Morning News Roundup (10 Mar)

• First, a number of sabre-rattlin' news stories, pulled together over at Daily Kos by blogger/diarist (whatever you want to call him) Jerome a Paris, who in turn collected a number of posts from other Daily Kos/European Tribune diarists (talk about meta-meta):
  
  Britain claimed that Tehran could acquire the technological capability to build a bomb by the end of the year. A day after the International Atomic Energy Agency referred the dispute to the United Nations security council, British officials also indicated that London would back Washington's efforts to impose a UN deadline of about 30 days for Iran's compliance with international demands. [Guardian]
  
  Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, on Thursday said a nuclear-armed Iran would be hundreds of times more threatening to US interests, a day after Tehran’s nuclear dispute was sent to the UN Security Council. [Financial Times]
  
  Washington has warned that Iran's nuclear programme is one of America's biggest challenges, and refused to rule out any option including military. "The president [George W Bush] has said repeatedly that no options are off the table," said UN ambassador John Bolton. [BBC]
  
  
• President Bush said Friday he was troubled by the political storm that forced the reversal of a deal allowing a company in Dubai to take over take over operations of six American ports, saying it sent a bad message to U.S. allies in the Middle East. [WaPo]
  
  
• The collapse of a plan to let a Dubai company manage U.S. ports marks another setback for President George W. Bush, exposing deteriorating relations with fellow Republicans and underscoring a perception of incompetence stemming from the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. [Bloomberg]
  
  
• Despite the pullout of Dubai Ports World, the WaPo has an article noting that foreign firms remain deeply embedded in nearly every major port in the country:
  

  [C]onsider Inchcape Shipping Services, a London-based company that provides ship agency services -- arranging the smooth arrival and departure of vessels -- at 200 ports around the world, including more than two dozen in the United States. Inchcape was purchased in January by a Dubai company whose chief executive, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, also heads Dubai Ports World.

  Or consider Maersk, a Danish shipping giant. Its U.S. subsidiary operates much of the commercial fleet that serves the U.S. Navy, which means that its vessels transport items such as fuel and ammunition to U.S. military operations abroad.

  Theoretically, such arrangements involve security risks. Terrorist operatives might infiltrate Inchcape or Maersk and send strategic information about ship or fleet movements to enemy forces.

• Bombings and shootings Friday killed at least 17 people around Iraq, while President Jalal Talabani issued a decree ordering the new parliament to hold its first session on March 19. A suicide truck bomb ripped through a line of vehicles waiting at a checkpoint Friday in Fallujah, killing at least seven civilians. Authorities in the capital discovered the bodies of six men who were blindfolded, handcuffed and shot in the back of the head, police said. [AP/Yahoo!]
  
  
• The US has a plan for the possibility of a civil war in Iraq (not that there's a civil war going on right now, oh heavens, no). "The plan is to prevent a civil war, and to the extent one were to occur, to have the . . . Iraqi security forces deal with it to the extent they're able to," Rumsfeld told the Senate Appropriations Committee. [WaPo]
  
  
• The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly last week, to 303,000, the highest level this year, a government report showed on Thursday. [Reuters/NYTimes]
  
  
• First lady Laura Bush, actor Michael Douglas and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were honored Wednesday in recognition of International Women's Day. The Kuwait-America Foundation, which sponsored the event to benefit UNICEF, awarded Bush its humanitarian award, Rice its public service award and Douglas its private citizen's award for their efforts on behalf of improving the education of girls in Afghanistan (but not for his killing of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction). [Star-Tribune]