Former US President Carter to monitor Lebanon vote

An official with Jimmy Carter's Atlanta-based center announced on Tuesday that the former US president plans to visit Lebanon shortly before crucial parliamentary elections next month. Adolfo Cayuso, the center's Beirut field office director, said that Carter was planning to travel to Beirut a few days before the June 7 vote to lead the group's monitoring mission. The Carter Center is among a host of international and local missions that will monitor the election pitting Western-backed anti-Syrian groups that hold the parliamentary majority against a Hizbullah-led coalition supported by Syria and Iran.