Iran’s Ambassador to Tokyo Abbas Araqchi said cultural ties between Iran and Japan are deeply rooted.

Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi said Iran and India enjoy rich and strategic relations.

IRAN: The summit of eight developing states known as the D8 ended with member-states vowing to seriously pursue its ratifications, particularly in the economic sector. The Islamic Republic also presented proposals to the group, as one of the most powerful economic arms of the Organization of Islamic Conference. The main point of Iran’s proposals revolved around consolidating unity among Muslim nations at a time when globalization has posed a challenge to developing states. One of Iran’s proposals to the conference, presented by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was the 10-year vision for the group. According to this document, experts estimate that the value of transactions among D8 states will reach 20 percent of their total commercial transactions by the end of 2018. Given the high capabilities of D8 members, a remarkable takeoff will be witnessed in their economic status. Other issues discussed by Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria included political and security considerations at the regional and international levels. If these countries establish fair and constructive cooperation, it will benefit all.

HAMSHAHRI: Many hurdles on the way of economic liberalization and privatization were removed when policy guidelines pertaining to Article 44 of Iran’s Constitution were issued. Therefore, there is no excuse for any possible shortcoming in the performance of the government and other branches of power with regard to facilitating the privatization of key economic sectors. There is consensus among most officials that the private sector should be given the opportunity of engaging in economic activities that were previously monopolized by the government. The administration should now be entrusted with the task of guiding and supervising economic activities to expedite national development. However, some managers consider privatization as a threat to their authority. They think they will lose their status after privatization and consequently put up resistance and create hurdles. This is while such managers should realize that liberalization of economy will help boost the national economy while minimizing threats against the Islamic Republic.

JOMHOURI-YE ESLAMI: It’s clear that the United States and the European Union are directly engaged in worsening the food and energy crises. Instead of finding a solution to curb rising food and energy prices, westerners point the finger of accusation toward oil and gas producing companies. They say high prices of oil have led to high food prices. This is while experts believe energy plays only a small role in the final price of food products. Moreover, food prices are continuing to rise, despite oil producing companies increasing their output.

The following is a letter by David Sketchley to the leading UK newspaper the Independent, in response to an article about anti-Iran American and British measures.

Sir,
According to the Independent on 30 June 2008: “The Bush administration has been expanding covert activities in Iran under a secret directive in the hope of toppling the country’s Islamic rulers.“
The Independent also states that “a “presidential finding“, a highly classified document which must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way...focused on undermining Iran’s nuclear program“ and trying to undermine the government through regime change, by working with opposition groups inside Iran and by “passing money“.
The covert activities include the “authorization of lethal force by US Special Forces as they pursue “high value targets“.
There is a word for “covert activities“ including the “authorization of lethal force“ with the aim of “trying to undermine the government“ of a sovereign state--it is ’terrorism’. At least according to definitions in British law:
1. The Terrorism Act 2000, Section 1 interprets ’terrorism’ thus: “In this Act “terrorism“ means the use or threat of action where
a) the action falls within subsection (2)
b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and
c) the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.
(2) Action falls within this subsection if it
a) involves serious violence against a person,
b) involves serious damage to property,
c) endangers a person’s life, other than that of the person committing the action,
d) creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or
e) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.

The action described in the Independent article clearly breaks this law.

2. The Reinsurance (Acts of Terrorism) Act 1993 section 2(2) provides: “In this section ’acts of terrorism’ means acts of persons acting on behalf of, or in connection with, any organization that carries out activities directed toward the overthrowing or influencing, by force or violence, of Her Majesty’s government in the United Kingdom or any other government de jure or de facto.“

The action described in the Independent article is clearly an “act of terrorism“ under this legislation.

3. The Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism [2005] states: “Acts of terrorism have the purpose by their nature or context to seriously intimidate a population or unduly compel a government or an international organization to perform or abstain from performing any act or seriously destabilize or destroy the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country or an international organization;“

The action described in the Independent article clearly breaches the Convention, and is therefore an “act of terrorism.

The “opposition groups inside Iran“ that Anne Penketh (Independent’s diplomatic editor) refers to include: “The Baluchis...Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al-Qaeda“, “Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People’s Resistance Movement...a vicious Salafi organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists...suspected of having links to Al-Qaeda and they are also thought to be tied to the drug culture“ and “the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, known in the West as the M.E.K“ which “has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for more than a decade.“
Several of these organizations that the US Armed Forces are providing money to are on the Home Office list of proscribed organizations [2], and as such financing these organizations is also clearly in breach of the Terrorism Act 2000.
Consequently, please could someone explain when US Special Forces will be added to the Home Office’s “Proscribed terrorist groups“ list? And if they are not, why not?

CASMII

One theory says that until the very last moment on March 20, 2003, Saddam Hussein thought he had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs); plenty of them. That is what his corrupted circle had been telling him for years, and this explains why he never fully comprehended the dangers of war with the United States. Perhaps he reasoned that the Americans were bluffing, and would never dare invade Iraq. At curtain fall, Saddam probably told one of his men to go down and “press the button“ only to realize that he had no WMDs, and that Iraq--and his regime--were on the verge of disaster. “Sorry Mr. President, but we were lying!“
That scenario--80 per cent fiction, 20 per cent reality--is dangerously close to being repeated in 2008. This time, standing in Saddam’s shoes would be the Israelis.
The writing has been on the wall for several months and suddenly snowballed into grave fear that war between Iran and the United States--or Iran and Israel--was in the immediate horizon. Last week, a Pentagon official said a war between Iran and Israel was going to take place before the end of 2008.
ABC News quoted an unnamed US official as saying that Iran’s nuclear program was nearing ’redlines’ that would trigger an Israeli attack, echoing what Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz said a few weeks earlier. Ex-US Ambassador John Bolton set the war date for November, while sources at CIA say that it is going to be a war between the United States and Iran--with or without Israeli participation.
Reportedly, Israel is planning a massive blitz on Iranian cities such as Isfahan and Natanz, to hit 3,100 targets (many believed to be nuclear sites) in addition to military positions of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Iran has promised to respond by hitting the Dimona Reactor in Israel, and shut down the Strait of Hormuz (which transports no less than 25 percent of the world’s oil), bringing the price of oil to a staggering $500 per barrel.
A Russian Foreign Ministry official commented, “All this is very dangerous. If force is used, it will be catastrophic for the whole Middle East.“
The US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen added that war on Iran “would be extremely stressful on us“ while Mohammad ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that the war would turn the region into “a fireball“.
Showing just how insignificant these comments are, the US military went ahead with constructing four advanced bases, equipped with remote controlled missile launch-pads, near the Iran-Iraq border.
Last week, a senior Iranian general, Mir Faisal Baqerzadeh, said his country was digging 320,000 graves for American soldiers scheduled to fight in Iran. “In implementation of the Geneva Conventions, necessary measures are being taken to provide for the burial of enemy soldiers. We have plans to dig 15,000 to 20,000 graves for each of the border provinces, or a total of 320,000,“ he said, pointing out that some of them would be mass graves, if necessary. This was “to reduce the suffering of the families of the fallen in any attack against, and prevent the repetition of the long and bitter experience of the Vietnam War.“
It is too early to predict who would inflict more pain on the other--Israel or Iran--if war were to erupt in what remains of 2008. What we do know is that neither Israel nor the US has accurate information about Iran’s arsenal. One reason is that the Americans have not had an embassy in Tehran since 1979. That is a major mistake given that the best way--throughout history--of gathering information about another country has been through diplomatic exchange.
Ambassadors are formal spies, and even during the apex of the Cold War, the US did not shut down its embassy in Moscow. For years they relied on faulty intelligence reports about Iran’s strength, provided by Saddam Hussein, Saudi Arabia and Iranians in the US.
Clearly, from Hezbollah’s performance in 2006, the Americans knew very little how powerful Iran actually was since nobody expected the Islamic Republic’s proxies in Lebanon to hold out for more than one month, against the military might of the Israeli Defense Forces. That is very different from 2003, when the Americans knew exactly how weak the Iraqi Army was, and how corrupted its infrastructure.
If a small military group could fire 4,000 missiles on Israel (out of its arsenal of 13,000), reaching as far as Haifa “and beyond Haifa“ and then rearm itself in a matter of months, to reach an arsenal of over 30,000 rockets, then this tells volumes about how powerful its patrons in Tehran are. Also, you don’t walk around Iran and see big signs pointing to Iran’s nuclear sites, as the case with Osirak, or with Yasser Arafat’s posts in South Lebanon in 1982. They are hidden under layers of concrete and steel, protected by men with arms and indoctrination.

Gulf News

Saudi Arabian security officials on Friday photographed and fingerprinted Iranian students at Jeddah Airport.
Iranian students, who had gone for pilgrimage to the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, had to wait for three hours at the airport to be photographed and fingerprinted, Fars News Agency reported.
Saudi security officials also did the same thing last year when Iranian students visited the kingdom. Back then, Iran’s Foreign Ministry was notified of the incident. It is necessary to deal with the issue in a very serious manner to prevent a recurrence.