وديـع الخـازن في ذكرى إستشهاد الرئيس رينه معوض أدلى الوزير السابق وديع الخازن بالتصريح التالي: في ذكرى إستشهاد الرئيس رينه معوض نستذكر مواقفه الجامعة والأهداف التي سعى من أجلها في حياته وهي المصالحة الوطنية التي لا تستثني احدا وإرساء دعائم الدولة  بالعمل على نشر المساواة والعدالة الاجتماعية وتحسين العلاقات مع الاشقاء العرب.

أين اصبحنا من تحقيقها بعد ستة عشرة سنة من استشهاده؟

أين نحن من المصالحة الوطنية، من حكمة الاتفاق الوطني ووحدة الشعب والارض والمؤسسات، من نشر التضامن والعدالة والمساواة، من إستعادة السيادة الكاملة والاستقلال والقرار الحر؟ 

By Michael J. Totten, No war without Egypt. No peace without Syria." - BEIRUT - Once again Lebanon's hot southern border is a frontline in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Last week it exploded in violence as Israel was not respecting Lebanese Air Space and as Hezbollah fighters retaliates back the border into the village of Al Ghajar, inside Syria's Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. They also fired mortars and rockets at Israel's Abbassiyeh post. Israel retaliated with air strikes against the villages of Shebaa and Kfar Shouba, the Al-Mari Valley, and at Hezbollah positions outside Khiam and southeast of Tyre. Beirut's Daily Star says more than 250 explosions were reported. Israel says it was the largest counterattack inside Lebanon since the withdrawal of their occupation forces five years ago.

Several Lebanese people I know in Beirut said this is exactly what was going to happen. On October 22 UN Special Prosecutor Detlev Mehlis named high level Syrian officials as chief suspects in the assassination of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and in the wave of terrorist attacks in Beirut throughout 2005. Syria needs a distraction. Al Ghajar village, where the fighting broke out, is an odd place. One side is Lebanese. The other side is controlled by Israel. All the villagers on both sides of the border are Alawite, a minority sect -- some say heretical -- that long ago splintered off Shia Islam. Historically the village was part of Syria. The Alawites of Al Ghajar belong to the same ethnic-religious group that holds almost all the levers of power in Syria.

Beirut, 28 Nov. (AKI) - The Lebanese government is expected on Thursday to ask UN secretary general Kofi Annan to extend the 25 December deadline for the completion of a probe into the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri. Lebanese premier Fuad Siniora government's wants more time to be given to German judge Detlev Mehlis who is heading the commission of inquiry, Lebanese parliamentary sources say. An extension will enable the commission to complete the investigations and to work together with Lebanese authorities to prepare the trial of those alleged to be responsible for the 14 February bomb blast that killed Hariri and 20 others in a Beirut street.

According to the sources, the Lebanese government will also decide on Thursday whether to request the creation of an international tribunal to try the suspects or whether the proceedings will be handled by Lebanese judges. Damascus will on Tuesday dispatch five top Syrian security officials to Vienna where they will be questioned by Mehlis in connection with Hariri's killing. According to a report in the London-based Arab daily, al-Hauyat, the five are: Colonel Rustum Ghazale, former head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon; his deputy Jamaa Jamaa; two of his aides, Abd al-Karim Abbas and Zaher Yunis; and, Samih al-Qashani, who co-ordinated the activities of Syrian intelligence operatives in the northern Lebanon region of Metn.

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Saudi newspapers reported Sunday that King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz mediated between Syria and the U.N. which ended a deadlock between the two sides. The London-based ash-Sharq al-Awsat and al-Hayat dailies quoted Saudi King Abdullah as saying he proposed to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and French President Jacques Chirac that Syrian officials sought for questioning by a U.N.-appointed investigation commission be questioned at the U.N. headquarters in the Austrian capital, Vienna.

Damascus said Friday it agreed to allow five of its officials to be questioned by the U.N. commission probing the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Vienna after it refused to allow them to be questioned at the commission's headquarters in Beirut. The Saudi monarch said he dispatched his envoy, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, to Paris to discuss the proposal with Chirac and Annan, who was visiting France at the time, as well as to Damascus to meet with President Bashar Assad, to reach an agreement on the venue for questioning the five Syrian officials.