Bahrain Asks Opposition  Over Talks

Reuters

MANAMA: Bahrain has charged the country’s most senior opposition leader and one of his aides with holding an illegal meeting with a U.S. diplomat, the public prosecutor’s office said Thursday.

It said Al-Wefaq party leader Sheikh Ali Salman and his political assistant, Khalil al-Marzouq, should have obtained permission before meeting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and LaborTom Malinowski.

Bahrain expelled Malinowski earlier this week, saying he had “intervened flagrantly” in the country’s internal affairs by holding the meeting. The United States has said it is “deeply concerned” about his treatment and is considering a response.

The incident has opened a rift between Washington and one of its main regional allies. Bahrain hosts the headquarters of the U.S. 5th Fleet but has bristled at American criticism over its human rights record since suppressing a popular uprising in 2011.................

Israeli strikes kill more Palestinians; rocket causes huge blaze in Israel

 

(Reuters) - Israeli air strikes on Gaza killed four more Palestinians before dawn on Friday, raising the death toll from the four day offensive to at least 85, while a Palestinian rocket hit a fuel tanker at an Israeli petrol station causing a huge blaze.

Israeli leaders, determined to end Palestinian rocket attacks deep into the Jewish state, have hinted that they could order the first ground invasion of the coastal strip in five years. Some 20,000 army reservists have been mobilized.

The Israeli military said it launched fresh naval and air strikes early on Friday, giving no further details.

An air strike on a house in Gaza City killed a man described by Palestinian officials as a doctor and pharmacist. Medics and residents said an Israeli aircraft also bombed a three-storey house in the southern town of Rafah, killing three people.

Break For Wage Hike May be next week

 

BEIRUT: A breakthrough in the long-running crisis over public workers’ salaries is expected next week, a ministerial source revealed .

“We are close to an agreement on holding a Parliament session on July 17 to pass laws adopting the new salary scale and government expenditures,” the source said.

The ministerial source spoke after Cabinet failed Thursday to resolve the thorny issues of the Lebanese University’s contract professors and extra-budgetary spending.

Speaking following a six-hour session chaired by Prime Minister Tammam Salam at the Grand Serail, Information Minister Ramzi Joreige said the issue of employing LU’s contract professors as full timers was discussed at length by the Cabinet, but it was decided to postpone it until next week’s session amid lingering differences among ministers.............more

There's explosion in western Turkish city: Several injured

There's explosion in western Turkish city: Several injured

Reuters

ISTANBUL: An explosion caused by a gas leak injured at least six people in a busy square in the western Turkish city of Denizli during rush hour early Friday, police said.

A reporter for CNN Turk television said the blast happened in a bakery, damaging surrounding buildings as buses and pedestrians passed by.

"The cause of the explosion is natural gas. There are six or seven people injured," a police official in the city told Reuters by telephone.

The Sabah newspaper said on its website that around 25 people had been injured, five of them seriously.

Many residential and commercial buildings in Turkey use gas for heating and cooking and explosions caused by leaks are not uncommon.

Hezbollah Eyeing Iraq Deeply (Hizbillar nozordari Iraker upor)

Hezbollah Eyeing Iraq Deeply

A diplomatic source told  that Tehran would not allow the formation of a Sunni ministate in Iraq’s Anbar province backed by Turkey or one of the Gulf states, and has issued an ultimatum to the U.S. that the extremist group ISIS must be eradicated by the end of the year or Iran will take charge of the phenomenon.

At the same time, Hezbollah is closely following the political, security and field developments in Iraq, and is conducting intensive meetings involving the military leadership in the party with military officials from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut – the results of which are relayed to Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the eliteQuds Force of the IRGC..............More