WITH MDA-LEBANON-KUWAIT-AMIR) KUWAIT, Jan 16 (KUNA) -- The Ruling Al-Sabah Family received on Monday Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and an accompanying delegation of officials who expressed condolences on demise of the late Amir, HH Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.
Lahoud and the other Lebanese officials were received upon arrival at the airport, earlier today, by Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs and Minister of State for National Assembly Affairs, Mohammed Daifallah Sharar, ministers and the Lebanese ambassador to the State of Kuwait.

In Beirut, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, in a message addressed to the top Kuwaiti leaders, praised the late Amir, namely the aid granted during his era for infrastructural projects in the country, namely in southern Lebanon where Kuwait financed the reconstruction of villages, destroyed in Israeli attacks.

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has said Lebanon won't ever sign a peace agreement with Israel. Siniora was quoted Monday as saying in the Beirut daily As-Safir he "truly hopes to die before being obliged to sign one day a peace treaty with Israel." He stressed "Lebanon will not sign any peace agreement with Israel even after the liberation of the Shabaa Farms from Israeli occupation and the release of our prisoners in Israel." Lebanon and Syria say the famrs belong to Lebanon, but Israel and the United Nations say they belong to Syria.

Siniora said, "Lebanon has a truce agreement with Israel which we will revive until a just peace process in the region materializes under which the Golan Heights are returned to Syria and a Palestinian state is set up on Palestinian territory." Siniora criticized local and regional parties for doubting Lebanon's commitment to Arab causes. "No one has the right to doubt Lebanon because it is the only state which fought and is still fighting Israel for more than 35 years during which the Lebanese people suffered more than any other Arab country could bear," Siniora said.

By Lin Noueihed, BEIRUT, Jan 15 (Reuters) - A row between Hizbollah party and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt has plunged Lebanon deeper into a political crisis that has paralysed the government and divided the country along sectarian lines. In an unprecedented attack on Saturday, Jumblatt accused Shi'ite Muslim Hizbollah of hiding behind its "weapons of treachery", capping a month-old campaign against the group that is under pressure to disarm in line with a U.N. resolution. Hizbollah, close to Syria and Iran, responded with a biting attack against Jumblatt, the most outspoken critic of Syria's domination of Lebanon after the 1975-1990 civil war.

"Which are the weapons of treachery, the weapons of the resistance or those of Walid Jumblatt? The arms that liberated and protected Lebanon or those that destroyed, expelled, burned, killed and committed massacres?" it said referring to his role as a warlord during the war."If treachery was embodied as a man in these bad times, it would be Walid Jumblatt". The standoff spilled over into a public slanging match after a flurry of diplomatic efforts failed last week to reach a compromise over a U.N. inquiry that has implicated Syria in the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in February.

BEIRUT, 15 Jan 2006 (IRIN) - Disabled people in Lebanon continue to be marginalised in terms of education and employment, according to a new report released on Saturday. The study, entitled "Disability and Inclusion in Lebanon," was released by a grouping of NGOs devoted to issues concerning the disabled. Participant organisations included the Youth Association of the Blind; the Lebanese Physically Handicapped Union; the Lebanese Down Syndrome Association; and Save the Children Sweden.

"The lack of equal access to quality education has contributed to a situation where people with disabilities are often deprived of gaining basic knowledge and skills necessary to becoming full members of society," the report found. Under Lebanese Law, all children with disabilities have the right to attend regular schools. But according to local social-development specialist Sahar Tabaja,