amputation

was a new vile act by Islamists who have taken control of the north. Meanwhile, officials from the West African bloc Eocowas have started talks with the African Union and the United Nations in the Malian capital Bamako on a possible military intervention and taking the north back.

The United States has launched a clean-up operation in Vietnam to help rid the country of chemicals sprayed on the country's jungles during the war 50 years ago. Dioxin left from the chemical

defoliant

Agent Orange has sipped into Vietnam's soil and water courses. Jonathan Head reports from Bangkok.

The area, where this work has started, is a small just a corner of the airfield in Danang one of principal US airbases during the Vietnam war where Agent Orange was stored. But it is symbolically important. 51 years after US forces began spraying Agent Orange and other defoliants to deny Vietnamese Communist force's shelter in the country's forests. This is the first time the US government has agreed to run a project to

neutralize

the effects of the chemicals which are the suspected cause of millions of birds defects.

The Lebanese authorities have detained a former cabinet minister Michel Samaha, who has been outspoken in his support for the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Lebanese media reports suggest that his arrest is connected to a seizure of explosives that may have been intended for use in north of Lebanon.