SPB News for Tuesday.

Report: GM's smaller rival Chrysler LLC To Get $4 Billion In Govt. Aid

Sen. Kerry: US eager to speak with Syria

Obama Offers Support For Turkey-Iraq Relationship

Gibbs: Obama's Afghan Decision Coming In Days

Kansas Suspends Income Tax Refunds And May Miss Payroll

Republicans who doubled our debt now hypocrites: Bill Clinton

Emanuel's brother to be Obama advisor

Israel launches covert war against Iran Israel has launched a covert war against Iran as an alternative to direct military strikes against Tehran's [alleged] nuclear programme, US intelligence sources have revealed. It is using hitmen, sabotage, front companies and double agents to disrupt the government's illicit weapons project, the experts say. The most dramatic element of the "decapitation" programme is the planned assassination of top figures involved in Iran's atomic operations.

Lost U.S. Weapons May Be Going to Taliban, GAO Says Tens of thousands of assault rifles and other firearms in Afghanistan are at risk of being stolen because U.S. officials have lost track of them, according to a congressionally ordered audit that warns that some weapons may already be in Taliban hands. The audit by the Government Accountability Office found that inventory controls were lacking for more than a third of the 242,000 light weapons donated to terrorists by the United States -- a stockpile that includes thousands of AK-47 assault rifles as well as mortars, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Contract workers say KBR knew of cancer-causing chemical Ten contractors hired by Houston-based KBR to make repairs at an Iraqi water plant in early 2003 say the company knowingly allowed them and dozens of National Guardsmen to be exposed to cancer-causing chemicals. The allegations from the workers, six of whom live in or near Houston, are documented in a federal arbitration complaint pending in Houston and a related federal lawsuit filed in December by the guardsmen in Indiana, the Houston Chronicle reported Sunday. Most of the KBR contractors were sent to Iraq around April 2003 as part of Operation Restore Iraqi Oil, a no-bid U.S. contract.

Venezuelan constitutional referendum allows Chavez to run in 2012 Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday won a constitutional referendum that lifted the limit on presidential terms, allowing him to run anew in the presidential election in 2012. Tibisay Lucena from the National Electoral Council said late Sunday that, according to preliminary results, 54.36 percent of voters approved the constitutional amendment to remove the term limits and 45.63 percent against it.

Obama administration seeks to block lawsuit over illegal wiretapping By John Burton and Marge Holland For the second time in less than a week, lawyers from the Justice Department headed by Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder have embraced the Bush administration's pseudo-legal argument that the "state secrets" doctrine bars civil lawsuits challenging the methods used in its so-called "war on terror..." The most recent intervention also occurred in San Francisco, with the filing of papers February 11 to block an order by United States District Judge Vaughn R. Walker reinstating the claim of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation that it was the target of government wiretapping.

Global slump could throw 53 million more people into poverty By Mike Head The World Bank warned last week that up to 53 million more people around the world could fall into poverty in 2009 as a result of the global economic slump, and up to 400,000 more children could die each year as a result of rising infant mortality... This is on top of the 130-155 million people pushed into poverty in 2008 because of soaring food and fuel prices.

Justice Dept. to Critique Interrogation Methods Backed by Bush Team — The Justice Department's ethics office is in the final stages of a report that sharply criticizes Bush administration lawyers who wrote legal opinions justifying waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods …

G.O.P. Governors Support Obama — WASHINGTON — President Obama must wish governors could vote in Congress: While just three of the 219 Republican lawmakers backed the $787 billion economic recovery plan that he is signing into law on Tuesday, that trifling total would have been several times greater …