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Monday, February 26, 2007 |
New Yorker: "The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups."
New Yorker: "To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda."
Telegraph: "America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear programme."
TimesOnline: "Some of America's most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources."
10:35:42 AM 
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IPS: "Last week, Merck, the pharmaceutical multinational, announced that it will pay 2.3 billion dollars in back taxes, interest and penalties in one of the largest settlements for tax evasion the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has ever imposed.
Merck had cooked its tax books by moving ownership of its drug patents to its own Bermuda shell company - an entity that has no real employees and does no real work - and then deducting from U.S. taxes the huge royalties it paid itself. While setting up a shell company is not inherently illegal, it is if tax authorities determine that its only purpose is to evade taxes. Bermuda is a tax haven that has no levy on royalties.
Merck also faces legal action in Canada for 1.8 billion dollars in back taxes and interest."
10:25:27 AM
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Guardian: "The Army refiled charges Friday against a lieutenant who refused to serve in Iraq, about two weeks after his first court-martial was declared a mistrial.
First Lt. Ehren Watada, 28, who refused to deploy with his unit last June, faces the same allegations he initially faced - missing movement and conduct unbecoming an officer - and could be sentenced to a dishonorable discharge and six years in prison if convicted. The Army has not set a date for a second court-martial.
Watada's attorney, Eric Seitz, said he would seek to have the charges dismissed as a violation of the Constitution's protection against double jeopardy."
10:21:45 AM
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