Guardian report.

The US has given private assurances to encourage the Palestinians to join indirect Middle East peace talks, including an offer to consider allowing UN security council condemnation of any significant new Israeli settlement activity, the Guardian has learned.

Press Association report.

The US government has warned Iran and Syria that America's commitment to Israel's security was unshakeable and they should understand the consequences of threats to the Jewish state. In a speech, secretary of state Hillary Clinton said Syrian transfers of increasingly sophisticated weaponry, including rockets, to militants in southern Lebanon and Gaza could spark new conflict in the Middle East.

Reuters report.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has refused to confirm or deny Israeli allegations his group has obtained long-range Scud missiles from Syria.

Independent report.

A secret Iraqi government prison, where detainees were subjected to horrific abuse and at least one died from his injuries, was described yesterday as being "worse than Abu Ghraib".

Its prisoners, who were mainly Sunni Arabs, included a wheelchair-bound British national. Freed captives told the New York-based organisation Human Rights Watch that they were raped, tortured with electric shocks and suffocated.

Guardian report.

Leading the field is the tabloid Bild, hammering home the alarming message that: "The Greeks want even more of our billions!" The headline is crowned by the ominous figure: "25,000,000,000 euro!", the proportion of the bailout package Germany can expect to pay.

"Will Greece become a bottomless pit for German taxpayers?" the paper asks.

Guardian report.

Fears of a fresh banking crisis stalked the markets today as the risk of Greece defaulting on its debt repayments raised concerns about the exposure of major banks to indebted countries in Europe.

Guardian report.

The Taliban leader in Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, survived an American drone strike in January and is alive and well, a senior official with Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency told the Guardian today.

Mehsud was reported to have died in a CIA drone strike in South Waziristan in January but, although Pakistan's interior minister claimed he had been killed, the death was never confirmed by either US or Pakistani intelligence.

Ynetnews report.

The Iranian struggle against sanctions steps up a notch: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is planning to arrive in New York Monday in order to participate in the convention of 189 countries signed on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

From Human Rights Watch.

Detainees in a secret Baghdad detention facility were hung upside-down, deprived of air, kicked, whipped, beaten, given electric shocks, and sodomized, Human Rights Watch said today. Iraq should thoroughly investigate and prosecute all government and security officials responsible, Human Rights Watch said.

BBC report.

It would "impossible" to reveal secret MI5 files about the 7/7 London terror attacks, a court has been told.

The claim has been made at a hearing to decide the format of inquests into the deaths of those killed in 2005.

BBC report.

Greece's debt has been downgraded to junk status by ratings agency Standard & Poor's amid mounting fears its debt crisis is getting out of control.

Reuters report.

The head of a hardline Iranian political party warned the United States Tuesday against attacking Iran, saying it could hit back by choking "the West's throat" at a waterway crucial for global oil supplies.

BBC report.

Mr O'Connor strongly criticised MI5's involvement in the 7/7 case, saying the agency demonstrated flaws in its assessment policy, record-keeping and co-operation with other agencies.

He said of the second ISC report: "We submit that by contrast with its simple conclusion exonerating MI5, the material detailed in it exposes a profound criticism of MI5 and raises many more questions than answers.

"Those criticisms may well arguably become very considerably more powerful upon a proper analysis of the primary material."

Guardian report.

Rescuing the Greek economy could require a €150bn (£130bn) bailout over the next three years, according to Goldman Sachs, but this would be politically impossible for European leaders to swallow.

In a note to clients this morning, Goldman's chief European economist, Erik Nielsen, said that the €45bn bailout currently on the table is not large enough to cover Greece's borrowing needs.

Guardian report. The article by Nigel Inkster and Alexander Nicoll is here.

A former senior MI6 officer has criticised the torture and abuse of terror suspects and says the US response to the threat posed by al-Qaida has been exaggerated and counterproductive.

Stinging criticism of the US is made in the Guardian by Nigel Inkster, assistant chief of MI6 until 2006.

Joseph Cirincione in Foreign Policy.

New weapons systems should always meet three requirements: They should be feasible, needed, and affordable. The proposed Prompt Global Strike program, which according to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been "embraced by the new administration," does not meet any. Using intercontinental ballistic missiles to hurl conventional warheads at caves is a truly bad idea. It would use technology that doesn't work for a capability the United States doesn't need at a cost it can't afford. Oh, and it could also start a nuclear war.

Reuters report.

The inquests into the deaths of 56 people who died in the 2005 London bombings should be a public inquiry into whether police and security services could have done more to prevent the attacks, a court heard on Monday.

[...]

"In the 15-month period leading up to the bombings, M15 and police were, between them, in possession of a significant amount of information about the bombers," Coltart told the coroner.

John Lanchester on the Guardian's Cif at the polls.

The cuts are going to happen. They will be the most severe that modern Britain has experienced. This isn't a matter of speculation, it's what the numbers clearly imply. Since this issue is going to be at the heart of our politics, it should be at the heart of the election debate. What have we had instead? Guff about fairness and change and the Big Society, accompanied by wishful thinking on the subject of "efficiency savings", as if the biggest fiscal crisis in a generation could be solved by remembering to turn the bathroom lights out and cutting down on Post-It notes.

The Leveretts on Politico.

We do not know who leaked the Gates memo. But the "senior officials" who did so were clearly seeking to use their selective description to catalyze more robust planning for potential military strikes against Iranian nuclear targets -- the very option that Gates has consistently opposed.

[...]

The reality is that a cadre of senior National Security Council officials -- including Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and Dennis Ross, senior director for the central region (including Iran) -- is resisting the adoption of containment as the administration's Iran strategy.

Telegraph report.

The Ministry of Defence has announced it is to return money paid upfront by the former regime of the Shah of Iran for a huge consignment of tanks and support vehicles ordered in the 1970s.

The Iranian side cancelled the contract at the time of the revolution, but the British government said it could not have its money back.

UPI report.

China inaugurated a missile plant in Iran last month, even as the United States and its allies were pressing Beijing to support a new round of tough economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program, Jane's Defense Weekly reports.

From Wired's Danger Room.

The Obama administration is poised to take up one of the more dangerous and hare-brained schemes of the Rumsfeld-era Pentagon. The New York Times is reporting that the Defense Department is once again looking to equip intercontinental ballistic missiles with conventional warheads. The missiles could then, in theory, destroy fleeing targets a half a world away -- a no-notice "bolt from the blue," striking in a matter of hours. There's just one teeny-tiny problem: the launches could very well start World War III.

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.

Stratfor article.

In spite of the fact that dirty bombs have been discussed widely in the press for many years now -- especially since the highly publicized arrest of Jose Padilla in May 2002 -- much misinformation and disinformation continues to circulate regarding dirty bombs. The misinformation stems from long-held misconceptions and ignorance, while the disinformation comes from scaremongers hyping the threat for financial or political reasons. Frankly, many people have made a lot of money by promoting fear since 9/11.

AP report.

The U.S. has ruled out a military strike against Iran's nuclear program any time soon, hoping instead negotiations and United Nations sanctions will prevent the Middle East nation from developing nuclear weapons, a top U.S. defense department official said Wednesday.

"Military force is an option of last resort," Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy said during a press briefing in Singapore. "It's off the table in the near term."

Wall Street Journal article.

The Israeli security establishment is divided over whether it needs Washington's blessing if Israel decides to attack Iran, Israeli officials say, as the U.S. campaign for sanctions drags on and Tehran steadily develops greater nuclear capability.

From Wired's Danger Room.

Does this represent a shift in American policy towards Israel? Some signal that the U.S. would stop an Israeli first strike at the final moment? Probably not. I'd guess this is Mullen trying not to wade further into treacherous waters. But it was interesting to hear America's top military officer decline to knock down the idea that U.S. troops might fire on America's closest ally in the Middle East.

Telegraph report.

Spiralling sovereign debt in Europe, the US, and Japan has emerged as the top threat to the world economy and risks setting off a fresh financial storm, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

BBC report.

Turkey has offered to mediate between Iran and the West in the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme.

The Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, announced the offer after talks with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki.

Times report.

The cost of Greek borrowing reached a record level this morning suggesting Athens will soon have to call on an extensive bailout to ensure that it does not default.

The yield on Greek ten-year government bonds rose to 7.807 per cent, more than double the level for German debt and far beyond the level that Greece can afford to pay if it is to get through its debt crisis.

Telegraph report.

German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble has pleaded with his country's citizens to back a joint EU-IMF bail out for Greece worth up to €45bn (£40bn), warning that failure to act risks a financial meltdown.

"We cannot allow the bankruptcy of a euro member state like Greece to turn into a second Lehman Brothers," he told Der Spiegel. "Greece's debts are all in euros, but it isn't clear who holds how much of those debts. The consequences of a national bankruptcy would be incalculable. Greece is just as systemically important as a major bank," he said.

From the Amnesty site. The report referred to is here (PDF).

The UK has today been singled out for heavy criticism in a new report from Amnesty International on the practice among European countries of striking "no torture" deals with foreign countries as a means to deport people it labels a threat to national security.

In a 36-page report - Dangerous Deals: Europe's reliance on 'diplomatic assurances' against torture - Amnesty documents how European governments are attempting to send foreigners alleged to be security threats to countries where they're at risk of torture or other ill-treatment in exchange for unreliable, unenforceable "diplomatic assurances" that they will be treated humanely.

BBC report.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has labelled the US an "atomic criminal" at a conference on nuclear disarmament in Tehran.

He also said that the use of nuclear weapons was prohibited by religion.

BBC report.

Mohammad Khatami was expected to attend a nuclear disarmament conference in Japan, but his aides say he was banned from travelling.

Organisers of the meeting in Hiroshima have confirmed that he cancelled his appearance at the last minute.

Times report.

According to one report the Pentagon is moving hundreds of bunker-buster bombs to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The latest version of the weapon, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, is said to weigh 15 tonnes and be capable of burrowing through 200ft of reinforced concrete before exploding.

[...]

It was unclear yesterday who was behind the leak of the Gates memo but the vehemence of the White House response suggests that senior Pentagon figures may be responsible. A similar pattern shadowed Mr Obama's decision to deploy 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan last year.

Independent article.

It is one of the few genuine issues of life and death during this general election campaign. It will not dictate how much any British school improves, how many police appear on the streets of a city, or how quickly patients are allowed to leave hospitals around the country. But it will, literally, decide the fate of thousands of British service personnel and, ultimately, how many of them live and die.

Yet nobody wants to talk about Afghanistan.

Times report.

Israel has delivered a secret warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad that it will respond to missile attacks from Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese-based Islamist group, by launching immediate retaliation against Syria itself.

In a message, sent earlier this month, Israel made it clear that it now regards Hezbollah as a division of the Syrian army and that reprisals against Syria will be fast and devastating.

Reuters report.

The nation's top military officer said on Sunday that military options existed to try to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon but that diplomatic efforts were the best way forward now.

"We in the Pentagon, we plan for contingencies all the time and certainly there are options which exist" for dealing with the Iran nuclear threat militarily, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a forum at Columbia University in New York.

New York Times report.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran's steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document.

Several officials said the highly classified analysis, written in January to President Obama's national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, came in the midst of an intensifying effort inside the Pentagon, the White House and the intelligence agencies to develop new options for Mr. Obama. They include a set of military alternatives, still under development, to be considered should diplomacy and sanctions fail to force Iran to change course.

Laura Rozen on Politico.

The White House is confirming that President Barack Obama received a letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month.

"Yes, President Ahmadinejad sent a letter to the President in March," National Security Council spokesman Michael Hammer told POLITICO Saturday. "We are not going to get into details on the content of the correspondence at this time."

AFP report.

A son of influential Iranian cleric and ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani faces arrest on return from abroad, Tehran's prosecutor said in a newspaper report on Saturday.

BBC report.

As pressure grows on Iran over its nuclear programme, there is evidence that behind the scenes, the United States has stepped up its push to isolate Tehran economically.

[...]

William Burns, US Under-Secretary of State, told a Congressional committee: "What we've been doing is to try to use every lever that we already have at our disposal to encourage foreign companies, foreign entities to cut their ties with the Iranian economy."

"The squeeze is on," said Kate Dorian, Dubai bureau chief for the energy analysts Platts. "Very few people are willing to deal with Iran directly."

Robert Fisk in the Independent.

A clue to the seriousness with which everyone now takes the possibility of war is contained in a remark made by an anonymous US spokesman who warned that the transfer of Scud missiles to Hizbollah would represent a "serious risk" to Lebanon. Not to Israel, mark you -- but to Lebanon. There is no doubt that this is an allusion to frequent threats from the Israelis themselves that in another war with Hizbollah, the Lebanese government would be held responsible and as a result Lebanon's infrastructure would be destroyed.

Bloomberg report.

Germany might consider exiting Europe's current monetary union to create a smaller bloc as the Greek crisis threatens to turn the euro area into a region of "fiscal profligacy," Morgan Stanley said.

Telegraph report.

The former CIA chief, Porter Goss, approved a 2005 decision to destroy 92 tapes showing US agents waterboarding two terrorism suspects, according to newly released internal emails.

[...]

"These documents provide further evidence that senior CIA officials were willing to risk being prosecuted for obstruction of justice in order to avoid being prosecuted for torture," said Ben Wizner, a lawyer with the ACLU. "If the Department of Justice fails to hold these officials accountable, they will have succeeded in their cover-up."

Guardian report.

Pakistan's government is to pursue a renewed criminal investigation into the murder of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto after a devastating UN report blamed the previous military-led government of Pervez Musharraf for wilfully failing to provide her with adequate security.

The report of a UN inquiry commission, released late yesterday, said that the possible role of the military and its intelligence apparatus in her assassination needed to be investigated. It said that Pakistan's spy agencies had obstructed the investigation, "severely hampering" the search for the truth.

Guardian leading article. The article referred to is here.

Two analysts at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) have argued that the international community should accept Iran's current counter-offer, which is to have the fuel swap (low-enriched uranium for fuel elements) but keep it on Iranian soil. Ivanka Barzashka and Ivan Oelrich say that in haggling over details we are losing sight of the goal, which would be to make it more difficult, not easier, for Iran to build a nuclear weapon.

[...]

We are back to a familiar game of diplomatic brinkmanship, but one cannot help thinking that if sanity were to break out it would be in a form not too far away from the FAS's version. The gaps are bridgeable. There is, unfortunately, much that could happen in the Middle East to derail that outcome.

Washington Post report.

The three-member U.N. panel said her death could have been prevented if the government under then-President Pervez Musharraf, the Punjab province government, and the Rawalpindi District Police had taken adequate measures "to respond to the extraordinary, fresh and urgent security risks that they knew she faced."

It also found that the investigation into her death was severely hampered by intelligence agencies and other government officials, "which impeded an unfettered search for the truth."

Dawn report.

In a policy paper presented to leaders from nearly 50 nations, Pakistan offered to share with other states its nuclear security skills, particularly in prevention, detection and response to illicit trafficking.

[...]

The entire document reflects Islamabad's new confidence in promoting itself as a state not only capable of protecting its installations but also ready to offer services and goods to others. In the process, Pakistan also got rid of the apologetic posture it had adopted since February 2004 when Dr A. Q. Khan confessed to running a proliferation ring.

BBC report.

Afghan prisoners are being abused in a "secret jail" at Bagram airbase, according to nine witnesses whose stories the BBC has documented.

The abuses are all said to have taken place since US President Barack Obama was elected, promising to end torture.

Reuters report.

Israel might be preparing a military strike against Syria by accusing Damascus of supplying Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon with long-range Scud missiles, the Syrian government said on Thursday.

Israeli President Shimon Peres on Tuesday accused Syria of sending Hezbollah long-range Scuds. The United States said on Wednesday it was "increasingly concerned" about the transfer of more sophisticated weaponry to the Syrian and Iranian-backed Islamist group that fought a war with Israel in 2006.

BBC report.

A long-awaited UN report into the killing of Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto two years ago has been highly critical of the government of the day. It says Bhutto's death at a rally near Islamabad could have been prevented if proper security measures had been taken by Gen Pervez Musharraf's government.

Reuters report.

Railway porter-turned-billionaire financier George Soros delivered a stark warning last night that the financial world is on the wrong track and that we may be hurtling towards an even bigger boom and bust than in the credit crisis.

The man who 'broke' the Bank of England (and who is still able to earn a cool $3.3 bln in a year) said the same strategy of borrowing and spending that had got us out of the Asian crisis could shunt us towards another crisis unless tough lessons are learned.

From TPM.

Congressman Adam Schiff hosted a "Members Only" meeting of the 'Congressional Friends of Jordan Caucus' in the US House of Representatives this morning in the CVC Congressional Meeting Room with Jordan's King Abdullah II.

According to one attendee in the session, "the King's message was sobering." King Abdullah seemed significantly concerned that conflict was about to break out again between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. One congressional source told me that the word the King used was 'imminent' with regard to the potential outbreak of war.

Paul Woodward on Mondoweiss.

Here's how President Obama states the nuclear paradox:

The risk of a nuclear confrontation between nations has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up.

Here's how I define it:

Hypothetical nuclear threats provoke more fear than real nuclear threats.

Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Tel Aviv and Tehran.

Which city is currently in greater jeopardy of nuclear annihilation? Tehran.

Which city's residents are repeatedly being told by their political leaders they should be afraid of nuclear annihilation? Tel Aviv's.

ABC report.

Malaysia's Petronas has stopped supplying gasoline to Iran, a company spokesman said on Thursday, as the threat of U.S. sanctions on oil firms with supply ties to the Islamic Republic looms large.

Iran is the world's fifth biggest crude oil exporter but U.S. sanctions mean it has suffered from lack of investment in refineries, forcing the OPEC member to import some 40 percent of its gasoline needs.

Malaysia's state oil firm has stopped supplying gasoline to Iran since the middle of March, the Petronas spokesman told Reuters.

USA Today report. The document referred to is here (PDF).

The White House has warned state and local governments not to expect a "significant federal response" at the scene of a terrorist nuclear attack for 24 to 72 hours after the blast, according to a planning guide.

President Obama told delegates from 47 nations at the Nuclear Security Summit on Tuesday that it would be a "catastrophe for the world" if al-Qaeda or another terrorist group got a nuclear device, because so many lives would be lost and it would be so hard to mitigate damage from the blast.

CNBC report.

George Soros has warned that the joint European Union/IMF rescue package for Greece may not be enough.

The legendary investor who forced the pound out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992 believes that the rescue package is only "a little step" that may not stop Athens falling into a "debt spiral".

Reuters report.

State-run Chinaoil has sold two gasoline cargoes for April delivery to Iran, industry sources said on Wednesday, stepping into a void left by fuel suppliers halting shipments under threat of U.S. sanctions.

The Leveretts (Race for Iran) comment.

We have previously emphasized that the "Iranian exception" in the Nuclear Posture Review, from a purely strategic perspective, actually incentivizes Iran to move toward weaponization of its expanding nuclear capabilities. However, a www.TheRaceForIran.com reader in Iran argued that the real issue regarding the "Iranian exception" in the Nuclear Posture Review is not the prospect of "any change in Iran's policy regarding its nuclear program", but rather

"that the Iranians see Obama and even the U.S. media in a different light than before. To see a U.S. president threaten a nation with mass murder and then see that the U.S. and Western media is not outraged is a clear sign that Iran should never trust the U.S."

The Leveretts (Race for Iran) comment.

In the midst of its Nuclear Security Summit and in the wake of President Obama's bilateral meeting with China's President Hu yesterday, the Obama Administration is vigorously spinning the U.S. and Western media that it has won Chinese support for new sanctions against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear activities. To say the least, this is an exaggeration on the Obama Administration's part, and wholly unreflective reporting on the part of those journalists who repeated the exaggeration without question or context.

Andy Worthington writes.

Those of us who have been studying the recent career of Col. Lawrence Wilkerson were not surprised when, last week, he submitted a declaration (PDF) in a lawsuit seeking compensation from the US government that was filed by former Guantánamo prisoner Adel Hassan Hamad. A Sudanese hospital worker, Hamad was sold to US forces by their unscrupulous Pakistani allies in the summer of 2002, but was only released from Guantánamo in December 2007.

In the declaration, Col. Wilkerson, who served in the US military for 31 years and was Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from August 2002 until January 2005, stated that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld all knew -- and didn't care -- that "the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were innocent."

Last March, Col. Wilkerson wrote a guest column for The Washington Note, "Some Truths About Guantánamo Bay," in which he first laid out some of his major complaints about the failures of the Bush administration's detention policies in the "War on Terror." In his column, Col. Wilkerson decried "the utter incompetence of the battlefield vetting in Afghanistan during the early stages of the US operations there," and explained, "Simply stated, no meaningful attempt at discrimination was made in-country by competent officials, civilian or military, as to who we were transporting to Cuba for detention and interrogation."

Guardian report.

At least 71 civilians were killed by a misdirected air strike in Pakistan's tribal zone against suspected extremists, locals claimed today, as thousands of people flee a western-backed military offensive against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in the area.

Reuters report.

Global oil demand will hit a record high this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday, revising up consumption estimates as the world economy recovers from recession. The Paris-based adviser to industrialized economies raised its forecast for world oil demand growth this year to 1.67 million barrels per day (bpd), up 100,000 bpd.

Independent report.

China is being privately reassured that its supplies of oil would be guaranteed in the event that it supports tough new UN sanctions on Iran, its third largest supplier of crude.

[...]

Iran supplies an estimated 11 per cent of China's energy needs. Among oil suppliers to the Chinese it is only surpassed by Saudi Arabia followed by Angola. Were Iran to lash out and turn off the tap, the consequences for resources-starved China could be severe. Diplomatic signals over what China intends to do about the sanctions issue remain muddled.

Independent report.

Nato's hopes for winning over the Afghan population in the south of the country ahead of a massive new military campaign took a major blow yesterday when Nato soldiers opened fire on a civilian bus in Kandahar City and killed four passengers.

Telegraph report.

Euphoria over a joint EU-IMF rescue deal for Greece worth €45bn (£39.8bn) has given way to caution after angry reactions in Germany and continued concerns among bond investors that any bail-out merely delays the day of reckoning.

[...]

Professor Ekkehard Wenger from Würzburg University said the aid for Greece is "another step on the slippery slope downwards. All rational economic rules are being thrown out of the window. This is a bottomless pit." "In the short-term this may calm things but within 10 years the eurozone is not going to exist any longer in its current form," he told Handelsblatt.

BBC report.

World leaders at a summit on nuclear security in Washington have heard dire warnings of the danger of nuclear material falling into the wrong hands.

US President Barack Obama, opening the biggest international meeting hosted by the US since 1945, greeted leaders from nearly 50 countries.

Ynetnews report.

The under secretary of state stressed that Washington will adopt a "calculated ambiguity" policy towards countries which do not pose a threat to the US. Despite not explicitly pointing to Israel, it appears her statements were meant to reassure the Jewish state.

Telegraph report.

"If there was ever a detonation in New York City, or London, or Johannesburg, the ramifications economically, politically and from a security perspective would be devastating. We know that organisations like al-Qaeda are in the process of trying to secure nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, and would have no compunction at using them."

Andrew Sullivan on his Atlantic blog.

Lie after lie after lie. And the illegal imprisonment and torture of individuals often completely unrelated to terrorism at all. And no accountability. This was America for almost eight years. And Obama has perpetuated the avoidance of responsibility with staggering diligence.

Times report.

Terrorists including al-Qaeda pose a serious threat to world security as they attempt to obtain atomic weapons material, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, declared on the eve of a global summit in Washington to prevent a nuclear terror attack.

Hürriyet Daily News article.

Underscoring his concern over nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan draws attention to Israel rather than Iran. 'I will call on the international community, which is so sensitive toward Iran, to pay attention to Israel too,' he says ahead of a nuclear summit in Washington

The Leveretts write.

Iranian officials have said repeatedly, over years, that the Islamic Republic does not want nuclear weapons and is not seeking them. Furthermore, political and religious authorities have said that acquiring nuclear weapons would be a departure from Islamic ethical standards. (In this regard, it is interesting to note that Iran decided not to weaponize and use chemical agents during the Iran-Iraq war, even though Saddam Husayn subjected both Iranian military forces and civilian targets inside Iran to chemical attack.) Our understanding is that, within the Islamic Republic's decision-making circles, Ayatollah Khamenei has steadfastly rejected the weaponization of Iran's growing nuclear capabilities--and that opposition to nuclear weaponization remains his position. Certainly, Ayatollah Khamenei's public statements on the subject are consistent with such a position.

This is important in the context of the Islamic Republic's political order and culture. Given Tehran's record of official and religious rejection of nuclear weapons, for Ayatollah Khamenei to shift course at some point in the future and endorse nuclear weapons fabrication by the Islamic Republic would require him to explain, to the Iranian public and his followers throughout the Shi'a world, how Iran's strategic circumstances had changed to such an extent that it was now both necessary and legitimate for the country to develop a full-fledged nuclear deterrent. But, as a highly regarded Iranian analyst pointed out to us last week, having the United States threaten to "nuke" the Islamic Republic could plausibly be an important element in the changed circumstances that might warrant a fundamental shift in Iran's posture toward nuclear weapons.

New York Times report.

A large majority of Iranian lawmakers, angered over the Obama administration's new nuclear weapons policy that conspicuously makes Iran and North Korea possible targets, urged their government on Sunday to formally complain to the United Nations in a petition that called the United States a warmonger and threat to world peace.

Niall Ferguson in the FT.

Last week Moody's Investors Service warned that the triple A credit rating of the US should not be taken for granted. That warning recalls Larry Summers' killer question (posed before he returned to government): "How long can the world's biggest borrower remain the world's biggest power?"

On reflection, it is appropriate that the fiscal crisis of the west has begun in Greece, the birthplace of western civilization. Soon it will cross the channel to Britain. But the key question is when that crisis will reach the last bastion of western power, on the other side of the Atlantic.

Henry Porter in the Observer.

Iceland is proposing radical new laws that will create a safe haven for investigative journalism and therefore the release of this kind of shocking footage, which exposes a cover-up, as well as the true nature of a war where a superpower deploys its weapons on a third world country, in this instance cutting down, among others, two people working for Reuters. The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (Immi) will allow organisations like Wikileaks to provide the strongest possible protections for sources and whistleblowers releasing sensitive material that big business and secretive states want to suppress.

Guardian report.

Finance ministers from the 16 countries in the eurozone have thrashed out the details of a potential last-minute bailout for Greece.

Officials from Spain, which currently holds the EU presidency, are understood to have brokered an agreement on a rate at which the eurozone countries would lend money to the debt-ridden country and the mechanism for making the cash available.

The intention is to set the interest rate below the current market rate and allow Greece to raise crucial funding without having to resort to the financial markets, which have become increasingly jittery about its sovereign debt in recent days. But ministers are keeping exact details of the fund secret until Greece asks for the money.

Jim Boumelha on the Guardian's Comment is Free.

Possibly "friendly fire" in the headline here is a misnomer: there are strong suspicions that there was a deliberate policy of killing independent journalists.

In all of these cases, families and friends of the killed journalists continue to wait for credible investigations and honest reports about how and why their loved ones died. They just cannot understand why independent investigations of these incidents were not carried out.

Shaun Walker in the Independent.

The revolution in Bishkek last week, which left dozens dead, the president ousted, and an uncertain future for Kyrgyzstan, has set off warning bells across Central Asia, one of the world's least known yet most strategically important regions.

From CNBC.

Attempts to rescue Greece are simply making matters worse and the quicker the crisis comes, the better for the world. This is what John Taylor, the founder of FX Concepts, one of the largest currency hedge funds in the world, wrote in a recent article.

"If the political actors in this tragedy-comedy play their roles well -- staving off collapse -- our suffering will be worse," Taylor wrote.

He is shorting the euro and sees the single currency hitting $1.20; he also believes longer term the euro will collapse - and the sooner the better.

Jon Moulton in the Independent.

The debt that Britain faces is monstrous, and neither Tories nor Labour will admit it. They prefer to quibble about the small change than admit that they are taking part in, in effect, a conspiracy on the British people. To make it worse, much of the media is allowing them to get away with it, presumably because they think -- as the politicians seem to believe -- that the public doesn't want to hear the bad news. In short, we are complicit in a con.

[...]

In 1975 the UK had government interest-bearing debt of about 45 per cent of the total economy (GDP) and the debt was rising at about 8 per cent per year. We then had to crawl to the IMF in 1976. Today, that interest-bearing debt is about 65 per cent of GDP, rising nearly 13 per cent a year. A degree in economics will not be necessary to spot that things are a lot worse than in 1975.

Bloomberg report.

Billionaire investor George Soros said the next U.K. government after the May 6 election should decide whether to allow a further devaluation of the pound to rebalance the economy and assist the recovery.

From Business Insider.

Fitch has downgraded Greek debt to triple-B-minus from triple-B-plus.

Times report.

Assange, an Australian, says he was followed on a flight from Reykjavik to Copenhagen by two American agents. The group has riled governments by publishing documents leaked by whistleblowers.

[...]

Assange claims surveillance has intensified as he and his colleagues prepare to put out their Afghan film.

Christina Lamb in the Times.

The Karzai family has now hit back, accusing US officials of launching a smear campaign as a prelude to abandoning the country again. "There's a very bad policy developing towards Afghanistan," said the president's brother Mahmoud Karzai, a businessman who lives in Kabul. "They want to discredit the Afghan government in the eyes of the US public. I hope it's not the beginning of an exit strategy. If it is, God help us, it will be very bad -- don't they remember what happened when they did this before in the Eighties?"

Haifa Zangana in the Guardian.

I know the area where this massacre was committed. It is a crowded working-class area, a place where it is safe for children to play outdoors. It is near where my two aunts and their extended families lived, where I played as a child with my cousins Ali, Khalid, Ferial and Mohammed. Their offspring still live there.

Patrick Martin on wsws.org.

The new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) issued by the Pentagon Tuesday is being hailed by the Obama administration's apologists as a step towards global nuclear disarmament. It is nothing of the kind. The document lays out a rationale that would justify the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state for the first time since the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Iran and North Korea are singled out as potential targets.

Globe and Mail investment blog written by Boyd Erman.

Concern about debt repayment is starting again to spread beyond Greece to bigger nations, which could be the "canary in the coal-mine for global risk taking," according to Credit Derivatives Research.

Philip Giraldi on Antiwar.com. The report he refers to is here (PDF)

It all adds up to a toxic brew. If the US refuses to cooperate in bombing Iran conventionally, Israel might well accept the view that the Iranian nuclear program can only be destroyed by using other nuclear weapons. Tel Aviv, controlling its own nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver the bombs on target, would be able to stage such an attack unilaterally. An increasingly isolated Israel headed by reactionary and irrational politicians who are influenced by their own sense of racial superiority just might decide that the gamble is worth it. It would be a very bad decision for Israel, Iran, and for the United States.

Times report.

Greece was pushed closer to the edge by a panicky bond market yesterday, which ramped up the cost of its borrowing to new highs. A hammering of bond prices by investors took the yield on short-term Greek debt as high as 8 per cent at one point, prompting speculation that a rescue might be imminent.

BBC report.

Iran's president has unveiled new "third-generation" centrifuges that its nuclear chief says can enrich uranium much faster than current technology.

The centrifuges would have separation power six times that of the first generation, Ali Akbar Salehi said in a speech marking National Nuclear Day.

PressTV report.

Iran said on Friday that it has designed and tested the country's third generation of domestically-built centrifuges as the nation celebrated its nuclear energy achievements.

The machine is capable of spinning 900 times per second and producing 10 kilograms of UF6 in a year.

Juan Cole comments (Informed Comment).

The audience at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference is said to have gone wild with applause when Liz Cheney announced the decision of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu not to attend next week's nuclear summit, called by President Barack Obama.

A person gets a little tired of pointing to the hypocrisy of the American right wing, which would have been up in arms if Democrats had sided with a foreign head of state against the American president, and, indeed, would have charged treason. The thing to remember is that to right wingers, only Republican presidents are really presidents. Democratic Presidents are always coded as usurpers. The politically immature are like 5 year olds who pick up their marbles and go home when they aren't winning

Guardian article by Adrian Pabst.

If Greece collapses and drags down the rest of the eurozone, the social costs and the political fallout will threaten the entire European edifice. That would cut short the nascent recovery and plunge the EU into a double-dip recession.

Ted Daley on Antiwar.com.

Although Gates said the NPR did pledge that America would not attack or threaten non-nuclear weapon states with nuclear weapons, he indicated that states "not in compliance with the NPT," specifically naming North Korea and Iran, had been placed by the drafters of the NPR in an entirely different category. For these states, he said, three times, "all options are on the table."

Such words can have only one meaning. The Obama Administration has now said to North Korea and Iran, "If you do not do what we tell you to do, we may launch a nuclear first strike upon you."

Guardian report.

The Greek debt crisis deepened today, despite reassurances from European Union officials that the country was not on the brink of default.

Financial markets ignored European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet's comments that "a default is not an issue for Greece," and continued their bond sell-off for a third day.

Reuters report.

Kyrgyzstan's self-proclaimed new leadership said on Thursday that Russia had helped to oust President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, and that they aimed to close a U.S. airbase that has irritated Moscow.

The Leveretts (Race for Iran) comment.

As we have pointed out, it is simply not possible any more--if it were ever possible at some point in the past--to achieve Israeli-Palestinian or Arab-Israeli peace in a manner that excludes and marginalizes the Islamic Republic and its regional allies. Rather, today, the link between Iran and Palestine runs in the opposite direction: the United States needs a better and more productive relationship with the Islamic Republic, in part, because it will be impossible to achieve Arab-Israeli peace absent U.S.-Iranian rapprochement.

Laura Rozen in Politico.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has abruptly canceled his plans to attend President Barack Obama's nuclear security summit next week, creating an embarrassing distraction on the eve of a high-profile meeting the White House has sought to carefully choreograph.

[...]

''In the last 24 hours, the Israeli government has learned of various reports from various sources on the intention of several states attending the conference not only to deal with the issue at hand, but to take the opportunity to make a point of grand-standing against Israel and the issue of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," the Israeli official said. "The prime minister was dismayed at this, and decided to stick to the Israeli policy that Israel is usually represented at these types of conferences at the professional-ministerial level."

Times report.

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.

The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.

Reuters report.

Kyrgyzstan's self-proclaimed interim leader thanked Russia on Thursday for its "significant support" in exposing what she said was the nepotistic and criminal regime of President Kurbanbek Bakiyev.

Separately, a senior Russian official said Bakiyev had not fulfilled a promise to close a U.S. base in Kyrgyzstan and Moscow would advise the new government there should be only one military base in the former Soviet state, a Russian one.

Interview with Richard Heinberg on MMNews.

We have reached a fundamental turning point, foreseen in the "Limits to Growth" study of 1972. For a while, world leaders may be able to redistribute wealth in various ways--most likely from the poor to the rich--in order to make it appear that the global economy is continuing to grow. But I suspect that this will work only for a very few years at most. At some point soon, it will become clear that economies are contracting. And then most people will look for someone to blame. No doubt politicians will oblige by trotting out various scapegoats.

At some point the dollar will indeed fail as a currency. Whether this failure comes about as a result of oil exporters dumping the dollar, or simply because of problems inherent to the U.S. economy remains to be seen. And it is impossible to know whether that moment is a few months or many years ahead of us.

From the "In the end we're all debt" blog. The Pentagon report referred to is here (PDF).

A report from the American Joint Forces Command published March 15 predicts that in 2015, the world capacity for petroleum prouction could be 10 million barrels per day less than the demand.

Independent report.

There does not appear to be a precedent for the US to target one of its own citizens for possible assassination, at least not since the terror attacks of September 2001. The decision to target 38-year-old Awlaki -- he is to be captured or killed -- was reported by several US media outlets and was confirmed anonymously by some senior officials yesterday. "We would be remiss if we didn't find ways to pursue someone who is a serious threat to this country and has plotted against Americans," one official told CNN when asked about Awlaki.

Scott Horton in Harpers on the revolution in Kyrgyzstan.

The developments in Kyrgyzstan are being followed warily in Washington, Berlin, and London because of the Manas air base developed by the United States and used by the NATO allies. It forms a key supply terminal in their northern logistical support network, supporting military operations in Afghanistan. The protestors are focused on the same facts. By and large, the crowds in Bishkek show no signs of being anti-U.S. or anti-Russian, but they are concerned about the corrupt relationship that has developed between the United States military and their leaders.

AlterNet report. The New York Times report referred to in the article is here.

"We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat," McChrystal said during a recent video-conference to answer questions from troops in the field about civilian casualties.

Craig Murray comments.

Yesterday the Naxalites killed 74 Indian para-military forces in a huge gun battle in Chatisgarrh, bringing to over 200 the number of Indian security forces they have killed this year - before we get into the officials and landlords they have killed. A Muslim suicide bamber killing six Pakistani civilians makes broadcast media on every channel. The Naxalites are fighting a burgeoning civil war in the heart of India, yet totally ignored.

[...]

[...] if the Naxalites were Muslim, they would be on the front page of every paper as a threat to India, and the Americans would be bombing them. But they aren't, so you will find them hard to track in the mainstream media.

Guardian report.

The Obama administration has taken the rare step of authorising the killing of a US citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric linked to the attempt to blow up a US airliner on Christmas Day.

The decision to place Awlaki on a US hit list followed a national security council review because of his status as an American citizen.

Guardian report.

The war of words between the former deputy head of the UN mission to Afghanistan and the country's president escalated last night when Peter Galbraith suggested that Hamid Karzai's "mental stability" was in question and that he has a substance abuse problem.

Galbraith, the US diplomat who worked for the UN in Kabul until last year, made his remarks live on US television. His comments come as the White House considers withdrawing an invitation for Karzai to meet Barack Obama in Washington next month.

Glenn Greenwald on Salon again.

[...] there's a serious danger when incidents like this Iraq slaughter are exposed in a piecemeal and unusual fashion: namely, the tendency to talk about it as though it is an aberration. It isn't. It's the opposite: it's par for the course, standard operating procedure, what we do in wars, invasions, and occupation. The only thing that's rare about the Apache helicopter killings is that we know about it and are seeing what happened on video. And we're seeing it on video not because it's rare, but because it just so happened (a) to result in the deaths of two Reuters employees, and thus received more attention than the thousands of other similar incidents where nameless Iraqi civilians are killed, and (b) to end up in the hands of WikiLeaks, which then published it. But what is shown is completely common. That includes not only the initial killing of a group of men, the vast majority of whom are clearly unarmed, but also the plainly unjustified killing of a group of unarmed men (with their children) carrying away an unarmed, seriously wounded man to safety -- as though there's something nefarious about human beings in an urban area trying to take an unarmed, wounded photographer to a hospital.

Gary Marshall on techradar.com.

The bill doesn't include anything about banning sites politicians and the military don't want you to see, but it doesn't need to. By including a clause that could enable the blocking of sites accused of copyright infringement, the bill could block Wikileaks, and collateralmurder.com, and any site that attempted to mirror the clip. The footage, like many things Wikileaks is given by whistleblowers, is copyrighted material.

The Leveretts write.

Tomorrow--Tuesday, April 6, 2010--the Obama Administration will proclaim, as a matter of declaratory policy, that the United States claims the prerogative to use nuclear weapons against the Islamic Republic of Iran, even as Iran remains a non-nuclear-weapons state. The Administration will make this declaration as part of its much anticipated Nuclear Posture Review, which will be issued two days before President Obama and Russian President Medvedev sign a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

Reuters report.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has voiced scepticism over the effectiveness of any further sanctions against Iran in the dispute over its nuclear programme, saying he still supported a diplomatic solution.

In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro published on Tuesday, Erdogan criticised countries pushing for another round of sanctions in the Security Council, of which Turkey is a non-permanent member.

Greenwald comments.

On February 12 of this year, U.S. forces entered a village in the Paktia Province in Afghanistan and, after surrounding a home where a celebration of a new birth was taking place, shot dead two male civilians (government officials) who exited the house in order to inquire why they had been surrounded, and then shot and killed three female relatives (a pregnant mother of ten, a pregnant mother of six, and a teenager). The Pentagon then issued a statement claiming that (a) the dead males were "insurgents" or terrorists, (b) the bodies of the three women had been found by U.S. forces bound and gagged inside the home, and (c) suggested that the women had already been killed by the time the U.S. had arrived, likely the victim of "honor killings" by the Taliban militants killed in the attack.

Glenn Greenwald comments on his Salon blog.

He also refers to this piece he wrote recently about Wikileaks.

A week ago, I wrote about the war being waged on WikiLeaks by the Pentagon and other governments and corporations around the world, and noted at the time -- as a result of my interview with editor Julian Assange -- that WikiLeaks had obtained classified videos that were highly incriminating of the Pentagon and was planning on releasing them shortly. Earlier today, I wrote about the cover-up by the U.S. military in Afghanistan of the deaths of five civilians, the Pentagon's forced retraction of its story, and the way in which the U.S. media (as usual) mindlessly disseminated their original false claims.

New York Times report.

The admission immediately raised questions about what really happened during the Feb. 12 operation -- and what falsehoods followed -- including a new report that Special Operations forces dug bullets out of the bodies of the women to hide the true nature of their deaths.

The site set up by Wikileaks for the video.

WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

Guardian report.

A secret video showing US air crew falsely claiming to have encountered a firefight in Baghdad and then laughing at the dead after launching an air strike that killed a dozen people, including two Iraqis working for Reuters news agency, was revealed by Wikileaks today.

[...]

[...] One of the helicopter crew is heard wishing for the man to reach for a gun, even though there is none visible nearby, so he has the pretext for opening fire: "All you gotta do is pick up a weapon." A van draws up next to the wounded man and Iraqis climb out. They are unarmed and start to carry the victim to the vehicle in what would appear to be an attempt to get him to hospital. One of the helicopters opens fire with armour-piercing shells. "Look at that. Right through the windshield," says one of the crew. Another responds with a laugh.

Guardian report.

There were 41 people killed and 80 wounded in an attack on a political rally in Timergarah in the Lower Dir district, next to the Swat valley, target of a big Pakistani military offensive against militants last year.

In a separate attack, Islamist militants attacked the US consulate in Peshawar, the region's main city, with car bombs and grenades in an apparent attempt to storm the heavily fortified compound.

Friday Lunch Club quoting the Wall Street Journal and Foreign Policy.

These contacts, which included the State Department's approval of a debate between a senior U.S. diplomat and a Hamas representative, have been interpreted by Hamas -- and Fatah, its rival -- as a softening of the U.S. stance against the party.

Mark Hosenball on his Newsweek blog.

While U.S. and European officials are pleased that China has become "engaged" in United Nations Security Council discussions over new economic sanctions on Iran, their expectations are modest at best as to what those negotiations will actually produce.

The most the Security Council talks are likely to produce is "something quite limited," said a European diplomat, who asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive issue. Any new sanctions regime likely to meet the approval of China--a major Iranian trading partner which has long resisted the imposition of new sanctions on the ayatollah's regime--would likely be "more a political gesture" and less a series of measures likely to put a real bite on the Iranian theocracy, the diplomat said.

The Leveretts' latest article. Direct link to PDF.

Relations between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran need to be analysed and understood not only in terms of their bilateral dynamics, but also in their strategic context. Broadly speaking, the Middle East today is deeply divided between two camps --- a reality that some commentators describe as a new regional "Cold War".

Guardian report.

Barack Obama has urged Beijing to "ratchet up the pressure" on Iran over its nuclear programme after a breakthrough for the US administration in persuading China to agree to talks on fresh sanctions against Tehran.

Obama told CBS news that Iran was increasingly diplomatically isolated and that international unity was essential to ensuring it did not develop nuclear weapons.

Juan Cole comments.

The Pakistani government on Friday tabled a proposed 18th amendment to the constitution, which if enacted will be an enormous advance toward democratization in the country.

I was watching Bill Maher last week and Christopher Hitchens remarked on the Iraqi elections that they "didn't used to happen" under Saddam Hussein. Likewise, free elections did not happen under Gen. Zia ul-Haq in 1980s Pakistan, or in 1999-2007 under Gen. Pervez Musharraf. And in the 1990s, presidents kept using the martial law amendments to the constitution of Gen. Zia to arbitrarily dismiss elected prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

But US hawks and Neoconservatives are not celebrating this epochal bill in Pakistan. I ask myself why.

wall Street Jornal report.

An Iranian firm closely linked to Tehran's nuclear program acquired special hardware for enriching uranium, despite sanctions intended to keep such equipment out of Iran, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.

In recent weeks, the officials said, an Iranian procurement firm obtained critical valves and vacuum gauges made by a French company that until December was owned by U.S. industrial conglomerate Tyco International. The French and U.S. firms said they knew nothing of the case.

New York Post report.

Call it a surge, Big Apple-style.

Hundreds of cops flooded Penn Station, Grand Central and Herald Square yesterday in a post-Moscow terror drill to see how prepared law enforcement is for an attack on the city's subways and commuter trains.

Officers from the NYPD transit bureau, National Guard and the police forces of the MTA, Long Island Rail Road, Amtrak and New Jersey Transit all took part in the drill dubbed Operation MASS -- or Multi-Agency Super Surge, officials said.

David Kenner in Foreign Policy.

When it comes to sanctions, there is also likely more latitude to Turkey's position than it lets on. By taking a firm line now, Ankara may hope to prevent a resolution on sanctions from coming to the floor of the U.N. Security Council. However, if the United States can avoid vetoes from Russia and China, few expect Turkey to stand in the way. "All options for Turkey are undesirable" on Iran, noted Soli Ozel, a professor at Istanbul's Bilgi University and a frequent commentator. "But if push comes to shove, Turkey will side with its allies."

This has less to do with principle than Turkey's post-Republic orientation toward the West. Breaking with the United States and Europe over such a crucial issue would represent a fundamental split with the Western alliance, a step few think Turkey is willing to take. In this sense, Turkey appears less as an assertive, independent actor in the Middle East and more as a developing power caught between two stronger poles.

Independent report.

An Israeli journalist is in hiding in Britain, The Independent can reveal, over fears that he may face charges in the Jewish state in connection with his investigation into the killing of a Palestinian in the West Bank.

Gary Sick points to this article in Haaretz.

The public discussion in Israel about a nuclear Iran is simplistic, inadequate, confused and confusing. It reflects to some degree our own biases. We come from a culture of national security in which nuclear opacity has been exploited to the hilt to create a specific model of deterrence. The result is that when we look at Iran we see ourselves: how we would behave in a similar situation. But Iran is not Israel exactly, and the Israeli experience does not necessarily reflect Iran's behavior. On the contrary, it leads to systematic errors when making assessments.

BBC report.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has accused foreign election observers of fraud during last year's disputed vote.

Fraud had been widespread, Mr Karzai conceded, but he blamed foreigners for it, saying the UN was its focal point. Mr Karzai singled out Peter Galbraith, the then deputy head of the UN mission, who he said had organised the fraud.

Telegraph report.

The decision was part of a broader strategy, Mr Obama said, that also included expanding the production of nuclear power to "move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil to one that relies more on home-grown fuels" and clean energy.

Guardian report.

The justice secretary, Jack Straw, was ordered by a court yesterday to announce whether the government accepts responsibility for one of the UK's longest-standing miscarriages of justice.

The court of appeal gave Straw 28 days to decide whether Lotfi Raissi, a pilot wrongly accused of involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, is entitled to compensation from the government.

Independent report.

Personal information concerning the private lives of almost 1,000 British Muslim university students is to be shared with US intelligence agencies in the wake of the Detroit bomb scare.

The disclosure has outraged Muslim groups and students who are not involved in extremism but have been targeted by police and now fear that their names will appear on international terrorist watch lists. So far, the homes of more than 50 of the students have been visited by police officers, but nobody has been arrested. The case has raised concerns about how the police use the data of innocent people and calls into question the heavy-handed treatment of Muslim students by UK security agencies.

Press release from the Post Cabon Institute.

In an exclusive interview published March 25 in Le Monde, Glen Sweetnam, the Obama administration's official expert on the oil market, confirmed nearly every element of the "Peak Oil" scenario that many analysts both in and outside the oil industry have warned of for years:

-- A decline of world oil production could begin soon--perhaps next year, and

-- Only extraordinary levels of investment by the oil industry can maintain current rates of production much longer.

After decades of ignoring the "Peak Oil" theory that predicts global oil production will peak and then rapidly decline, Sweetnam's admission marks a profound shift in the U.S. government's position on energy depletion.

Le Monde blog by Matthieu Auzanneau.

The U.S. Department of Energy admits that "a chance exists that we may experience a decline" of world liquid fuels production between 2011 and 2015 "if the investment is not there", according to an exclusive interview with Glen Sweetnam, main official expert on oil market in the Obama administration.

[...]

Page 8 of the presentation document of the round-table, a graph shows that the DoE is expecting a decline of the total of all known sources of liquid fuels supplies after 2011.

The graph labels as "unidentified" the additional supply projects needed to fill in a gap that is expected to grow after 2011 between rising demand and decline of known sources of supply that the DoE supposes will start that year. The declining production foreseen by the DoE concerns the total of existing sources of liquid fuels plus the new production projects that are supposed to come on-stream before 2012.