British soldiers fired plastic bullets at inmates in a British-run prison in Iraq after several guards were attacked while serving them food, a British military official said on Thursday.

Efforts to resolve the Lebanon political crisis seem to have reached a dead end. Leaders on Tuesday blamed each other for obstructing what was considered an imminent deal that would have satisfied the minimum demands of both the majority and the opposition.

Police defused a small bomb at the American University of Beirut on Thursday in what appeared to be the latest of a series of attempts to cause explosions in Lebanon, security officials said.