Four Afghan civilians have lost their lives when an errant missile fired by US-led forces struck their house in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand. The US-led forces fired a missile which missed its target and hit the residential building. Parts of the structure were damaged in the incident, a Press TV correspondent reported on Wedneday. The incident comes as violence in Afghanistan has spiked to record highs since the US-led invasion of the Asian country in 2001. Statistics about civilian death tolls in war-torn Afghanistan are not available. However, it is estimated that between 14,000 and 34,000 Afghan civilians have lost their lives since the US-led war.

An Iraqi defector, codenamed Curveball, who allegedly helped convince the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had a secret stash of biological and chemical weapons, has admitted for the first time that he made it all up. Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi told The Guardian that he invented the stories to help topple Saddam Hussein, but was shocked when the US used tales as an excuse to go to war. It was just over eight years ago that US Secretary of State Colin Powell took Janabi's claims to the United Nations.

PressTV: US, UK 'scapegoated Iraqi to wage war'

The Obama administration recently announced its $3.73 trillion dollar budget plan for the 2012 fiscal year beginning on October 1. The new budget includes a more than $44 billion allocation for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to purchase 275 more naked body scanners to be installed at U.S. airports, despite continued outcry from health experts and the public about the machines' safety hazards, threats to personal privacy, and complete ineffectiveness.

Up three percent from last year's budget, the DHS allocation is just the start of the Obama administration's efforts to have 1,275 naked body scanners installed in airports by the end of 2012. The plan disregards the numerous testimonies from security experts who have dubbed the machines "useless," and say they fail to detect explosive materials any better than conventional scanners.

Mary L. G. Theroux: TSA Thugs
Becky Akers: TSA: Airports Are Only the Beginning
Alissa Bohling: First, Your Shoes; Next, Your DNA: Elliot Cohen on How Surveillance Is Erasing Freedom and Autonomy, Step by Incremental Step

Bernie Madoff gave his first prison interview to the NYT’s Diana B. Henriques today. The big headline-grabber is his claim that banks “had to know” about his fraud, though he doesn’t back that up, or present any details, at least in what’s been published. The big story, really, is that Madoff gave an interview, and that he emails with Irving Picard (and the author of the story who is writing a book). Earlier this year Picard filed suit against JPMorgan seeking to recover assets. He says he’s cooperating in terms of locating and tracking down assets, though he’s not doing anything that will get anyone in criminal trouble.

Read the interview in full in the New York Times

We have always supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction Movement (BDS), especially the right of Israelis to be a part of that movement. As of yesterday, that aspect was rendered illegal by the Knesset. We will continue to support the Boycott despite the new legislation, rendering us illegal as well. Some laws are just made to be boycotted…. this is definitely one of them. The following video explains what the ‘Boycott From Within’ is and why it MUST be supported. [Posted by Joseph Dana]

Japan has suspended its annual Antarctic whale hunt following protests from a campaign group. Activists from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a US-based environmental group, have been chasing the Japanese fleet's mother ship. An official at the country's fisheries agency said whaling had been halted "for now" because of safety concerns. Commercial whaling was banned in 1986 but Japan uses a regulation permitting hunting for scientific research. Iceland and Norway have lodged official objections to the ban and continue to hunt commercially.

The new Icesave legislation was voted on in the Icelandic parliament, Althingi, today at 2 pm. The legislation was passed with 44 votes against 16. Three MPs abstained in the voting. Amendments proposing the matter should be voted on in a national referendum were rejected. Left-Green MPs Lilja Mósesdóttir and Ásmundur Einar Dadason were among those in favor of a referendum, ruv.is reports. The final rounds of discussions on the Icesave bill began yesterday afternoon and continued until late last night. Oddný G. Hardardóttir, chairperson of the Budget Committee, presented the committee’s majority view that the legislation should be passed. The representatives of the Independence Party, the largest opposition party, on the Budget Committee agreed that the legislation should be passed, while the representatives of the Progressive Party and The Movement opposed it. Meanwhile, more than 30,000 people have signed an online petition asking that the parliament reject the legislation or that the president refrains from signing it so that it can be voted on in a referendum.

Have you ever really looked someone in the eye? Unless you are an ophthalmologist, you have probably never seen the human eye this close.

While most Democrats opposed the extension of the surveillance authorities—rejecting aggressive lobbying by the Obama administration and its allies in the House GOP leadership—overwhelming Republican support won approval of the legislation on a 275-144 vote. Thus, the supposedly Constitution-obsessed House has endorsed a measure that is widely seen—not just by Democrats and progressives but by Republicans and conservatives—as a constant threat to privacy protections outlined in the document's Fourth Amendment.

Raw Story: Senate votes for short-term extension of PATRIOT Act provisions

An American investigative journalist says US politicians receive money from Israeli lobbies in exchange for securing Tel Aviv's interests in the Middle East. In an exclusive interview with Press TV's US desk, David Lindorff said that the Israeli lobby practically gives money to every politician in the US Congress.

“Politicians in the US need money to get elected because we don't have publicly-funded elections,” Lindorff said.

He emphasized that they cooperate with the Israeli lobby, which is “very wealthy and very powerful,” mainly because they just “don't want to have that lobby working against them." He noted that the pro-Israeli lobby is “the most power lobby in the United States” after the National Rifle Association, which heavily promotes free ownership of firearms in the country.

End The Occupation: Obama Gives Israel Way Too Much Love in Valentine's Day Budget

Mubarak ordered Tiananmen-style massacre of demonstrators, Army refused. Mubarak ordered the Egyptian Third Army to crush the demonstrators in Tahrir Square with their tanks. Fathers who had spent their lives serving the Egyptian army told their sons to disobey. Buried in this Robert Fisk report for The Independent is a startling account of the Egyptian army refusing to move with tanks against the Tahrir Square protesters on January 30. If this is true, it must be the defining moment in the history of the movement that toppled Hosni Mubarak's 30-year reign.

Egypt's military rulers have ordered a panel of civilian experts to amend five articles in the country's suspended constitution within ten days. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces have instructed an eight-member panel of jurists and scholars to revise articles it sees fit to guarantee Egypt's democracy, a Press TV correspondent reported. Sobhi Saleh, a panel member and former lawmaker from the Islamist opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, said the armed forces want to hand over power as soon as possible and they want amendments to the constitution. The committee will be chaired by Tareq el-Beshry, a respected former head of the Egyptian supreme constitutional court, the report added. The panel “must finish its work in a period of no longer than 10 days after the date of this decision," and must also eliminate articles giving presidents unlimited terms in office, the army said in a statement.

Pepe Escobar: Is the revolution being co-opted?

While enthusiasts across the world pored over the Voynich manuscript, one of the most mysterious writings ever found – penned by an unknown author in a language no one understands – a research team at the UA solved one of its biggest mysteries: When was the book made?

University of Arizona researchers have cracked one of the puzzles surrounding what has been called "the world's most mysterious manuscript" – the Voynich manuscript, a book filled with drawings and writings nobody has been able to make sense of to this day. Using radiocarbon dating, a team led by Greg Hodgins in the UA's department of physics has found the manuscript's parchment pages date back to the early 15th century, making the book a century older than scholars had previously thought.

This tome makes the "DaVinci Code" look downright lackluster: Rows of text scrawled on visibly aged parchment, flowing around intricately drawn illustrations depicting plants, astronomical charts and human figures bathing in – perhaps – the fountain of youth. At first glance, the "Voynich manuscript" appears to be not unlike any other antique work of writing and drawing.

Wikimedia: Voynich manuscript

The plan is to create a "dry canal" where the Pacific port of Buenaventura would be linked by rail, across Colombia, to the Atlantic Coast. Trade between Colombia and China has increased from $10m in 1980 to more than $5bn last year. The announcement came from the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, who told the Financial Times that the project was "a real proposal... and it is quite advanced". China has been increasing its involvement across Latin America to feed a growing need for raw materials and commodities.

TEHRAN - Crowds of demonstrators battled security forces armed with tear gas and batons during a surprisingly large anti-government protest in the Iranian capital Monday that drew inspiration from the recent popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. Dodging clouds of tear gas fired by police and pro-government militiamen, the protesters marched down a central boulevard and shouted slogans such as "Death to the dictator," "We are all together" and "Down with Taliban, in Cairo and Tehran." Witnesses at several positions along the route said vast throngs of people could be seen marching from Enghelab (Revolution) Square toward Azadi (Freedom) Square, overwhelming police efforts to stop them.

The Guardian: Protests spread to Iran and Bahrain in 'day of rage'
Xinhuanet: 38 injured in Libyan anti-gov't unrest
BBC: Libya: Protests 'rock city of Benghazi'
Pepe Escobar: Iran's post-Islamist generation
Daily Mail: Iranian MPs demand execution of opposition leaders after pro-democracy rally leaves Tehran on knife-edge

US Army General David Petraeus is said to leave his post as the commander of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan before the end of the year, a report says. Petraeus, who was appointed less than eight months ago, will leave his post as the head of the US and NATO forces by the end of 2011 as part of a reshuffle plan that would see the departure of top five US diplomats in Kabul, including its Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, and Lieutenant-General David Rodriguez, deputy to Petraeus, the London-based Times reported Tuesday.

Raw Story: Petraeus to leave post by end of year: report

The trial of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi – who is accused of paying an underage girl for sex – is to be presided over by a panel of three judges, all of them female. Bloomberg reports that the trial, which is to begin in Milan on April 6, will be presided over by Giulia Turri, Orsola De Cristoforo and Cermen D’Elia. Though the selection of the judges is totally randomised, New York Magazine points out that the appointment comes just days after rallies across Italy when tens of thousands of women turned out to protest against Berlusconi’s conduct around women. The nomination of the three female judges – all of whom have considerable legal experience, Bloomberg adds – has been welcomed by his opponents in Italy; the Guardian quotes the Catholic weekly paper Famiglia Cristiana as implying that women are Berlusconi’s ‘nemesis’. A female MP from Berlusconi’s party added that the all-female bench was “the worst that could have been thought of.”