Former Pink Floyd singer to perform in Beirut and Dubai in April

BEIRUT, Feb 17 (AFP) - British cult singer and former Pink Floyd leader Roger Waters will perform in the Middle East for the first time in April, with three-hour concerts in Beirut and Dubai, organisers said Sunday. A spokesman for Buzz Productions, which is organising the event in Lebanon said that the show in front of 7,000 people in Beirut will also be the first "surround sound" concert in the Middle East.

Waters, who is due to kick off his In The Flesh 2002 World Tour in South Africa on February 28, is expected to sing all the greatest hits of his career with Pink Floyd and as a solo artist.

Washington fears Hezbollah attack on Shebaa Farms: Lebanese official

BEIRUT, Feb 16 (AFP) - The United States has told Lebanon it fears that Hezbollah may launch a military strike on the disputed, Israel-controlled Shebaa Farms in the coming days, a Lebanese ministerial source said Saturday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP a US diplomat in Beirut spoke about the subject with a senior Lebanese foreign ministry by telephone on Friday.

The US diplomat said his government believed that the Shiite fundamentalist Hezbollah could launch an operation to mark the anniversary of the death of its former general secretary, Abbas Mussawi, killed in an Israeli air raid on southern Lebanon on February 17, 1992.

The diplomat called on the Lebanese government to contribute to maintaining calm in southern Lebanon. Commenting on this report, a Hezbollah spokesman told AFP that the telephone call was "inspired by Israel." He said it was Israel that was stepping up "provocations," particularly by almost daily violations of Lebanese air space, and that Hezbollah "reserves the right to reply to that and to continue the struggle against the (Israeli) occupation at the opportune moment, and with adequate means."

Earlier this month, a Hezbollah official said that anti-aircraft fire by the group on Israeli jets violating Lebanese airspace was part of a new strategy to force the Jewish state to end its overflights. The comment followed Israeli army shooting at shepherds grazing their animals in southern Lebanon -- the third such incident in a fortnight.

Hezbollah regularly attacks the Israeli army in the Shebaa Farms, seized by Israel from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and now claimed by Beirut with the support of Damascus. Hezbollah's last attack was ib January 23, when it bombarded an Israeli position and the Israeli air force replied with a raid on a Lebanese border area. There were no casualties on either side. Washington classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation and has called unsuccessfully on Lebanon to freeze the group's assets.

Lebanon blasts World Court ruling that may block Sharon trial

BEIRUT, Feb 15 (AFP) - Lebanon criticised Friday the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an arrest warrant ruling which could block the trial of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "There are many crimes and much terrorism (linked with Sharon) so the International Court of Justice did not adopt the required measures," Information Minister Ghazi Aridi told AFP. He said "this will undoubtedly affect negatively the action," but "this position will not stop the Lebanese action for Sharon's prosecution." On Thursday, the ICJ in The Hague, also known as the World Court, rejected a Belgian request for a warrant for the arrest of former foreign minister Adbulaye Yerodia Ndombasi from the Democratic Republic of Congo. "We are aware of the big pressures that were exerted on Belgium from the inside and from the outside, on the Belgian government and on the lawyers working on the case," Aridi said.

"This raises many questions...and we ask why this (ICJ) position and at this particular time," he said. The ruling could make it more difficult for the Belgian court to put Sharon on trial for his role in the 1982 massacres of between 800 to 2,000 people at Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

On March 6, a Belgian court is due to rule on the admissibility of the case against Sharon, lodged by survivors and relatives of victims of the 1982 massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut. The case was being brought under a 1993 law that lets Belgian courts conduct trials for war crimes, genocide or crimes against humanity, wherever in the world they took place.

In Brussels, a lawyer for a group of Palestinians suing the Israeli prime minister said the rejection of the arrest warrant by the ICJ Thursday should have no bearing on the Sharon case and vowed to pursue legal action.