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The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, told Parliament today that inquiries by Australian intelligence agencies into the use of fake Australian passports in Dubai had concluded the fakes were the work of a state intelligence agency.

Mr Smith said this led to the conclusion there was no doubt Israel was responsible.

“No government can tolerate the abuse of its passports, especially by a foreign government,” he said. “This represents a clear affront to the security of our passport system.”

The scandal over the use of fake passports erupted internationally after the January murder of a Hamas operative.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, one of Hamas’s top arms dealers, was found dead in his hotel room on January 20.

Dubai police identified 27 people involved in the assassination, 12 of whom travelled on forged British passports.

Four of the suspects travelled on Australian passports in the names of four dual Australian-Israeli citizens.

Now, the amateur sky watchers have succeeded in tracking the stealthy object for the first time and uncovering clues that could back up the surveillance theory. Ted Molczan, a team member in Toronto, said the military spacecraft was passing over the same region on the ground once every four days, a pattern he called “a common feature of U.S. imaging reconnaissance satellites.”

In six sightings, the team has found that the craft orbits as far north as 40 degrees latitude, just below New York City. In theory, on a clear night, an observer in the suburbs might see the X-37B as a bright star moving across the southern sky.

“This looks very, very good,” Mr. Molczan said of the identification. “We got it.”

In moving from as far as 40 degrees north latitude to 40 degrees south latitude, the military spacecraft passes over many global trouble spots, including Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea.

Mr. Molczan said team members in Canada and South Africa made independent observations of the X-37B on Thursday and, as it turned out, caught an earlier glimpse of the orbiting spaceship late last month from the United States. Weeks of sky surveys paid off when the team members Kevin Fetter and Greg Roberts managed to observe the craft from Brockville, Ontario, and Cape Town.

The investigation had centered on AIG Financial Products, which nearly brought down the giant insurer after writing tens of billions of dollars on insurance-like contracts on complex securities backed by mortgages that turned out to be toxic.

The U.S. government stepped in with a $182 billion bailout to avert a bankruptcy filing by AIG.

The criminal probe had focused on whether Joseph Cassano, who ran the financial products unit, and Andrew Forster, his deputy, knowingly misled investors about the company’s accounting losses on its credit default swaps portfolio.

“Although a 2-year, intense investigation is tough for anyone, the results are wholly appropriate in light of our client’s factual innocence,” F. Joseph Warin and Jim Walden, Cassano’s lawyers, said in a statement.

Forster’s lawyers also confirmed the probe had been dropped.

“We were very pleased but not surprised to hear from the DOJ late yesterday that they were dropping the criminal investigation of our client,” David Brodsky, one of Forster’s lawyers, said in a statement. “In the end, the facts were stronger than the emotions surrounding AIG’s problems.”

The Department of Justice declined to comment.

The US President’s weekend speech to cadets at the West Point military academy was practically a trial run for the national security policy he will announce this week.

Addressing graduates at the same venue he announced a 30,000 US troop increase for the Afghan war six months ago, Mr Obama said: “Yes, we are clear-eyed about the shortfalls of our international system.

“But America has not succeeded by stepping out of the currents of co-operation — we have succeeded by steering those currents in the direction of liberty and justice, so nations thrive by meeting their responsibilities and face consequences when they don’t.”

His comments indicate he has not been dissuaded from his theme of engagement with other nations, including the Muslim world, despite threats to national security from two attempted terror attacks on US territory.

Mr Obama’s doctrine on national security is a marked contrast to the 2002 policy announced by George W. Bush, who endorsed the idea of “pre-emptive war” and a “distinctively American internationalism”. Consistent with his speeches last year to the UN in New York and to Islamic countries in Cairo, the US President is set to officially dump all hint of unilateralism in favour of building partnerships.

A representative for Jefferson Parish Emergency chief Deano Bonano said they requested immediate action after oil moved into the marsh passes and onto the beaches in Grand Isle.

He said more than 40 boats were sitting idle while he watched the oil rush into the passes.

A cook set down his knife and walked over to greet the stranger. Slocum held out a Ziploc bag filled with lettuce.

“Hi,” said Slocum, 50, his deep voice straining to be heard. “I grow Italian mache in my backyard. It’s really good, only $8 a pound. Would you like to buy some?”

A few feet away, chef de cuisine Ken Takayama glanced curiously at the lanky stranger in jeans and a worn plaid shirt. He’s heard this sort of pitch before.

“Every day, every week, it’s something new,” Takayama said. “You name it, they have it.”

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In the South, hunters are selling venison and wild boar meat. In the Midwest, people are combing the forests for morel mushrooms, which can fetch $10 to $40 a pound.

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In Los Angeles, it’s unclear whether such entrepreneurship is legal: A 1946 zoning ordinance allowed “truck gardening” but didn’t define what that meant or identify what could be grown for sale in residential areas. Because of the ambiguity, the city has shut down some backyard enterprises, but not others.

An outcry by urban farming advocates last summer prompted Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti to introduce a motion dubbed the Food and Flowers Freedom Act, which would allow people to grow “berries, flowers, fruits, greens, herbs, ornamental plants, mushrooms, nuts, seedlings or vegetables for use on-site or sale or distribution off-site.”

By a 357 to 32 vote, the House approved legislation that will pay state governments to require DNA samples, which could mean drawing blood with a needle, from adults “arrested for” certain serious crimes. Not one Democrat voted against the database measure, which would hand out about $75 million to states that agree to make such testing mandatory.

“We should allow law enforcement to use all the technology available to them…to reduce expensive and unjust false convictions, bring closure to victims by solving cold cases, better identify criminals, and keep those who commit violent crime from walking the streets,” said Rep. Harry Teague, the New Mexico Democrat who sponsored the bill.

But civil libertarians say DNA samples should be required only from people who have been convicted of crimes, and argue that if there is probable cause to believe that someone is involved in a crime, a judge can sign a warrant allowing a blood sample or cheek swab to be forcibly extracted.