Direct China-Taiwan Flights Begin

TAIPEI, July 4 (BBC) -- The first regular, direct flight from mainland China to Taiwan for nearly 60 years has landed at Taipei's airport.
China's top official on Taiwan affairs, Wang Yi, said it signalled "a new start" in exchanges.
The two sides have been ruled by separate governments since 1949, forcing travellers to fly via a third destination.
Ties have improved significantly since Taiwan's new President, Ma Ying-jeou, took office in May.
He advocates stronger economic ties with China, which considers Taiwan a breakaway province and has threatened force if it moves towards formal independence.
The agreements on flights, signed last month, is seen as a big step towards improved cross-strait relations.
The new flights, which will take place from Friday to Monday only, will connect five major cities in China with hubs in Taiwan.
The China Southern Airlines flight, from the southern city of Guangzhou, was the first of 36 cross-strait flights to be launched this weekend.
It carried about 250 passengers, including 100 tourists from the mainland, and was met with a water sprinkling ceremony.
Company chairman Liu Shaoyong flew the plane over.
"This is a sacred moment. The two sides of the strait are like members in one family," he told journalists in Taipei.
At the same time as the China Southern flight was travelling to Taipei, a Taiwan-based China Airlines flight with Taiwanese tourists was making its way to Shanghai.
At Taipei's Songshan airport, passengers on the first flights from China were greeted by lion dancers and aboriginal singers.
They are all being given the red carpet treatment, with special receptions, dinners and entertainment programmes.
The first arrivals included many Chinese tourists travelling on week-long package trips.
Their numbers are expected to rapidly increase because - alongside the deal on flights - the two sides have also agreed that the number of mainland tourists allowed to visit Taiwan will rise to 3,000 per day from 18 July.
Local businesses are predicting the new arrivals will provide a much-needed economic boost and the government is hoping the direct weekend flights will soon become daily.
Many Taiwanese are excited by the expected influx of Chinese tourists, says the BBC's Caroline Gluck in Taipei.
But others are more wary - citing concerns about rude behaviour, cheap spending habits and the potential for political disputes, our correspondent says.
"The mainlanders will be our guests," Taiwanese Premier Liu Chao-shiuan said Thursday.
"I hope we can work together to impress them with the Taiwanese people's good nature, politeness, passion and hospitality."
Thirty-six planes will make the trip across the Taiwan Strait this weekend.


More Than 50 Hurt by Bomb During Belarus Concert

MINSK, Belarus, July 4 (AP) -- More than 50 people were injured Friday when a bomb went off at an outdoor concert in the Belarusian capital. Officials blamed "hooligans."
The blast took place at a concert in downtown Minsk marking the ex-Soviet nation's independence day. Minsk police spokesman Alexander Lastovsky said authorities had opened a criminal probe.
Lastovsky said more than 20 people were hospitalized, but the Health Ministry put that number at more than 50. Most received leg wounds.
Belarusian Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Alexei Usatov said the bomb went off at around 12:30 a.m. The concert was held at the Hero City memorial, which commemorates Minsk's suffering during World War II.
The explosion was an unprecedented event in Belarus, which has been tightly controlled by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been described in the West as "Europe's last dictator."
Lukashenko, who was attending the concert, inspected the explosion site and urged officials to quickly track down the perpetrators.
Investigators inspect the scene of a blast in Minsk July 4, 2008.


Mugabe Says No Talks Without Him Accepted as President

HARARE, July 4 (AFP) -- Robert Mugabe said Friday he is only open to negotiations on an end to Zimbabwe's political crisis if he is accepted as the country's president following his widely condemned one-man election.
"I am the president of the republic of Zimbabwe and that is the reality," Mugabe told supporters at Harare airport after flying back home from an African Union summit in Egypt. "Everybody has to accept that if they want dialogue."


Mugabe Says No Talks Without Him Accepted as President

HARARE, July 4 (AFP) -- Robert Mugabe said Friday he is only open to negotiations on an end to Zimbabwe's political crisis if he is accepted as the country's president following his widely condemned one-man election.
"I am the president of the republic of Zimbabwe and that is the reality," Mugabe told supporters at Harare airport after flying back home from an African Union summit in Egypt. "Everybody has to accept that if they want dialogue."


Mugabe Says No Talks Without Him Accepted as President

HARARE ,July 4 (AFP) -- Robert Mugabe said Friday he is only open to negotiations on an end to Zimbabwe's political crisis if he is accepted as the country's president following his widely condemned one-man election.
"I am the president of the republic of Zimbabwe and that is the reality," Mugabe told supporters at Harare airport after flying back home from an African Union summit in Egypt. "Everybody has to accept that if they want dialogue."


US, Poland Have Differences Over Missile Plan

WARSAW, Poland, July 4 (AP) -- Poland's deputy prime minister says that differences remain in the Polish and U.S. approaches to an agreement on placing a U.S. missile defense base here.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk held a 40-minute telephone conversation with U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney late Thursday about the U.S. proposal to place 10 missile interceptors in northern Poland.
Deputy Prime Minister Grzegorz Schetyna told state television early Friday that the two leaders' talk "did not decide anything" but "exposed differences in approach on both sides, including Poland's expectations."
Schetyna said Poland must make the decision "soon" and "we are getting closer to it."
U.S. Ambassador to Poland Victor Ashe, left, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk prior to talks in Warsaw, Poland.


Pakistani Islamists Rally for Red Mosque Anniversary

ISLAMABAD, July 4 (AFP) -- Hundreds of Islamists gathered outside Islamabad's Red Mosque on Friday and chanted slogans against President Pervez Musharraf to mark the anniversary of the bloody storming of the building.
Government forces laid siege to the hardline mosque on July 3, 2007 after clashes with Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants holed up inside, and stormed it one week later. More than 100 people were killed during the operation.
Carrying the mosque's signature black flags with crossed swords, around 700 protesters gathered after Friday prayers and shouted "Hang Musharraf, Musharraf is a murderer, America's friends are traitors", an AFP reporter said.
Local religious leaders vowed to lead a "revolution" in memory of Abdul Rashid Ghazi, one of the mosque's main leaders, who was killed in the July 10 raid on the mosque.
"We will continue the mission of Ghazi, who laid down his life for the glory of Islam and implementation of Islamic law in Pakistan," local cleric Amin Zeb told the crowd outside the mosque, which has since been repainted beige.
Riot police equipped with batons and shields cordoned off the area during the demonstration, which ended peacefully.
About 100 burqa-clad female students from an girls' religious school that was attached to the mosque and demolished after the operation played Islamist songs on tape recorders during the demonstration.
The female students became a symbol of the hardline mosque's defiance last year, and it was their kidnapping of several Chinese nationals allegedly involved in prostitution that sparked the deadly siege.
Ghazi's nephew Omar Farooq called for the release of the mosque's leader, Abdul Aziz, who was captured while trying to flee the mosque dressed in a burqa on the second day of the siege.
"The Red Mosque operation was launched on the orders of the US by its stooge, Pervez Musharraf," he told AFP, adding that authorities should reopen the mosque for Islamic schooling.
A lawmaker from the country's ruling coalition also joined the protest and called on Muslims to "foil conspiracies hatched by Islamic forces".
"Ghazi embraced martyrdom for Islam and his sacrifice will not go in vain," said Tariq Fazal, a member of former premier Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party.
A Pakistani religious student weeps outside the Red Mosque after Friday prayers in Islamabad.


India Coalition in Shake-Up Over Nuclear Deal

NEW DELHI, July 4 (AFP) -- India's coalition government was undergoing a major shake-up Friday with the dominant Congress party pushing on with a controversial nuclear deal with the US and ditching left-wing allies.
A four-party bloc of Communist and leftist parties met Friday to discuss what politicians described as the "modalities" of a divorce from the Congress-led government because of the pact.
The Congress party, however, was working to avoid being forced into early elections and getting the atomic deal through by negotiating a new alliance with the socialist and regional Samajwadi Party (SP).
SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi separately to finalise their agreement, officials said.
After talks with PM Singh, Yadav told reporters that "national interest is more important than politics" -- seen as a sign that a deal to reshape India's ruling alliance was close.
Later, senior Congress leader Veerappa Moily told NDTV news channel: "We have the numbers now. Their (Samajwadi Party's) help has been very timely."
The nuclear deal -- agreed in principle in 2005 -- would allow India to buy atomic power plants and technology despite not having signed international non-proliferation pacts.
Prime Minister Singh argues the pact is crucial for India's energy security.
Singh is lined up to meet US President George W. Bush on the sidelines of the G8 meeting in Japan next week, taken as another sign that Congress was blazing ahead with implementing the pact the two leaders agreed to in 2006.
Tensions between Singh and the communists have been running high for months, with the left-wing threatening to pull the plug on the coalition and force elections earlier that May 2009 as scheduled.
India's left say the deal undermines the country's traditional status as a beacon of the non-aligned movement, and that allowing UN inspections of the civil nuclear programme -- as demanded by the Americans -- would harm the strategic weapons programme.
After their meeting Friday, India's top Marxist leader Prakash Karat set Monday as a deadline for the government to clearly declare whether it was proceeding with the deal.
"We wish to know... whether the government is proceeding to seek the approval for the safeguards agreement by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)," Karat said.
"Please let us know by July 7, 2008," Karat told reporters, adding that the Left parties would meet a day later for a final decision on withdrawing support.
The ultimatum was rejected by Congress, whose spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said "sovereign governments or political parties cannot be subjected to deadlines."
"We are happy that other parties in the national interest are slowly converging to our view point," he told reporters.
"We are working towards triple objectives -- to do a nuclear deal in national interest, to carry along our allies with us for that purpose and to go to elections as per schedule" in May 2009.
The United States has been pressing India to move on the deal before the end of President Bush's tenure, warning the pact may not survive in its current form under the next administration.
Before the deal is voted on by the US Congress, New Delhi also needs to earn a waiver from the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Egypt to Host Inter-Palestinian Talks

CAIRO, July 4 (Dispatches) – Egypt will "soon" host inter-Palestinian talks between Fatah and Hamas as well as other factions to iron our differences, Palestinian ambassador to Egypt Nabil Amr said Thursday.
The talks are aimed at bringing together, under a Yemeni plan, the factions, which have been divided since Hamas took control of Gaza Strip a year ago.
The official MENA news agency quoted Amr as saying "Egypt will shortly invite around 14 Palestinian factions for dialogue to draw up mechanisms to apply Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh's initiative on a Palestinian national reconciliation."
The Palestinian envoy said: "Egypt is holding consultations with the Palestinian Authority and all Palestinian factions and parties to outline both the timetable and agenda of this dialogue."
Last month, Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that "Cairo should be the center of joint Arab efforts to end the Palestinians' internal crisis."
Abbas in June called for dialogue with Hamas, breaking with his previous policy of rejecting any opening until the Islamic movement cedes control of Gaza, where a fragile Egyptian-brokered truce is in effect.
Hamas has responded favorably to Abbas' overture under the Yemeni-brokered deal which was struck in March.
Moreover, an Israeli negotiator was due in Egypt on Thursday in a bid to speed up indirect negotiations with the Hamas movement for the release of an Israeli soldier as part of a prisoner swap.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's envoy Ofer Dekel was due to hold talks with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, an Israeli government official said.
"The prisoner exchange deal would see the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of Shalit who will be handed over to Egypt, where he will stay for a week and see his family," a source said.
Suleiman had already played a key role in mediating a truce that went into effect on June 19 in and around the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Palestinian shop owners display a large poster featuring portraits of Hamas supremo in Gaza Ismail Haniya and Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas in Gaza City.


Zionists, Syria Resume Indirect Talks

ANKARA, July 4 (Dispatches) – The occupying Zionist regime and Syrian negotiators were holding a third round of Turkish-mediated indirect talks Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said.
The negotiations started in Istanbul on Tuesday and would be wrapped up on Thursday, Babacan told reporters at a joint press conference with visiting Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.
Babacan said the process, which is "still at a very early stage," would move forward as long as both sides maintain determination for a settlement.
"A successful outcome will have a positive effect on the Middle East and even a wider region," he said.
Face-to-face negotiations will become possible if the two sides achieve satisfactory progress in the indirect talks, Babacan said.
Under the format agreed between the parties, the Zionist regime and Syrian officials do not see each other and Turkish diplomats are shuttling between them.
The talks started in May, ending an eight-year freeze.
Syria said at the time it had received Israeli commitments for a full withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights, seized four decades ago, though Israeli occupying regime has been tight-lipped on the issue.
The Israeli regime's Premier Ehud Olmert said the Zionist regime was willing to make major concessions in what was seen as a reference to the Golan Heights.
The area was occupied in the 1967 and annexed in 1981 by the regime in a move never recognized by the international community.
A large group of the Zionist regime's parliamentarians, meanwhile, are pushing a bill to block an eventual return of the Golan Heights to Syria, and the proposal passed its first reading in the regime's parliament Monday.
File photo shows Zionist soldiers looking towards Syria from the Mount Bental observation post in the Golan Heights.


Children Suffer More in Afghanistan Than Any Other Country

KABUL, July 4 (AFP) – Children in Afghanistan suffer more than in any other country in the world from violence, war and poverty, and sometimes become bombers, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Thursday.
Afghan children were not only caught up in fighting between Taliban rebels and international forces, but there was evidence of an increasing number ending up on the frontlines.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN's Special representative for Children in Armed Conflict, said Afghan children were the "forgotten victims" of three decades of war and violence.
"I can't think of any country in the world where children suffer more than in Afghanistan," Coomaraswamy told reporters.
She said her organization was to present a comprehensive report on the plight of children in Afghanistan to the United Nations Security Council in October.
Children in Afghanistan are suffering "not only because of the terrible violations due to war, but also the terrible poverty and hard work they have to endure," she said.
"When meeting with children (here), it takes a lot of time to make them smile," she added.
Coomaraswamy said she met many children who became victims of violence by Taliban and other anti-government factions as well as operations by international forces.
She said she had meetings with the commanders of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the US-led coalition to find ways to "minimize these collateral damages with clear directions and procedures."
She also said that UNICEF had "credible information that in the last few months there has been an increase in the number of children being in combat."
"We also have reports of individual cases of suicide bombers," she said.
She urged all parties involved in violence in Afghanistan to follow what she said was a Taliban edict banning young boys from fighting.
"Talibans have stated that mujahedeen (holy warriors) are not allowed to take young boys with no facial hair onto the battlefield or into their private quarters," she said.
"We urge all parties, especially the anti-government elements, to take action to prevent children from being used in the battlefield."
There were also allegations of sexual violence by some Afghan military and police commanders, she told a press conference, adding there was a danger youths detained by international forces could become "harder individuals and only feed the cycle of violation."
Afghan children play in Kabul in June 2008.


Petraeus Meets Saudi King in Riyadh

RIYADH, July 4 (Press TV) – The commander of the United States forces in Iraq, Major General David Petraeus, has met with Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh.
Saudi sources have revealed that the top military commander and a US delegation arrived in Riyadh on Monday and held talks with the Saudi monarch.
No details on the talks have been revealed but US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Ford Fraker reportedly participated in the talks.
It is the second time in three months that Petraeus held talks with the Saudi King and other senior officials in Riyadh.
The military commander has opposed the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq in his recent report to Congress.


Iraq PM to Visit UAE Sunday

ABU DHABI, July 4 (AFP) – Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will visit the United Arab Emirates on Sunday after the Persian Gulf state announced it would soon name an ambassador to Baghdad, an Emirati official said Thursday.
Maliki will meet with President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan and other officials during the two-day visit, which comes a month after a landmark trip to Iraq by UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan
During the June 5 trip, the first by a high-ranking official from an Arab state in the Persian Gulf since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, Abdullah said that the UAE would name an ambassador to Baghdad within days.
The UAE withdrew its most senior diplomat -- a charge d'affaires-- from Baghdad in May 2006 after another diplomat was kidnapped by militants and held for two weeks before being released.
Washington has been pushing its Arab allies to send ambassadors and high-level officials to Baghdad to help anchor volatile post-Saddam Hussein Iraq in the Arab world.
An Iraqi government spokesman said on Thursday that Jordan's King Abdullah II will visit Iraq next week in what would be the first trip by an Arab head of state since the invasion that ousted Saddam.
Jordan announced this week it had appointed an ambassador to Iraq where its embassy has been run by a charge d'affaires since it came under deadly attack in 2003.


Zionist-Hezbollah Prisoner Swap Deal Near

TEL AVIV, July 4 (Dispatches) – A prisoner swap deal between Zionists and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement will most likely take place in a week to 10 days, a security source was quoted as saying.
Israeli daily Haaretz announced the report after Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah stated in a speech in Beirut this week that the deal is expected to be completed on July 15.
The daily said that Israel received a report from Hezbollah on Thursday regarding the resistance movement's efforts to locate missing Israel Air Force navigator Ron Arad.
Hezbollah says that it did not manage to locate Arad, who was shot down near Sidon in 1986, but details its activities and concludes that the navigator died in Lebanon over a decade ago.
The report was received by Ofer Dekel, the Israeli official charged with negotiating the release of IDF soldiers held by Hezbollah and Hamas.
It was part of a broader deal for the release of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev who were abducted on July 12, 2006.
Dekel, in Europe over the last two days, was expected on Thursday to sign the deal, entitled "Humanitarian Agreement," with Hezbollah.
Under the deal, Goldwasser and Regev will be returned to Israel through the Rosh Hanikra border crossing, and in exchange Israel will release Samir Kuntar, held since 1979, and the remains of dozens of Lebanese buried in Israel.
Earlier this week, Zionist Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that according to intelligence agencies estimates, the two soldiers are dead.
Dekel was due back in Israel early Friday. Even though the precise destination of his visit was not disclosed, Germany has been instrumental in mediating between Israel and Hezbollah.
In return for the report on Arad, Dekel handed the German negotiators a report focusing on the fate of four Iranian diplomats who disappeared in Lebanon in July 1982, which will be passed on to Hezbollah and probably also Iran.
The report on the Iranian diplomats that Israel passed on to Hezbollah states that they were murdered by Phalangists in Lebanon, when they were arrested at a road block controlled by the Christian militia.
The gunmen were members of a group commanded by Eli Hubeika, a senior Phalangist figure who was himself murdered six and a half years ago.
The Hezbollah report was first examined by the German chief mediator, Gerhard Konrad.
Israeli security sources said that he is very well versed in the details of the case, and therefore it would not be difficult for him to determine whether Hezbollah met the demands set in the latest agreement.


Afghan Bomb Blasts Kill 11 Policemen, 3 Civilians

KABUL, July 4 (AFP) – Bomb blasts and attacks have killed 11 policemen and three civilians in separate incidents in insurgency-hit Afghanistan, officials said Friday.
The provincial police chief said: "In the deadliest incident, attackers tossed a grenade into a police post in Panjwayi district of troubled southern Kandahar province and then opened fire into the building, killing eight policemen."
General Mutihullah Khan said that another two policemen were missing after the midnight attack and two were wounded.
"At this stage we cannot say if the two missing police are taken by Taliban or they had links with Taliban or if there was some problem among policemen in the post and they had fought and killed each other," he said.
Separately three policemen were killed and two were wounded Friday in the central province of Ghazni when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb, provincial government spokesman Ismail Jahangir said.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahed, said his group was responsible for the attack in the district of Rashidan.
The provincial police chief, General Muzafarudin said that another roadside bomb hit a civilian vehicle in the neighboring province of Wardak, killing three civilians and wounding two.
He blamed the attack on "enemies of peace in Afghanistan", a term used by Afghan authorities to refer to the Taliban insurgents who have waged a bloody insurgency since their ouster from power in late 2001.
Overall, more than 8,000 people were killed in insurgency-related attacks in Afghanistan last year -- the most since the 2001 US-led invasion.
June was the deadliest for foreign soldiers since the start of the war that ousted the Taliban weeks after the September 11 attacks by their Al-Qaeda allies on the United States, with 49 killed in combat or in accidents.
The US-led coalition reported that another soldier had killed Friday of "non-combat" injuries. It did not give details, including the nationality of the soldier or details of what had happened.
US to Deploy Extra Troops
US President George W. Bush has said that he would send more US troops into Afghanistan by year's end to bring the resurgent Taliban down to their knees.
Bush, grappling with a record death toll in an overshadowed war, on Wednesday conceded that it was a "tough month" in the nearly seven-year-old war.
The confirmation came after reports painted a gloomy picture of the Afghan war, saying June was the deadliest month for US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, with the number of the death toll exceeding that in Iraq.
In June, 28 US troops died in Afghanistan and for the full US-led coalition in Afghanistan the death toll was 46.
Bush confronted the grim direction of the Afghanistan conflict during a sun-splashed Rose Garden appearance and said the US would increase troops by 2009, without offering details about exactly when or how many.
The Pentagon predicts the pace of attacks in Afghanistan by the Taliban is likely to rise this year, despite US-led efforts to capture key leaders.
Bush said coalition forces have doubled in size over two years, and pledged that the twin strategy of fighting insurgents and supporting Afghanistan's civil development "is going to work."
Separate bomb explosions in Afghanistan killed 14 people.


Obama Insists No Change in Iraq Plan

WASHINGTON, July 4 (Dispatches) – Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama has said he still backs swift withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, despite earlier remarks he might refine his policies.
Obama's attempt to clarify his Iraq policy on Thursday drew a triumphant response from the campaign of Republican presumptive nominee John McCain, a staunch supporter of the current war effort.
The Democratic nominee held two press conferences within hours in North Dakota, in an attempt to dispel reports that he was softening his proposal to get all combat troops home within 16 months, in the light of recent security gains.
"My first day in office, I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in, and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war. Responsibly, deliberately, but decisively."
In an earlier meeting with reporters, Obama said he may "refine" his policies after consultations with generals on a planned trip to Iraq this month, details of which have not been announced for security reasons.
Obama, who based his primary campaign on vehement opposition to the Iraq war, said he would conduct a "thorough assessment" of his policies after the trip, his first to Iraq for two years.
The McCain camp, in a statement from spokesman Brian Rogers, crowed that Obama had, in fact changed his position, and accepted that the current troop surge effort was a success.
Meanwhile, Obama's foreign policy advisor Susan Rice said in a press conference on Thursday that the democratic hopeful will press European NATO partners for more troops for Afghanistan and to ease operational restrictions on those already there if he is elected president.
Obama is likely to discuss his plans to refocus US military efforts from Iraq to the battle against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan when he visits top European powers later this month.
"Senator Obama has been very clear that he believes that our NATO partners can and should contribute some additional forces," said Obama's aide.
The Illinois senator also believes that NATO members should remove operational curbs which prevent some of their forces from operating in the hottest combat zones in Afghanistan, Rice said.
Rice also said that Obama's plans to begin withdrawals of US troops from combat operations in Iraq would permit the US to send more soldiers to Afghanistan, and could prompt action from European partners.
An apparently worsening security situation in Afghanistan has seen troop deaths there exceed those in Iraq for the second month in a row.
Forty-nine soldiers from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the separate US-led coalition died in combat, attacks or accidents in June, according to a media tally based on military statement.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama


Fadlallah Blasts UK for Listing Hezbollah as Terrorist

BEIRUT, July 4 (Press TV) – Lebanon's top cleric Seyyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah criticizes the UK for listing the resistance wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist group.
Ayatollah Fadlallah said Thursday the British Foreign Ministry has put Hezbollah on the terrorist organization list in order to compensate its failed policies in the region.
"The decision shows their egotism, helplessness and decline of civilization," the cleric said.
Fadlallah said it was expected the British government would take bold steps by making drastic changes in its policy towards the Arab and Islamic states after the UK brought a great tragedy to Palestine in the first half of the 20th century by housing the Jews there and displacing the Palestinian people.
He said occupation is the most dangerous of all the types of the terrorism, and the UK shares fully in the US crime of occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, but it does not want to admit the fact that its arrogant policies in fact lay the groundwork for all sorts of terrorist activities, including those of the British state.
The British government has deemed that the resistance wing of the Lebanese Hezbollah organization is a terrorist branch because of its alleged support for Iraqi and Palestinian groups.


Zionists Hint at Demolishing Bombers’ Homes

BEIT-UL-MOQADDAS, July 4 (Dispatches) – The Zionist occupying regime's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has called for the demolition of the home of the man who killed three people when he plowed a bulldozer into traffic in Beit-ul-Moqaddas Wednesday.
Hours after the attack -- which ended when an off-duty police officer shot and killed 30-year-old Husam Taysir Dwayat -- Olmert met with the regime's officials to discuss the possibility of destroying the man's home, The Jerusalem Post reported.
The Zionist regime's war minister Ehud Barak also said that the regime should demolish the home of Dwayat, an Arab living in east Beit-ul-Moqaddas.
Beit-ul-Moqaddas Mayor Uri Lupolianski said he supported leveling the home as well.
Israeli occupying regime Infrastructure, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai called for legislation that would restrict movement of east Beit-ul-Moqaddas Arabs and would permit the demolition of the homes of attackers.
On Wednesday, Dwayat rammed a bulldozer into a bus and a car in Beit-ul-Moqaddas, killing 3 people and wounding more than 45 others before he was shot dead.
Chaos erupted as the man drove the heavy vehicle along the busy Jaffa Road in the west Beit-ul-Moqaddas, ploughing into the public bus, which overturned, and at least one car.
Several people opened fire at the man driving the earthmover and at least two policemen jumped on to vehicle, emptying several rounds into the driver and leaving him slumped over the wheel.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, loosely affiliated with Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, Galilee Freedom Battalion and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed joint responsibility for the attack.
However, the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip and is currently maintaining a fragile ceasefire with the occupying Israeli regime, said it did not carry out the attack but nevertheless praised it.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: "We consider it as a natural reaction to the daily aggression and crimes committed against our people in the West Bank and all over the occupied lands."
However, the Israeli regime's police chief Dudi Cohen said the attacker appeared to be acting alone, terming the attack a "spontaneous act".
Israelis look at a bus that was overturned by a bulldozer driven by a Palestinian man who rammed it into a car and a bus on Jaffa Road in Beit-ul-Moqaddas.


Jewess Bahrain's New US Envoy

JORDAN (Press TV) – King Hamad of Bahrain has appointed a Jewess as head of the Persian Gulf state's diplomatic mission in the United States.
The appointment of Huda Nunu had been anticipated since May. Bahraini officials deny the appointment is a public relations stunt.
There are just 37 Jews in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom of around 530,000 Bahrainis.
"This move is not propaganda," an official told AFP in May. "It reflects a climate of tolerance towards minorities in Bahrain."
This is while Bahrain has an aggrieved Shia majority. The country is ruled by a Sunni elite.