Friday, October 30, 2009 UNITED NATIONS: United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon Thursday said that attacks on UN staff in Afghanistan are carrying out to disrupt presidential elections.He warned that the world body was vulnerable to more attacks in the week leading up to the Afghan elections and pleaded for more help to protect his staff. "We cannot do it alone," the secretary general told a crisis meeting of the UN Security Council following Wednesday's suicide attack by Taliban fighters on a UN guesthouse in Kabul that killed five UN staffers and wounded nine."We need the support of the member states," he told diplomats from the world's most powerful countries. A little over a week before Afghanistan's November 7 run-off presidential election, Ban said UN staff faced a "dramatically escalated" threat and were seen as a "soft target." "Increasingly, the UN is being targeted, in this case precisely because of our support for the Afghan elections," Ban said. The Security Council issued a statement promising "strong support for the secretary general" and saying it "commends the determination of the United Nations not to be deterred by the tragic incident and to carry on its mission in Afghanistan."
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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