Source: AFP
Security & Justice
Captured Hezbollah Operative May Have Been Israeli Double Agent, Report Suggests
The alleged senior Hezbollah operative abducted by Israeli special forces last week in Batroun may have been operating as a double agent, according to a report by The Telegraph.
Monday, November 4, 2024
Lebanon’s Probe into Israeli Raid Expected to Take Days as Security Officials Weigh Theories
Lebanese authorities are ramping up investigations into an Israeli commando raid last week in the northern coastal city of Batroun, during which Imad Amhaz, a Hezbollah official, was snatched.
Monday, November 4, 2024
Opinion
The Emptying of Baalbek Is a Moment to Take Stock
“Large numbers of people continue to flee their homes every day, as Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have been going on unabated.” These disturbing words could be from almost any news report about Israel’s invasion of its northern neighbour over the past month. However, they can be found in a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre issued on July 27, 2006.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
A Future Without Hezbollah
At the end of September, when Israel’s campaign to destroy Hezbollah was reaching its height, I met one of the group’s supporters in a seaside café in western Beirut. He was a middle-aged man with a thin white beard and the spent look of someone who had not slept for days. He was an academic of sorts, not a fighter, but his ties to Hezbollah were deep and long-standing.
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Sports
Tottenham Forward Son Heung-min Crowned Asia’s International Player of the Year
Tottenham forward Son Heung-min was crowned as Asia’s International Player of the Year for the fourth time by the Asian Football Confederation at its annual awards ceremony Tuesday.
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Real Madrid Launch Investigation into Racist Insults After El Clasico Defeat
Real Madrid has launched an investigation into racist insults directed at players during Saturday’s 4-0 home loss to Barcelona in LaLiga, it said on Sunday.
Monday, October 28, 2024
Thursday 26 January 2023 16:31:26
Armenia Accuses Azerbaijan of Following ‘Policy of Ethnic Cleansing’
Armenia on Thursday accused arch-foe Azerbaijan of conducting a “policy of ethnic cleansing” and forcing ethnic Armenians to leave the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Since mid-December, a group of Azerbaijanis has been blocking the only road into Karabakh from Armenia to protest what they claim is illegal mining causing environmental damage.
As a result, the mountainous region of some 120,000 people has been running short of food, medicines and fuel.
On Thursday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused Baku of exerting “economic and psychological pressure to provoke an exodus of Armenians from Karabakh.”
“This is a policy of ethnic cleansing,” he told a cabinet meeting in the capital Yerevan.
He said kindergartens, schools and universities remained closed in Karabakh due to the blockade, with thousands of students “being denied their fundamental right to education.”
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Thursday rejected the accusation as “groundless, false, and absurd.”
He said Russian peacekeepers and the Red Cross had ensured the delivery of civilian goods to Karabakh.
“Thousands of civilian cars have entered and left Karabakh since December 12,” he told a newly appointed French ambassador.
Since December 12, Azerbaijani protesters who claim to be environmental activists opposed to illegal mining have occupied the Lachin corridor, a mountain road linking Karabakh to Armenia.
On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Aliyev to reopen the Lachin corridor, and the European Union the same day launched a mission to help monitor Armenia’s volatile border with Azerbaijan.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, ethnic Armenian separatists in Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan. The ensuing conflict claimed around 30,000 lives.
Another flare-up in violence in 2020 claimed more than 6,500 lives and ended with a Russian-brokered truce that saw Armenia cede territories it had controlled for decades.
Armenia has voiced dismay at what it sees as Moscow’s failure to prevent persisting tensions in the region including the Lachin blockade.
Moscow has sought to maintain its role as a powerbroker between the ex-Soviet republics despite being bogged down in its offensive in pro-Western Ukraine.