RAMALLAH, Jul 12, 2010 (IPS) - Israeli intelligence has warned that a new war with Hezbollah on Israel's northern border with Lebanon cannot be ruled out, following heightened tensions between United Nations peacekeeping forces and Hezbollah supporters in the south of Lebanon.

"Israel has to be ready for any sudden provocation or outbreak of hostilities," Dan Diker from the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs tells IPS. "The same way the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war was triggered over Hezbollah capturing Israeli soldiers."

In 2006 Hezbollah guerillas captured several Israeli soldiers after laying ambush along the border. This led to the second Israel-Lebanon war which lasted just over a month until UN Resolution 1701 brought hostilities to an end.

Dr Samir Awad from Birzeit University near Ramallah, however, thinks the possibility of a military confrontation in the near future is slim, and that the current flare-up has more to do with internal Lebanese politics.

"Neither side wants war at this stage. Both Israel and Hezbollah are unwilling to pay the high price of a new and bloody conflict. The events in the south are related to a power struggle in the Lebanese government," Awad tells IPS.

BOGOTÁ, Jul 11, 2010 (IPS) - The so-called para-politics, para-institutions and para-economy in Colombia "have their place in the dock" among the accused, said eight former leaders of ultra-right armed paramilitary groups, now demobilised and charged with crimes against humanity in the nation's decades-long civil war.

From prison, the eight sent a letter last week to those who were once among their potential military targets: the leaders of the centre-left Alternative Democratic Pole (PDA), Gustavo Petro, former presidential candidate for that party, and Iván Cepeda, congressman-elect and spokesperson for the Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE).

What prompted the letter was a meeting between Petro and Colombia's conservative president-elect, the former Defence minister Juan Manuel Santos, who has declared he will set up a "government of national unity."

AFP - The International Criminal Court added genocide Monday to the list of charges against Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir, after issuing a warrant for his arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity last year.
   
"The Chamber finds that there is sufficient evidence to establish reasonable grounds to believe that (Omar al-Beshir) is criminally responsible ... for those charges of genocide," said a court decision published on Monday.
   
The ICC's appeals chamber ordered judges in February to rethink their decision to omit genocide from a warrant issued for the Sudanese leader's arrest in March 2009.

AFP - Japan's premier faced an uphill battle Monday to push through promised reforms, from reviving the economy to whittling down massive public debt, after his party's electoral mauling at the weekend.
   
Naoto Kan, who took office just a month ago as Japan's fifth leader in four years, suffered a heavy blow when his centre-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) lost the upper house of parliament in an electoral rout Sunday.
   
The result, worse than predicted by opinion polls and pundits, signalled that the world's number two economy is in for another stretch of weak leadership as it seeks to end two decades of economic stagnation.

An Israeli military investigation has concluded that flawed intelligence and poor planning led to the lethal interception of a flotilla of ships attempting to break the blockade of Gaza.

The 150-page report does not blame the commandos who opened fire, killing nine Turkish activists, after being confronted by pro-Palestinian demonstrators during the raid.

Iran's state media say an Iranian nuclear scientist has taken refuge in Pakistan's embassy in Washington and is seeking an immediate return to his homeland.  The scientist, Shahram Amiri, went missing during a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, where Iran says he was captured and handed over to U.S. intelligence agents - a claim the United States denies.

The latest twist in Amiri's case follows conflicting accounts, reportedly by the scientist himself, that he had been kidnapped and tortured by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency or, conversely, he was in the United States for academic studies.

Amiri had been working for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, which the United States and other countries suspect is trying to develop nuclear weapons - a charge Tehran denies.