Germans expressed fury and frustration on Tuesday at the Greek prime minister's shock decision to call a referendum on a new financial rescue package, political leaders saying it could plunge Greece into bankruptcy and force it out of the euro zone.

George Papandreou stunned his own people and his European colleagues with the announcement on Monday evening, only days after European leaders had agreed the outlines of a second bailout for Athens at marathon summit talks in Brussels.

The move hammered markets and prompted leaders of the big euro zone countries to hastily arrange a crisis meeting with Papandreou on Wednesday in Cannes, a day before the start of a G20 summit.

"Everyone is asking why Papandreou is doing this? Why now? Is he messing with us?" the top-selling tabloid Bild said on its website.

Greece's government looked on the verge of implosion on Tuesday ahead of a Friday confidence vote as a socialist deputy defected and another cadre called for early elections after the prime minister called a referendum on his EU debt rescue.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou called the referendum late Monday in a bid to secure approval of his disputed economic policies without early elections.

But the gambit backfired when a former deputy minister defected, reducing the ruling party's majority in the 300-seat parliament to 152 deputies.

Moments later, the head of parliament's economic affairs committee Vasso Papandreou called for an early ballot and a temporary unity government to "safeguard" the EU deal agreed last week to slash Greece's huge debt by nearly a third.

Thousands of Indians, Egyptians, Chinese, Filipinos, Turks, Germans, English, Italians, Malaysians, Koreans and a host of other nationalities are lining up at the borders and the airport to leave Libya. It begs the question: What were they doing in Libya in the first place? Unemployment figures, according to the Western media and Al Jazeera, are at 30%. If this is so, then why all these foreign workers?

For those of us who have lived and worked in Libya, there are many complexities to the current situation that have been completely overlooked by the Western media and 'Westoxicated' analysts, who have nothing other than a Eurocentric perspective to draw on. Let us be clear - there is no possibility of understanding what is happening in Libya within a Eurocentric framework. Westerners are incapable of understanding a system unless the system emanates from or is attached in some way to the West. Libya's system and the battle now taking place on its soil, stands completely outside of the Western imagination.

News coverage by the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera has been oversimplified and misleading. An array of anti-Qaddafi spokespersons, most living outside Libya, have been paraded in front of us - each one clearly a counter-revolutionary and less credible than the last. Despite the clear and irrefutable evidence from the beginning of these protests that Muammar Qaddafi had considerable support both inside Libya and internationally, not one pro-Qaddafi voice has been allowed to air. The media and their selected commentators have done their best to manufacture an opinion that Libya is essentially the same as Egypt and Tunisia and that Qaddafi is just another tyrant amassing large sums of money in Swiss bank accounts. But no matter how hard they try, they cannot make Qaddafi into a Mubarak or Libya into Egypt.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou's grip on power weakened before a confidence vote later this week as his decision to call a referendum on a new bailout package provoked a lawmaker rebellion.

Milena Apostolaki said she will defect from Papandreou's socialist Pasok party. With Kerdos newspaper reporting that Eva Kaili will also abandon Pasok, Papandreou would only control 151 seats in the 300-seat chamber. Six members of the party called on the premier to resign in a joint letter, Athens News Agency said today. Ministers are due to meet this evening.

Stocks fell, the euro tumbled and Italian bonds plunged on concern that the referendum, which blindsided Greek lawmakers as well as European policy makers, will push Greece into a disorderly default if the bailout is rejected. Austerity steps imposed by creditors have sparked a wave of social unrest in the past 18 months, undermining support for the government. Papandreou won his last major vote on austerity measures by 154 votes to 144 on Oct. 20.

A report by Human Rights Watch shows that Gaddafi was not deliberately killing civilians but rather targeting armed rebels fighters who were targeting his government.

Alan J. Kuperman, a professor at the University of Texas argued there is simply no evidence Gaddafi was targeting civilians, therefore there is no possibility Obama could have had evidence or reason to enter Libya and begin a military intervention.

"Civilians are caught in the middle," he said. "We didn't stop a bloodbath but we are prolonging and perpetuating the suffering of civilians in Libya."

Please join me on Facebook to fight media propaganda and help Libya against NATO's aggressions:

Sources:

In the Theater of the Absurd: US-NATO Support "Al Qaeda in Libya"

Libya, Getting it Right: A Revolutionary Pan-African Perspective

Washington - U.N. investigators have identified a previously unknown complex in Syria that bolsters suspicions that the Syrian government worked with A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, to acquire technology that could make nuclear arms.

The buildings in northwest Syria closely match the design of a uranium enrichment plant provided to Libya when Moammar Gadhafi was trying to build nuclear weapons under Khan's guidance, officials told The Associated Press.

The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency also has obtained correspondence between Khan and a Syrian government official, Muhidin Issa, who proposed scientific cooperation and a visit to Khan's laboratories following Pakistan's successful nuclear test in 1998.

The complex, in the city of Al-Hasakah, now appears to be a cotton-spinning plant, and investigators have found no sign that it was ever used for nuclear production. But given that Israeli warplanes destroyed a suspected plutonium production reactor in Syria in 2007, the unlikely coincidence in design suggests Syria may have been pursuing two routes to an atomic bomb: uranium as well as plutonium.

Details of the Syria-Khan connection were provided to the AP by a senior diplomat with knowledge of IAEA investigations and a former U.N. investigator. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Golden parachutes, the huge payouts some CEOs receive when they're ousted from the top job, have been the subject of increasing public scrutiny.

But now, exorbitant payouts to chief executives of companies that have been acquired are becoming a new kind of parachute and they are even more lucrative than getting sacked, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The CEOs of three recently acquired companies will rake in sums of $50 million or more as a result of the deals, according to The Wall Street Journal.

For example, cell phone maker Motorola's CEO Sanjay Jha could receive a $65.7 million payout from Google's acquisition of the company if he leaves within two years. Michel Orsinger, the chief executive of medical device company Synthes, which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson, could get $51.9 million if he leaves the company within two years. And George Lindemann, the CEO of natural gas pipeline operator Southern Union, could receive $53.8 million from the acquisition by rival company Energy Transfer Equity, the WSJ reported.

The payouts are considerably higher than those of chief executives who have been let go; for example, Leo Apotheker, the former CEO of Hewlett Packard who was recently replaced by Meg Whitman in September, received about $13 million for walking away from the job.

The Dodd-Frank financial reform law attempted to inhibit such payouts by calling for advisory votes on exit packages for deals requiring shareholder approval, but so far, only 25 such votes have been scheduled, according to the WSJ.

Iran's parliament is set to summon President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for questioning over an economic scandal and his polices after the required number of lawmakers signed a petition Sunday, the latest salvo in a long battle between the president and his rivals.

Ahmadinejad would be the first president to be hauled before the Iranian parliament, a serious blow to his standing in a the conflict involving the president, lawmakers and Iran's powerful clerics.

At least 73 lawmakers signed the petition to question Ahmadinejad, just above one-quarter of the 290 members required by Iran's constitution to call in a president.

Earlier the parliament found Ahmadinejad's economics minister guilty in relation to a $2.6 billion fraud case, considered the largest in Iran's history.

This is just one of several economic misconduct cases that target Ahmadinejad allies, evidence that his political struggles are a factor. Ahmadinejad has been wrestling with the parliament and the clergy over in the run-up to parliamentary elections in March and a presidential election in 2013.

Ahmadinejad has come under increasing attacks in recent months from the same hard-liners who brought him to power.

Dozens of Ahmadinejad's political backers have been arrested or hounded out of the public eye by hard-line forces in recent months. His protege and top aide, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, has been effectively blackballed from his goal of succeeding Ahmadinejad in 2013 elections by a series of reputation-killing accusations.

What is a false dichotomy? It is a situation where there seems to be a narrow field of two options to choose from, when there is actually a larger set of possibilities beyond those guidelines. In other words, you are asked to choose between black and white, leaving you to think that the only colors in existence are black, white and maybe gray, when in reality there is a whole palette of different shades and tints that were left completely out of the discussion.

The statement, "If you're not with us, then your against us" is a classic false dichotomy, because it presents two options -- both of which amount to violence -- while completely neglecting the option of remaining neutral. Likewise, the traditional two-party political system in the West is a striking example of the false dichotomy. The Democrats and Republicans may have some small insignificant differences that play on people's emotions, but when it comes to all the important things that effect everyday life for average people there is a "bipartisan consensus" to protect Anglo-American business interests, regardless of public opinion. This bipartisan alliance against the average citizens results in a one-party system that gives the illusion of being a two-party system. This leaves no choice for the majority of the country who just want to live honest lives without being subject to the policies that either of those two parties are seeking to enact.

After watching identical policies transpire under Bush and Obama, most Americans have come to understand that both parties are one and the same.

However, there are many deeper false dichotomies in our civilization which can also hinder our ability to see the big picture.

The most pervasive example would be that of big business and government; Wall Street and Washington.