The Iraqi government said on Saturday that meddling in the process of national reconciliation in the war-torn country would complicate the issues rather than solving them. Iraqi government spokesman, Ali ad-Dabbagh in an interview said US Vice President, Joe Biden, should convey the Iraqis’ concern to the US president Barrack Obama in this regard.
According to AFP, the Iraqi official added that we are not interested in others’ meddling in this process because it would complicate the situation.
Independence Day in the United States has turned bloody after a truck carrying fireworks exploded, killing two people and injuring three others. According to CNN, the incident happened in North Carolina’s Outer Banks on Saturday.
Hyde County spokeswoman Jamie Tunnell said the fireworks were to be used for the annual Fourth of July show on Ocracoke Island.
Tunnell added that the five victims were members of the crew setting up the display.
The truck exploded at the Ocracoke Island docks.
According to Tunnell, one person was killed at the scene, while another died at a hospital from injuries sustained in the blast.
In another incident in central Florida, officials said one person was killed in a lightning strike at a Fourth of July gathering in Lakeland and at least 18 others were taken to hospitals.
Five people were killed and at least 34 wounded in a suspected rebel bomb attack outside a Catholic church in the strife-torn southern Philippines. According to AFP, a lone suspect left a home-made bomb outside the Immaculate Conception cathedral in Cotabato city which exploded just as the congregation was leaving early morning mass.
The church was not heavily damaged but a restaurant across the street appeared to have absorbed much of the impact, witnesses said. Ordnance experts searched for clues among blood-spattered debris on the road outside the church.
Police said four people, including two soldiers, were killed at the scene, while another died of his injuries in hospital.
According to Froi Cordero, a priest who helped bring the casualties to hospital, many of the wounded were women and children.
Armenia’s Defence Minister General Seyran Ohanyan in his meeting in Yerevan last night with Iranian ambassador, Ali Saqqaeyan, felicitating President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in the presidential polls was optimistic of further promotion of Tehran-Yerevan ties. According to IRIB World Service, Saqqaeyan on behalf of Iran’s Defence Minister, Brigadier-General Mostafa Mohammad Najjar invited General Ohanyan to visit Iran.
The two sides held talks on issues of mutual interests as well as promotion of regional and bilateral relations.
Iran-Armenia ties have been growing in recent years.
Vice-President in charge of Iran’s Environment Protection Organization, Mrs. Fatemeh Vaez Javadi, in a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maleki, in Baghdad on Sunday emphasized inking of a memorandum of understanding between the two countries concerning protection of the environment. According to the Sawt al-Iraq News Agency, she suggested to the Iraqi Premier the setting up of a joint committee to solve the problems of sandstorms emanating from Iraq.
The two sides agreed that the Iraqi agricultural and meteorological organizations make use of Iran’s experiences in the field the campaign against desert encroachment.
Iran’s Majlis Speaker, Dr. Ali Larijani, arrived in Doha Sunday afternoon to have talks with the Emir of Qatar, as well as his Qatari counterpart and other senior officials on the latest developments in the region. According to IRIB, he is to discuss the regional issues such as Palestine, Lebanon and topics pertaining to the Islamic ummah.
Dr. Larijani is accompanied by some Majlis MPs.
North Korea Sunday hailed the strength of its military after it launched a salvo of ballistic missiles in a show of firepower that earned international criticism. “Thanks to the army-first policy of our party, our defense industry… laid a firm foundation to produce any kind of (weapons) needed for modern warfare freely,” the ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said in a commentary.
The army-first policy of the communist country has given the military the capacity to hit enemies with a “merciless” strike, it added.
The comments from North Korea came a day after it test-fired seven ballistic missiles in an act of defiance apparently timed for the US Independence Day holiday.
The launches further fuelled regional tensions after Pyongyang’s nuclear test in May. Professor Kim Yong-Hyun of Seoul’s Dongguk University said the launches were designed to demonstrate the country’s improved missile capacity. “The weekend sabre-rattling, apparently designed to demonstrate the country’s improved missile capacity and military firepower, produced its intended effect,” he said.
It also sent a strong warning to the United States that North Korean missiles could pose a serious challenge to regional peace, he said. Washington’s relatively mild reaction showed US officials do not want “a catastrophic confrontation with North Korea or heightened regional tensions,” he added.
Saturday’s tests brought a new round of verbal condemnation from diplomats and politicians in neighboring countries, the U.S., France, Israel and Australia. China, North Korea’s closest ally and chief economic benefactor, urged “calm and restraint,” the lesser of the two types of criticisms its foreign ministry usually issues after North Korean provocations. The U.S. State Department urged North Korea to “refrain from actions that aggravate tensions and return to denuclearization talks.”
Defense analysts in several countries, including the U.S. and South Korea, will take several weeks to determine whether Saturday’s tests showed that North Korea is advancing its ability to carry nuclear warheads on those missiles.
Military and intelligence analysts in the U.S. and elsewhere several weeks ago tracked movement of long-range missiles to launchpads in North Korea and, for a time, prepared for the prospect that it would launch such a missile on July 4 or 5, as it did in 2006. Over the past two weeks, however, they detected no signs of further preparations for such a launch.
Japan is considering introducing a new type of missile defense system to counter airborne attacks, notably from North Korea, a local newspaper said Sunday.
Japan has two types of defense against airborne attacks – the warship-installed Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) and Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3), a surface-to-air missile that tracks and hits incoming targets. It plans to complete the shield by early 2011, deploying the PAC-3 missiles at 11 bases and setting up SM-3 missiles on several warships. But the two systems still will not be enough to cover the nation’s territory completely, the Mainichi daily said, without citing sources.
The Japanese defense ministry is considering introducing another surface-to-air missile, the US-developed Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, in addition to SM-3 and PAC-3, the newspaper said.
While the PAC-3 has a range of about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles), a THAAD interceptor can cover more than 100 kilometers, making it possible to defend the entire nation if deployed at three to four bases, the report said.
Washington and Tokyo have been working jointly to install a shield against attacks from North Korea, which fired a missile over Japan’s main island in 1998 and tested an atom bomb in 2006.
Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri said the country’s next government is to be made in Lebanon adding that the protocol for forming Lebanon’s next cabinet is to be issued from Baabda palace. “Lebanon’s government is formed in Lebanon. The protocol for forming the next cabinet is to be issued from Baabda and any other talk is false,” Hariri said.
Following his meeting with President Michel Suleiman on Saturday at Baabda presidential palace, Hariri told reporters that he wants to have the best relations with Syria adding: “everything is good in its own time.”
On Saturday evening Hariri received at his residence in Qreitem Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and later Iranian ambassador to Lebanon Mohammed Reza Shibani, who told reporters “my country has an established and basic stance in strengthening the Lebanese line and working on firmly establishing Lebanese national unity among all sects and political parties in this society.”
With the full support of US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, “the March 14” parties pressured Hariri to refuse a proposal to visit Damascus, threatening him that in case he decides to visit it before finalizing the cabinet formation process, they will boycott the cabinet.
The Lebanese Forces bloc seems to be the main “sponsor” of this trend within the March 14 bloc, alongside the so-called “March 14 Christians,” including the Phalange party…
Geagea reiterated his full opposition to any visit made by Hariri to Damascus at the current stage. Speaking to Reuters, he warned that such visit would be a move with no tangible results. Even more, Geagea said that such visit would not lead only to nowhere, “but it would also cause negative and dangerous repercussions.”
MP NICOLAS TO AL-MANAR: MARCH 14 CHRISTIANS WANT LARGEST CABINET SHARE TO WEAKEN AOUN
Meanwhile, Change and Reform bloc MP Nabil Nicolas said on a Sunday interview with Al-Manar TV Channel that the Christian parties of the March 14 alliance “want the largest share in the cabinet in order to weaken Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun.”
He added, “Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri’s allies affirm that the cabinet is formed abroad, thus, any tensions between the countries working on the cabinet formation will negatively reflect on Lebanon.”
MP Nicolas said that Aoun “visited Syria to have normalized relations. We are not dependent on any dialogue.”
Nicolas also warned about Palestinian naturalization, saying “the world is only interested in Lebanon because it considers it as the appropriate country for Palestinian naturalization.”
“The Saudis are very concerned about an Iranian nuclear bomb, even more than the Israelis.” These words were quoted by a former head of research in Israeli intelligence as telling a British Newspaper Sunday Times.
Sunday Times has published a report in which it said that the Saudi Arabia would allow the Israeli Air Force jets to fly over the Arab kingdom in order to raid the Iranian nuclear sites adding that although there were no formal diplomatic relations, Mossad has maintained “working relations” with the Saudis, according to the report.
So the UK paper report said that Saudi Arabia has agreed to turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites, adding that Mossad Director Meir Dagan held secret talks with Saudi officials earlier this year to discuss the possibility, and has briefed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the matter.
“The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israel Air Force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia,” a diplomatic source was quoted in the newspaper as saying last week.
Although the countries have no formal diplomatic relations, an Israeli defense source confirmed to the Sunday Times that Mossad maintained “working relations” with the Saudis.
According to the report, recent riots in Iran following a presidential election and the instability in the country have underscored concerns among what it described as “moderate Sunni Arab states” that it may emerge as a belligerent nuclear power.
Former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, who recently visited the Gulf, said it was “entirely logical” for the Israelis to use Saudi airspace.
Bolton, who talked to several Arab leaders during his visit, added that “none of them would say anything about it publicly but they would certainly acquiesce in an overflight if the Israelis didn’t trumpet it as a big success.”
According to Bolton, Arab states would condemn a raid when they spoke at the UN but would be privately relieved to see “the threat of an Iranian bomb” removed.
The former American ambassador also referred to the Israeli strike on an alleged Syrian nuclear facility in 2007, adding that “to this day, the Israelis haven’t admitted the specifics but there’s one less nuclear facility in Syria . . .”
ISRAEL DENIES SAUDI ARABIA GAVE PERMISSION TO USE ITS AIRSPACE
Meanwhile, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied on Sunday the Sunday Times report saying Saudi Arabia gave Israel permission to fly over its airspace to attack Iran.
JNN News 
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