Middle Orient

The images are shocking even by Iraqi standards: Two dozen skeletal children, some tied to beds, others writhing in their own waste and some appearing, at first glance, to be dead.

TRIPOLI (AFP) — Six foreign medics on death row for infecting Libyan children with the AIDS virus launched a final appeal on Wednesday after more than eight years behind bars for a crime they say they did not commit.

NAHR BARED (AFP) — Lebanese troops bombarded Islamists inside a besieged refugee camp on Wednesday after seizing key outposts in part of the camp a month after the showdown erupted.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States insisted Wednesday it felt a “moral obligation” to resettle vulnerable Iraqis in the face of anger that far too few refugees from the war have been allowed onto US shores.

BAGHDAD (AFP) — US and Iraqi troops stepped up a massive offensive against suspected Al Qaeda strongholds northeast of Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 30 alleged insurgents, the US military said.

RAMALLAH (AP) — Addressing the Palestinian people for the first time since the Hamas takeover of Gaza, President Mahmoud Abbas angrily lashed out at the Islamic fighters Wednesday, accusing them of trying to build an “empire of darkness” in Gaza and pledging he would not talk to “murderous terrorists”.

Kavkaz Center source reports with reference to the Chechen command about clashes in the southern regions of the country. The source reported that this is not a complete summary of the fighting and sabotage operations.

The Committee on the Protection of Rights of Forced Migrants has learned that on June 17, in the village of Surkhakhi, armed people in masks broke into the courtyard of the Aushev family, where three families lived.

Two dozen boys have been found starved and neglected at a government-run orphanage for special needs children in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

Among the impoverished Iraqi refugees queuing for food aid at a Catholic charity in Damascus stands 65-year-old Hirmiz Hanna, puzzled and upset at his fate.