U.S. congressional leaders agreed late last year to President George W. Bush's funding request for a major escalation of covert operations against Iran aimed at destabilizing its leadership, according to a report in The New Yorker magazine published online on Sunday.
The article by reporter Seymour Hersh, from the magazine's July 7 and 14 issue, centers on a highly classified Presidential Finding signed by Bush which by U.S. law must be made known to Democratic and Republican House and Senate leaders and ranking members of the intelligence committees.
"The Finding was focused on undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change," the article cited a person familiar with its contents as saying, and involved "working with opposition groups and passing money."
Hersh has written previously about possible administration plans to go to war to stop Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons, including an April 2006 article in the New Yorker that suggested regime change in Iran, whether by diplomatic or military means, was Bush's ultimate goal.
Funding for the covert escalation, for which Bush requested up to $400 million, was approved by congressional leaders, according to the article, citing current and former military, intelligence and congressional ...   more »

By Charlie Savage
WASHINGTON: The United States and the European Union are nearing completion of an agreement that would allow law enforcement and security agencies to obtain private information - including credit card transactions, travel histories and Internet browsing habits - about people on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Seeking to improve information-sharing to fight crime and terrorism, government officials have been meeting since February 2007 to reach a pact. Europe generally has more-stringent laws restricting how governments and businesses can collect and transfer personal data, which have led to high-profile disputes over American demands for such information.
Negotiators have largely agreed on draft language for 12 major issues that are central to a "binding international agreement" making clear that it is lawful for European governments and companies to transfer personal information to the United States, and vice-versa, according to an internal report obtained by The New York Times.
But the two sides are still at odds on several other matters, including whether European citizens should be able to sue the United States government over its handling of their personal data, the report said.
The talks grew out of two conflicts over information-sharing after the September 2001 terrorist ...   more »

  Iran is to dig 320,000 graves in border districts to allow for the burial of enemy soldiers in the event of any attack on its territory, a top commander said on Sunday.
"In implementation of the Geneva Conventions... the necessary measures are being taken to provide for the burial of enemy soldiers," the Mehr news agency quoted General Mir-Faisal Bagherzadeh as saying.
"We have plans to dig 15,000 to 20,000 graves in each of the border provinces or a total of 320,000," the general said, some of them mass graves if necessary.
Bagherzadeh said Iran was keen to "reduce the suffering of the families of the fallen in any attack against our country... and prevent any repetition of the long and bitter experience of the Vietnam War."
His comments came as the United States continued to refuse to rule out an eventual resort to force against Iran over its contested nuclear programme, which the West fears is cover for a drive to build an atomic weapon.
They also came as Israeli officials spoke of their determination to prevent Iran developing a nuclear capability at all costs.
A former head of Israel's Mossad foreign intelligence agency said in comments published ...   more »

Jewish paper: 'Sirhan was not just anti-Zionist, he was anti-Semitic'
Sirhan Sirhan
An editorial in The Jewish Week is charging that the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan was the beginning of Palestinian terrorism for Americans.
The report by Associate Editor Jonathan Mark, prompted by the 40th anniversary of the assassination this month, decries the absence of media publicity over the fact that Sirhan was a "West Bank immigrant" who wanted "fair play" for Palestinians and was infuriated over Kennedy's cozying up to the Jewish community during the election campaign campaign.
"Go through The New York Times archives, even the archives of most Jewish newspapers, and you'll find more references to Yigal Amir (convicted of the assassination of Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin) being Orthodox than you will to Sirhan being Palestinian," he wrote.
"Sirhan killed Kennedy on June 5, 1968, exactly the first anniversary of the Six-Day War, because Sirhan thought Kennedy was unsympathetic to the Final Solution plotted by eight Arab nations one June earlier," Mark said. "And so, this Palestinian terrorist arranged a Final Solution for Kennedy."
Kennedy was shot while going through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles to leave ...   more »

Poland and the United States may sign an agreement within the week on installing a U.S. anti-missile base in Poland, a senior Polish official said on Sunday.
"The negotiations are winding down and everything points to an agreement being signed this week," PAP news agency reported Zbigniew Chlebowski as saying.
Chlebowski, head of the ruling Civic Platform party's parliamentary caucus and mouthpiece for Prime Minister Donald Tusk, declined to give details.
But speaking on a public-affairs radio show earlier on Sunday, Chlebowski criticized presidential aide and former foreign minister Anna Fotyga for paying an unannounced visit to Washington at the end of the negotiating process.
"Whenever talks are in their final phase, only negotiators should take part in them, and Madam Minister Fotyga is not one of them," he said.
His criticism reflected rivalry over foreign policy between the liberal government and conservative President Lech Kaczynski.
Fotyga on Sunday defended her U.S. visit whose purpose she said had been "to sound out the other side's intentions."
"That mission has been accomplished. I am convinced the Bush administration wants to bring the matter to its successful conclusion," she said on news channel TVN24.
Washington wants to install 10 land-based interceptors in ...   more »