The two assassins arrived from nowhere as their victim was driving home with his wife. Trapped inside his car, he was hopelessly vulnerable as their motorcycles pulled alongside.

He would just have had time to notice their blacked-out visors before they opened fire, emptying round after round into his chest.

Nuclear scientist Darioush Rezaei died immediately. His wife was critically wounded and still in hospital days after the attack in north eastern Iran. The hitmen? They vanished into the traffic fumes of the night.

Washington -- The Associated Press has learned that more than 20 Navy SEALs from the unit that killed Osama bin Laden were among those lost in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

The operators from SEAL Team Six were flown by a crew of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. That's according to one current and one former U.S. official. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because families are still being notified of the loss of their loved ones.

One source says the team was thought to include 22 SEALs, three Air Force air controllers, seven Afghan Army troops, a dog and his handler, and a civilian interpreter, plus the helicopter crew.

Before we all join the chorus of abuse against the robber agencies, let us not lose sight of what is happening in the eurozone. The EU authorities are attempting to muzzle free opinion, first by threatening Fitch, Moody's, and S&P with vague retribution, and then by drafting restrictive laws to prevent them from publishing unwelcome messages.

It is financial repression, pure and simple. The same will be done to the press in due course. Then to you, dear reader.

"We must break the oligopoly of the rating agencies," says German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble. By "we", of course, he means the EU apparatus of coercion.

Today is the 66th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Though most Americans are unaware of the fact, increasing numbers of historians now recognize the United States did not need to use the atomic bomb to end the war against Japan in 1945. Moreover, this essential judgment was expressed by the vast majority of top American military leaders in all three services in the years after the war ended: Army, Navy and Army Air Force. Nor was this the judgment of "liberals," as is sometimes thought today. In fact, leading conservatives were far more outspoken in challenging the decision as unjustified and immoral than American liberals in the years following World War II.

By the summer of 1945 Japan was essentially defeated, its navy at the bottom of the ocean; its air force limited by fuel, equipment, and other shortages; its army facing defeat on all fronts; and its cities subjected to bombing that was all but impossible to challenge. With Germany out of the war, the United States and Britain were about to bring their full power to bear on what was left of the Japanese military. Moreover, the Soviet Union - at this point in time still neutral - was getting ready to attack on the Asian mainland: the Red Army, fresh from victory over Hitler, was poised to strike across the Manchurian border.

Long before the bombings occurred in August 1945 - indeed, as early as late April 1945, more than three months before Hiroshima - U.S. intelligence advised that the Japanese were likely to surrender when the Soviet Union entered the war if they were assured that it did not imply national annihilation. An April 29 Joint Intelligence Staff document put it this way: "If at any time the U.S.S.R. should enter the war, all Japanese will realize that absolute defeat is inevitable."

Washington- Mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae said it would ask for an additional $5.1 billion from taxpayers as it continues to suffer losses on loans made prior to 2009.

The largest U.S. residential mortgage funds provider on Friday also reported a second-quarter net loss attributable to common shareholders of $5.2 billion, or 90 cents per share.

Including the latest funding request, Fannie Mae has needed $104 billion in government capital injections since the U.S. Treasury seized control of it in 2008 during the financial crisis. Fannie Mae has paid back $14.7 billion in dividends.

Miviludes is an official governmental body created to fight against abuses by sects. In reality, it is nothing more than a group of French right wing establishment catholics in disguise trying to monopolise all religious and moral space in France.

The latest battle that has sparked this article concerns a recent report by Miviludes concerning 'apocalytic' sects that forecast the end of the world.

Here is Miviludes' definition of how to define a sect

- Mental destablization ;
- Exhorbitant financial demands ;
- Break with original environment ;
- Attacks on physical integrity ;
- Recruiting of children, anti social discourse, public disorder ;
- Number and importance of judiciary 'skirmishes' ;
- Diversion of money from traditional economic circuits;
- Infiltration of public institutions.

Local officials in Iraq have said that US troops in the country have killed an Iraqi child as well as a policeman in the Salahuddin province north of Baghdad.

Officials say the two were killed during an apparent mistaken raid.

Reports on further causalities remain sketchy so far, Press TV reported.

The US-led military invasion in Iraq that began in 2003 has so far led to over a million 'violent deaths' among Iraqi citizens, according to a study by the British polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB).

Further, Washington continues to exert pressure on Baghdad to extend US military presence in Iraq.

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been taken to a detention center on the orders of the judge at her trial for "systematically violating courtroom proceedings."

After Judge Rodion Kireyev adjourned the court until Monday, Tymoshenko was driven away from the court under a heavy police escort on Friday, with members of the opposition chanting "Shame," Reuters reported.

Hundreds of her supporters took to the streets of downtown Kiev, and Tymoshenko's party has called for members of her bloc to stage more rallies in front of the courthouse in the capital.

Ukrainian prosecutors charged Tymoshenko with abuse of office, accusing her of illegally forcing state energy company Naftogaz to sign a gas supply contract with Russia in 2009.

Tymoshenko is Ukraine's leading opposition politician and the most formidable opponent of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, who says her actions in the gas deal with Russia were a "betrayal of national interests."

Eight civilians, including women and children, have been killed in a US-led NATO airstrike in the southern Afghan province of Helmand.

Provincial officials said the attack was carried out at 2 p.m. local time on Friday after Taliban militants attacked US-led troops in the area, a Press TV correspondent reported.

NATO has not commented on the incident.

In a separate incident, at least four people were killed when police opened fire during an anti-US demonstration held in the southern province of Zabul on Friday.

"Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions - everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses" - Juvenal - 100 A.D.

Juvenal makes reference to the Roman practice of providing free wheat to Roman citizens as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power through populism. Roman politicians devised a plan in 140 B.C. to win the votes of the poor: giving out cheap food and entertainment, "bread and circuses". The Roman politicians realized this would be the most effective way to rise to power and stay in power.
With the revolting display of political theater in the last few weeks, I couldn't help but consider the parallels between the Roman Empire and the American Empire. The entire debt ceiling farce was a circus on an epic scale - The Greatest Show on Earth. The American public was treated to high wire acts of near debt experiences, Senators putting their heads into the mouths of lions, and hundreds of clowns riding tiny bikes with squeaking horns. In the end, American politicians did what they do best - pretended to solve a spending problem without cutting spending. Only in America could politicians put the country on course to increase its national debt from $14.5 trillion to $23 trillion by 2021 and declare they are cutting spending. For those that need to visualize the lies of politicians, take a gander at this chart and try to find the cuts in spending.