U.S. reportedly to set up mission in Iran
WASHINGTON, July 17 (UPI) -- The United States plans to re-establish a diplomatic presence in Iran after a nearly 30-year absence, The Guardian reported Thursday.
The White House plans to make announcement in August to establish a U.S. interests section, a move that would help set up a full embassy, and a diplomatic corps in the Middle Eastern country, sources told the British newspaper. An interests section carries out the functions of an embassy.
The White House said Wednesday that senior State Department official William Burns will be in Switzerland to hear Tehran's response to a European offer designed to resolve the nuclear standoff between Iran and Western countries. Burns' presence at the talks is a turnaround from U.S. President George Bush ruling out direct talks on the nuclear issues until Iran suspends its uranium enrichment program.
The return of U.S. diplomats to Iran depends on agreement by Tehran and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicated he wouldn't oppose a such a move, the Tehran Times reported.
"Iran welcomes any proposal for improving ties even from the White House leaders," Ahmadinejad said.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has established a group to study the feasibility of re-establishing a diplomatic presence in Iran, the Guardian reported.
U.S. interests in Iran are overseen by the Swiss Embassy. The United States severing diplomatic ties after students, as part of the revolution that toppled the Shah, stormed the U.S. Embassy and held hostages from 1979 to 1981.
Anti-mosque feelings growing, analyst says
ZURICH, Switzerland, July 17 (UPI) -- The building of mosques in European countries is being met with a backlash, reflecting growing anti-Muslim sentiment, analysts say.
Some analysts call the conflicts about mosques on European soil an expression of a growing fear that Muslims don't accept Western values, aren't assimilating and pose a security threat, USA Today reported Thursday.
"It's a visible symbol of anti-Muslim feelings in Europe," says Daniele Joly, director of the Center for Research in Ethnic Relations at the University of Warwick in Britain. "It's part of an Islamophobia. Europeans feel threatened."
The latest dispute is in Switzerland, which is planning a nationwide referendum to ban minarets on mosques, the newspaper reported. Italy's interior minister earlier in July vowed to close a controversial mosque in Milan.
An estimated 18 million Muslims live among Western Europe's predominantly Christian population of 400 million, Joly says.
Sakib Halilovic, an imam in Zurich, says Switzerland's referendum to ban minarets "plays into the hands" of Muslim extremists by limiting what a mosque can look like and denying them a place to worship.
"It will boost radical positions within the Muslim society in Switzerland," Halilovic told the Swiss Broadcasting Corp.
Obama plans European, Middle East trip
NEW YORK, July 17 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., hits the road next week with a five-country European and Middle East tour that should have plenty of up-front media coverage.
The presumptive Democratic candidate for president will be accompanied on his 12,000-mile trip by a planeload of reporters, trailed by three television network anchors, USA Today said Thursday.
It shaped up as a vivid contrast to the low-key March trip of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the expected Republican candidate.
James Thurber, an American University political scientist and former teacher in Brussels, told USA Today that Obama is "going to be a rock star."
Obama lacks the foreign policy experience of McCain, a Navy veteran and the top-ranking GOP member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. However, a May poll of more than 6,000 Europeans for London's Daily Telegraph showed Obama favored by wide margins in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia.
New proof-of-citizenship licenses offered
NEW YORK, July 17 (UPI) -- Some U.S. states bordering Mexico and Canada are offering or working on plans for an enhanced driver's license to aid border crossings, state officials say.
Washington state in February became the first to establish the new licenses, offering proof of U.S. citizenship and permitting the owner to return, without a passport, to the United States through border crossings or seaports.
Proof of citizenship for entering the United States becomes the law nationally in 2009.
New York plans to establish the new license on Sept. 19 and Vermont follows suit next year. Arizona and Michigan are considering the plan.
Demand has been heavy, a spokesman for the Washington state licensing bureau told USA Today. Washington's enhanced license is good for five years, same as the usual license, but costs $15 more at $40.
Costs and length of coverage will vary. New York reportedly plans to charge $80, Vermont $65, USA Today said.
