Wednesday, October 14, 2009 WASHINGTON: The United States has chided Turkey for canceling a NATO military exercise because Israel also was participating.Neither the Turks nor NATO has confirmed that Israel's participation in the exercises over Turkey was Ankara's reason for pulling out.State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Tuesday, however, "as to the question of whether there was a government that was invited to participate and then removed at the last minute, we think it's inappropriate for any nation to be removed from an exercise like this at the last minute."He was asked whether that was what happened and whether Israel was the spurned country. He confirmed both.Muslim Turkey's traditionally close ties with the Jewish state have cooled since the Israel-Hamas Gaza war in January.
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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