“The Islamic Republic decided to pay as much as is needed on the ground.”Much of Iran’s financial support is invisible It is channeled through Hezbollah’s charity organizations. Immediately following the war, the Shiite militant group paid as much as $12,000 for each destroyed home or apartment. A large portion of this money was believed to have originated in Iran.In heavily damaged Hrat Hreik, an enclave in a southern suburb of Beirut called Dahiyeh, contractors have removed rubble, repaved roads, rebuilt sidewalks and restored electricity and running water.”We’ve done this in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program and other donor groups, especially Iran represented through the municipality of Tehran,” said Samir Dakkash, head of the local government in Hrat Hreik. “Money was directly paid to contractors, so we don’t know how much Iranians spent.”Work to rebuild apartment buildings damaged by Israeli airstrikes has also started. Often, even when pro-American donor countries and the Siniora government provide the money, Hezbollah shares the credit. Its reconstruction arm recently persuaded 70% of those who got grants from the government to funnel their cash into a project that will restore or rebuild 198 buildings under the Hezbollah banner. Elaborate plans include green spaces, parking lots and trees imported from Africa.According to its own accounting, Iran has spent $155 million in Lebanon, about $25 million more than the U.S government has sent through the U.S Agency for International Development for reconstruction.

Iran says it has rebuilt at least 149 schools, 48 mosques and churches, 10 health clinics, 64 electricity projects and 19 bridges. It continues work on nearly 100 other building and infrastructure projects. It has completed work on 504 roadways, and has 76 underway.The Lebanese government, Khoshnevis says, simply isn’t up to the job.”The Lebanese state is slow in implementing projects, and when they do the job, the cost is very high,” he said.Beirut has little choice but to accept Tehran’s help. It is neither powerful enough to prevent ministries, local officials and individuals from doing business with Iran, nor rich enough to refuse the Islamic Republic’s help.In an e-mail response to questions, Siniora’s office said that it couldn’t confirm that Iran had done everything it said it had in Lebanon, because of what it said was the Tehran regime’s lack of transparency.Most residents and officials said they understood why it was hard to rebuild quickly. But a year after the war, hard-hit areas such as downtown Bint Jbeil remain little more than piles of rubble and twisted steel.

Even those who doubt the ultimate intention of donors such as Iran are reluctant to criticize anyone helping to meet such great need.”We thank anyone who wants to help us,” said Tony Hamra, a 37-year-old grocery store operator in the southern town of Marjayoun, which is inhabited mostly by Christians. “But we aren’t thankful if they want to do something that’s not ultimately good for our country.”–daragahiRafei is a special correspondent and Daragahi a Times staff writer.. NASHVILLE, TENN. Unrelenting heat that has baked the Midwest and South for the last 10 days has killed at least 37 people, authorities said Thursday as they reminded people to stay cool and drink plenty of water.In Tennessee, the Shelby County medical examiner’s office confirmed Thursday that heat caused the death of a 53-year-old man found in his apartment Wednesday, bringing the toll in Memphis to eight.In all, 37 deaths in the South and Midwest have been confirmed as heat-related, and heat is suspected in 10 more, authorities said.In Memphis on Thursday, the mercury reached 105, a record and the seventh consecutive day of triple-digit temperatures Shelby County Mayor A.C Wharton Jr. compared the heat wave to a devastating earthquake and set up a hotline for people to report concerns and request fans.”This is pretty akin to a seismic event in the sense that there is no remedy, no solution that we here in this room can come up with that will take care of everybody,” he said.The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said Thursday that the heat caused nine deaths there and was suspected in seven more Six of the nine confirmed deaths are in St. Louis.There were also eight confirmed deaths in Illinois, four each in Arkansas and Georgia, two in South Carolina and one in Mississippi, as well as one death in Tennessee outside Memphis.In north-central Arkansas, the temperature reached 112 Wednesday in a place called Evening Shade.”It’s miserable,” said Sharp County Judge Larry Brown, the county’s chief administrative officer.Road crews were working shorter hours, “coming in early and leaving at noon. By then it’s already way over 100 anyway,” he said.At midafternoon Thursday it was 107, Brown said.

“It’s still like an oven.”In Alabama, state climatologist John R. Christy said the 10-day stretch of triple-digit temperatures was amazing. Fifty-four people were treated in Alabama hospitals Wednesday and Thursday for heat-related illnesses, State Health Officer Donald E. Williamson said.Meanwhile, in northern Indiana, the National Weather Service confirmed that two tornadoes struck late Wednesday near Argos, about 30 miles south of South Bend, causing limited damage. An estimated 36,500 homes and businesses in Lake County remained without electricity Thursday evening.. ANCHORAGE — There are generally two views here about the career trajectory of Bill J. Allen, an oilman and political wheeler-dealer who over four decades built his VECO Corp.

into one of the state’s largest and most influential companies.He was driven by greed, or by a thirst for political power.How Allen wielded his considerable influence is a major strand in a knot of political scandals that have touched both of Alaska’s U.S. senators — including longtime powerhouse Republican Ted Stevens — its sole congressman and at least six members of the Legislature.And the scandals — some overlapping, some stand-alone — have shaken the state’s small political world to its core.Allen’s relationship with Stevens is key to some of the inquiries. The VECO executive oversaw the 2000 renovation of Stevens’ home in Girdwood, a picturesque enclave about 40 miles south of Anchorage Federal agents searched the house in late July. Stevens has declined to discuss the investigation other than to say that he has done nothing wrong.But in a sign that the investigations are broadening, National Science Foundation spokesman Dana W.