Middle Orient

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A draft Security Council resolution on ending the war between Israel and Hizbollah would only complicate the crisis and result in “grave ramifications” for Lebanon and the entire region, Qatar’s foreign minister said Tuesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Four separate roadside bomb attacks killed at least 19 people in Baghdad on Tuesday, police sources said, as US troops made new efforts to try to rid the capital of powerful factions and insurgents.

RAMALLAH — A three-month-old baby and a 26-year-old man were wounded early Tuesday when an Israeli tank shell hit their house in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.

BEIRUT — The embattled Lebanese government was Tuesday hoping an offer to deploy its troops to the international border would secure Israel’s agreement to ceasefire and withdraw its troops from the south.

DAMASCUS (AFP) — When Hizbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah launched “Operation Kept Promise” the day after his fighters captured two Israeli soldiers to use in a prisoner swap, little did he know the same name would be bestowed on a newborn refugee girl two weeks later in Damascus.

UNITED NATIONS — The Israeli air strike on the Lebanese town of Qana may be part of a larger pattern of violations of international law in the war between Israel and Hizbollah, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report.

TYRE — In his spacious sun-splashed apartment in Tyre’s old city, surrounded by a dozen grandchildren and feasting on generous portions of lamb, Tawfiq Bahr, like many of his Shiite brethren, has seen his lot improve since his youth.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Seyed Yahya Rahim Safavi said there are well-established indications that the US Great Middle-East Plan has come to failure. Addressing a general convention

Pakistan‘s former army chief predicts all Muslim countries will have Islamic gov’ts   Pakistan’s former chief of army staff, (Ret’d) Gen Aslam Beg, has predicted that pure Islamic governments would emerge in almost all Islamic countries, including Pakistan, after some years.   He said that dictators of Islamic states are …

Already this year, the number of non-Mexican apprehensions has far outpaced last year’s total in just eight months. And while they are still a relatively small percentage compared with the number of illegal Mexicans, critics say the federal government’s policy in dealing with them is far more dangerous.