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The leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has said his organization wouldn't have captured 2 Israeli soldiers in early July if he'd thought there was the slightest chance of triggering a war. Lebanon says more than 1, 100 of its nationals were killed while Israel says it lost 116 soldiers and 43 civilians. Chris Morris reports from Beirut.
Hassan Narsrallah said if he had known the scale of Israeli response, he would not have gone ahead with the operation to capture 2 Israeli soldiers on July the 12th. "Definitely not, " he said, "for humanitarian, moral, social, security, military and political reasons. " He didn't say he regretted the capture of the soldiers itself, rather he regretted the consequences and the suffering of people in Lebanon under 34 days of Israeli military bombardment. Narsrallah also said that the contacts had begun for an exchange of prisoners between Hezbollah and Israel. Without revealing details, he said that both Italy and the United Nations had expressed interest in helping to mediate.
Meanwhile, the prominent American civil rights activist and church leader Jesse Jackson has called on Syria to use its influence with Hezbollah to secure the release of the 2 Israeli soldiers. Syria is one of Hezbollah's main supporters. Mr. Jackson urged the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to persuade Hezbollah to free the pair.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, 2 western journalists who were freed on Sunday after being held in hostage for almost 2 weeks in the Gaza Strip have said it would be a great tragedy for the Palestinians if their abductions scared the western media away from covering events there. The men, a New Zealander and an American, said they had been forced by their captors to record a video statement, showing them saying they converted to Islam and criticizing western policies in the Muslim world. The Palestinian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ahmad. S, welcomed the journalists' release.
"We are so happy to have them released and it is very important for us, because it was a really shame to have them kidnapped in our territory. "
You are listening to the World News from the BBC.
There have been a series of bomb and gun attacks across Iraq. About 50 people have been killed. The violence comes as American and local forces continue an operation to reduce insurgent and sectarian violence. Jim Shore reports from Baghdad.
Two explosions were heard on Sunday morning in Baghdad. The first victim has died in a car bomb blast outside the offices of the government newspaper Al-Sabah. Not long after that, a Mercedes minibus pulled up outside the Palestine Hotel, near the centre of Baghdad, and exploded a few seconds later. The explosion rattled windows within a radius of about a kilometre and was followed by bursts of automatic gunfire. Later in the day there was a bombing followed by multiple shootings at a market in the town of Al Khalis, north of Baghdad, and an attack by a suicide bomber on a motorcycle in the southern port city of Basra. There were 3 separate explosions in Kirkuk in the north of Iraq.
The Jordanian Parliament has approved the country's first anti-terrorism law. Its definition of acts of terror includes recruiting for or financing terrorist organizations and the manufacture or transportation of material that could be used in attacks. The time during which suspects can be detained without access to a lawyer is more than doubled to 30 days.
A plane has crashed shortly after taking off from the American city of Lexington, Kentucky. The authorities in the mid-western states say only one person survived the accident. He's in a critical condition in hospital. Reports say the plane burst into flames after coming down near the airport. The plane was operated by Comair, a subsidiary of Delta Airlines, and was flying from Lexington to Atlanta. The President of Comair Don Bornhorst conveyed his regret and said the company was determined to find out what happened.
"We are absolutely, totally committed to do everything humanly possible to determine the cause of this accident. On behalf of the 6, 400 members of the Comair team, I cannot adequately express to you the sadness about this accident and the deep concern for everyone that's involved, my thoughts and prayers and the thoughts and prayers of the entire Comair team are with them. "
A new study of developing countries that sit on the United Nations Security Council shows most of them can expect significant economic benefits during their tenure, particularly from the United States. The research studied by 2 economists from Harvard University in America suggests this is because the US seeks to influence the way such nations' vote. The figures show a developing country can expect during its 2-year term on the Council and increase in US aid of almost 60% and an 8% rise in UN development aid.
And that's the latest. BBC World News.
Words and Expressions: tenure - Tenure is the period of time during which someone holds an important job.
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