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The federal
budget deficit has surged to an all-time high of $1.42 trillion as the recession
caused tax revenues to plunge while the government was spending massive amounts
to stabilize the financial system and jump-start the economy. The imbalance for
the budget year ended Sept. 30, more than tripled last year's record. The Obama
administration projects deficits will total $9.1 trillion over the next decade
unless corrective action is taken. As a portion of the economy, the budget
deficit stood at 10 percent, the highest since World War II, according to
government data released Friday. 
A lawyer for the Justice
Department said in court on Tuesday that Stewart Nozette, a scientist who worked
for the United States government for decades before being arrested on Monday on
espionage charges, had been willing to sell some of America's "most guarded
secrets" to a man he believed to be an Israeli intelligence officer ...
According to the transcript of Mr. Nozette's conversation with the undercover
officer posing as a Mossad recruiter, the scientist said: "I thought I was
working for you already. I mean that's what I always thought, [the foreign
company] was just a front." 
The still unfolding story
of Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin and his alleged spying for Israel has
attracted wide media attention and generated considerable discussion. Details of
the FBI's investigation of his activities are still coming to light. But
regardless of the outcome, one thing is certain: there will be no fundamental
change in US policy regarding Israel and the Middle East. Support for the
Zionist state in both the White House and the Congress is so fervent that Israel
hardly needs bureaucrats such as Franklin to track the inner workings of the US
government. Whether the president is a Democrat or a Republican, American policy
is so tightly in the grip of politicians and government officials who are
ardently dedicated to Israel and its interests that the Franklin case will make
no difference. 
Israel's
Education Ministry has recalled all copies of a history textbook because of a
passage alleging "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians during the 1948 war, a
newspaper reported on Monday. Israel's Haaretz newspaper said the secondary
school textbook was removed from shelves because it sought to present
both Israeli and Arab perspectives on the departure of some 750,000
Palestinians during the fighting that erupted after the creation of the Jewish
state. The Palestinians have always said they were violently expelled by Jewish
forces while Israel has maintained they were ordered to flee by invading Arab
states or alarmed by inflammatory Arab radio reports. 
A controversial exhibit has
opened in Vancouver, depicting the Canadian team at one of the most
controversial Olympics ever -- the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin, staged by the
German Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler ... A display case features the sash worn by
Canadian athletes during the opening and closing ceremonies, adorned with a
black swastika ... Two other photographs stirred up controversy at the time, and
still could today. One features Canadian athletes clamouring for Hitler's
autograph; another shows members of Canada's team apparently giving a
straight-armed Nazi salute. 
A Russian academic
investigating the fate of ethnic Germans deported by Stalin during World War II
has had his research seized by security services. History professor Mikhail
Suprun was briefly arrested in the far north of Russia last month, but the
incident has only now come to light. Prof Suprun told the BBC he has been
ordered not to comment on the case. Thousands of ethnic Germans were sent to
remote areas far from the war front after Hitler attacked the USSR in 1941.
Although they had lived in southern Russia for generations - mostly along the
River Volga - Soviet leader Joseph Stalin did not trust them. 
Mohamed ElBaradei,
outgoing chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, maintains that the
danger posed by Iran's nuclear program is being exaggerated, and that the only
way to resolve issues with Teheran is through talks. Negotiations should also
eventually lead to the Middle East being a nuclear-free zone, he believes, thus
ending the "imbalance" resulting from the fact that Israel is not a signatory to
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ... The greatest danger in the region,
according to ElBaradei, comes from the possibility of an Israeli air strike on
Iran's nuclear facilities. "Bombing Iran is not the solution. An Israeli attack
would turn the entire region into a fireball," he
said.