JERUSALEM – The Israeli army is set to unveil a massive stink bomb as a nonlethal means to disperse crowds, the Ma’ariv daily reported on Wednesday. Initial trials of ingredients of the ‘Skunk’ bomb showed that only a few drops of odor can cause an unbearable stench and can also make clothes smell for five years. JORDAN SEIZED IRAQI ARTIFACTS

AMMAN – The head of Jordan’s department of antiquities said on Tuesday it seized 1,050 Iraqi artifacts after the US-led invasion. Fawwaz Al Kharisha was quoted in the daily Al Arab as saying that among the artifacts seized last April was an oil painting of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and his family members. SYRIANS ATTACKED IN SOUTH LEBANON

BEIRUT – A hand grenade tossed into a room injured four Syrian construction workers in south Lebanon, reports said on Monday. Police are investigating whether the incident was triggered by local dismay over the influx of cheap, though unskilled, Syrian laborers who are competing with the local workers. 13 NEPALESE HELD HOSTAGE

KATMANDU, NEPAL – Nepal confirmed on Monday that 13 of its citizens have been taken hostage in Iraq, the BBC reported. Pictures of the migrant laborers have appeared on the website of the Army of Ansar Al Sunna Muslim group. TELEPHONE EXCHANGE BOMBED IN LEBANESE REFUGEE CAMP

AIN EL HELWEH, LEBANON – A bomb exploded near a telephone exchange in a south Lebanon refugee camp on August 21, without causing any casualties. It appeared to be a criminal attack rather than politically motivated, a Palestinian source said. IRAN HANGS THREE TRAFFICKERS

TEHRAN – Three Iranian men convicted of drug and arms trafficking have been hanged in a square in the historic city of Kerman in southeast Iran, the conservative Jomhuri Eslami daily reported on August 21. Some 3,500 kilos (nearly 7,700 pounds) of opium and morphine, 11 Kalashnikovs, and other weapons that were in possession of the last two were seized, the report said. SUDAN PRESENTS LIST OF 30 DARFUR MILITIAMEN

KHARTOUM – The Sudanese government has given the UN Human Rights Commission a list of 30 members of state-sponsored militias in Darfur who are suspected of serious abuses, including rape, Khartoum dailies said on Sunday. The list was the first concrete admission by Khartoum of major rights violations by its militia allies in Darfur. RELATIVES OF PRISONERS IN ISRAEL HOLD PROTEST

AMMAN – Dozens of relatives and friends of Jordanian prisoners held in Israeli jails staged a sit-in outside UN headquarters in the Jordanian capital on Monday to press for their release. According to Jordan some 70 Jordanian citizens are held in Israeli jails. HUNGER STRIKERS HOSPITALIZED IN INDONESIA

JAKARTA – Ten Afghans have been hospitalized in Indonesia after a two-week hunger strike to protest a UN decision denying them refugee status. Thirty-nine Afghan migrants were stranded in Indonesia more than two years ago after being intercepted on their way to Australia. ISLAMIC GROUP VOWS BLOODSHED IN ALSALVADOR

DUBAI – An Islamic extremist group vowed on Sunday to carry out attacks inside AlSalvador if the Latin American state fails to accept a deadline to pull out troops from Iraq, an Islamist website said. On August 16, the extremist group gave AlSalvador 20 days to pull out its military contingent from Iraq. YEMEN ARMY STORMS PREACHER’S HOME

SANAA – Soldiers stormed the home of a rebel Muslim preacher in northern Yemen on Sunday and detained 200 of his followers in the surrounding area, as part of a campaign to catch Sheikh Hussein Badr Eddin Al Huthi and his followers, military sources said. Huthi was not at home during the operation. US-LED TROOPS KILL FAMILY MEMBERS AT CHECKPOINT

KABUL – US-led soldiers killed three civilians when they opened fire on a vehicle carrying six family members which attempted to run a checkpoint in southern Afghanistan, the US-led military on Sunday. SEVEN KILLED IN ALGERIA

ALGIERS – Five soldiers and two intelligence agents were killed on Tuesday in an attack by Muslim extremists on a government patrol in eastern Algeria, security sources said. Some 30 armed militants attacked a military surveillance patrol in the province of Boumedras, east of Algiers. MAN BURNED AFTER TORCHING MARINES’ VAN

MIAMI – A Florida man suffered severe burns on Wednesday when he torched a US Marines’ van when told that his son was killed in Iraq. When marines informed Carlos Arredondo, 44, that his 20-year-old son had died in Najaf he grabbed a can of fuel and rushed to the van and set it alight. “He was inside the vehicle when it was engulfed in flames,” a police spokesman said. MUSLIM SCHOLAR AT CENTER OF US STORM

SOUTH BEND, IND, USA – The University of Notre Dame in Indiana is asking US authorities not to bar renowned Islamic Swiss scholar Tariq Ramadan from its faculty despite protests from Jewish groups. The Department of Homeland Security revoked a visa it granted to Muslim moderate Ramadan, the Chicago Tribune reported on Tuesday. In 1928 Ramadan’s grandfather founded the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that spawned many militant

Islamic groups. GANDHI GRANDSON TO CALL FOR REMOVAL OF BARRIER

AMMAN – Arun Gandhi, a grandson of Indian nationalist and pacifist Mahatma Gandhi, was in Jordan on Monday to urge Israel to tear down the West Bank barrier where it cuts into Palestinian territory, in accordance with the rulings of the court in The Hague in July, said Hisham Awad, a member of the Arab Group for Protection of Nature which invited Arun Gandhi to Jordan. ISRAELI SETTLER EVACUATION COMMITTEE UP AND RUNNING

JERUSALEM – A Jerusalem-based Israeli government committee responsible for overseeing the evacuation of settlements in the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank started operating on Sunday. The 10-member committee, known as SELA — a Hebrew acronym for Aid for Gaza Strip Residents — is part of Ariel Sharon’s controversial plan to ‘disengage’ from the Palestinians. The committee will also be responsible for compensating settlers removed from their homes by the September 2005 deadline. YEMEN’S LIMBURG TRIAL VERDICT SET

SANAA – A court in Sanaa was expected to deliver its verdict on Saturday in the trial of 15 militants charged with the 2002 bombing of the French supertanker Limburg and other attacks. The court decision was announced at a hearing on August 21, prompting a defense lawyer, Fouad Al Dabei, to protest that the final hearing was set prematurely to end the trial quickly before irregularities and violations perpetrated against the defendants could come to light.