Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday
he plans to go to Cyprus on board a government plane to help evacuate Canadians from Lebanon.
Other countries, including Mexico, Turkey, Bulgaria and Denmark
also went on with the evacuation of their citizens from Lebanon on Wednesday.
With still no sign of a ceasefire in sight,
international diplomatic efforts continued to help end the current crisis in the
Middle East.
The European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Javier
Solana said Wednesday that the EU, along with the concerned parties, would try
its best to end the current crisis in the Middle East as soon as possible.
"We have a sentiment of tragedy, which urges all of
us to do all we can to stop what was going on as soon as possible," Solana told reporters after meeting with
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Gaza city over the intensive Israeli
offensives in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan will address
the Security Council Thursday on the situation in the Middle East, UN
Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown announced Wednesday.
The secretary-general "didn't want the deteriorating
humanitarian situation in Lebanon and Gaza to go unnoted by us in the meantime,"
Brown told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
Solana were reportedly to go to meet in New York on Thursday with
Annan, who has proposed the creation of an international force to
restore calm in Lebanon.
Expressing concerns about the humanitarian situation
in Lebanon, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said
perpetrators in the conflict could be held accountable for war crimes.
Enditem
Special
Report>>
Special
Report: Foreigners evacuated from
Lebanon
