Washington Post story.

The United States test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads during a joint military exercise Wednesday with Saudi Arabia, a Western military official said.

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich in Middle East Online.

Given that Washington denied all knowledge of Amiri for months after his disappearance, the State Department ought to facilitate a meeting between him and the Iranian authorities to reassure all concerned parties that Amiri has indeed defected of his own free will. This was a practice that the Americans obliged even at the height of the Cold War. When a Soviet nuclear physicist by the name of Artem Vladimirovich Kulikov defected in 1985, he met with officials of the Soviet embassy at the State Department to reassure the Russians that he was not being held against his will. Failure to do this will give credibility to the alternative.

This would be more plausible given that in 2009 Ynet news reported that with cooperation from the United States Israel has focused on eliminating key human assets involved in Iran's nuclear program. A few months later an Iranian physicist was killed in a bomb blast in Tehran. The eerie incidents bring back memories of the Iranian diplomat kidnapped and tortured by the CIA while serving in Iraq in 2007 - and denied.

Chris Hedges on Truthdig.

The unraveling of America mirrors the unraveling of Yugoslavia. The Balkan war was not caused by ancient ethnic hatreds. It was caused by the economic collapse of Yugoslavia. The petty criminals and goons who took power harnessed the anger and despair of the unemployed and the desperate. They singled out convenient scapegoats from ethnic Croats to Muslims to Albanians to Gypsies. They set in motion movements that unleashed a feeding frenzy leading to war and self-immolation. There is little difference between the ludicrous would-be poet Radovan Karadzic, who was a figure of ridicule in Sarajevo before the war, and the moronic Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. There is little difference between the Oath Keepers and the Serbian militias. We can laugh at these people, but they are not the fools. We are.

ABC report.

An award-winning Iranian nuclear scientist, who disappeared last year under mysterious circumstances, has defected to the CIA and been resettled in the United States, according to people briefed on the operation by intelligence officials.

The officials were said to have termed the defection of the scientist, Shahram Amiri, "an intelligence coup" in the continuing CIA operation to spy on and undermine Iran's nuclear program.

Independent report.

The financial crisis has cost the British economy up to £7.4trillion in lost output, according to the Bank of England.

Andrew Haldane, the Bank's executive director for financial stability, said that taking into account the permanent damage done to the productive potential of nations across the world, as well as the immediate costs of supporting the banks and the recession, there is an output loss equivalent to between $60trn and $200trn for the world economy and between £1.8trn and £7.4trn for the UK.

Guardian article.

Aipac has persuaded more than three-quarters of the members of the US House of Representatives to sign a letter calling for an end to public criticism of Israel and urging the US to "reinforce" its relationship with the Jewish state.

[...]

A source, who is consulted by administration officials on Israel policy but did not wish to be named, said that having chosen to take Netanyahu on, Obama cannot afford to back away. "The administration's credibility is at stake -- in Israel and the Arab world. Netanyahu thought he had the better of it last year after he humiliated the president by rejecting his demand for a settlement freeze. If the administration does not follow through on this, or reaches some compromise that takes the heat off the Israelis, I suspect it will be almost impossible for us to get anything off the ground," he said.

BBC report.

A United Nations report into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto has been delayed at Pakistan's request.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon accepted a postponement until 15 April hours before its scheduled release.

Kathy Kelly in Pulse.

If the U.S. public looked long and hard into a mirror reflecting the civilian atrocities that have occurred in Afghanistan, over the past ten months, we would see ourselves as people who have collaborated with and paid for war crimes committed against innocent civilians who meant us no harm.

Two reporters, Jerome Starkey (the Times UK), and David Lindorff, (Counterpunch), have persistently drawn attention to U.S. war crimes committed in Afghanistan. Makers of the film "Rethinking Afghanistan" have steadily provided updates about the suffering endured by Afghan civilians.

Independent report.

A key government policy on countering extremism in Britain has "stigmatised and alienated" Muslims and undermined community relations, a Commons report says today.

Many Muslims told the cross-party committee of MPs that they believed the purpose of the Prevent programme was to "spy" on Asian communities, and that the Government was using funding to engineer a moderate form of acceptable Islam.

Luke Ryland on Boiling Frogs.

Is it possible that Grossman has been offering himself as a 'source' to various authors to spin the stories away from the truth?

[...]

Under oath (PDF), Ms Edmonds stated that Marc Grossman was on the payroll of various players in the nuclear black market and that he actively hindered efforts by the CIA to penetrate and unravel the nuclear black market. Ms Edmonds said that, in 2001, Grossman alerted his 'business associates' that nuclear consulting company, Brewster Jennings, was actually a CIA front company which was investigating the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Grossman's outing of Brewster Jennings forced the CIA to shutter the company, doing untold damage to the anti-proliferation efforts, and putting many agents and sources in danger.

In short, Marc Grossman was actually a vital player in the so-called 'AQ Khan network,' and should be facing criminal charges.

Report from Raw Story.

Evidently spooked by the collapse of the Dutch government over the country's involvement in Afghanistan, the CIA has put together a strategy proposal to prevent what it fears could be a "precipitous" collapse of support for the war in Afghanistan among European allies.

A document marked "confidential / not for foreign eyes," posted to the Wikileaks Web site, suggests strategies to manipulate European public opinion on the war, particularly in France and Germany.

Andrew Sullivan on the Atlantic.

So an official in the US administration is claiming that Ross is more concerned with Israel's side of the story than with America's. This is not that surprising given that his position on Israel's holding Jerusalem as its eternal and undivided capital is well-documented.

Reuters report.

If Israel were to strike Iran over its nuclear activities, markets would be watching one thing only - Iran's response.

The scale of that response could be the difference between a brief spike in oil prices and pushing the world back to economic crisis.

Guardian report.

Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on the Moscow subway during the morning rush hour today, killing at least 35 people and injuring 51, Russian officials said.

IMEMC report.

Nasser Al Siraj, assistant-director of the National Economy Ministry in Gaza, stated that Israel approved the entry of shoes and clothes and decided to increase the number of trucks carrying the two products from 6 to 10.

[...]

Shoes and clothes were not allowed into Gaza since two years due to the siege that prevented the entry of basic supplies, food stuffs and even medications and medical equipment.

BBC report.

Shares in Desire Petroleum have almost halved after the oil explorer said a well being drilled off the Falkland Islands may not be economically viable.

Aljazeera article.

After year-long optimism that the three decade old US-Iran standoff might finally come to an accommodation, the two sides are ratcheting up their rhetoric and in the process risk new escalation with unpredictable consequences.

Bloomberg report.

Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Israel will "sooner or later" have to destroy the Islamic Hamas regime that controls the Gaza Strip, after two Israeli soldiers were killed in the coastal enclave.

Wolfgang Münchau in the Financial Times.

Under these circumstances there may come a point when the Greek government concludes that default is the financially superior option, especially since 70 per cent of Greek debt is held by foreigners. If they are smart, they will take the EU money and then default. In any case, default is still the true backstop, not the emergency loan. Bond market investors should be well aware of that.

[...]

In the meantime, we are still asking the same uncomfortable questions as we did last week. Is the Greek austerity plan realistic? Will Greece be able to pull through? What happens if Portugal gets into difficulty? What about Spain? What about Italy? Is there an agenda to deal with current account imbalances? Will Germany ever accept any responsibility for the cohesion of the eurozone, other than expecting others to converge with Germany? All the questions are still out there, unanswered.

I must admit that the late-night meetings, the dramatic announcement of an agreement, and the press conferences by European leaders are highly effective tools to impress the outside world. Ms Merkel in particular is a very persuasive politician. But the politics of smoke and mirrors cannot fool all the people all of the time. This will not end well.

Telegraph report.

A report questions claims that the country has faced a "public emergency" every year since 2001 and calls for a complete review of counter-terrorism measures and whether they are all still justified.

The parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights also warns the Government's "narrow" definition of what it considers being complicit in torture could be unlawful.

PressTV report.

Amid increasing Israeli and Congressional pressure, the White House's desperate struggle to win international support to impose tough United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran has forced the Western propaganda machine to move into high gear.

New York Times report.

In an interview with the Iranian Student News Agency, the official, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ordered work to begin soon on two new plants. The plants, he said, "will be built inside mountains," presumably to protect them from attacks.

New York Times article.

The government's own simulations are classified, but the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution created its own in December. The results were provocative enough that a summary of them has circulated among top American government and military officials and in many foreign capitals.

Guardian report.

Public opinion in the US has turned against the war as it has in the UK. The number of US troops killed in Afghanistan has roughly doubled in the first three months of 2010 compared with the same period last year. US officials have warned that casualties are likely to rise even further as the Pentagon completes its deployment of the 30,000 additional troops and as Nato forces prepare an offensive against the Taliban's home base in Kandahar province.

Guardian report.

Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, tried to smooth over a breach in relations with the US today, speaking out against unnamed confidants who described Barack Obama as pro-Palestinian and Israel's "greatest disaster".

[...]

The Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli newspaper, sparked the premier's anger when it quoted unnamed Netanyahu confidants delivering extraordinary criticisms of the US administration. One said Obama and Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, had "adopted a patently Palestinian line".

"We're talking about something that is diseased and insane," the confidant told the paper. "The situation is catastrophic. We have a problem with a very, very hostile administration. There's never been anything like this before. This president wants to establish the Palestinian state and he wants to give them Jerusalem … You could say Obama is the greatest disaster for Israel, a strategic disaster."

Laura Rozen in Politico.

"He [Ross] seems to be far more sensitive to Netanyahu's coalition politics than to U.S. interests," one U.S. official told POLITICO Saturday. "And he doesn't seem to understand that this has become bigger than Jerusalem but is rather about the credibility of this Administration."

What some saw as the suggestion of dual loyalties shows how heated the debate has become.

Reuters report.

Deeply concerned as it is by the risk of a nuclear-armed Iran, Israel has never even hinted at using atomic weapons to forestall the perceived threat. But now a respected Washington think tank has said that low-radioactive yield "tactical" nuclear warheads would be one way for the Israelis to destroy Iranian uranium enrichment plants in remote, dug-in fortifications.

Jahangir Salehian on Tehran Bureau from PBS.

[...] Until Makan comes out and explains his motives and the details of his trip to Israel, a great many important questions about his trip, not to mention its potential consequences, remain unanswered.

Craig Murray comments.

[...] a very concerned serving British officer of some seniority has just leaked to me that the truth is that the Afghan National Army is now over 60% Tajik, and that figure is increasing. The Pashtun figure is hovering below 20% and may have been overtaken by the Uzbeks.

In other words the "Afghan National Army" is just the Northern Alliance in very expensive NATO provided uniforms.

By carrying the northern alliance with our troops into the solid Pashtun tribal areas as an alien occupying force, we are stoking still further the ferocity of a future civil war. Karzai of course will be safe in Switzerland counting his looted cash by then.

Jeremy Bowen report for the BBC.

The Middle East is full of talk of war. Not today, tomorrow or perhaps even next year but the horizon is dark, and people who have to live with the Middle East's grim collection of smouldering problems are finding it hard to look ahead with anything other than foreboding.

Times article.

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, has been given 28 days to decide whether a pilot wrongly accused of training the 9/11 hijackers should be exonerated and compensated.

[...]

Mr Raissi was eventually freed in February 2002 but has been unable to resume his career as a pilot because neither the British nor US authorities have been prepared to apologise for falsely accusing him.

Times report.

Israeli tanks advanced into the Gaza Strip yesterday as the worst clashes in 14 months erupted between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters.

Both sides blamed each other for triggering the violence, in which two Israeli soldiers and several Palestinians were killed.

AP report.

Imposing more sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program is not the best option, but it cannot be excluded, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday.

Independent leading article.

No one disputes that the threat from terrorism in Britain is real. But hysterical official assertions about the scale of that threat do nothing to make us safer. And the trading of ancient liberties for a thin blanket of security is the very worst way for Britain, as a nation, to respond.

John Kampfner in the Guardian.

The most important motive for the nuclear deal is the signal it seeks to send to the "great proliferators", notably Iran. The Obama-Medvedev signing ceremony will be followed by two international conferences, on nuclear security and non-proliferation. Welcome though the deal is, the Americans and Russians are unlikely to make much immediate progress with the Iranians.

John Pilger in the New Statesman.

Here is news of the Third World War. The United States has invaded Africa. US troops have entered Somalia, extending their war front from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and now the Horn of Africa. In preparation for an attack on Iran, "bunker-buster" bombs are said to be arriving at the US base on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Laura Rozen comments.

A spike in Iran's gasoline imports in recent months indicates that the Iranian government "is seriously concerned about the effect that gasoline sanctions may have on the already ailing Iranian economy," Booz-Allen's Persia House reports. The group's analysis shows that Iran has increased its gasoline imports by 1500 percent in the last year and reduced domestic consumption of gasoline by five percent in the last year [...]

Times report.

Two separate meetings between President Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, failed to produce so much as an official photograph as a chill settled over US-Israeli relations and secrecy shrouded any efforts to repair them.

Asia Times article.

News that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had reached a plea bargain with David Coleman Headley, who played a key role in the planning of the terrorist strike in Mumbai in November 2008 in which 166 people were killed, has caused an uproar in India.

The deal enables the US government to hold back from formally producing any evidence against Headley in a court of law that might have included details of his links with US intelligence or oblige any cross-examination of Headley by the prosecution.

[...] A senior Indian editor wrote on Sunday, "Headley ... was convicted on drug charges and sent to jail in the US. We know also that he was subsequently released from jail and handed over to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which said that it wanted to send him to Pakistan as an undercover agent. All this is a matter of public record. What happened between the time the US sent Headley into Pakistan and his arrest at Chicago airport a few months ago? How did an American agent turn into a terrorist? The US will not say."

Craig Murray comments.

Miliband did his level best today, in his parliamentary statement on the expulsion of the Israeli "diplomat" over forged British passports, to avoid mentioning the murder in Dubai at all. For those who criticised my decision to rejoin the Lib-Dems as "Zionist", I point out that it was Lib Dem spokesman Ed Davey who first introduced the oppression of the Palestinians of Gaza into the debate.

Guardian report.

In a significant policy shift, the government has agreed to undertake more work on whether the UK needs to take action to avoid the massive dislocation that could be caused by the early onset of "peak oil" -- the point that marks the start of terminal decline in global oil production.

Jeremy Leggett, the executive chairman of the renewable power company Solar Century and a leading figure in the UK industry taskforce on peak oil and energy security, said the meeting, to be held at the Energy Institute, showed a welcome new sense of urgency.

"Government has gone from the BP position -- '40 years of supply left, the price mechanism works, no need to worry' -- to 'crikey'," he said.

Fox News report.

Most American voters believe it's possible the nation's economy could collapse, and majorities don't think elected officials in Washington have ideas for fixing it.

The latest Fox News poll finds that 79 percent of voters think it's possible the economy could collapse, including large majorities of Democrats (72 percent), Republicans (84 percent) and independents (80 percent).

George Monbiot in the Guardian.

Let's begin with the sovereignty issue. When I once made the mistake of stepping into a Blockbuster video shop, I found myself walking past aisle after aisle of Hollywood movies. Then I came across a tiny section labelled "foreign", which contained about a dozen European films. Either Hollywood's hegemony was such that the US was no longer perceived as another country, or Blockbuster had adopted the US definition of foreign and imported it 4,000 miles into the UK. The same confusion governs this country's defence policy. The other side of the Channel is forrin. The other side of the Atlantic isn't.

Guardian report.

David Miliband said today that there was "compelling evidence" that Israel was responsible for misuse of British passports as part of a plot to kill a prominent member of Hamas.

New York Times report.

The Pakistani government has filed a petition in the nation's High Court seeking to investigate Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who has confessed to running the world's largest nuclear proliferation network, over recent reports about his ties to Iran's nuclear program, a government lawyer said Monday. The petition was filed on Monday hours before a court in Lahore was to announce a verdict on Mr. Khan's petition to have his travel restrictions relaxed.

Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek.

But after watching Netanyahu's government over the past year, I have concluded that he is actually not serious about the Iranian threat. If tackling the rise of Iran were his paramount concern, would he have allowed a collapse in relations with the United States, the country whose military, political, and economic help is indispensable in confronting this challenge? If taking on Iran were his central preoccupation, wouldn't he have subordinated petty domestic considerations and done everything to bolster ties with the United States?

From Time.

Organizers made clear their belief that Iran's nuclear program, rather than the state of relations with the Palestinians, should top the agenda of U.S.-Israel relations. Sen. Evan Bayh, an Indiana Democrat, spoke for many when he said, "I do think [the settlements standoff] has been a distraction from the major issue at hand," which he named as the "ticking clock" of Iranian nuclear development.

Independent report.

Fresh evidence has emerged that British military intelligence ran a secret operation in Iraq which authorised degrading and unlawful treatment of prisoners. Documents reveal that prisoners were kept hooded for long periods in intense heat and deprived of sleep by defence intelligence officers. They also reveal that officers running the operation claimed to be answerable only "directly to London".

Washington Post article.

By early 2008, top U.S. military officials had become convinced that extremists planning attacks on American forces in Iraq were making use of a Web site set up by the Saudi government and the CIA to uncover terrorist plots in the kingdom.

[...]

Elite U.S. military computer specialists, over the objections of the CIA, mounted a cyberattack that dismantled the online forum. Although some Saudi officials had been informed in advance about the Pentagon's plan, several key princes were "absolutely furious" at the loss of an intelligence-gathering tool, according to another former U.S. official.

Channel 4 News report.

Channel 4 News can reveal the Taliban insurgency against British and American forces is being supported by Iranian weapons smuggled over the border including mines, mortars and plastic explosives.

Daily Pioneer article.

The doubts over the Obama Administration's bona fides are strongest in India's 'strategic community', the charmed circle of diplomats, spooks, security experts and interested politicians. The Headley case has suggested a grey zone of complicity between US Intelligence and its asset who may have turned into a double agent. It is, after all, scarcely conceivable that Headley could have undergone five spells of training in a Lashkar-e-Tayyeba camp, from late-2005 to October 2009, without being on the radar of US counter-terrorism. Circumstantial evidence points to Headley undertaking his jihadi activities with the knowledge, and possibly consent, of US authorities. Till much after the Mumbai attacks, Headley wasn't regarded as a rogue agent.

Ynetnews report.

Two Israeli aircraft appearing to be spy planes flew near Budapest's international airport last week but did not land there, Hungarian media reported Thursday.

Haaretz report.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will use a visit to Washington this week to press the U.S. to release advanced weapons needed for a possible strike on Iran's nuclear sites, the Sunday Times reported.

Ahead of his departure Sunday night, Netanyahu bowed to U.S. demands and promised the administration of U.S President Barack Obama that Israel will make several goodwill gestures toward the Palestinians.

[...]

Reports on Saturday that United States was transporting 387 of the high-tech bunker-busting bombs to its air base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean appeared to indicate that despite his diplomatic efforts, Obama has not ruled out an American strike in Iran.

Times report.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will use a visit to Washington this week to press the US to release sophisticated bunker-busting bombs needed for a possible strike on Iran's nuclear sites.

Paul Craig Roberts on Countercurrents.

According to news reports, the U.S. military is shipping "bunker-buster" bombs to the U.S. Air Force base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The Herald Scotland reports that experts say the bombs are being assembled for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. The newspaper quotes Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London: "They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran."

The next step will be a staged "terrorist attack," a "false flag" operation as per Operation Northwoods, for which Iran will be blamed. As Iran and its leadership have already been demonized, the "false flag" attack will suffice to obtain U.S. and European public support for bombing Iran. The bombing will include more than the nuclear facilities and will continue until the Iranians agree to regime change and the installation of a puppet government. The corrupt American media will present the new puppet as "freedom and democracy."

Herald report. See also this report.

The Foreign Office is coming under mounting pressure to tell the truth about whether there are plans by the US to use the British island of Diego Garcia as a base to launch an attack on Iran.

Reuters report.

Violence could spread across the Middle East with Israel paying a "heavy price" if it launched military action against Iran, the deputy leader of Hezbollah said on Thursday.

From the Raw Story.

The White House is threatening to veto a key intelligence funding bill over what it considers to be a dangerous amount of oversight on covert agencies, according to published reports.

The 2010 Intelligence Budget has gone through a number of key changes over the past few months, with House Democrats and the Obama administration butting heads over a number of provisions. Key among them for the latest White House veto threat is a provision that would allow the Government Accountability Office to investigate intelligence agencies.

[...] In a letter to the House and Senate intelligence committees, Office of Management and Budget chief Peter Orszag highlighted several areas of the bill that have intelligence officials worried, including the GAO oversight provision.

{...] Strangely, Orszag additionally called out an effort to re-investigate the 2001 anthrax attacks, which have since been blamed on the deceased government scientist Bruce Ivins. An unnamed Obama administration official told Bloomberg News that if the 2010 Intelligence Budget demands another look at the FBI's conclusions, the bill would be vetoed.

Daily Mail report.

Mr Blair - who has made at least £20million since leaving Downing Street in June 2007 - also went to great efforts to keep hidden a £1million deal advising the ruling royal family in Iraq's neighbour Kuwait.

In an unprecedented move, he persuaded the committee which vets the jobs of former ministers to keep details of both deals from the public for 20 months, claiming it was commercially sensitive. The deals emerged yesterday when the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments finally lost patience with Mr Blair and decided to ignore his objections and publish the details.

News of the secret deals fuelled fresh accusations that Mr Blair is 'cashing in on his contacts' from the controversial Iraq war in what one MP called 'revolving door politics at its worst'. They will increase concerns that Mr Blair is using his role as the West's Middle East envoy for personal gain.

From POLITICS.HU.

Magyar Nemzet daily, quoting a source without naming it, carried a report with accompanying photographs that two Israeli reconnaissance planes with the appearance of civilian craft had crossed Hungary's airspace on Wednesday.

The paper said that two planes of the Israel Air and Space Force (IASF) approached the runway of Budapest's international Ferihegy Airport twice but continued their flight without landing.

Bruce Gagnon on Global Research.

The Washington Post has introduced us to a controversy over Afghanistan war strategy. The Post reports that operations in Delaram (in the southwest) are "far from a strategic priority for senior officers at the international military headquarters in Kabul. One calls Delaram, a day's drive from the nearest city, 'the end of the Earth.' Another deems the area 'unrelated to our core mission' of defeating the Taliban by protecting Afghans in their cities and towns."

Why then are the Marines fighting in this part of the country?

[...]

When you check the maps above a clearer picture emerges. The bottom map is the proposed pipeline route to move Caspian Sea oil through Turkmenistan into Afghanistan and then finally through Pakistan to ports along the Arabian Sea where U.S. and British tankers would gorge themselves with the black gold.

Finian Cunningham on Global Research.

In this context of a major realignment in the world's energy economy -- one where there will be a continuing diminished role for the US -- Washington's blustering rhetoric about democracy and peace and war on terror or alleged Iranian nuclear weapons can be seen as a desperate attempt to conceal its fear that it stands to be a big loser. Encircling Iran with wars and threatening gas supplies to possibly the world's top future gas customer -- China -- is the real deal. US actions are more accurately seen as putting a knife to the energy arteries of a world economy that it will no longer be able to dominate.

Guardian article.

Gordon Brown today broke a promise to publish new guidelines for British intelligence officers dealing with the torture and abuse of detainees held abroad after MPs and peers privately warned that existing guidance was unsatisfactory.

The prime minister was locked in a bitter dispute tonight with the parliamentary body set up to monitor the intelligence agencies over his refusal to publish its criticisms of the new guidance.

From Spiegel Online.

New details are emerging about efforts by the German military and by the Defense Ministry in Berlin to conceal the full extent of the controversial Sept. 4, 2009 bombing in Kunduz, Afghanistan, which saw a German-ordered attack result in the deaths of up to 142 people, many of them civilians.

Reuters report.

A Chicago man pleaded guilty in court on Thursday to scouting targets for the 2008 assault on Mumbai that killed more than 160 people, including six Americans.

David Headley, 49, has been cooperating with U.S. investigators since his arrest in October and faces up to life in prison, said U.S. District Court Judge Harry Leinenweber.

Independent report.

Britain must continue to work with international intelligence agencies in the fight against terrorism even if they are not committed to UK standards on the abuse or torture of detainees, the Foreign Office has warned.

Robert Fisk in the Independent.

It is a scandal and a disgrace and, of course, a crime against humanity. Ask not where Masood Janjua has gone -- Amina does ask, of course, all the way up to the President -- for he has entered that dark world wherein dwell up to 8,000 of Pakistan's missing citizens, men, for the most part, seized from their homes or from the streets by cops and soldiers on the orders of spies and intelligence agents and Americans since 11 September, 2001. In Lahore alone, there are 120 "torture houses" just for the missing of the Punjab. Their shrieks of pain from the basements could be heard by residents -- who complained only that the buildings might provoke bomb attacks. In Pakistan today, preservation counts for more than compassion.

Rupert Cornwell in the Independent.

And there we have it. The settlements in East Jerusalem will go ahead whatever the US thinks. The proximity talks, even if they do proceed, are doomed in advance. And next week AIPAC holds here what it bills as the largest policy conference in its history. The Israeli Prime Minister will be in town to address it, so will Ms Clinton.

President Obama however will be about as far away as possible, on a long-planned visit to Indonesia and Australia. And probably just as well. Grovels, even the most elegant grovels, are not an edifying spectacle.

Robert Fisk in the Independent.

Ask Rabbi Sam White what he thinks of the global political row over plans to expand the community in which he lives, prays and studies, and he answers bluntly: "I don't see the problem. God gave us the land of Israel." The notion that the location of Ramat Shlomo, on land occupied after the 1967 Six Day War and officially expropriated six years later, might belong to another people is wholly alien to the 32-year-old Salford-born rabbi. "There's no question. It's in the Torah, which says that God gave the land to the Jewish people."

Catherine Philp in the Times.

Beware the law of unintended consequences. The US congressional panel's resolution on Armenian genocide may right a historical wrong but, in doing so, it may also jeopardise a peaceful future in the Middle East.

Furious with Israel's clumsy anti-diplomacy and humiliated by its failure to make the EU grade, Turkey is running out of reasons to play ball with the West.

Times report.

Turkey's Prime Minister has raised the stakes in an international row over the mass killing of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey by threatening to expel 100,000 Armenians living in the country.

The Leveretts comment.

While many of those now advocating containment as the optimal U.S. strategy toward the Islamic Republic see this as the moderate (and superior) alternative to preventive war and/or coercive regime change, such an approach would be inherently unstable. In all likelihood, the pursuit of a containment strategy by the United States vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic would ultimately lead to a U.S.-Iranian military confrontation.

Evening Standard article.

Already, it is routinely described as a "failed state". From day one he opposed the War on Terror and "the American puppet politicians in Pakistan". The decision to send the army into the tribal areas of the North West Frontier, to flush out al Qaeda terrorists, simply fuelled extremism. "It's civil war in the making," he says shaking his head. "They were like a bull in a china shop, fighting one or two guerrillas with aerial bombing of villages. That turned people against the army and a new phenomenon was created: the Pakistan Taliban." It's made him believe even more passionately in socio-economic justice. "You will have no problem with extremists in Pakistan if you have democracy with a welfare state," he tells the audience.

Cynthia McKinney in the Independent.

[...] sadly, the entire global community that expects national leaders to respect the rule of law and tell them the truth are now victims of 9/11.

Rupert Cornwell in the Independent.

The words have flown fast and furious in Washington since Israel, by accident or design, delivered this blow to the "peace process" with the Palestinians that the US is working so hard to revive -- at the very moment vice-President Joe Biden was visiting the country. But there is no sign that the Obama administration, however genuine its anger, is about to take specific action to punish its ally.

AFP report.

China has emerged as Iran's top economic partner, investing heavily in the energy sector and filling the gaps left by Western firms forced out by international sanctions.

In 2009, China became Iran's premier trade partner, with bilateral trade worth 21.2 billion dollars against 14.4 billion dollars three years earlier.

The Leveretts comment.

Sometimes headlines really do convey powerful messages. That was certainly the case with an AFP story, which appeared late last week under the headline, "Saudis deny discussing pressure on China over Iran with US".

BBC report.

Europe's finance ministers have agreed how to help Greece in its battle to control its finances.

After a meeting in Brussels, they revealed few details, except that they had ruled out any loan guarantees.

Herald article.

Hundreds of powerful US "bunker-buster" bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.

The Sunday Herald can reveal that the US government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 "Blu" bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures.

Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iran's controversial nuclear facilities. There has long been speculation that the US military is preparing for such an attack, should diplomacy fail to persuade Iran not to make nuclear weapons.

Guardian report.

Israel's relations with the US are at their worst for 35 years amid a continuing row over Jewish settlement plans in East Jerusalem, the Israeli ambassador to Washington admitted today.

Reuters story.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected on Monday any curbs on Jewish settlement in and around Jerusalem, defying Washington in Israel's deepening crisis with U.S. President Barack Obama's administration.

"For the past 40 years, no Israeli government ever limited construction in the neighbourhoods of Jerusalem," he said in a speech in parliament, citing areas in the West Bank that Israel captured in a 1967 war and annexed to the city.

Independent report.

Israel's government was yesterday facing the worst chill in relations with the US since taking office after a top White House official said the announcement of plans to expand an East Jerusalem settlement seemed "calculated to undermine" the negotiating process.

[...]

Israeli officials also denied reports -- in both The New York Times and The Washington Post -- that last week's announcement violated an informal understanding that if the US got talks going there would be no announcements of settlement building in East Jerusalem that might trigger a walkout by the Palestinians.

Mark Perry in Foreign Policy.

There are important and powerful lobbies in America: the NRA, the American Medical Association, the lawyers -- and the Israeli lobby. But no lobby is as important, or as powerful, as the U.S. military. While commentators and pundits might reflect that Joe Biden's trip to Israel has forever shifted America's relationship with its erstwhile ally in the region, the real break came in January, when David Petraeus sent a briefing team to the Pentagon with a stark warning: America's relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America's soldiers. Maybe Israel gets the message now.

Thomas L Friedman in the New York Times on Biden / Netanyahu.

He should have snapped his notebook shut, gotten right back on Air Force Two, flown home and left the following scribbled note behind: "Message from America to the Israeli government: Friends don't let friends drive drunk. And right now, you're driving drunk. You think you can embarrass your only true ally in the world, to satisfy some domestic political need, with no consequences? You have lost total contact with reality. Call us when you're serious. We need to focus on building our country."

Guardian article.

Last year, during protests against the attack on Gaza, a mixed group of demonstrators clashed with police. But when the alleged culprits were arrested in dawn raids, nearly all those taken were young Muslims.

[...] "I woke up and tried to get out of bed. The next thing is three police officers jump on top of me with their knees, and they handcuffed me so hard I screamed. That's when I really woke up." Hamza had been sleeping in shorts. When he asked if he could put a shirt on the police said no and opened the window. "It was freezing. I was shaking."

Three months earlier, in January last year, Yahia had been outside the Israeli embassy on a fractious demonstration against Israel's sustained bombing of Gaza.

Guardian report.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour MP for Islington North who chaired the meeting, said that the sentences amounted to an attack on the Muslim community and the right to protest.

He said: "Some of the sentences that have been handed down to these young demonstrators are extraordinary and out of all proportion to the crimes committed. What possible justification can there be for handing down a year in prison for a 19-year-old lad, studying dentistry, who threw a plastic bottle in the direction of the Israeli Embassy?"

Guardian article.

Liz Cheney and her organisation, Keep America Safe, have dubbed lawyers who acted on behalf of accused terrorists, and who now work for the department of justice, the "al-Qaida seven". The group has rebranded the justice department the "department of jihad".

Economist article.

[...] But diplomats from other Western countries report the Chinese as saying they oppose new sanctions so long as there is "even a 1% chance" of further dialogue (an illusion the Iranians are masters at conveying). And although China has an aversion to using its veto alone in the Security Council, its growing self-confidence as a great power suggests that it might do so now. Even if China relents, it will probably make sure that any new sanctions approved by the UN are far from crippling.

At the same time as he prods the stubborn mule that is China, however, Mr Obama is also struggling to curb the angry stallion that is Congress. Anti-Iranian sentiment on Capitol Hill was already inflamed by the Holocaust-denying rhetoric of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but has reached fever-pitch since the regime's clampdown since June on the pro-democracy green movement.

Andrew Sullivan comments on the Atlantic.

I cannot read Netanyahu's mind. But I can observe Israel's actions. They intend to occupy and colonize the entire West Bank for ever. They may allow some parceled enclaves for Palestinians, but they will maintain a big military presence on the Eastern border of West Bank, and they will sustain this with raw military power and force. I certainly cannot see any other rationale for their actions these past few years that makes any sense at all. Many Israeli politicians now use the term "apartheid" for this future.

From McCltchy.

What an Israeli newspaper called "The Slap Heard 'Round the World" brought sharp condemnation from Biden, who met Palestinians leaders in the West Bank on Wednesday.

However, the White House appeared eager to move on to just-announced indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Israeli columnists predicted that Netanyahu would suffer little more than a diplomatic tap on the wrist.

Ed Pilkington in the Guardian.

Abdulrahman Zeitoun is the real-life hero of Dave Eggers's new book. In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina he paddled from house to house in a canoe, offering help to his neighbours. For his trouble, he was arrested as a suspected terrorist.

Independent leading article.

[...] Israel calculates that no US president -- not even Barack Obama who has spoken so movingly of the historical injustice visited on the Palestinians -- will dare deliver it a serious slap. And who is to say that calculation is wrong?

Solomon Hughes in the Morning Star.

Two arms dealers attacked Gordon Brown for not spending more on weapons. It doesn't have the same ring as "army big guns attack Gordon Brown's defence budget claims" or "Prime Minister is targeted by top brass over army funding claims." But it is true.

Admiral Lord Boyce and Lord Guthrie are publicly attacking Brown for not buying enough weapons. But Boyce and Guthrie are not merely a retired soldier and a former sailor.

Laura Rozen in Politico.

Publicly, Vice President Joe Biden tried to keep up a positive tone in his good will visit to Israel this week. But privately, the Israeli press reports, he had sharper words for Israeli decisions Biden said jeopardize the peace process and U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq, fight insurgents and stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan, and strengthen an international and regional alliance to pressure Iran.

Wall Street Journal article.

Today, Israel's political and military establishment appears to be tilting toward one of his long-ignored views: Israeli support for Iran's opposition movement -- and not a miltary strike -- is the best way to combat the regime in Tehran.

[...]

Mr. Lubrani says that witnessing the Iranian revolution gave him faith in the power of the Iranian people to affect change. From a remote seventh-story office in an old Ministry of Defense building, he oversaw a four-man team that quietly supported the Iranian opposition and sowed unrest inside Iran's borders.

Niall Ferguson in the Los Angeles Times. This is a summary of his longer essay in Foreign Affairs here.

Ask Russia too. Fighting a losing battle in the mountains of the Hindu Kush has long been a harbinger of imperial fall. What happened 20 years ago is a reminder that empires do not in fact appear, rise, reign, decline and fall according to some recurrent and predictable life cycle. It is historians who retrospectively portray the process of imperial dissolution as slow-acting. Rather, empires behave like all complex adaptive systems. They function in apparent equilibrium for some unknowable period. And then, quite abruptly, they collapse.

Washington, you have been warned.

Guardian report.

Greek police fired teargas to disperse protesters throwing rocks and firebombs outside parliament today as more than 20,000 people marched through Athens to protest against new austerity measures to tackle the country's debt.

Craig Murray comments.

There is a good article in the Guardian by Vikram Dodd on Eliza Manningham Buller's professed ignorance. Some kind people in the comments thread have pointed out that my testimony and documentary evidence directly contradicts Manningham Buller.

Vikram Dodd in the Guardian.

The claim on Wednesday from the former head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, that the US hid from the UK security services the torture they were meting out to the Muslim men they had labelled terrorists, comes as a bit of surprise.

[...]

Before her retirement in 2007, then, all that Manningham-Buller needed to have been doing was read a decent newspaper or use a web search, either of which would have produced headlines and articles that would have pricked the curiosity of even the dullest of minds. Never mind those who see themselves as among the sharpest and brightest.

Kaveh Afrasiabi in the Asia Times.

An unusual alliance has been unveiled after Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad revealed that the recent arrest of Abdulmalik Rigi, leader of the Sunni terrorist group Jundallah, was made possible with intelligence cooperation from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

[...]

Learning from history, the West can do much in terms of confidence-building with Iran, by focusing on areas of mutual interest and bracketing the hopeless cause of "proxy war" with Iran that, in Jundallah's case, appears to have backfired. Although the White House does not admit it, Rigi's arrest has embarrassed the administration of President Barack Obama by reminding the outside world that the rhetoric of foreign policy change is not matched by a clean break from the addiction of Obama's predecessor to a covert war with Iran.

Article on the Register.

[...] as Reg readers have pointed out, by forcing ID exchange into more and more transactions - buying booze, getting into clubs, getting cops to leave you alone - the government appears to be relying putting the squeeze on youngsters and simply grinding down the rest of us.

Max Blumenthal on Lobelog.

On the evening after two days of talks between US Special Envoy for the Middle East George Mitchell and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Netanyahu appeared onstage with the far-right Texas-based Pastor John Hagee in Jerusalem.

The occasion was Hagee's Night To Honor Israel, an event the preacher typically organizes as a forum to tout his ministry's millions in donations to Israeli organizations and to level bellicose rhetoric against Israel's perceived enemies.

On this evening, Hagee called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "the Hitler of the Middle East" and denounced the Goldstone Report as "character assassination by an unbiased and uninformed committee."

Friday Lunch Club comments.

The "bond" thing was earlier in the day, during Biden's visit to Israel ... However, with the Interior Ministry adding insult to injury, (announcing a plan to build 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem, on top of the new settlements on the West Bank) the VP came out sort of swinging, here.

Independent report.

The Israeli government last night managed to overshadow a high-profile visit by the US Vice-President, Joe Biden, with an announcement of controversial and politically highly sensitive plans to build 1,600 new homes for Jewish residents in Arab East Jerusalem.

The announcement from the Interior Ministry -- which drew a sharp and swift rebuke from Mr Biden himself -- came only hours after the Vice-President had personally congratulated the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for "taking risks for peace".

Craig Murray writes. The Independent article reporting Eliza Manningham-Buller's lecture is here.

Eliza Manningham-Buller, former head of MI5, is engaged in an outrageous attempt to rewrite history, by claiming we were unaware that the CIA was getting intelligence from torture.

[...] was told that, as a matter of policy in the War on Terror, we were using intelligence from torture. Sir Michael Wood said at the meeting that in his opinion this policy was not contrary to international law.

Guardian report.

"There is no space between the US and Israel when it comes to Israel's security," Biden said, after meeting the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem. Their talks appeared to focus on Iran and its nuclear ambitions, rather than on the new round of low-key, indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians that was agreed yesterday.

New York Times report.

Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, a leading reformer, has been barred from travelling abroad, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported on Tuesday.

Ray McGovern in Consortium News.

Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came home with sweaty palms from his mid-February visit to Israel. Ever since, he has been worrying aloud that Israel might mousetrap the U.S. into war with Iran.

This is especially worrying, because Mullen has had considerable experience in putting the brakes on such Israeli plans in the past. This time, he appears convinced that the Israeli leaders did not take his earlier warnings seriously -- notwithstanding the unusually strong language he put into play.

Counterpunch article.

It turns out, however, that the picture of Marja presented by military officials and obediently reported by major news media is one of the clearest and most dramatic pieces of misinformation of the entire war, apparently aimed at hyping the offensive as a historic turning point in the conflict.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in the Independent.

at Isleworth Crown Court, Judge John Denniss is industriously sentencing demonstrators who gathered near the Israeli embassy to rail against that state's attack on Gaza, one of the worst acts of state terrorism in recent history. Our government said nothing then, and were therefore complicit. Protesters came from all backgrounds but the vast majority of those arrested were young Muslim men. Dozens are being sent down for insignificant acts of bravado. Some were about to go to university, to train as dentists and the like. Their homes were raided, families cowed and terrified. Joanna Gilmore, an academic expert on public demonstrations, says never before have such disproportionate sentences been handed out, not even with the volatile anti-globalisation protests. Denniss intends his punishments to be a deterrent. To deter us from what? Having the temerity to believe we live in a democracy and are free to march?

And then the crypto-fascist, Aryan Geert Wilders, is invited into the Lords by UKIP and crossbench peers to show his vile anti-Islam film in the name of freedom of expression. Freedom my arse. It is just another entertaining episode of Muslim-baiting. I dare the same peers to now invite David Irving, the Holocaust denier, to share his thoughts freely in the Lords, and get Omar Bakri over from the Lebanon with films of himself making fiery speeches on what to do with infidels. Again Muslims are made to understand that different standards apply to others. We are on trial, always, and always must expect to lose.

UPI story.

As the United States and other powers mull tightening economic sanctions on Iran, Tehran says it has begin mass production of cruise missiles -- just the thing to block the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

From The Media Line.

Iran and China have signed an agreement to allow China to set-up an oilrig in the Gulf despite increasing international calls to enforce tougher sanctions against Iran.

In a deal worth $143 million between the Iranian North Drilling Company and China Petroleum Technology Development Corporation, the latter will be allowed to drill for oil in the Gulf, according to the official Iranian news agency Press TV.

Guest piece by Jean-François Seznec on the Leveretts' Race for Iran blog.

Seen from Washington, Saudi Arabia seems to speak with a forked tongue on Iran. On the one hand, the Saudis are telling the United States that under no circumstances should it bomb Iran, or allow Israel to do so. On the other hand, the Saudis are also letting it be known that they are worried and quite sure that Iran is building nuclear weapons.

It seems that, in fact, the Saudis are more worried about potential U.S. military action against Iran than they are about the Iranians' ability actually to obtain nuclear weapons. The Saudis may not express this view clearly enough to change views on Capitol Hill, but the U.S. executive branch is probably quite aware of Saudi worries about the prospect of U.S. military intervention in Iran.

Guardian report.

Pakistani intelligence officials today denied that an American militant suspect arrested in Karachi was al-Qaida's US-born spokesman.

Yesterday two intelligence officers and a senior government official identified the detained man as Adam Gadahn, a 31-year-old California-born convert to Islam who has appeared on videos threatening the west, including one that emerged earlier the same day.

But a senior government official and two security agents said today the suspect was not Gadahn.

Guardian report.

The government will attempt today to have a case about torture heard entirely behind closed doors in a move that some lawyers say would extend secrecy to a new area of hearings, overriding ancient principles of English law.

[...]

"This would set a very serious precedent," said Louise Christian, a partner at Christian Khan who represents Martin Mubanga, one of the claimants, who was also detained at Guantánamo Bay. "If you allow evidence in ordinary civil cases to be kept secret, there is no doubt it will be endlessly used by the government. As the Binyam Mohamed case illustrated, this is really about the government avoiding embarrassment for the reality of their collaboration with the US and all that happened, rather than any real national security issues."

Jon Snow on his Channel 4 blog.

Put simply, he's in Israel to try to dissuade the Israelis from bombing Iran.

There remains a strong thread of opinion inside the Israeli cabinet that argues that Iran is building a nuclear bomb and needs to be stopped in its tracks. Reportedly, Israel does not have a supply of the American developed deep bunker busting bomb required to penetrate the storage chambers in Natanz where, beneath some 55ft of reinforced concrete, Iran keeps her enriched uranium.

But the US Vice President, Joe Biden is not alone in his mission.

Financial Times report.

The world's largest oil traders have quietly stopped supplying petrol to Iran in a sign that the threat of sanctions and Washington's behind-the-scenes efforts are paying off.

However, the decision by Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura is unlikely to cut Tehran off completely from the global petrol market as traders said that Iran's long-standing suppliers were being replaced by small Dubai-based and Chinese companies.

Al Jazeera report.

Iran's defence minister has announced a new production line of short-range cruise missiles which he says are highly accurate and capable of evading radar.

General Ahmad Vahidi told state news agency IRNA on Sunday that the Nasr 1 would be capable of destroying targets such as warships.

"The Nasr-1 missile is able to destroy 3,000-tonne targets," he said.

From Persia House.

Events in recent months have caused officials to take special measures into consideration for the last Wednesday of the year [Chaharshanbeh Suri: the last Tuesday evening of the Iranian calendar year, which is celebrated in streets and neighborhoods throughout Iran with bonfires and firecrackers] in order to prevent abuse of the celebration.

Ynetnews article

Deputy Minister for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee, MK Ayoob Kara (Likud), said Israel had received messages from radical Muslim states with which it does not have diplomatic relations saying they would back any Israeli or US move against Iran.

"These are positive, secretive messages which say that they will support any move," Kara said at a cultural event in Beersheba Saturday. "They have conveyed clear messages that they are concerned about the Iranian problem."

He refused to name the states involved, but said there was a "wall to wall coalition" of Muslim nations against the Islamic Republic.

Wired story.

Weinberg and his men proved the efficacy of thorium reactors in hundreds of tests at Oak Ridge from the '50s through the early '70s. But thorium hit a dead end. Locked in a struggle with a nuclear-armed Soviet Union, the US government in the '60s chose to build uranium-fueled reactors -- in part because they produce plutonium that can be refined into weapons-grade material. The course of the nuclear industry was set for the next four decades, and thorium power became one of the great what-if technologies of the 20th century.

Robert Fisk in the Independent.

The events in Washington prove a few things. The Armenian American community have a more powerful and wealthier lobby than ever before. More seriously -- for the Turks -- is that this year Turkey did not have the Israeli lobby behind it. In the past, Israel, which disgracefully claims that the Armenian Holocaust was not a genocide, has supported its close ally Turkey. But this year, Israel and Turkey have fallen out and the Israelis are still miffed at Turkey's condemnation of the bloodbath in Gaza.

Deutsche Welle report.

In Africa, Iran has engaged in economic and development projects in a number of countries: in Senegal where Khodro, Iran's largest car manufacturer, opened an assembly line in 2007; Nigeria with which it has agreed to share nuclear technology for the production of electricity; and it enjoys good relations with South Africa (a regional leader) where its support of the ANC during the apartheid era has meant that South Africa has remained a true friend.

However, nowhere is the success of Iran's investment quite as clear as in Sudan. "Iran has been successful in strengthening ties with Sudan because the two countries have an ideological link. They are standing up against the West and imperialism," Sanam Vakil, an expert on Iran at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC, told Deutsche Welle.

Joseph Trento in DC Bureau.

While the Obama administration prepares for a military conflict with Iran, it is important for us to understand some of the secret history between Iran and the United States that complicates the planning and unnecessarily puts our soldiers and sailors in harm's way. What follows is one story about how that happened.

Roger Cohen comments in the New York Times.

There's nothing new in U.S. hawks reducing Iran to a nuclear abstraction, its 70 million citizens subsumed into a putative warhead, its civilization ignored and its historical grievances against the United States glossed over -- all in the name of making Persia a U.S. electoral pawn and a threat that demands bombs.

But the war option remains unthinkable, a potential disaster for the United States and Israel. It's therefore worth outlining, before the drumbeat intensifies in the run-up to the mid-term U.S. elections, 10 truths about Iran.

From CASMII.

[...] Iran's ongoing internal political crisis has apparently led some Western anti-war organizations and activists to be ambivalent about the need to stand against Western aggression against Iran. Regardless of how activists view Iran's internal situation, we all must agree that outside pressure and interference must be opposed. Recognizing this, Iran's political opposition has urged Western countries to stay out of Iran's internal affairs.

Guardian article.

He pleaded guilty to going absent without leave in January after the more serious charge of desertion -- which carries a maximum jail term of 10 years, rather than two years for awol -- was dropped at the last minute.

Glenton, 27, had intended to deny desertion, and his legal team believe the charge was reduced to avoid a potentially embarrassing full trial at which he planned to defend himself on the grounds that the entire Afghan war was illegal under international law.

BBC report. The Telegraph article is here.

The UK is planning to stop attempts to secure "politically-motivated" private arrest warrants for visiting foreign officials, the prime minister has said.

Times report.

Turkey recalled its ambassador to Washington tonight after a congressional panel voted to label the massacre of Armenians in the First World War as "genocide", in developments that threatened to poison relations between the US and its closest Muslim ally.

Clive Stafford Smith in the Guardian.

After rubbing the government's nose in its torture cover-up in the case of Binyam Mohamed, we gave the government a chance to come clean this week in the case of Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni, a man I met last week in Lahore, Pakistan. Madni was rendered through Diego Garcia to 92 days of particularly gruesome torture in Egypt, followed by time in Bagram and Guantánamo, before being belatedly cleared of any crime and sent home.

The British, sad to say, were again mixed up in all this. We suggested last August that they simply admit it.

[...]

A hearing was set for the case on 4 March 2010. At 5:21pm on 3 March, after the close of business, the government changed its tune. The government now admitted to the court that it was in "possession of documents which have a bearing … on whether any British or American authorities were mixed up in wrongdoing …"

Wall Street Jornal article.

The Obama administration, still struggling to win China's pivotal backing for a new round of United Nations sanctions against Iran, is increasingly worried about gaining the support of some other members of the U.N. Security Council, particularly Brazil, Turkey and Lebanon, according to U.S. and European officials.

Dave Lindorff on Counterpunch. The Scotsman story that he refers to.

Today's war in Afghanistan also has its My Lai massacres. It has them almost weekly, as US warplanes bomb wedding parties, or homes "suspected" of housing terrorists that turn out to house nothing but civilians. But these My Lais are all conveniently labeled accidents. They get filed away and forgotten as the inevitable "collateral damage" of war. There was, however, a massacre recently that was not a mistake--a massacre which, while it only involved fewer than a dozen people, bears the same stench as My Lai. It was the execution-style slaying of eight handcuffed students, aged 11-18, and a 12-year-old neighboring shepherd boy who had been visiting the others, in Kunar Province, on Dec. 26.

BBC: John Simpson's full report.

The specialist, like other medical staff at the hospital, seemed nervous about talking too openly about the problem.

They were well aware that what they said went against the government version, and we were told privately that the Iraqi authorities are anxious not to embarrass the Americans over the issue.

There are no official figures for the incidence of birth defects in Falluja. The US military authorities are absolutely correct when they say they are not aware of any official reports indicating an increase in birth defects in Falluja - no official reports exist.

BBC report.

Doctors in the Iraqi city of Falluja are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion.

Independent report.

He was supposed to return to Britain in 2007 -- but Shaker Aamer is still being held inside Camp Delta. Who is this charismatic prisoner? And what happened to him at the hands of MI5? Robert Verkaik reports

Larisa Alexandrovna on at-Largely.

The reason Liz Cheney is so interested in demonizing lawyers who represented or advocated for detainees at Gitmo is because her father has admitted to committing war crimes, over and over and over. Using the same old handbook, Liz Cheney is defending daddy by demonizing anyone in a position to shed light on the war crimes committed on her father's orders.

Jeff Huber on at-Largely.

Among the worst Orwellian deceptions being exposed by the Pentagon's Marjah offensive is the ludicrous notion that we're fighting a war in Afghanistan in order to protect Afghan civilians. The recent U.S. Special Forces air strike in the Marjah area that killed 27 or more civilians, including four women and a child, is a prime example of a cognitive disconnect that has been endemic in U.S. military operations throughout our misnamed war on terrorism.

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.

Letter in the Guardian.

Today, the House of Commons will debate whether the control order system will be renewed from another year. We wish to express serious concerns about its renewal. Control orders constitute permanent punishment without trial, whereby the innocent can be placed under house arrest on the basis of suspicion and secret intelligence. Control orders also fail to protect the public from individuals who may be genuinely dangerous.