It was the early hours of April 26, 1986 and operators at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Soviet republic of Ukraine were to carry out an electrical power test at reactor number four.

The test, which repeated one carried out the previous year, was to take advantage of a planned shutdown of the reactor for routine maintenance and the lowering of its power had already started the previous afternoon.

Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, son of the Libyan leader who is battling a rebellion, claimed "we didn't commit any crime against our people," in an interview with The Washington Post reported Sunday.

The 38-year-old Saif Gadhafi told the Post in an hour-long interview in Tripoli that evidence of Libyan forces firing on anti-government demonstrators is false, likening it to reports of pre-war Iraq hiding weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. Special Middle East Peace Envoy's assistant, Frederick Hoff, paid a quick visit to Beirut on Thursday during which he met with a delegation from the army command to discuss matters related to the Lebanese-Israeli maritime border and the security situation in southern Lebanon, reported the daily An Nahar Friday.

The military delegation informed him that Lebanon is entitled to demarcate its maritime border, and therefore it has no intention to relinquish this right, said As Safir on Friday.

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams hoped on Monday that a new government would be formed in a few weeks’ time in order for it to tackle the recent security unrest in the country, among other matters.

He said after holding talks with Caretaker Interior Minister Ziad Baroud that this issue should be at Lebanese politicians’ main concern.

U.N. investigators have found more than 100 bodies in the past 24 hours in western Ivory Coast in what appeared to have been ethnically driven killings, the U.N. human rights office said Friday.

"The human rights team investigating... in west Cote d'Ivoire found more than 100 bodies in the past 24 hours in three locations," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams held talks on Thursday with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, during which he welcomed his calls for openness and dialogue with other religions and other countries.

He said after the meeting: “I told him that the slogan of ‘Partnership and Love’ he has chosen was very timely and essential in this period of turbulence in the Arab region.”

Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo hunkered down in a bunker at his home Tuesday after being cornered by his arch rival's followers, as his own forces silenced their weapons and asked for a ceasefire.

Having resisted calls to cede power to internationally recognized president Alassane Ouattara for four months, Gbagbo was now trying to strike a deal to quit, according to the former colonial power France.

Michel Martelly, a carnival singer with a colorful past who seized the mantle of change, is Haiti's new president after storming to a landslide victory, preliminary results showed.

The 50-year-old faces the huge challenge of rebuilding the Caribbean nation, which was the poorest country in the Americas even before a January 2010 earthquake flattened the capital Port-au-Prince and killed more than 225,000 people.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a telephone conversation has asked the U.N. chief to stop U.S. and Europe "intervention" in the region, the website of his office reported on Monday.

"The intervention of some European countries and America in the regional nations increases concern and makes circumstances more complicated," Ahmadinejad was quoted as telling U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Lebanon’s ambassador to the U.N. Nawaf Salam will ask Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to deploy more U.N. troops in cities in the Ivory Coast where most Lebanese are concentrated and help them overcome the difficult conditions in the violence-torn country.

Salam told Speaker Nabih Berri during a telephone conversation that he would meet with Ban on Monday.