KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s top anti-drug judge had received phone calls and text messages before he was murdered warning him to acquit a suspected drug dealer or face death, a spokesman for the anti-drugs tribunal said on Friday.

The leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon has acknowledged that his group was responsible for the shooting down last week of a Lebanese army helicopter.

The United Nations has launched an initiative to have the marshlands of southern Iraq listed as a world heritage site.