The debt crisis in Greece has taken on a dramatic new twist. Sources with information about the government's actions have informed Spiegel Online that Athens is considering withdrawing from the euro zone. The common currency area's finance ministers and representatives of the European Commission are holding a secret crisis meeting in Luxembourg on Friday night.

Greece's economic problems are massive, with protests against the government being held almost daily. Now Prime Minister George Papandreou apparently feels he has no other option: Spiegel Online has obtained information from German government sources knowledgeable of the situation in Athens indicating that Papandreou's government is considering abandoning the euro and reintroducing its own currency.

Alarmed by Athens' intentions, the European Commission has called a crisis meeting in Luxembourg on Friday night. The meeting is taking place at Château de Senningen, a site used by the Luxembourg government for official meetings. In addition to Greece's possible exit from the currency union, a speedy restructuring of the country's debt also features on the agenda. One year after the Greek crisis broke out, the development represents a potentially existential turning point for the European monetary union -- regardless which variant is ultimately decided upon for dealing with Greece's massive troubles.

Given the tense situation, the meeting in Luxembourg has been declared highly confidential, with only the euro-zone finance ministers and senior staff members permitted to attend. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Jörg Asmussen, an influential state secretary in the Finance Ministry, are attending on Germany's behalf.

After raid on bin Laden compound reveals al Qaeda plot for U.S. trains, Sen. Schumer wants better rail safety

New York - Sen. Charles Schumer is calling for better rail security now that the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound has turned up plans to attack trains in the U.S.

Schumer said Sunday that he will push for the creation of a "do not ride" list for Amtrak. The list would be similar to the no-fly list that keeps those suspected of terrorism from flying into or out of the United States.

Notes and computer materials seized from bin Laden's compound in Pakistan last Sunday showed bin Laden wanted to strike American cities again and discussed ways to attack trains.

Schumer is calling for increased funding for rail security in light of the new intelligence.

The greatest threat to Libyan sovereignty and independence is the United States of America. Nothing else comes close.

Gaddafi hasn't been targeted because he's a tyrant, but because he sits on an ocean of petroleum. That's what this is all about, right? If Libya's main source of wealth was car parts or coconuts, there never would have been a war.

The notion that a leader does not have the right to put down an armed rebellion against the state is too absurd to dispute. If we apply the same standard to the demonstrations in Wisconsin, then the teachers and other union members would be entirely justified in grabbing their hunting rifles and handguns and storming the capital in Madison. Can you see how stupid this is? And yet this is pretext that's being used to wage war on Libya.

""The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government." That was true when Martin Luther King uttered those words more than 40 years ago, and it's true today. Just ask anyone who lives in Baghdad.

'He is just a man with strong views and a big mouth,' says father, as US-born Yemeni cleric survives American missile attack

"There are three drones which hover above my village 24 hours a day... it's the Americans, I'm sure of it. They've killed Bin Laden and now they're after my son."

Nasser al-Awlaki is a worried man. He fears for the life of his eldest son, Anwar, the US-born civil engineer turned radical Muslim cleric who is now the spiritual guru of al-Qaida's most active franchise, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. With Bin Laden's death, some officials believe Anwar and the Yemen-based group now represent the gravest threat to the US.

Last spring, Barack Obama authorised the killing of Awlaki, believed to be in hiding with tribal leaders in the rugged southern region of Shabwa, after he was linked to a US army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009 and then to a Nigerian student accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound passenger jet on Christmas Day that year.

Wikipedia defines false or black flags as

"covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities."

They're "big lies," defined by Merriam-Webster as

"deliberate gross distortion(s) of the truth used especially as a propaganda tactic."

America's decade from September 11, 2001 to May 1, 2011 was punctuated by the (big) lie of our time and (big) lie of the moment.

A Japanese lawmaker said Friday that his country should move its parliament to Fukushima to provide an economic boost and show confidence in a region struck by a nuclear crisis after a massive earthquake.

Yasuhisa Shiozaki, who was the government's number two from 2006 to 2007, acknowledged that some people may find his idea far-fetched, but said that Japan should consider it as part of a broader decentralization from Tokyo.

"I am proposing to move the Japanese Diet to Fukushima, sending the message to the world that we are not running away from this meltdown issue," said Shiozaki, a member of the conservative opposition Liberal Democratic Party.

"Why not choose Fukushima to invigorate this area and economy and also cheer them up," he said at the Stimson Center, a think-tank.

I'm sure we're all very tired by now of the Osama bin Laden nonsense, I know I am, and I really wish it would just go away. Sadly, that seems an unlikely prospect in the near future.

I've already provided more than enough evidence for all rational people to seriously doubt the authenticity of the "Osama bin Laden is dead" story. I've also exposed the many faked images and videos of the alleged terrorist mastermind that were released over the past 10 years. But the US government and CIA aren't ready to quit just yet. It would appear that they're determined to push the boundaries of belief and exploit public credulousness to the max (and perhaps beyond).

You're probably aware that yesterday, Sat. 7th May 2011, the US government released "new" videos of 'bin Laden' that they claimed were part of the haul from the 'compound' in Pakistan, which, by the way, is very conveniently scheduled for destruction.

These new videos include footage that is similar to previous 'bin Laden' tapes, but also include footage of some guy sitting in a room watching news reports about Osama bin Laden. The US government and the fawning Western media are claiming that the guy sitting on the floor watching television is Osama bin Laden in his 'compound' and that the video could have been made as recently as Spring 2011. The problem is that we only get to see the man sitting on the floor from the side, there are no front-on shots that would allow us to see the man's face and ascertain whether or not he looks anything like bin Laden and there is no audio (apparently it was edited by the Pentagon). Again, this is very convenient, and I think you will agree that, even from the side-on angle, the man on the floor does not look like any of the images of the person we know to be the real bin Laden.

But the real smoking gun is to be found in the videos allegedly taken from the Pakistan 'compound' and which provide higher resolution images of a man who appears to be the same person that appeared in a 'bin Laden' video released in 2007.

Mobs set two churches on fire in western Cairo during clashes between Muslims and Christians triggered by rumors of an interfaith romance that left 10 dead in some of the worst sectarian violence since the ouster of the president in a popular uprising.

Egypt's prime minister canceled his visit to the Gulf on Sunday, and called for an emergency Cabinet meeting to discuss the violence, according to the state news agency.

Saturday night's clashes were sparked by rumors in the low-income neighborhood of Imbaba that a Christian woman married to a Muslim had been abducted and was being held in one of the churches against her will.

The report, which was never confirmed, spurred a mob from the ultraconservative Salafi trend of Islam to march on the Saint Menas Church. Christians barricaded themselves inside and around the church and the demonstrations turned violent. Gunfire sounded across the neighborhood, and witnesses said people on rooftops fired into the crowd.

Muslims accused Christians of starting the shooting, and large crowds instigated by the local Salafi religious leaders converged on the area. They lobbed fire bombs at homes, shops and the church, setting its facade on fire.

Newly released videos show Osama bin Laden inside his hideout, watching himself on television and rehearsing for terrorist propaganda videos.

The videos, released by U.S. intelligence officials Saturday, were offered as further proof that Navy SEALs killed the world's most wanted terrorist this week. But they also served to show bin Laden as vain, someone obsessed with his portrayal by the world's media.

One of the movies shows bin Laden, wrapped in a brown blanket and holding a remote control, flipping back and forth between clips of himself. The small television was perched on top of a desk with wires running to a nearby cable or control box.

In another, he has apparently dyed and neatly trimmed his beard for the filming of a propaganda video.

Barack Obama, who pledged to restore ethical honor to the White House after the Bush years, is now burying himself under an active volcano of lies, mostly but not exclusively concerning the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

There was scarcely a sentence in the President's Sunday night address, or in the subsequent briefing by John Brennan, his chief counter-terrorism coordinator, that has not been subsequently retracted by CIA director Leon Panetta or the White House press spokesman, Jay Carney, or by various documentary records.

- The White House photograph of Obama, Clinton and top security advisors supposedly watching real-time footage of the Navy Seals' onslaught on the Abbottabad compound, their killing of two men and a woman (excuse for the latter killing: the standard "caught in crossfire") and liquidation of OBL himself turns out to have been a phony. BO and friends could have been watching basketball replays. Panetta has admitted the real-time video link stopped working before the Seals got into the compound.