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Officials in Iraq say the pressures on their country’s water and electricity systems are greater than ever. Iraq is currently in the middle of a hot summer, and the Electricity Ministry warned last week that the power grid was on the brink of collapse. David Loyn reports from Baghdad.

The long years of mismanagement under Saddam Hussein before the American led invasion of Iraq compounded by international sanctions left the country with very poor infrastructure. But in Baghdad this summer, residents complained that things are worse than they were then. Power comes for only a couple of hours a day in places and crashed completely for a day last week. The continuing threat of damage by insurgents is a challenge, but the head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in charge of reconstruction for Iraq General Michael Wash says the worst problem is the lack of diesel.

Israeli security forces have forcibly removed a number of Jewish settlers and their supporters from two homes that they’ve been occupying in the West Bank city of Hebron. Police stormed the building after the protestors barricaded themselves inside in defiance of Israeli Supreme Court ruling. Hebron is home to more than 160,000 Palestinians and several hundred Jewish settlers.

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