(MENAFN) According to central bank statistics, Lebanon’s public debt grew to $33.8 billion by the end of July from $33.3 billion a month earlier, Reuters reported. Total external borrowing rose $59.1 million to reach $18.37 billion at the end of July, the bank said in its monthly bulletin. Domestic debt rose $468 million to reach […]

 By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer Tue Oct 4,11:29 AM ET,  BEIRUT, Lebanon – Lebanon’s government appointed a new security chief Tuesday, replacing a powerful general implicated in the assassination of the former prime minister as authorities attempt to tackle a deterioration in law and order.  The appointment came after months of political wrangling among factions in the half-Christian, half-Muslim Cabinet. The government has been trying to oust pro-Syrian officials, who are blamed for increasing lawlessness in the capital.The government postponed a decision on a long-awaited plan to overhaul the security services amid continuing discussions on whether to dissolve an intelligence gathering agency or simply name a new commander for it. In the most prominent of several appointments, the Cabinet appointed army Brig. Gen. Wafiq Jizzini to head the Interior Ministry’s General Security Department.

 BEIRUT, Lebanon (UPI) — A Lebanese man killed in a land dispute between two Syrian and Lebanese border villages was buried Monday.Khaled Bridi, 40, was slain Sunday in the outskirts of his village Arsal, in Lebanon`s eastern Bekaa valley on the border with Syria, when gunmen from the Syrian village of Falita crossed the border […]

 BEIRUT (Reuters) – A U.N. team investigating the killing of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri will ask for an extension of its mandate until mid-December, the Lebanese premier said on Sunday.A U.N. team led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis is due to report to the Security Council by October 25 on the February assassination which plunged Lebanon into its worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.The Security Council has already extended the inquiry’s original three-month deadline once but Mehlis now looks set to ask for more time.

"I think (Mehlis) will take all the necessary measures so his mission continues until December 15, which was the period originally assigned to him by the Security Council," Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told reporters, giving no explanation. The Security Council ordered the U.N. investigation after a fact-finding mission concluded Lebanon was incapable of conducting a credible inquiry of its own.It gave Mehlis three months but he was allowed to ask for a maximum of three extra months, taking the probe to mid-December.