World Scene

LEBANON

Report says Hezbollah fired cluster bombs

BEIRUT — A rights group reported yesterday for the first time that Hezbollah fired cluster bombs at civilian areas in northern Israel during their summer war, although the number of strikes was a fraction of what Israel dropped on Lebanon.

Human Rights Watch said three Israeli civilians were injured when at least two cluster munitions landed among three homes in the Galilee village of Maghar on July 25.

The New York-based group and the United Nations have accused Israel of firing as many as 4 million cluster munitions into Lebanon, leaving unexploded ordnance that still threatens civilians. Since the Israel-Hezbollah war ended Aug. 14, these duds have killed 20 Lebanese civilians and wounded 120, most of them children.

BRITAIN

Muslim teaching aide wins suit over veil

LONDON — A Muslim teaching assistant suspended after she refused to remove a veil during lessons won a victimization suit yesterday against her school.

But Aishah Azmi, 24, who had insisted on wearing a niqab — a veil that leaves only her eyes visible — during lessons, lost two key claims of discrimination and harassment against the employer.

Her case had become the center of a wide-ranging debate over the decision of some Muslim women to wear full veils. Prime Minister Tony Blair said he backed the local education authority’s decision to suspend Miss Azmi from her job at a school in Dewsbury in northern England.

GAZA STRIP

Fatah, Hamas agree to quell violence

GAZA CITY — Officials from Fatah and Hamas agreed today to take steps to end violence between the two rival Palestinian movements, whose confrontations have raised fears of civil war.

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said an Egyptian security delegation had brokered the talks, which took place in the coastal strip.

“These efforts have been crowned by an agreement between Hamas and Fatah to stop tensions between the two sides and to bring the security situation under control,” Mr. Barhoum said.

BRITAIN

London mayor wins appeal on remark

LONDON — London Mayor Ken Livingstone is free to express his views even if they are offensive, a High Court judge said yesterday, ruling that a disciplinary body was wrong to decide he had violated the city’s code of conduct by comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi camp guard.

The verdict in Mr. Livingstone’s appeal was an important victory for the outspoken politician, who fought an expensive, yearlong legal battle against the panel. High Court Justice Andrew Collins two weeks ago quashed the board’s order that Mr. Livingstone be suspended from office for four weeks.

Many Londoners were puzzled by the popular mayor’s refusal to apologize for his comments to Evening Standard reporter Oliver Finegold, a move that likely would have settled the matter quickly.

RUSSIA

Mayoral candidate killed in Far East

MOSCOW — A mayoral candidate in a town in Russia’s Far East was fatally shot yesterday as he left his campaign headquarters.

Dmitry Fotyanov was shot in Dalnegorsk, a small town about 5,750 miles east of Moscow. Police said attackers used an assault rifle equipped with a silencer, firing from a vehicle parked nearby. Rossiya state TV said the killers later burned the vehicle they had used.

There have been several high-profile killings in Russia in recent weeks, including those in Moscow of a top Central Bank inspector and investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya.

From wire dispatches and staff reports