BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanon’s Maronite bishops warned on Wednesday that the deadlock between the ruling coalition and the opposition over the presidential poll due next week was threatening the unity of the country. The persistence of both sides to stick to their position is placing the country in a big crisis and complete paralysis," said the bishops of the largest Christian community in Lebanon where the president is traditionally a Maronite.

"It is obstructing the democratic regime … and leading Lebanon into unprecedented divisions," they said in a statement. "We reiterate our call for unity so the election can be carried out on time according to the constitution."Despite international pressure for the election to go ahead, officials say parliament speaker Nabih Berri is expected to postpone for a third time a special session planned for next Monday to elect a new president.

BEIRUT: Hopes rose for an end to the power struggle in Lebanon on Thursday after two days of talks in Paris between parliamentary majority leader MP Saad Hariri and the head of the opposition Reform and Change bloc, MP Michel Aoun. "Meetings are going very well and will continue," Hariri said before leaving the French capital after a third meeting with Aoun.Speaker Nabih Berri called Hariri while he was in Paris to inquire about the latest developments, as well as to mark the occasion of the birthday of the MP’s father, slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Hariri told reporters before leaving Paris that consensus on who will take over the presidency when incumbent Emile Lahoud’s term ends on November 24 would continue to be a subject for "upcoming meetings." Thursday’s talks, he added, focused on the international court that will try suspects in the assassinations of of his father and others.Hariri said he had asked for a "united national stance" from the opposition against the series of assassinations that have plagued the country for much of the past two years.

A joint statement released by Aoun and Hariri prior to Thursday’s talks said they were focusing on finding solutions to the political deadlock that has paralyzed Lebanon for almost a year. The statement said the talks were characterized by "a high spirit of responsibility regarding the serious circumstances encountered by Lebanon at the political, security and economic levels."

by Lamia Radi, BEIRUT (AFP) – Wanted: Angelina Jolie’s luscious lips or Lebanese sex bomb Haifa Wehbe’s nose or breasts. Clutching pictures of their idols, Arab women are flocking to Lebanon which has become a hub for plastic surgery in the Middle East. The boom in plastic surgery started in 2000 in Lebanon, which then became THE destination for ‘plastic surgery tourism’ in the Middle East," plastic surgeon Tony Nassar, who owns the Brazilian Esthetic Clinics in Beirut, told AFP.