Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) is urging Members to reject H.R. 4310, the National Defense Authorization Act, FY 2013 because it prepares the way for a disastrous war with Iran. Even if the House accepts a proposed amendment by John Conyers (D-MI) to state that the authorization is not a specific declaration of war, the bill still calls for aggressive redeployment of our armed services to begin "credible, visible preparations for a military option."

Global banks see market rally on Greek exit ... Major global banks are advising clients to prepare for a stock market rally and a resurgence of the euro if Greece is forced out of monetary union, betting that world authorities will flood the international system with liquidity. Bank of America said EU authorities will pull out the stops to keep Greece in the system as they weigh the full dangers of contagion. Should that fail, it expects a series of dramatic moves ... Mr Bloom said the ECB is playing a game of chicken by waiting until it has secured maximum compliance from EMU's wayward states before coming to the rescue. "Once again it is holding everybody over the edge of the abyss until they scream for mercy," he said. - Ambrose Evans-Pritchard/UK Telegraph

Dominant Social Theme: Oh, no. Greece is leaving!

Free-Market Analysis: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, with some of the best sources in the world, has buried his lead once again.

Just look at the excerpt from his latest article, above. The headline is that there will be a global rally. We figure this is a pretty good speculation.

He was told there would be, no doubt by fairly prominent people who want the word to get out.

But then he can't help report the rest, that the ECB is "playing a game of chicken by by waiting until it has secured maximum compliance from EMU's wayward states before coming to the rescue."

Say ... what? You mean all this breast-beating over Greece's expulsion from the EU was a kind of theatre?

From the air, the terrain of the Department of Energy's Nevada National Security Site, with its arid high plains and remote mountain peaks, has the look of northwest Iran. The site, some sixty-five miles northwest of Las Vegas, was once used for nuclear testing, and now includes a counterintelligence training facility and a private airport capable of handling Boeing 737 aircraft. It's a restricted area, and inhospitable - in certain sections, the curious are warned that the site's security personnel are authorized to use deadly force, if necessary, against intruders.

It was here that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K. The M.E.K. had its beginnings as a Marxist-Islamist student-led group and, in the nineteen-seventies, it was linked to the assassination of six American citizens. It was initially part of the broad-based revolution that led to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran. But, within a few years, the group was waging a bloody internal war with the ruling clerics, and, in 1997, it was listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. In 2002, the M.E.K. earned some international credibility by publicly revealing - accurately - that Iran had begun enriching uranium at a secret underground location. Mohamed ElBaradei, who at the time was the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear monitoring agency, told me later that he had been informed that the information was supplied by the Mossad. The M.E.K.'s ties with Western intelligence deepened after the fall of the Iraqi regime in 2003, and JSOC began operating inside Iran in an effort to substantiate the Bush Administration's fears that Iran was building the bomb at one or more secret underground locations. Funds were covertly passed to a number of dissident organizations, for intelligence collection and, ultimately, for anti-regime terrorist activities. Directly, or indirectly, the M.E.K. ended up with resources like arms and intelligence. Some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today, according to past and present intelligence officials and military consultants.

Haaretz reported yesterday that, "Israel, Iran, Pakistan and North Korea were ranked most negatively by 24,000 people surveyed in an annual BBC poll."

It would appear that in spite of the extensive Hasbara campaign and the Jewish lobby buying every morally lax living politician, people of the world increasingly see Israel for what it is.

The broad international survey was an initiative of the BBC World Service. Over 24,000 people from 22 countries took part in the poll, which was conducted from December 2011 to February 2012.

Haaretz confirms that the survey's findings on global attitudes toward Israel are "worrying indeed." Last year's survey already confirmed that attitudes toward Israel were negative, but the situation has become more serious this year: Some 47% of participants in the 2011 survey had negative views of Israel's influence on the world, but this year the number has gone up to 50%.

Human rights campaigners have orgainsed a protest outside the Bahraini embassy in London to raise their voices against the invitation of 'Bahraini tyrant' to a Diamond Jubilee event.

Human rights activists are outraged that the King of Bahrain will lunch with the Queen at Windsor Castle - after his regime was accused of a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy campaigners.

Protestors say the guest list at today's special Jubilee lunch features a range of foreign monarchs who have been widely condemned for their human rights records, or their extravagant lifestyles.

Among the guests sitting down with the Queen is the King of Bahrain, where demonstrations calling for more democratic involvement in the country's government were violently suppressed, with the help of Saudi troops. At least fifty people have been killed in the tiny Persian Gulf island nation since February last year.

The Lebanese army has seized a consignment of weapons and explosives near the Syrian border, apparently destined for armed gangs fighting against the Damascus government.

According to Lebanese sources, the weapons were seized after the army intercepted a pickup truck in the village of Joura in the border region of Masharih al-Qaa late on Thursday.

One gunman was killed and a Lebanese soldier was injured in the exchange of fire between the two sides.

Lebanese troops also discovered a car laden with explosives in the southern city of Sidon.

Several people have been arrested in connection with the incidents.

The Obama administration is moving to remove an Iranian opposition group from the State Department's terrorism list, say officials briefed on the talks, in an action that could further poison Washington's relations with Tehran at a time of renewed diplomatic efforts to curtail Iran's nuclear program.

The exile organization, the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MeK, was originally named as a terrorist entity 15 years ago for its alleged role in assassinating U.S. citizens in the years before the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and for allying with Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein against Tehran.

The MeK has engaged in an aggressive legal and lobbying campaign in Washington over the past two years to win its removal from the State Department's list. The terrorism designation, which has been in place since 1997, freezes the MeK's assets inside the U.S. and prevents the exile group from fundraising.

The international community has eased its condemnation of Iran following recent negotiations between Tehran and six other nations in Istanbul, Turkey. While the participating parties agreed to further discussions on May 23, 2012 in Baghdad, both Israel and the West have given no indication of easing the strict regime of sanctions imposed on Tehran. Following claims of the Iranian leadership that it pursues civil nuclear capabilities to generate electricity and fuel for medical reactors (allowing Tehran to divert its primary oil reserves to export markets) [1], Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued a religious prohibition on nuclear weapons in Iran [2]. During recent discussions, Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili emphasized Iran's right to a civil nuclear program, as guaranteed under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [3]. Although Tel Aviv possess between 75 to 400 nuclear warheads, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak insists that all of Iran's uranium enriched to 20% be moved to a "trusted" neighboring country [4].

For more than 30 years, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People's Mujahedeen, has survived and operated on the margins of history and the slivers of land that Saddam Hussein and French governments have proffered it. During the 1970's, while it was still an underground Iranian political movement, you could encounter some of its members on the streets of New York, waving pictures of torture victims of the shah's regime. In the 80's and 90's, after its leaders fled Iran, you could see them raising money and petitioning on university campuses around the United States, pumping photographs in the air of women mangled and tortured by the Islamic regime in Tehran. By then, they were also showing off other photographs, photographs that were in some ways more attention-grabbing: Iranian women in military uniforms who brandished guns, drove tanks and were ready to overthrow the Iranian government. Led by a charismatic husband-and-wife duo, Maryam and Massoud Rajavi, the Mujahedeen had transformed itself into the only army in the world with a commander corps composed mostly of women.

Former inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency Robert Kelley says the IAEA includes rumors in its reports about Iran's nuclear energy program.

Kelley said that the November report of the IAEA and its appendix on the alleged military aspect of Iran's nuclear energy program was shocking since it was full of outdated information.

He said that anyone who followed Iran's nuclear energy program and the related reports could figure out that the November report contained old information.

He said that the report only covered information up until 2003 when CIA announced that Iran had stopped its alleged military nuclear program.

The former IAEA inspector said that the report was also very biased as it only selected and highlighted those explanations that were to the detriment of Iran although it contained other explanations as well that could be given for a subject in question.