Egypt’s toppled president Mohammed Morsi stood inside a glass-encased metal cage today, separated from other defendants for the start of a new trial over charges concerning prison breaks during the country’s 2011 revolution.

A British charity has suspended plans to deliver aid to Syria because of the worsening violence in Lebanon.

Israel failed to achieve all its objectives in its summer war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, the Israeli army chief admitted today, but he rejected calls to resign as a result.

Lebanon began to bid farewell to an assassinated young Christian politician today, and his anti-Syrian allies sought to turn an expected huge turnout at his funeral into a massive show of force against opponents led by the militant Shiite Muslim Hezbollah and their Syrian backers.

Israeli warplanes blasted runways at the main army air base in eastern Lebanon near Syria’s border today, police said, an attack that could draw the Lebanese army into Israel’s war with Hezbollah guerrillas.