Saddam feared Iran more than US attack: FBI notes
North Korea 'test-fires 7 missiles' off east coast
SEOUL: North Korea fired seven ballistic missiles off its eastern coast today, South Korea said, a violation of UN resolutions and an apparent
message of defiance to the United States on its Independence Day.
The launches, which came two days after North Korea fired four short-range cruise missiles, will likely further escalate tensions in the region as the US tries to muster support for tough enforcement of the latest UN Security Council resolution imposed on the communist regime for its May nuclear test.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said three missiles were fired early today, a fourth around noon and three more in the afternoon.
The Defence Ministry said that the missiles were ballistic and are believed to have flown more than 250 miles (400 km).
"Our military is fully ready to counter any North Korean threats and provocations based on strong South Korea-US combined defense posture," the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted military officials as saying the missiles appeared to be a type of Scud missile. North Korea's Scuds are considered short-range, the South's military said. But Yonhap also said that it is possible they could have been longer-range Rodong missiles fired a shorter distance.
Obama calls for reform in Independence Day address
Washington, July 04, 2009: US President Barack Obama urged Americans, who celebrate Independence Day on Saturday, to implement broad economic and social reforms, expressing confidence the country will be able to overcome the challenges it is facing.
"We are facing an array of challenges on a scale unseen in our time," the president said in his weekly radio address. "We are waging two wars. We are battling a deep recession."
The president said that in order to lay the foundation of growth and prosperity, Americans would have to revamp their education system and build schools that would prepare every child to compete with workers around the world.
He pointed out that the United States also needed to reform its health care system, bringing down medical costs for all Americans.
Obama also urged Americans to make clean energy the profitable kind of energy "so that we can end our dependence on foreign oil."
"We are not a people who fear the future," the president concluded, reminding Americans of the spirit of the country's founding fathers. "We are a people who make it.
Pope urges G8 leaders to act on meltdown
Vatican City: Pope Benedict XVI has urged G-8 leaders meeting next week in central Italy to rewrite global financial rules and defend the world's poor from the effects of the economic downturn.
In a letter to Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who will chair the summit, Benedict appealed to leaders to ``listen to the voice of Africa'' and other developing areas.
He also called on them to ``reform the international financial architecture'' to ensure credit is made available for economic development and job creation.
The letter, published by the Vatican on Saturday, was signed last Wednesday.
Leaders from the Group of Eight industrialized nations and other countries will meet for three days starting Wednesday in L'Aquila.
Russia ready for effective ties with US: Medvedev
Thursday 02 July, 2009: Russia is ready to build effective relations with the United States in response to US President Barack Obama's willingness to improve ties, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday.
"The new administration headed by President Obama is showing its willingness to change the situation and build more effective, reliable, and ultimately more modern relations," Medvedev said.
"We are ready to play our part," he added, speaking in a video address posted on the Kremlin website.
Obama arrives in Moscow on Monday in a bid to "reset" US-Russian relations which were badly strained under the administration of his predecessor, George W Bush, amid a range of disputes.
The US president is to hold talks with Medvedev on topics including nuclear disarmament and a bitter dispute over US plans to place missile defence facilities in Eastern Europe, which Moscow opposes.
It will be Obama's first visit to Russia since his inauguration in January, though he met Medvedev on the sidelines of the G20 summit in London in April.
Saddam feared Iran more than US attack: FBI notes
Washington, July 02: After his capture, Saddam Hussein told the FBI that he falsely allowed the world to believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction because he feared revealing his weakness to Iran, the hostile neighbour he considered a bigger threat than the US.
Saddam also dismissed Osama bin Laden as a "zealot," said he had never personally met the al-Qaida leader and that the Iraqi government didn't cooperate with the terrorist group against the US, according to FBI interview notes made public by the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research institute.
The institute obtained the FBI summaries through a Freedom of Information Act request and posted them on its Web site Wednesday.
Saddam was interviewed by the FBI after he was captured in December 2003, nine months after the US and its allies invaded Iraq. He was later transferred to Iraqi custody and was hanged in December 2006.
The FBI special agent who interviewed Saddam, George Piro, described their talks in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" last year. Saddam told him he had "miscalculated" former President George W Bush's intentions and expected only a limited US attack.
"Hussein stated Iraq could have absorbed another United States strike, for he viewed this as less of a threat than exposing themselves to Iran," according to a June 11, 2004, FBI interview report.
Saddam denied having unconventional weapons before the US invasion of Iraq, but refused to allow U.N. inspectors to search his country from 1998 until 2002. The inspectors returned to the weapons hunt in November 2002 but still complained that Iraq wasn't cooperating.
