ABC news

Saudi Arabia announced on Friday it is halting deals worth $4 billion aimed at equipping and supporting Lebanese security forces in retaliation for the tiny country's siding with Iran amid the Sunni kingdom's spat with the Shiite power.

The surprise announcement, carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, comes as deeply divided Lebanon struggles to handle the fallout from neighboring Syria's raging civil war. The Lebanese government declined to immediately comment on the Saudi decision.

One deal involves a four-year, $3 billion Saudi pledge to buy French arms for the Lebanese military, which already has seen the Mediterranean country receive modern anti-tank guided Milan missiles last year. The other involves a $1 billion support deal for the Lebanese police.

by Vanessa Newby

And so the painfully slow process of agreeing on a new president for Lebanon continues.  A breakthrough — of sorts —  was reported last month when candidate Samir Geagea announced he was pulling out of the race and would endorse his rival, Michel Aoun, potentially arresting Christian indecision over which candidate to support.  However in November last year, Sa’ad Hariri, Geagea’s longstanding ally in the Sunni-Christian political alliance — the March 14th bloc —  announced he was nominating  alternative Christian candidate Suleiman Franjieh. This has triggered another stand-off and there remain two candidates to choose from: Aoun or Franjieh.

Under Lebanese constitutional law, the president of the country must be a Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of the house a Shi’ite Muslim.  The role of speaker has long been occupied by Amal leader Nabih Berri, and, owing to the strength of the Shi’a dominated ‘March 8th‘ alliance (Amal and Hizbullah). this has never been challenged.  Currently Tamam Salam is acting as interim prime minister as a compromise candidate but he wields little influence.  A parliamentary vote is necessary to elect the new president and that is scheduled for 2 March.  The March 8th alliance has demanded agreement on a candidate from all sides before the vote and, in the absence of this, has boycotted earlier attempts to hold the vote that requires the presence of 86 lawmakers to be valid.

Michael Karam

The Lebanese tourism ministry has just released visitor figures for 2015. It appears that despite ongoing security concerns, nearly 2 million Syrians pushing Lebanon’s infrastructure to breaking point and an ongoing environmental emergency, we welcomed 1,517,927 visitors last year, an increase of more than 10 per cent on 2014.

But I’m not convinced that our tourist industry is doing that well. It is widely known that business travellers are included in the numbers, as are the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who carry foreign passports and who may be coming here for reasons other than relaxation or sightseeing. I also imagine that many of those Iraqis who we are told make up the biggest number of Arab visitors are en route to a better life in Europe.

Samir Moqbel Lebanese Defense Minister AP, Lebanon’s defense minister is urging the European Union to speed up assistance for the huge number …