Algerian security forces have found a large cache of weapons, including shoulder-fired missiles, which they believe were smuggled in from neighboring Libya, a security source briefed on the discovery told Reuters on Saturday.

The find follows warnings from governments in the region that instability in Libya after the end of Muammar Gaddafi's rule is allowing weapons taken from Gaddafi's arsenal to fall into the hands of al Qaeda's north African branch and other insurgent groups across the Sahara desert.

The weapons cache was discovered in the desert about 60 km (40 miles) south of In Amenas, an energy-producing Algerian region near the border with Libya, said the source, who spoke to Reuters on condition on anonymity.

The source said the cache was located following a tip-off from a smuggler who had been arrested. He said it contained a "large quantity" of arms including the shoulder-launched missiles - a weapon which, in some variations, could be used to bring down an aircraft.

"This weapons seizure shows that the chaos in Libya is dangerous for the whole region," the source said.

There was no official confirmation of the discovery from the Algerian government and there was no way of independently verifying the source's account.

Western security experts tracking arms which have disappeared from Gaddafi's looted arms depots say the shoulder-fired missiles - also known as man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS - are one of their biggest concerns because they could be used with relative ease by insurgent groups.

Mossad chief Tamir Pardo visited New Delhi just days before an attack on Israeli officials in the Indian capital this week, the Times of India reported yesterday. But the Mossad chief's talks with local intelligence heads did not deal with a possible terror attack in India, and Pardo is cited as saying Israelis were safer in India than in Turkey, countries in East Asia or South America.

On Monday, the wife of an Israeli diplomat was moderately wounded when a car bomb exploded in New Delhi. The attack was one of three this week that targeted Israeli officials abroad, with failed attempts to strike at diplomats reported the same day in Tbilisi and on the following day in Bangkok.

None of the attacks was preceded by a specific intelligence alert.

Pardo reportedly arrived at the head of a high-level Mossad team for meetings with the heads of local Indian intelligence. They discussed the possibility of an Iranian counterattack against Israeli targets, but the possibility of an attack taking place in New Delhi did not even come up. The attack "appears to have come as a surprise to Mossad," the newspaper said.


The newspaper reported that Israel's deputy envoy to India, Yahel Vilan, and the embassy's security officer, Shahar Gal Nero, sent a letter on February 1 to the New Delhi police warning of the possibility of attacks targeting Israeli citizens ahead of the anniversary of Hezbollah's Imad Mughniyeh's death, and following attacks against Iranian nuclear scientists.

Greece's cabinet on Saturday approved a final set of austerity measures sought by the EU and IMF as a condition for a 130-billion euro ($171 billion) rescue package, raising the chances of a deal next week to avert a chaotic default on its debt.

The approval was largely a formality after Athens last week unveiled details of the extra budget and public sector wage cuts worth 325 million euros to euro zone partners.

Lingering doubts over whether Greece can bring its mountain of debt down to more manageable levels in coming years could still hold up the rescue package. Some officials in the 17-nation currency union warn chances of a deal at a euro zone meeting on Monday are little higher than 50-50.

"The 325 million euros worth of measures were approved unanimously," said one minister, speaking on condition of anonymity, about the cuts, part of a 3.3-billion-euro package of austerity measures that have triggered riots in Athens.

A government official said cabinet had also agreed to launch by March 8 a debt swap for private creditors with the aim of completing it by March 11. The swap is intended to accompany the rescue deal and will mean that creditors take a 70 percent cut in the real value of their holdings.

After months of often acrimonious negotiations, Greek hopes are rising that Monday's meeting in Brussels will endorse the rescue which Athens needs to avoid bankruptcy on March 20 when major debt repayments fall due.

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is to be questioned next week by police investigating an alleged prostitution ring in Lille, northern France, a police source said.

The former finance minister, who left the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last May to face attempted rape charges in New York that were later dropped, had publicly demanded to be interviewed in the separate Lille case.

Strauss-Kahn has been summoned for 3:00 a.m. EST on Tuesday, the source said, confirming a report in La Voix du Nord newspaper on Saturday. He is to be taken into custody and questioned for up to 48 hours, according to the regional daily.

Messages left for Strauss-Kahn's Paris attorney were not immediately returned.

Once seen as a likely contender against French President Nicolas Sarkozy in upcoming elections, Strauss-Kahn bowed out of public life after his U.S. arrest on allegations that he attempted to rape a Guinean hotel maid.

According to The Times, new evidence indicates that foreign nationals in Israel willingly allow the Mossad to use their passports in order to carry out undercover operations abroad.

Israeli Mossad spies are still using foreign passports, including those of British nationals, when conducting undercover operations abroad, according to The Times of London.

According to the report, new evidence suggests that foreign nationals in Israel continue to allow the Mossad to use their passports - on many occasions willingly.

The Times article stated that two young men agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity - and only once they had had their passports returned. A third man said he had been involved in a similar scheme, but was still serving in the Israeli military and declined to be interviewed.

Growing view that strike, by Israel or US, will happen
'Sweet spot' for Israeli action identified as September-October
White House remains determined to give sanctions time

Officials in key parts of the Obama administration are increasingly convinced that sanctions will not deter Tehran from pursuing its nuclear programme, and believe that the US will be left with no option but to launch an attack on Iran or watch Israel do so.

The president has made clear in public, and in private to Israel, that he is determined to give sufficient time for recent measures, such as the financial blockade and the looming European oil embargo, to bite deeper into Iran's already battered economy before retreating from its principal strategy to pressure Tehran.

But there is a strong current of opinion within the administration - including in the Pentagon and the state department - that believes sanctions are doomed to fail, and that their principal use now is in delaying Israeli military action, as well as reassuring Europe that an attack will only come after other means have been tested.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has once again proven that the only thing Americans need fear, is their own government, with the latest "terror attack" foiled being one entirely of their own design.

USA Today reports that a suspect had been arrested by the FBI who was "en route to the U.S. Capitol allegedly to detonate a suicide bomb." While initial reports portrayed the incident as a narrowly averted terrorist attack, CBS would report that a "high ranking source told CBS News the man was "never a real threat."" The explosives the would-be bomber carried were provided to him by the FBI during what they described as a "lengthy and extensive operation." The only contact the suspect had with "Al Qaeda" was with FBI officials posing as associates of the elusive, omnipresent, bearded terror conglomerate. The FBI, much like their MI5 counterparts in England, have a propensity for recruiting likely candidates from mosques they covertly run.

This is but the latest in a string of national terror plots carried out from start to finish by the FBI, who has made a business of approaching likely candidates and grooming them to carry out terror attacks. In September 2011, another FBI terror operation targeting the Capitol was "foiled," involving a patsy who believed he was to take part in an assault that would involve multiple gunmen and even a drone bomber provided to him by the FBI.

The elite UK think-tank, The Royal Society, which has openly admitted to studying how to play God with the climate, has kicked off a new program that reveals another level of control entirely: the human brain.

The Brain Waves project is divided into four modules, each tasked with studying the impact of developments in the field of neuroscience and neurotechnology. The titles of the modules reflect the areas of examination:

• Module 1: Society and policy
• Module 2: Implications for education and lifelong learning
• Module 3: Conflict and security
• Module 4: Responsibility and the law

The results from these modules have been published, and clearly illustrate how this panel views the lower public masses in light of their status as the elite arbiters of human destiny.

Both Washington and Israel have seized upon a string of abortive bomb plots in India, Georgia and Thailand to escalate war threats against Iran.

In India, an unknown individual on a motorcycle attached a bomb to a car in which the wife of an Israeli diplomat was riding in Delhi on February 13. The woman and the car's driver were lightly injured. On the same day in Tbilisi, Georgia, a bomb was discovered attached to an Israeli embassy vehicle and defused.

And in Bangkok, Thailand, three individuals identified as Iranians were arrested after a bizarre incident Tuesday in which explosives detonated inside their apartment and one of them blew off his own legs with a homemade grenade.

The three incidents, in which there were no fatalities, were immediately labeled by the Israeli government as terrorist attacks organized by Tehran that, in the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demonstrated why all nations must draw "red lines against Iranian aggression."

To avoid restating the obvious, or repeating what others have already established, I take these facts as givens: that the main perpetrator of the assassination of Iranian scientists has been the Israeli spy agency Mossad, assisted by various covert operations agencies of the United States and its allies; that the claim of Iran's possessing or pursuing a nuclear arms program is false; and that, therefore, the assertion that Iran poses an "existential" threat to Israel is, likewise, a fiction designed to justify plans of war and regime change in that country.

I would also like to make it clear at the outset that while the imperial powers of the West and their allies, including the Iranian expats collaborating with them, certainly pursue their own nefarious objectives in hunting for regime change in Iran, the focus of this essay is primarily on Israel, and its motives for trying to overthrow the Iranian government.