Nasrallah reaches out to family of slain LAF helicopter plot

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday that his group will not surrender its weapons "as long as Israeli threats persist."

"These weapons will remain because they are used for defense," Nasrallah said in a televised speech during an iftar hosted by the Hizbullah Support Committee.

Nasrallah also reiterated that Hizbullah will destroy Israel if the Jewish state launches a new attack on Lebanon.

He said the Israeli administration and military were well aware that their navy and air force "failed to achieve any military victories [during the summer 2006 war] … They caused destruction but they did not succeed on the military level."

"Israel's elite military power will be destroyed in the South and in the Western Bekaa as well as in any place they might target in Lebanon," he added.

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Sleiman urges world to open up to Syria

President Michel Sleiman on Wednesday urged the international community to open up to Syria because of its key role in the region.

"The international community must open up to Syria, following the example set by France, because Syria plays a fundamental role at the regional level," Sleiman said in a statement released by the presidential palace.

He made his remarks at a meeting with an American delegation led by Deputy Assistant to the Undersecretary of State for Near East Affairs David Hale.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is set to visit Damascus on September 3 and 4 in the wake of the announcement by Syria and Lebanon that they will establish diplomatic relations for the first time.

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Israel approves new settlement construction

Israel on Thursday approved construction of 400 new homes for colonists in a Jewish neighborhood in Occupied Jerusalem and invited bids for construction of another 416 settler homes in the Occupied West Bank.

The Israeli Interior Ministry announced that a committee had approved a plan first unveiled in March to build 400 housing units in the Jewish neighborhood of Neve Yaakov, in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem.

Israeli authorities also called for bids for the construction of 286 homes in Beitar Ilit, a Jewish settlement in the Occupied West Bank, just south of Occupied Jerusalem.

They also called for bids for construction of 130 homes in Har Homa, a Jewish district in East Jerusalem,which Israel captured and annexed in 1967 in a move that has not been recognized by the international community as well as one that runs counter to international law.

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Israel transfers Fatah fugitives to West Bank

Israel sent dozens of Fatah members who had fled clashes in the Gaza Strip to the Occupied West Bank on Monday amid concern that others who returned to the Hamas-ruled territory were in mortal danger.

A total of 87 members of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' party, which was largely expelled from Gaza when Hamas seized power there in June 2007, arrived in the desert town of Jericho in the Occupied West Bank.

Israel "decided to take the humanitarian decision to transfer to Jericho 87 residents of the Shujaiya neighborhood in Gaza because of the violence carried out by Hamas," Colonel Yoav Mordechai of the Israeli army said.

"We talked with them on the bus, and we told them that Jericho and the [Occupied] West Bank are different from the Gaza Strip and that the Israeli army controls this region. They have to respect the law," he said.

The Palestinians were among more than 180 Fatah members who had fled Gaza into Israel on Saturday following the deadliest clashes with their Hamas rivals since the Islamist movement seized control of the impoverished territory.

Israeli authorities initially said they would be sent back to Gaza, but eventually decided that those not considered a security risk could be taken to the Occupied West Bank, where Abbas' forces are based.

An Israeli security official said 16 members who were hospitalized for wounds sustained in the fighting will remain in Israel until they recover.

Another 13 were being held by Israeli internal security ser vices for questioning,the official said on condition of anonymity.

The official said 60 Fatah members had been sent back to Gaza,where several were immediately detained for questioning by Hamas-run security forces.

The Defense Ministry said it halted the process when it "received information that they were being arrested by Hamas and that their lives were in immediate danger."

Hamas police spokesman Islam Shahwan had earlier said that 35 people had returned, adding that 10 of them had been arrested and the others had fled.

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Prisoner exchange raises hopes for release of Palestinian detainees

The release of five Lebanese militants in an Israel Hizbullah swap drew cheers among Palestinians Wednesday, from ordinary people to Gaza's Hamas rulers, and raised hopes that hundreds of Palestinian prisoners could soon be freed in a similar exchange.

Many also expressed glee over perceived Israeli weakness and admiration for the Lebanese resistance group's violent tactics – at the expense of the path of negotiations espoused by Palestinian leaders in the West Bank.

Israel handed over the remains of 199 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners and released five Lebanese prisoners, including Samir Kontar, who carried out a deadly 1979 attack. Hizbullah gave Israel the remains of two Israeli soldiers seized in a cross-border raid in 2006.

Israelis view Kontar as a gruesome killer they were forced to exchange for their fallen comrades.An Israeli court found that Kontar in a 1979 attack shot an Israeli man, Danny Haran, in front of his 4-year-old daughter, then killed her by striking her head with his rifle butt. Kontar denies he killed the girl and says both were slain in cross fire.

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Iran test-fires more missiles in Gulf war games

Iran test-fired more weaponry on Thursday as it continued war games, ignoring global concern over its launch of a broadside of missiles amid efforts to end the crisis over its nuclear program.

The weapons fired in the Gulf by the naval section of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps included shore-touards Web site , Iran, Israel, Gulf, Gulf war games, enemy, weapon , nucle-sea, surface-to-surface and sea-to-air missiles, state television said.

It said the war games also included firing the Hoot (Whale) torpedo that Iran unveiled in April 2006 and which it says is a hogh-speed weapon capable of hitting enemy submarines.

Iran on Wednesday test-fired its Shahab-3 long-range missile, which the Islamic Republic says can reach Israel and US bases in the Gulf, and eight other medium- and short-range missiles.

The move sparked major concern in Western governments,which say they fear Iran's nuclear drive is aimed at making atomic weapons, a charge that Tehran vehemently denies.

In a separate land exercise late on Wednesday, the military also fired "longer- and mediumrange missiles," state television said, showing several missiles being fired into the night sky.

Footage was also broadcast of the naval maneuvers, showing divers fixing mines to a pier, missiles being fired from shorebased mobile launchers and the Hoot speeding toward a target.

Washington and its regional ally Israel have never ruled out military action against Iranian atomic facilities, while Tehran has warned of a fierce response if it is attacked.

"Iran rejects the international demand to halt the enrichment of uranium and the world must respond accordingly – by increasing and intensifying the sanctions against Iran," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Thursday.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israeli public radio Iran represented a challenge for the whole world.

"Israel is the strongest country in the region and we have already shown in the past that we are not afraid of acting when our vital interests are threatened," he added.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that the United States would defend itself and its allies.

"We will defend American interests and the interests of our allies.We take very strongly our obligation to defend our allies and we intend to do that," she told reporters in Tbilisi.

There has been concern an attack against Iran could be imminent after it emerged that Israel had carried out maneuvers in Greece that were effectively dry runs for a potential strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.

The latest war games come amid increased diplomatic efforts to end the five-year standoff over the Iranian nuclear drive. Iran's response to a deal by world powers, in which it would be offered technological and economic incentives if it suspended uranium enrichment, is being analyzed by diplomats.

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Tehran test-fires long-range missile in face of mounting pressure from West

Iran on Wednesday test-fired a missile it said is capable of reaching Israel, angering the United States amid growing fears that the standoff over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program could lead to war.

The Shahab-3 was among a broadside of nine missiles fired off from an undisclosed location in the Iranian desert during maneuvers currently being staged by the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), state television showed.

"The aim of these war games is to show we are ready to defend the integrity of the Iranian nation," state-run Arabic channel Al-Alam quoted General Hossein Salami, commander of the IRGC's air force, as saying.

The United States led Western condemnation of the tests, complaining that they would reinforce suspicions over Tehran's military ambitions at a time when efforts are under way to resolve the long-running nuclear standoff.The United States carried out its own muscle-flexing in the region earlier the week, holding naval exercises in the Gulf.

Iran insists its nuclear work is aimed solely at generating energy, its right as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but the West fears the program could be aimed at making an atomic bomb and has called for a freeze of uranium enrichment.

Al-Alam said the missiles test-fired included a Shahab-3 with a one-ton conventional war head and a 2,000-kilometer range.

"Our missiles are ready for shooting at any place and any time, quickly and with accuracy," Salami warned. ‘"The enemy must not repeat its mistakes. The enemy targets are under surveillance."

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1701 report notes ‘unprecedented' Israeli air violations

Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace reached "unprecedented" levels in March and April, according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon's report on Security Council Resolution 1701 issued on Tuesday.

The violations, caused both by aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles,"occurred almost daily, at an average rate of more than 20 violations per day," Ban said.

Tuesday's was the eighth official report on Resolution 1701, which brought a cessation of hostilities in the summer 2006 war with Israel.

On April 16 alone, UNIFIL recorded 72 violations of the airspace by unmanned aerial vehicles. "The government of Israel maintains that they are necessary security measures that will continue until its two abducted soldiers are released," Ban said, referring to troops who were captured by Hizbullah on July 12, 2006.

Still no response to requests for data on locations of cluster-bomb strikes Israel used the incident as a pretext to launch the war, and the two sides are now negotiating a prisoner exchange which Hizbullah has always said was the reason for the raid.

While the swap deal was approved by the Israeli Cabinet on Sunday, Ban wrote in his report: "Owing to the sensitivity of those negotiations, I am unable to report on this issue at this time."

Resolution 1701 was passed on August 16, 2006 and was approved by the Lebanese Cabinet the next day. It called for the cessation of hostilities,the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all Lebanese territory and the disarmament of Hizbullah. It also forbids the presence of any armed force other than the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the United Nations Interim Force (UNIFIL) south of the Litani River.

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Food crisis pushes weak states toward brink of collapse - report

Weak states already close to collapse at the end of 2006 moved closer to the brink last year, even before the latest explosion of food and fuel prices that are certain to feed instability in vulnerable countries, according to the latest edition of the annual "Failed States Index" released here Monday by Foreign Policy magazine.

The Index, a collaborative effort of Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace (FFP), found that Somalia replaced Sudan as the world's most unstable country in 2007 after US-backed Ethiopian troops routed Islamist forces which had given the strife-torn East African nation its first semblance of stability in more than 15 years.

Sudan, which had topped the list for the previous two years, fell into second place,while Zimbabwe, where a government sponsored campaign of violence forced the opposition candidate Sunday to withdraw from presidential elections scheduled for later this week, moved up to third from the fourth rank it held in the 2006 Index.

Sudan's western neighbor, Chad, was ranked fourth for 2007, just above US-occupied Iraq, which last year held the second-ranked position amid indications that sectarian violence was moving the country into a full-scale civil war.

The Index's compilers credited the US "surge" – the addition of some 30,000 US troops and the adoption of a more aggressive counter-insurgency strategy – in part for Baghdad's improvement over the course of the year, although it underlined, as have US commanders and officials, the fragility of the country's advance.

"Progress in Iraq last year was negligible at best and deeply susceptible to reversal should the country suffer the kind of shock – a food shortage, a high-level assassination, an attack that unleashes ethnic hatreds – that has exposed so many states' deep vulnerabilities in recent months," according to the Index analysis published in Foreign Policy.

The Index, which is based on a dozen social, economic and political indicators, each of which is assigned a numerical score, also found major improvements in 2007 in stability for Cote d'Ivoire, which ranked eighth this year, Haiti (14) and Liberia (34),among other countries, compared to 2006.

At the same time, several key countries became substantially more insecure in 2007, according to the Index, which cited in particular Bangladesh (12), where a state of emergency has lasted nearly two years, Pakistan (9), where former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination closed out the year

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Gaza truce teeters after deadly Israeli attack in West Bank draws rocket fire

The truce between Hamas and Israel faced its most severe test yet on Tuesday after the Jewish state assassinated two members of Islamic Jihad in the Occupied West Bank and the group retaliated by launching a pair of rockets from the Gaza Strip.

One of the rockets struck the courtyard of a house in the town of Sderot, causing some damage, and another struck a field, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.He said the rockets were the first to be fired from Gaza since a truce between Israel and the strip's Hamas rulers went into effect on June 19.

A spokesman for Islamic Jihad confirmed that its fighters had carried out the attack.

"The rockets are a response to the crimes of the occupation in the West Bank," he said.

The group, which was responsible for many of the attacks launched from Gaza in the months leading up to the cease-fire, did not agree to the truce but had pledged not to violate it if Israel kept its word.

The attack, which caused no casualties, came hours after Israeli troops killed a senior Islamic Jihad fighter and another young man in the northern town of Nablus in the Occupied West Bank, which was not included in the truce. Overnight Tuesday a mortar round fired from northern Gaza hit Israel, also causing no damage.

"Any fire from the Gaza Strip is a gross violation of the understanding reached with Egypt," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev said, referring to the truce agreement.

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Sarkozy tells Israel to curb settlers, share Jerusalem

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called on Monday for a halt to Jewish settlement activity in the Occupied West Bank while also proclaiming his staunch support for Israel in an address to its Parliament.

"There can be no peace without stopping settlement," Sarkozy told MPs.

"There is a proposal backed by many members of your Knesset for the adoption of a law that would encourage settlers to leave the West Bank in exchange for compensation and relocation in Israel," he noted with approval.

Israeli authorities have announced the construction of hundreds of new homes for Jewish settlers in the Occupied West Bank in recent months, infuriating the Palestinians and drawing criticism from the international community which regards all settlements on occupied land as illegal.

Sarkozy also called for an easing of travel restrictions in the Occupied West Bank, where the army operates hundreds of road blocks which the World Bank says are a major obstacle to economic growth but which Israel insists are vital to its security.

He said the Palestinians also had to do more in order to achieve peace,saying: "There can be no peace if Palestinians themselves do not combat terrorism."

Sarkozy stressed that France was strongly committed to Israel's security. "France will always be by Israel's side when its security, its existence are threatened," he said, adding that France would consider it "unacceptable" for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

"France is determined to pursue with its partners a policy ranging from ever-tighter sanctions to an opening should Tehran opt to respect its international obligations," the French president said.

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Hamas leader leaves Cairo with no response to Israeli terms

The head of a Hamas delegation left Cairo on Monday without giving a final response to an Egyptian mediated cease-fire proposal as Palestinian President Mahmoud Ab bas voiced hope a truce could be reached in days.

Egypt's official Middle East News Agency (MENA) had said that the movement would give its final response to the truce proposal to Egyptian mediators, but later reported that the delegation's head had left Cairo.

Senior Hamas member Mussa Abu Marzuq "returned to Damascus on Monday after a three-day visit," it said.A security official on Egypt's Gazan border said less senior Gaza-based Hamas members in the delegation had not yet returned home.

The delegation met with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman,in charge of mediation efforts to break the cycle of violence in the impoverished territory, and heard what Israel had told Egypt about the truce last week, MENA reported.

In the Occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Abbas' spokesman said he hoped Israel and Hamas, which kicked his forces out of Gaza a year ago, would reach a truce within days.

"Abbas today and yesterday had a series of telephone conversations with the Egyptian leadership to support Egypt's efforts for a truce," spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said.

"During the talks, he expressed hope a truce agreement would be reached in the next days," he added.

The head of the Hamas government in Gaza, deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya, said the negotiations were drawing to a close. "We hope there will be a happy outcome for the Palestinian people."

Violence in Gaza is clouding peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians that were revived in November but have made little progress.

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Washington and Brussels warn Tehran again

US and European leaders warned Iran on Tuesday of new sanctions if Tehran refuses to halt a nuclear program the West suspects to be a covert atomic weapons drive.

"Iran with a nuclear weapon would be incredibly dangerous for world peace," US President George W. Bush said at a joint news conference after his final summit with EU leaders.

"Now's the time for all of us to work together to stop them."

The US president dismissed talk of divisions between hard line Washington and Europe, which plans a new package of diplomatic and economic incentives if Iran will verifiable halt uranium enrichment.

"We're on the same page," he declared.

He also expressed sympathy with Israeli threats of military action against the Islamic Republic if it refused to give in to Western demands.

"You'd be a little nervous too if a leader in your neighborhood announced that he'd like to destroy you," he said, a reference to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated predictions that the ruling Zionist regime in Israel was destined to disappear.

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Jewish state announces new Jerusalem land-grab

Israel will build 884 more houses in Occupied East Jerusalem, the Housing Ministry said on Sunday, in a move that enraged the Palestinians who have demanded the area as the capital of their promised state.

"We will invite tenders for the construction of 121 housing units in Har Homa and 763 others in Pisgat Zeev," ministry spokesman Eran Sidis told AFP, referring to two illegal colonies in Arab East Jerusalem.

Israel occupied and annexed the eastern half of the city after the 1967 war in a move not recognized by the international community or the Palestinians, who have demanded it as their capital in recently revived peace talks.

Sidis said the timing of the announcement was aimed at coinciding with the 41st anniversary of the conquest of Arab East Jerusalem.

Occupied Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski told public radio the move was necessary to address the "urgent need for housing for the Jewish population."

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United States presses International Atomic Energy Agency to search for nuclear sites in Syria

The United States is pressing UN inspectors to broaden a search for secret nuclear sites in Syria to check if it has other hidden facilities beyond an alleged reactor destroyed by Israel, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

US officials have given information on three suspect sites to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, which is negotiating with Syria for permission to conduct inspections in the country, the Post said, citing US government officials and Western diplomats.

US officials want to know if the suspect sites were support facilities for the alleged Al-Kibar reactor, which Washington says was built with North Korean help, the daily said.

Officials declined to describe the suspect sites or discuss how they were identified, the newspaper said.

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