Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said he's not satisfied with President Barack Obama's pledge to pull all US troops from Iraq by the end of the year, calling it a partial withdrawal because of the thousands of diplomats and security guards who will stay behind. "The American occupation will stay in Iraq under different names," al-Sadr told Al-Arabiya TV in his first interview since Obama announced the troop pullout last month. Al-Sadr noted the Pentagon's recent reminders that it will keep an estimated 40,000 troops across the region.

"America is not only occupying Iraq but also other Islamic countries," he said. "Occupying Iraq means occupying what is around Iraq, and then to control the Middle East." The Pentagon is preparing to boost the number of US forces just across the Iraqi border in Kuwait and across the region to prevent a power vacuum when the tens of thousands of US forces who have served in Iraq are gone. There are currently 33,000 US troops in Iraq.

US Army Major General Jeffrey S Buchanan, the chief American military spokesman in Iraq, told a news conference Thursday that US troops stationed around the Mideast are there as part of a partnership with their host nations.

Netanyahu is said to believe that the two, Meir Dagan and Yuval Diskin, wanted to torpedo plans being drawn up by him and Ehud Barak, the defence minister, to hit Iranian nuclear sites. Tzipi Livni, leader of the opposition Kadima party, is also said to have been persuaded to attack Netanyahu for "adventurism" and "gambling with Israel's national interest".

The paper suggested that the purpose of the leaks was to prevent an attack, which had moved from the stage of discussion to implementation. "Those who oppose the plan within the security establishment decided to leak it to the media and thwart the plan," it said. Both Dagan and Diskin oppose military action against Iran unless all other options - primarily international diplomatic pressure and perhaps sabotage - have been exhausted. In January the recently retired Dagan, a hawk when he was running the Mossad, called an attack on Iran "the stupidest idea I've ever heard".

The Kuwait paper has a track record of running stories based on apparently high-level leaks from Israeli officials. Even well-informed Israeli observers admit to being confused about what is going on behind the scenes. The debate in Israel was further fanned on Wednesday when Israel successfully test-fired a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and striking Iran.

The outcry has been prompted by a proposal from the military-appointed Cabinet to shield the armed forces from any oversight and give the generals a veto over legislation dealing with military affairs. The measure also is designed to curtail the likely influence by Islamist lawmakers over the writing of a new constitution. The proposal, which requires the adoption of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to be binding, has united both Islamists and liberals - groups that helped engineer the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak - in its condemnation.

Egypt's best known reform proponent, Mohamed ElBaradei, decried the document as "distorted" and demanded its withdrawal. "There is a difference between a civilian democratic state that guarantees man's basic rights and military guardianship," he said. The Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest and most powerful political group, is leading the opposition to the document, saying it usurped the "people's will."

"This route goes against the will of the people, and will lead to another revolution," said Saad el-Katatni, spokesman of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party. "We call on the people of Egypt to reject the document to protect their rights." If approved, the measure would shield the military from parliamentary oversight, give it a veto over legislation dealing with its affairs and reduce the powers of lawmakers to select a panel to write the constitution.

The future of the euro is being questioned in a way it never has since 1999. Which countries have fallen, and which are feared to be next?

Greece - The problem: Greece's huge debts, about 340 billion euros (297 billion pounds; $478 billion). In late 2009, after months of speculation and sovereign debt crises in Iceland and the Middle East, Greece finally admitted its debts were the highest in the country's modern history.

Italy - The problem: Italy has the highest total debt in the eurozone, amid stagnant growth. In the summer, the country was charged record levels to borrow, which prompted renewed calls to pass spending cuts. The alternative, selling more debt, was unsustainable at rates that reached 6%

Spain - The problem: The housing boom turned to bust, leaving the country's banks loaded with bad debt and the highest unemployment rate in the eurozone. Spain has also seen record borrowing costs recently, forcing its government to adopt numerous austerity measures to get its finances under control. Spain, like Italy, is considered too expensive a proposition for the eurozone to realistically bail out.

France - The problem: The country's banks bear a heavy exposure to Greek debt. While France's public finances have not yet been questioned heavily by the market, its banks have seen sharp falls on the stock market.

Germany - The problem: Most of its neighbours are broke. Unlike many of its neighbours, Germany enjoyed vigorous economic growth - GDP rose by 3.6% in 2010. Unemployment is lower than before the 2008 crisis.

UK - The problem: UK banks have a heavy exposure to Irish debt. Other than that, the UK has been relatively unscathed, while its eurozone neighbours endure turmoil.

Irish Republic - The country's banking system collapsed. The country's biggest banks were taken under government control in the financial crisis and recapitalised. The cost of doing that has been about 70 billion euros.

Portugal - The problem: A shrinking economy straining its budget. The country has been the third to get a bailout, worth 78 billion euros. The previous government fell after failing to pass austerity measures, which the subsequent government had passed.

Kaduna is divided along political, ethnic and religious lines and the BBC's Nura Ringim in the state says it is thought to be a revenge attack. Thousands of Muslim Hausas and Fulanis were forced from their homes in April. Our correspondent says that some of those attacked had vowed to take revenge, as had the Boko Haram Islamist militant group, based further north in Borno state.

He says some 3,000 people are still living in a camp in the state capital, Kaduna, after their houses were burnt in the Zonkwa post-election clashes, which left several people dead. A police spokesman told our correspondent that some of those shot in the latest attack on a congregation performing a night vigil were in a critical condition. Kaduna mirrors Nigeria as a whole, with the south largely inhabited by Christian groups, while Muslims form a majority in the north.

"We go from having a peaceful movement to now just chaos," said protester Monique Agnew, 40. The far-flung movement of protesters challenging the world's economic systems and distribution of wealth has gained momentum in recent weeks, capturing the world's attention by shutting down one of the nation's busiest shipping ports toward the end of a daylong "general strike" that prompted solidarity rallies across the US.

About 3,000 people converged on the Port of Oakland, the nation's fifth-busiest harbor, in a nearly five-hour protest Wednesday, swarming the area and blocking exits and streets with illegally parked vehicles and hastily-erected, chain-link fences. Port officials said they were forced to cease maritime operations, citing concerns for workers' safety. They said in a statement they hope to resume operations Thursday "and that Port workers will be allowed to get to their jobs without incident. Continued missed shifts represent economic hardship for maritime workers, truckers, and their families, as well as lost jobs and lost tax revenue for our region."

Supporters in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and elsewhere staged smaller-scale demonstrations; each group saying its protest was a show of support for the Oakland movement, which became a rallying point when an Iraq War veteran was seriously injured in a clash with police last week.

There has been no change in the temperature, pressure and radiation levels at the reactor, whose nuclear fuel is believed to have melted when the cooling system failed following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the utility known as TEPCO said. Gas samples taken Tuesday from inside the reactor's containment vessel may contain radioactive xenon, a gas typically generated by nuclear fission, the company said.

"The country must feel safe and stable and that is the first requirement in order for it to be truly safe and stable. Greek banks are totally secure, as an integral part of the European banking system. This was apparent last night from the discussion in Cannes."

That looks like a warning to Greek people that any savings they have not yet withdrawn from Greek banks (and a lot of money has already been taken out of the Greek banking system) would be put at risk by a vote against the eurozone bailout package: a no vote would be seen as a vote to leave the eurozone, as Angela Merkel has (helpfully?) pointed out, and the Greek government would not be able to guarantee the viability of Greek banks in those momentous circumstances.

Update 09:20: By the way, the Greek finance ministry may have mistranslated one part of Mr Venizelos's statement. The official statement that "Greece's position within the euro area is a historic conquest of the country" would probably be better rendered as "Greece's position within the euro area is a historic victory by the country".

That said, some disgruntled Greeks would probably agree with the idea that their country has been conquered.

Obama heads to France later on Wednesday to urge Europe to fix the long-running crisis that could send the already-weak US economy into another recession. The White House, which says Europe can solve the crisis on its own, is worried the Greek decision to hold a referendum over its 130 billion euro ($178 billion) bailout will unravel EU efforts to contain its sovereign debt crisis.

Obama is likely to be candid about his concerns when he meets French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Cannes. But the president will need to tread carefully, given the United States is struggling to fix its own fiscal problems and has limited means to intervene in Europe even if it wanted to.

"We'll see if the president decides to grab this mantle and really drive the G20 discussion," said Heather Conley at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "European leaders and particularly European finance ministers have not been fully appreciative of US advice and counsel on how to deal with the European crisis because of US domestic challenges," she said.

The number of recipients in the food stamp program, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), may continue to rise in coming months as families continue to struggle with high unemployment and September's data will likely include disaster assistance tied to the destruction and flooding caused by Hurricane Irene.

Mississippi reported the largest share of its population relying on food stamps, more than 21%. One in five residents in New Mexico, Tennessee, Oregon and Louisiana also were food stamp recipients. Food stamp rolls exploded during the downturn, which began in late 2007. Even after the recession came to its official end in June 2009, families continued to tap into food assistance as unemployment remained high and those lucky enough to find jobs were often met with lower wages.

The noon launch near Tel Aviv, which had not been announced in advance, coincided with a week-long surge of speculation in local media that Netanyahu was working to secure cabinet consensus for an attack on Israel's arch-foe. Netanyahu's office declined comment on the reports, which were unsourced and unconfirmed, and which some commentators suggested might be disinformation designed to jolt war-wary foreign powers into stepping up sanctions against Tehran.

The Defense Ministry described the launch from Palmachim base as the test of the propulsion system of a missile on which it declined to elaborate. "This is an impressive technological achievement and an important step in Israel's advances in the realms of missiles and space, which has been a long time in the planning," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a statement.

Israel Radio's military affairs correspondent, who is regularly briefed by top officials on Defense matters, said a "ballistic missile" had been launched. The term generally applies to long-range missiles for delivering warheads. Israel is widely assumed to have such weapons, known as Jerichos, as well as Shavit rockets for putting satellites into orbit. It has also, with US help, been upgrading its Arrow aerial shield, which uses interceptor missiles to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles above the atmosphere.

Iran, which denies wanting to make nuclear bombs, wants Israel's demise, prompting Netanyahu to liken it to the Nazis - potent rhetoric for a Jewish state born of the Holocaust. "A nuclear Iran will pose a serious threat to the Middle East and the entire world, and it of course poses a direct and heavy threat to us," Netanyahu said in a parliamentary address on Monday, echoing comments he has made in the past. Netanyahu gave no hint of what action Israel might take. He has said that all options are on the table in trying to stop Iran from building nuclear arms.

"China continues to provide Iran with what could be considered advanced conventional weapons," the report of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission says. According to the report, which will be made public November 16, China sold $312 million worth of arms to Iran, second only to Russia, after Congress passed the Iran Freedom Support Act in 2006 that allows the US government to sanction foreign companies that provide advanced arms to Iran. The report also noted that, after Russia began cutting back arms transfers to Iran in 2008, China became the largest arms supplier to the Iranian military.

Most of the weapons transfers involved sales of Chinese anti-ship cruise missiles, including C-802 missiles that China promised the United States in 1997 would not be exported to Iran. China also built an entire missile plant in Iran last year to produce the Nasr-1 anti-ship cruise missile. "Because of the relatively short range of these missiles, China's provision of them to Iran does not violate the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act of 2006, which seeks to prevent the transfer of only those missiles that can carry a 500-kilogram warhead more than 300 kilometers," the report says.

The plausibility of a bankruptcy scenario for Greece didn't disappear for very long at all. This time around, European leaders only managed to quiet things down in the debt crisis for four days before all hell broke loose again. Before the markets began to shudder, even banking executives whose companies are being asked to pay up as part of the bailout had been supportive of the euro rescue package. Now, however, with the announcement Tuesday by the Greek prime minister that his country may hold a referendum on the bailout, everything has been thrown on its head again. Prime Minister Giorgios Papandreou defended the step, saying it would be "democratic and highly patriotic."

But what could really happen if Greek voters reject the bailout? And why is Papandreou turning to this extremely risky measure?

One should look at the Greek prime minister's move as a stroke of genius, or at least as appropriate. It was essentially overdue that the Greek people finally be asked what they want. The burdens being placed on their shoulders are too heavy to be legitimated solely by parliamentary decision. At issue is the question as to whether Greece should remain a member of the euro zone at all.

What would a Greek "no" mean? If the result of the referendum is negative, it would be more than doubtful that Greece retains the euro. At the very least, there would be new negotiations about aid measures - but what government among Greece's benefactors would impose such a thing on itself or its voters? In the end, one would probably see a Greek insolvency with all of the dramatic consequences for both Greece and for the rest of the euro zone.

The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government. In anticipation of a potential attack, British military planners are examining where best to deploy Royal Navy ships and submarines equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles over the coming months as part of what would be an air and sea campaign.

They also believe the US would ask permission to launch attacks from Diego Garcia, the British Indian ocean territory, which the Americans have used previously for conflicts in the Middle East. The Guardian has spoken to a number of Whitehall and defence officials over recent weeks who said Iran was once again becoming the focus of diplomatic concern after the revolution in Libya.

Hawks in the US are likely to seize on next week's report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is expected to provide fresh evidence of a possible nuclear weapons programme in Iran. The Guardian has been told that the IAEA's bulletin could be "a game changer" which will provide unprecedented details of the research and experiments being undertaken by the regime.

But a narrow majority of ministers currently oppose the move, which could trigger a wave of regional retaliation. The debate over possible Israeli military action has reached fever pitch in recent days with newspaper leader columns discussing the benefits and dangers of hitting Iran. Mr Lieberman responded to the reports of a push to gain cabinet approval by saying that "Iran poses the most dangerous threat to world order."

But he said Israel's military options should not be a matter for public discussion. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is due to report on the state of Iran's nuclear capabilities on November 8, and that assessment is likely to influence Israel's decision. Western intelligence officials estimate that Iran is still at least two to three years away from obtaining a nuclear bomb.

Israel has long made it clear that it will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear capability that could threaten the Jewish State. Publicly it is pushing for a diplomatic offensive against Iran - including the imposition of sanctions - rather than a military strike. But prime minister Netanyahu has repeatedly warned that all options are on the table.

Israel's former defence minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer told Haraatez newspaper that he feared a "horror scenario" if Israel attacked Iran. Washington is also strongly opposed to Israel taking unilateral action. Any strike on Iran could trigger retaliation from Iran and across the region. Syria, a close ally of Tehran, could also launch attacks, along with the Iranian-backed Hizbollah militia in Lebanon.