World Bank warns European officials to act on debt crisis immediately

The head of the World Bank Robert Zoellick said in the Financial Times that it is time to pull the emergency alarm. He wrote: "while those living in the euro-zone building, especially those on the executive floors, will not want to hear an alarm, they had best read the instructions. Events in Greece could trigger financial fright in Spain, Italy and across the euro zone, pushing Europe into a danger zone."

While the concern about events is hardly new there is an increased urgency about warnings. The stock markets today (June 1st) in the U.S. Canada and Europe have taken notice with big drops. European officials are warning that actions must be taken immediately before events spiral out of control. But that seems to be what is happening in Spain and Greece.

The European Central Bank leader Mario Draghi warned that that the euro structure as it stands is "unsustainable unless further steps are taken" He added that leaders "must clarify what is the vision … what is the euro going to look like a certain number of years from now?"

The Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti demanded that the European Stability Fund be allowed to directly provide capital to struggling banks. The move is opposed by Germany.

Events in Spain are one important immediate cause for concern. The central bank noted that 97 billion Euros had left Spain in the first three months of 2012 alone. This amount is equivalent to 10 per cent of the Spanish economy. This makes clear that Spaniards have no faith in their own economy or government.

The central government is injecting money it can ill afford to rescue Bankia the third largest Spanish bank. As a result borrowing costs for ten year bonds are climbing to near 7 per cent an interest rate that the government simply cannot afford. For much more see this Der Spiegel article.

Obama authorised Olympic Games a series of cyberattacks on Iran

There is a long article here on Obama's cyberattacks on Iran sometimes in cooperation with Israel. Given the U.S. doctrine of pre-emptive war as justified self defense Iran would be justified in attacking the U.S. (or Israel) since it has already ample evidence of actual and no doubt planned attacks against the country. U.S. actions make it clear that the only way of protecting oneself against the U.S. and its allies is by having a retaliatory force that would endanger U.S. security. No doubt China has taken this lesson to heart. China is also expanding its own cyber weaponry.

The attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities were named Olympic Games. They were started under Bush but as with many Bush policies were carried on and even expanded under Obama..

The program was carried on even after a disastrous accident in which the malicious program Stuxnet escaped outside of its intended target area worldwide. Stuxnet could then be analyzed by experts around the world and the secret was in fact out.

Iranians had been mystified by their malfunctioning centrifuges. The program made them spin too fast and self destruct. Iranians thought they were defective. Stuxnet a worm was produced jointly by Israel and the U.S.A. While the worm may have set back the Iranian progress in enriching uranium for over a year it sets a terrible precedent. Yet there seems no action by the UN or any US. allies to criticize or prevent further development of such activities.

The most that Iran is doing so far is perhaps trying to develop weapons production ability. It is not at all clear that they have decided as yet to actually try to produce weapons. However, given the action of the U.S. and Israel it would seem tempting for them to do so. What else could protect it from U.S and Israeli attack?

A more recent development is an attack on Iranian officials' computers by Flame which rather than damaging equipment simply collects information. It is a spy cyber weapon and really involves nothing new. Although the code seems old U.S. officials say it was not part of Olympic Games. However the original target of the Flame was Iran though again it seems to have escaped and spread to many other places. For more see this article.