Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou survived a vote of confidence in parliament on Saturday, avoiding snap elections that would have torpedoed Greece's debt bailout deal and inflamed the euro zone's economic crisis.

But the nation remained mired in political, economic and social turmoil and Papandreou signaled he would stand down, calling for a new coalition to ram the 130-billion-euro ($179 billion) bailout deal through parliament and avoid the nation going bankrupt.

Papandreou's socialist government won with 153 votes in the 300 member parliament, and a rebellion by some dissidents in his PASOK party failed to materialize after he indicated that his term as prime minister was close to an end.

"The last thing I care about is my post. I don't care even if I am not re-elected. The time has come to make a new effort ... I never thought of politics as a profession," he told parliament before the vote.

Papandreou said a coalition government should secure the approval of the EU/IMF bailout deal, the nation's last financial lifeline, which is also the euro zone's central plank to prevent economic crisis devastating the bloc's bigger economies.

The sudden dismissal of the Greek military's high command Tuesday night, amid international uproar over a proposal for a referendum on an EU debt plan, has all the hallmarks of an action taken to preempt the threat of a military coup.

A measure of this political magnitude would not have been taken lightly. At the very least, one must assume that Prime Minister George Papandreou had strong reason to believe that his government, and possibly his own person, was facing an imminent threat from the country's military.

The Greek minister of defense, Panos Beglitis, a close political ally of Papandreou, summoned the four highest-ranking Greek military officers - the chiefs of the general staff, the army, navy and air force - to a hastily convened meeting to announce that they were being removed from their posts and replaced by other members of the Greek military brass.

Last month, Defense Minister Beglitis was quoted by the EU Observer web site as describing the Greek military hierarchy as "a state within a state."

"An inch ahead lies darkness"
Japanese proverb

Many people are making facile comparisons between today's OWS movement and the anti-war movement of the Vietnam era. A major difference between what happened then and what is happening today is that the 60's anti-war movement occurred in the context of great prosperity and full employment, was led by middle class students anxious to avoid the draft, was not seconded by labor and in the context of a foreign war was often opposed by the "silent majority" on patriotic grounds.

None of this applies today. Now we are seeing students, organized labor and even war veterans arm in arm lined up against the "one percent" and it is also significant that they are ignoring Washington and concentrating their actions directly on the economic powers themselves, occupying Wall Street and now paralyzing America's most important sea port, Oakland California.

In other places and other eras, both these actions would have been considered pre-revolutionary.

Israeli government yesterday took punitive measures against the UN cultural agency Unesco for admitting Palestine as a member-state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a halt to the country's participation in Unesco, including its annual payment of $2 million, following Unesco's decision, which he said "doesn't advance peace, but makes it more distant," according to a text message from his office yesterday.

Two vessels being towed to Israeli port; activists to be questioned, released

Jerusalem - Israel's navy boarded two protest boats trying to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip on Friday and towed them to an Israeli port just north of the Palestinian territory, officials said.

The military said forces boarded the boats after repeated calls for them to turn around were ignored. The boarding was done peacefully and nobody was hurt, the military said.

It was the latest attempt by pro-Palestinian activists heading for Gaza by boat to draw attention to a 5-year-old blockade of the impoverished coastal strip that critics say amounts to collective punishment of its residents. Israel says its naval blockade is vital in preventing weapons from reaching violent groups like Hamas, the Iranian-backed militant group that rules the Gaza Strip.

Once the vessels reach the port of Ashdod, the activists will be questioned by police and immigration officials and then sent back to their home countries as soon as possible, said Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

Ames, Iowa - Casting the Wall Street protestors as misguided, Republican presidential contender Michele Bachmann on Thursday said their frustrations should instead be directed at Washington politicians who protect their allies and put unfriendly companies out of business.

Bachmann said politicians have far too much power and unfairly pick winners and losers. The Minnesota congresswoman, trying to recapture her once surging poll numbers, said she has watched lawmakers enact laws that intentionally shut businesses down.

"For your sake and for your future, America - and Occupy Wall Street in particular - needs to wake up and stop blaming the free market, stop blaming capitalism, stop blaming job creators for the failures created by selfish politicians," Bachmann told students at Iowa State University. "The problem is politicians who wink at their political donors and through the force of law put their competitors out of business."

Bachmann used her appearance in Ames to outline an economic proposal that would require all Americans to pay taxes. The Tax Policy Center estimates that some 46 percent of households this year will not pay federal income taxes.

"They need to be invested in the country," she said. "Even if they can only afford $10, they need to pay something."

Her position was a direct challenge to rivals Rick Perry and Herman Cain, who are advocating separate flat tax plans. Cain is also promoting for a national sales tax as part of his 9-9-9 plan.

Bachmann said she would not propose an absolute flat tax, but told reporters after that she would have at most three tax brackets, which she declined define.

Polls show Bachmann trailing behind other contenders in Iowa, which holds the first presidential caucuses in January. She won an early test vote in Ames in August. But her standing slipped as the GOP electorate rallied first around Perry, who had several weak debate performances, and then Cain, who has spent the last four days trying to redirect media attention away from allegations of sexual harassment filed by at least two women during his tenure at the National Restaurant Association.

With jobs and the economy as the top issues on voters' minds, Bachmann hopes her tough talk will help her regain her footing in a state that her advisers see as a linchpin in their strategy.

The UK and U.S. are drawing up plans to attack Iran amid growing tensions in the Middle East, it was claimed last night.

Barack Obama and David Cameron are preparing for war after reports that Iran now has enough enriched uranium for four nuclear weapons.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hardline regime in Tehran has been linked to three assassination plots on foreign soil, according to senior officials in Whitehall.

Iran has come sharply back into focus following the end of the Libya conflict.

President Obama said Iran's nuclear programme continues to pose a threat and that he and French president Nicolas Sarkozy want the international community to maintain pressure on the country to admit its intentions.
And the unrest has been inflamed by sabre-rattling from top politicians in Israel.

Defence oIsrael has successfully test-fired a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and striking Iran, fanning a public debate over whether the country's leaders are agitating for a military attack on Tehran's atomic facilities.

While Israeli leaders have long warned that a military strike was an option, the most intensive round of public discourse on the subject was ignited over the weekend by a report in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot that said the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the defence minister, Ehud Barak, favoured an attack.

That was followed by a report in the Haaretz on Wednesday that Netanyahu is lobbying cabinet members for an attack, despite the complexity of the operation and the likelihood it would draw a deadly retaliation from Iran. An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Netanyahu did not yet have a majority.fficial says military tested rocket propulsion system as reports suggest country's leaders in favour of attacking Tehran

Kuwaiti paper says Binyamin Netanyahu believes the heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet may have leaked plans for attack

Israel's prime minister has ordered an investigation into alleged leaks of plans to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, it has been reported.

According to the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Jarida, the main suspects are the former heads of the Mossad and the Shin Bet, respectively Israel's foreign and domestic intelligence agencies.

Netanyahu is said to believe that the two, Meir Dagan and Yuval Diskin, wanted to torpedo plans being drawn up by him and Ehud Barak, the defence minister, to hit Iranian nuclear sites. Tzipi Livni, leader of the opposition Kadima party, is also said to have been persuaded to attack Netanyahu for "adventurism" and "gambling with Israel's national interest".

The paper suggested that the purpose of the leaks was to prevent an attack, which had moved from the stage of discussion to implementation. "Those who oppose the plan within the security establishment decided to leak it to the media and thwart the plan," it said.

Both Dagan and Diskin oppose military action against Iran unless all other options - primarily international diplomatic pressure and perhaps sabotage - have been exhausted. In January the recently retired Dagan, a hawk when he was running the Mossad, called an attack on Iran "the stupidest idea I've ever heard".

Fear that Egypt's ruling generals are working to perpetuate their hold on power is causing a political furor, threatening a "second revolution" and sending relations between the generals and activists to new lows less than four weeks before a key election.

The outcry has been prompted by a proposal from the military-appointed Cabinet to shield the armed forces from any oversight and give the generals a veto over legislation dealing with military affairs. The measure also is designed to curtail the likely influence by Islamist lawmakers over the writing of a new constitution.

The proposal, which requires the adoption of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to be binding, has united both Islamists and liberals - groups that helped engineer the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak - in its condemnation.

Egypt's best known reform proponent, Mohamed ElBaradei, decried the document as "distorted" and demanded its withdrawal.

"There is a difference between a civilian democratic state that guarantees man's basic rights and military guardianship," he said.

The Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest and most powerful political group, is leading the opposition to the document, saying it usurped the "people's will."