Toxic waste 'dumped in Golan'

Syrian students have staged a protest in Damascus over what they say is the dumping by Israel of toxic waste on the occupied Golan Heights.

Calling for international help, they urged the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, to send a mission to investigate.

A spokesman for the protestors Medhat Saleh said barrels of paint, containing poisonous substances which could cancer or gene deficiencies, had been discovered near five Syrian villages on the Golan.

The Israeli Environment Ministry denied the allegation; it said in a statement that Israel did not dump any kind of waste on the Golan Heights.

But it added that a Golan resident, in a private deal, did store an amount of paint whose sell-by date had expired, in a Druze Arab village Majdal Shams in the area.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service