Police in the US state of California have shot dead an unarmed Marine in a high school parking-lot in front of his two children. Sergeant Manuel Loggins was shot inside his vehicle in the parking lot of San Clemente high school as he was returning home with his 9- and 14-year-old daughters last Tuesday morning. Orange County police officials said Friday that an officer tried to pull over Loggins at about 4:30 a.m. as he sped through the parking lot’s gate. The officials say Loggins ignored the deputy officer's orders and yelled at him that prompted the officer "to grow concerned about the safety of the children in the car" [sic].

NEW DELHI: An Israeli official said on Monday that an 'explosion' has hit an Israeli diplomat's car in the city, AP reported. - Four persons were hurt in the incident, TV channels reported. Israeli embassy spokesman David Goldfarb said the car was near the embassy when the blast went off on Monday. The incident took place at about 500 meters away from the PM's residence. The incident occurred at 3.15pm.

USA Today: Israeli PM blames Iran for attacks on Israeli embassies
Ynet: Israeli missions in India, Georgia targeted
Haaretz: Lieberman: Israel will not tolerate an attack on its diplomats abroad

One of the most under-reported political stories of the last year is the devoted advocacy of numerous prominent American political figures on behalf of an Iranian group long formally designated as a Terrorist organization under U.S. law. A large bipartisan cast has received substantial fees from that group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), and has then become their passionate defenders. The group of MEK shills includes former top Bush officials and other Republicans (Michael Mukasey, Fran Townsend, Andy Card, Tom Ridge, Rudy Giuliani) as well as prominent Democrats (Howard Dean, Ed Rendell, Bill Richardson, Wesley Clark). As The Christian Science Monitor reported last August, those individuals “have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak in support of the MEK.” No matter what one thinks of this group – here is a summary of its activities – it is formally designated as a Terrorist group and it is thus a felony under U.S. law to provide it with any “material support.”

Fars News Agency: Analyst: US, Europe Seeking Destabilization of Region by Supporting MKO
Gilad Atzmon: Kosher Terrorists to be Delisted

English, French nationals who moved to Israel and joined IDF tell British daily a 'sexy woman' convinced them to lend their passports to Mossad; say passports returned to them a few months later with stamps from countries they never visited.

Some two years after the assassination of senior Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, Mossad agents are still using foreign passports, including those of British nationals, while conducting covert intelligence operations overseas, The Times reported over the weekend. Following Mabhouh's death, Dubai police authorities revealed that the assassins used British, French, German and Australian passports. According to the British newspaper, there have been several occasions when foreigners who immigrated to Israel have been asked to "lend" their passports to the Israeli intelligence agency. The daily said new evidence indicates that foreign nationals in Israel continue to allow Mossad to use their passports — "on many occasions willingly."

PressTV: Mossad agents use foreign passports for covert ops: Report

Financier Nathaniel Rothschild has lost his libel case against the Daily Mail following a 2010 story which he said portrayed him as a "puppet-master". - The paper said he set up a meeting between then EU Trade Commissioner Lord Mandelson and Russian Oleg Deripaska on the eve of a major trade deal. Mr Rothschild said he would appeal against the High Court judgement. The paper's publishers - Associated Newspapers - denied libel and had argued the claims were justified. The ruling was made by Mr Justice Tugendhat, who sat without a jury. Mr Rothschild, 40, had sought substantial damages over what he described as "sustained and unjustified" attacks by the Daily Mail in the piece published in May 2010. The paper had said Mr Rothschild had fostered a relationship it believed to be inappropriate at that time between oligarch Mr Deripaska and Lord Mandelson.

Gilad Atzmon: Making Business like a Rothschild

Chris Woods, documentary producer and freelancer for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, discusses his article “Obama terror drones: CIA tactics in Pakistan include targeting rescuers and funerals;” why these attacks qualify as state terrorism by any sensible definition; how the MSM enables government officials to smear their critics behind a veil of anonymity; the circumstantial evidence that former CIA Director Leon Panetta was responsible for the targeting of rescuers and funeral goers; and why the time is ripe for formal investigations, now that Obama himself has outed the “secret” war in Pakistan. MP3 here. (19:36)

Glenn Greenwald: Top official: drone critics are Al Qaeda enablers
Patrick Martin: CIA drones target rescue workers, mourners

AN Air New Zealand plane has been quarantined after landing at Auckland Airport carrying children with flu-like symptoms, TVNZ reported. - The Boeing 777-200 landed in Auckland this morning local time, with 274 passengers from Narita International Airport outside Tokyo. A group of 73 passengers, including children, were suffering from the flu-like symptoms. TVNZ reported none of the passengers have been allowed to leave the plane. Two crews are on board and wearing protective gear.

After violent protests left dozens of buildings aflame in Athens, the Greek Parliament voted early on Monday to approve a package of harsh austerity measures demanded by the country’s foreign lenders in exchange for new loans to keep Greece from defaulting on its debt. - Though it came after days of intense debate and the resignation of several ministers in protest, in the end the vote on the austerity measures was not close: 199 in favor and 74 opposed, with 27 abstentions or blank ballots. The Parliament also gave the government the authority to sign a new loan agreement with the foreign lenders and approve a broader arrangement to reduce the amount Greece must repay to its bondholders. The new austerity measures include, among others, a 22 percent cut in the benchmark minimum wage and 150,000 government layoffs by 2015 — a bitter prospect in a country ravaged by five years of recession and with unemployment at 21 percent and rising.

Newser: Greek coalition government expels 43 legislators over dissent in crucial debt vote
The Star: Greek parliament approves crucial austerity bill after riots rage in Athens
Russia Today: Athens burns, buildings on fire as chaos, riots flare up - VIDEO, PHOTOS
Nick Beams: Greek parliament votes for sweeping cuts

Mission accomplished! Now, on to Iran and Syria so US corpora-terrorists can continue to make a killing on the killing: Iraq begins pumping oil to new Gulf terminal 12 Feb 2012 Iraq began pumping oil on Sunday to the first of five floating terminals in the Gulf in a move that will increase its export capacity by 850,000 barrels per day. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki symbolically opened the valve of a pipeline that runs from Iraq's southern oil fields to the port of Faw, 535 kilometres (332 miles) south of Baghdad, and then on to the terminal. Iraq launched a programme in 2007 to increase its oil export output.

Israeli warplanes leveled an animal farm east of Gaza City overnight Saturday, killing a 69-year-old guard in his steel shack. The funeral of Abdul-Karim al-Zaytouna was held in Gaza City on Saturday, after three others were injured in a series of dawn strikes across the Gaza Strip. [Source]

Maan News: UN rapporteur slams Israeli policy of 'Judaization'

A terrified Libyan man is beaten and tortured with electric shocks by youths who appear to be former revolutionary fighters. - The images, taken from a video handed to The Mail on Sunday in a Tripoli refugee camp, will be seen as fresh evidence that those who deposed Colonel Gaddafi with the help of the West are adopting methods as brutal as the dead tyrant’s. The film shows three men tying up the blood-spattered man before whipping him repeatedly with cables, touching him on his skin with electric wires and taunting him as he pleads for mercy.

Gunmen assassinated an army general in Damascus on Saturday in the first killing of a high ranking military officer in the Syrian capital since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began in March, the state-run news agency said. - SANA said three gunmen opened fire at Brig. Gen. Issa al-Khouli in the morning as he left his home in the Damascus neighborhood of Rukn-Eddine. Al-Khouli was a doctor and the chief of a military hospital in the capital. No one claimed responsibility for the killing.

At the Maldives' National Museum, smashed Buddhist statues are testament to the rise of Islamic extremism and Taliban-style intolerance in a country famous as a laid-back holiday destination. - On Tuesday, as protesters backed by mutinous police toppled president Mohamed Nasheed, a handful of men stormed the Chinese-built museum and destroyed its display of priceless artefacts from the nation's pre-Islamic era. "They have effectively erased all evidence of our Buddhist past," a senior museum official told AFP at the now shuttered building in the capital Male, asking not to be named out of fear for his own safety. "We lost all our 12th century statues. They were made of coral stone and limestone. They are very brittle and there is no way we can restore them," he explained.

U.S. official: No evidence North Korean leader is dead. - The U.S. intelligence community has found no evidence to suggest North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is dead, a senior U.S. official said Friday following posts on China's version of Twitter that claimed Kim had been assassinated while in Beijing. U.S. intelligence officials have been looking into such rumors for more than a week, according to the official, who has direct knowledge of the latest U.S. analysis.