"Middle East: Lebanese Businesses Cope with Deaths, Rebuilding"

NPR: All Things Considered

By: Peter Kenyon
Date: September 8, 2006

"With its land and sea blockade of Lebanon lifted, Israel remains worried about arms shipments for Hezbollah fighters crosssing over from Syria.

"But in northern Lebanon, villagers are less concerned with smugglers than with recovering from the damage done by Israel's fighter jets.

"Dozens of Syrian migrant workers were killed in one village, and Lebanon's largest milk plant was destroyed. When it was disabled, the plant was attempting to renew its contract to supply UNIFIL troops -- a contract it won over an Israelie firm several years ago."

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NOTE: The actual NPR radio broadcast indicates $12 million in damages to the milk plant, and that the Israelies lost their own lucrative contract in 2001.

NOTE TWO: Local Lebanese village people seem to have told NPR that their's was a Lebanese Christian village, and that the deceased Syrian migrants were taking a lunch break from harvesting plums.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5952716