islamabad and Rigi's arrest -- in circumstances yet to be fully explained -- could go some way to easing tensions.

Pakistan and Iran, which have also competed for influence in Afghanistan, have been trying to improve relations recently as regional players prepare for U.S.-led forces to start withdrawing in 2011.

Editorial in the New York Times.

The cumulative weight of the evidence seems persuasive. But the F.B.I. has a troubling history of building a circumstantial case against suspects who are later exonerated. We are inclined to agree with Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey, who is calling for an independent assessment to validate the findings. Americans need to be sure that the real culprit or possible accomplices are not still at large, waiting to do damage again. And we need to head off conspiracy theories that are apt to be fostered if the only judgment available comes from an agency eager to clear its books.