A bitterly divided Lebanese parliament adjourned Tuesday without officially beginning the process of selecting a new president.Two-thirds of members must attend before an official session can be held. The next session has been scheduled for October 23.Members of parliament arrived in armored convoys, traveling under the protection of security details. The downtown area was sealed off as concrete barriers diverted the normal flow of traffic.

BEIRUT (AFP) - Dozens of Lebanese lawmakers gathered under heavy security in parliament on Tuesday for a crucial session aimed at electing a president and ending a long-running crisis that has paralysed the country. Many MPs arrived at the legislature in central Beirut under heavy military escort from a nearby luxury hotel.Several MPs stood outside the building briefly and held up a banner bearing the names and pictures of six fellow lawmakers killed since 2005 in attacks The latest victim, Antoine Ghanem, was assassinated last week in a car bombing in a Beirut suburb."We were forced out, don't choose to be forced out" read the banner in a supposed message from the grave

One MP, Ghinwa Jalloul, waved a Lebanese flag from her car and held up a picture of former prime minister and MP Rafiq Hariri whose assassination in February 2005 lies at the root of the current crisis."Long live Lebanon," she shouted to reporters before entering the building.The perimetre around the imposing structure was off-limits to normal traffic after elite troops and tanks deployed in the area. Checkpoints were also set up throughout the city creating traffic jams, and many businesses were shut.Ali Bazzi, an MP with the opposition Amal movement, reiterated that his camp would only take part in Tuesday's session if the feuding political parties agreed on a consensus candidate.

But many MPs said that was unlikely to happen, and the session was expected to focus on consultations among the rival parties.Several MPs said that speaker Nabih Berri would probably adjourn Tuesday's session and call for parliament to reconvene around October 16 or 17, after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

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Khazen.org offers its deepest condoleances to the families of Antoine Ghanem, Nuhad Gharib,  Tony Daou, Charles Chikhani, Sonia Baroudi.

Times, 21 sept,  Huge crowds turned out in Beirut today for the funeral of an anti-Syrian MP whose assassination this week could derail a tense parliamentary vote to chose a new Lebanese president. Pallbearers threaded their way through a forest of Lebanese flags as they carried the coffins of Antoine Ghanem and his two bodyguards Nuhad Gharib and Tony Daou through the Furn el-Chebbak district, where the Phalange Party MP had his constituency.