AP, Baghdad
Continuous violence has left at least 670 Iraqis dead in February, of whom about two-thirds were civilians, the United Nations said.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, known as UNAMI, put the number of the killed civilians at 410, a figure which according to U.N. methodology includes the federal police, civil defense forces and personal security details. The rest were security forces, including Kurdish peshmerga and paramilitary troops.
Vietnam hit by worst drought in 90 years
AFP, Hanoi
Vietnam is suffering its worst drought in nearly a century with salinisation hitting farmers especially hard in the crucial southern Mekong delta, experts said Monday.
“The water level of the Mekong River has gone down to its lowest level since 1926, leading to the worst drought and salinisation there,” Nguyen Van Tinh, deputy head of the hydraulics department under the Ministry of Agriculture, told AFP.
Jordan raid kills 8 militants
AP, Amman
A government spokesman confirmed Wednesday that an arrest raid and shootout in Jordan’s third largest city targeted a militant group.
Mohammed Momani told state media that the operation late Tuesday in the city of Irbid left eight dead, including seven wanted men and a member of the Jordanian security forces.
Hezbollah sees new struggle in Lebanon
Reuters, Beirut
Hezbollah said on Tuesday that Lebanon had been pushed into a new phase of political conflict by Saudi Arabia but was not on the brink of civil war and its government of national unity should survive.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Iranian-backed group, also stepped up criticism of Saudi Arabia, accusing it of directing car bombings in Lebanon, an arena for sectarian-tinged Iranian-Saudi rivalry that is escalating across the Middle East.
Two Palestinians killed in West Bank
Reuters, Jerusalem
Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinian teens who had attacked an Israeli settler at his home in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, the military said, as a wave of heightened violence entered its sixth month.
“There were two young guys, teenagers, terrorists, at my door, dressed in dark clothes and holding wooden clubs,” the Israeli man, Roee Harel, from the Eli settlement near the Palestinian city of Nablus, told Army Radio.
Malaysia customs seizes 159 kg ivory
AFP, Kuala Lumpur
Malaysian authorities said on Wednesday they had confiscated 159 kilograms (350 pounds) of ivory smuggled by air passengers, the latest seizures in a country used as a key Asian transit point in the illegal trade.
Customs officials, who said the haul was worth $382,200, displayed the seized elephant tusks at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
