Middle Orient News

GENEVA (AFP) —Lebanon’s 15-year economic and social recovery from civil war was wiped out in the recent Israeli offensive against Hizbollah, the UN development agency said Tuesday.

BEIRUT (AFP) — Cleanup of a massive oil spill caused by Israeli air strikes on a fuel depot could take up to one year, the environmental group Greenpeace Mediterranean said Tuesday.

BEIRUT (Reuters) — Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said on Monday his country was ready to lead a UN force in south Lebanon, where shooting by Israeli troops at Hizbollah fighters showed the fragility of a week-old truce.

BEIRUT — Hizbollah may have declared victory against Israel and lives to fight another day, but with Lebanon in ruins and thousands of families homeless it may not risk provoking such a war again any time soon.

TEHRAN (Reuters) — Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday Iran would press ahead with its pursuit of nuclear energy, indicating it will not heed a UN demand it stop enriching uranium or face possible sanctions.

BEIRUT — While the truce that halted a monthlong war between Israel and Hizbollah entered its second week, Lebanon made an all-out effort to control its territory to ward off a new round of Israeli attacks.

KFAR SIR  — In the wreckage that was Mariam Salhab’s home, her youngest son picks through a pile of debris, finally pulling free a dust-covered stuffed dinosaur from the broken concrete and scattered children’s toys.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Gunmen, some on rooftops, ambushed Shiite pilgrims walking in their tens of thousands to a sacred shrine for a major festival in Baghdad, killing up to 20 and wounding more than 300, Iraqi officials said.

SEWSENAN (Reuters) — Saddam Hussein and six former commanders will go today on trial in Baghdad on charges of killing tens of thousands of Kurdish villagers in a genocidal campaign that devastated northern Iraq 18 years ago.

DEIR QUANUN AN-NAHR, Lebanon — The low murmur began as the coffins were taken from waiting vans and hoisted onto the shoulders of dozens of young men. By the time the nine corpses were carried half a kilometre to the cemetery in this southern Lebanese town, it had reached a …