Iran claims it has launched a rocket into space, just ahead of Monday’s meeting between the Security Council’s Permanent-5 members and Germany regarding additional sanctions on Iran. While Iran is calling for more negotiations on its nuclear crisis, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran’s nuclear quest will not end, saying “A while ago, we threw away the reverse gear and the brakes of the train and we announced to them that this Iranian train has no reverse gear or braking.”

Meanwhile, Iraq’s national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said that Iran has stopped much of their ‘interference’ in Iraq, telling CNN “In the last few weeks, they have changed their position, and they stopped a lot of their tactics and a lot of intervention or interference in the Iraqi internal affairs.” He added that he truly believes Iran wants to see a secure Baghdad and Iraq. Ammar al-Hakim, the son of SCIRI leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, told Iran’s al-Alam satellite network that US claims of Iranian interference in Iraqi internal affairs are “unfounded and mere propaganda.” He was previously arrested by US forces and held briefly upon entering Iraq from Iran.

Muqtada al-Sadr, believed to be in Iran, issued a written statement read in Baghdad’s Sadr City Sunday stating that the US-led Baghdad crackdown will fail. 51 Iraqis are believed to bave been killed in two Sunday attacks in Shi’a neighborhoods in Baghdad, one with mortars and one with a suicide bomber at a university. Iraqi Sunni insurgent groups are calling for revenge to recent rape allegations. “The proud among us believe that killing all of Iraq’s men is easier to accept than violating the honor of one Iraqi woman,” said a Baghdad Sunni imam during prayers. But the latest rape allegations are likely unfounded, according to Iraqi government officials and explained by Nibras Kazimi, who calls al-Qaeda in Iraq leader al-Masri’s response ‘bandwagoning’ and an attempt to show he is still active after claims he was wounded in earlier operations.