Baghdad  - US commander in Iraq General David Petraeus said on Thursday he would call for the pullout of US troops from Baghdad within 10 months because of declining violence in the Iraqi capital.

Petraeus told reporters in Baghdad he recommended the withdrawal of troops from Baghdad in a report to be submitted to Congress in two weeks, citing "increasing capabilities of Iraqi forces to conduct security operations without the help of US troops in most of Iraqi areas," the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported.

Beirut  - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed Thursday that his country will not abandon Lebanon's Shiite resistance movement Hezbollah.

Assad in an exclusive interview with Hezbollah-run al-Manar Television said "we do not see any interest in abandoning the resistance (Hezbollah). Our position toward the resistance against any occupation in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine is firm and has not changed."

Dubai  - Dubai launched Wednesday an initiative aimed at providing preventive eye care for over one million people in an effort to eradicate blindness.

The ruler of the booming Gulf emirate, Mohamed bin Rashed al-Maktoum, said in a statement read on his behalf at the launch of the initiative that he would fund treatment for people in the United Arab Emirates and the world.

Washington 

Havana  - Hurricane Gustav hit Cuba like an atomic bomb last weekend, said the island's ailing former leader Fidel Castro.

In a commentary published under his name in the Communist Party daily Granma on Wednesday, Castro said the storm caused damages estimated at many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

This amount would be needed only to satisfy the most elementary needs of the population, the 82-year-old former president said under the headline "A Nuclear Blow."