Headlines:

• Wall Street caused financial collapse cost $12.8 Trillion
• U.S. strike on Iran could lead to all-out Mideast war, experts say
• Protesters storm US embassy in Yemen over insulting film on Islam
• Sergei Lavrov: Russia alarmed by plans to save military bases in Afghanistan

Details:

Wall Street caused financial collapse cost $12.8 Trillion:

Since the Wall Street caused financial collapse was triggered more than four years ago, Wall Street and its boosters have been underestimating its costs and overestimating the costs of regulation and financial reform. Wall Street does this because it wants to kill financial reform and regulation. It does this because financial reform and regulation would limit or eliminate Wall Street's most reckless forms of trading and investment activities - which happen to be the most profitable to them and riskiest to investors. But on the fourth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, here comes a public interest group - Better Markets - headed by a former partner at Skadden Arps - Dennis Kelleher - to say flat out - Wall Street caused the Great Recession, and the Great Recession cost America a lot of money. And Better Markets puts a number on how much it cost America - $12.8 trillion. That number includes - lost gross domestic product, destroyed household wealth, unemployment and underemployment, foreclosures, government bailouts, emergency spending measures, and other government actions that prevented a second Great Depression. In addition to putting a number on the cost of the Great Recession, the 72-page report - titled matter-of-factly - The Cost of the Wall Street-Caused Financial Collapse and Ongoing Economic Crisis is More Than $12.8 Trillion - summarizes the amazing events that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

U.S. strike on Iran could lead to all-out Mideast war, experts say:

The report compiled by former US government officials, national security experts and retired military officers is to be publicly released Thursday. U.S. military strikes on Iran would shake the regime's political control and damage its ability to launch counter strikes, but the Iranians probably would manage to retaliate, directly and through surrogates, in ways that risked igniting all-out war in the Middle East, according to an assessment of an attack's costs and benefits. The assessment said extended U.S. strikes could destroy Iran's most important nuclear facilities and damage its military forces but would only delay - not stop - the Islamic republic's pursuit of a nuclear bomb. "You can't kill intellectual power," said retired Army Lt. Gen. Frank Kearney, who endorsed the report. He is a former deputy director at the National Counterterrorism Centre and former deputy commander of U.S. Special Operations Command. The report compiled by former government officials, national security experts and retired military officers is to be publicly released Thursday. It says achieving more than a temporary setback in Iran's nuclear program would require a military operation - including a land occupation - more taxing than the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. An advance copy of the report was provided to The Associated Press. The assessment emerges against the backdrop of escalating tensions between Israel and the U.S. over when a military strike on Iran might be required. The Israelis worry that Iran is moving more quickly toward a nuclear capability than the United States believes. The U.S. has not ruled out attacking but has sought to persuade Israel to give diplomacy more time.:

Protesters storm US embassy in Yemen over insulting film on Islam:

Chanting "death to America," hundreds of protesters angered by an anti-Islam film stormed the US Embassy compound in Yemen's capital and burned the American flag Thursday, the latest in a series of attacks on American diplomatic missions in the Middle East. The protesters breached the usually tight security around the embassy and reached the compound grounds but did not enter the main building housing the offices. Once inside the compound, they brought down the US flag, burned it and replaced it with a black banner bearing Islam's declaration of faith - "There is no God but Allah." Before storming the grounds, demonstrators removed the embassy's sign on the outer wall, set tyres ablaze and pelted the compound with rocks. It was similar to an attack on the US Embassy in the Egyptian capital of Cairo on Tuesday night. A mob of Libyans also attacked the US consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi on Tuesday, killing American Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. In Egypt, protesters were clashing with police near the US Embassy in the capital Cairo for the third day in a row. The violence has raised worries that further protests could break out around the Muslim world as anger spreads over the movie. Yemeni security forces who rushed to the scene fired in the air and used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators and were eventually able to drive them out of the compound. It was not immediately clear whether anyone was inside the embassy at the time of the attack. The Yemeni Embassy in Washington condemned the attack and vowed to ensure the safety of foreign diplomats and to step up security measures around their missions in the country.

Sergei Lavrov: Russia alarmed by plans to save military bases in Afghanistan:

Moscow deems contradictory plans to save foreign military bases in Afghanistan after the troops withdrawal in 2014, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a ministerial meeting of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA). "The numerous challenges and threats remain strong in the world, including in Asia. The emergence of an i:nstability curve from North Africa to Afghanistan is particularly alarming," he said. "We cannot turn a blind eye to how the situation will further develop in that country, especially against the backdrop of contradictory statements that foreign troops will go in 2014, but foreign basses will stay. We need clarity here. If the anti-terrorist mission has been fulfilled, something which has been arousing doubts thus far, are the military bases going to be saved for a reason not connected with Afghanistan?" Lavrov said. "All of us have one goal - a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan that does not carry any terrorist or drug threats to its neighbours and the world," the Russian foreign minister said. Lavrov urged the CICA members to open their plans and moves with regards to Afghanistan to the maximum, especially so since 'the mandate to foreign presence in Afghanistan was approved by the UN Security Council." "I think the CICA mechanism could help ensure such openness," Lavrov said.