BKIRKI: Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir said Tuesday a new president should be elected "as soon as possible," reiterating his support for the head of the Lebanese Armed Forces, General Michel Suleiman. "We support Suleiman because the country needs a president who is for all the Lebanese and who does not distinguish between one party and another," Sfeir said. "The Lebanese are now divided, some are with the East and some with the West," the patriarch added, urging them to be only Lebanese.
"We are the ones responsible for our country. We have to stand united in order to preserve our country’s past, present and future," he said. MP Robert Ghanem said after meeting Sfeir: "We hope to put an end to the presidential election because the latter constitute the starting point to ending all other problems." Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani called on the Lebanese on Tuesday to participate "massively" in Thursday’s rally to commemorate the third anniversary of former Premier Rafik Hariri’s killing.
BEIRUT (AFP) Feb 10- At least two people were wounded in an exchange of fire between supporters of rival political factions in Lebanon, a security official said, further heightening tensions in the troubled country. The incident occurred as a convoy of supporters from the Progressive Socialist Party of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt was driving past the local headquarters of the rival Lebanese Democratic Party in Aley, about 15 kilometres (eight miles) east of Beirut the official told AFP. "Shots were heard and a passer-by was wounded by a stray bullet," he said, describing his condition as serious. He said a girl who was travelling in the party convoy was slightly injured. An official from Jumblatt’s party — which is part of the ruling anti-Syrian coalition — told AFP that four people were injured when the convoy came under fire.
Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a key figure in Lebanon’s ruling anti-Syrian majority, on Sunday launched a verbal assault on the opposition, warning his side was ready for war. "You want disorder? It will be welcomed. You want war? It will be welcomed. We have no problem with weapons, no problem with missiles. We will take them from you," Jumblatt told a news conference.
Los Angeles Times 
Mona Alami , Inter Press, BEIRUT: A bomb tears through the bustling Chevrolet area on the outskirts of Beirut. Bad news travels fast: Captain Wissam Eid from the Internal Security Forces has been killed in the blast. This is a typical day for Lebanese citizens. The past year has already been grim for most Lebanese businesses. Crisis after crisis has weighed down heavily on the land of the cedars. A permanent protest movement, security problems, a summer war in a Palestinian refugee camp, and sporadic bombings have brought Lebanon to its knees. 
BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanese Shiite opposition chief Hasan Nasrallah and Christian ally Michel Aoun on Wednesday demanded veto power in a future government to solve the country’s protracted presidential crisis. In a rare joint television interview on the second anniversary of their controversial alliance, Nasrallah and Aoun also insisted that their union helped spare Civil War. 
by Jocelyne Zablit, BEIRUT (AFP) Lebanon’s army arrested 17 people on Saturday, including several soldiers, over the shooting deaths of seven people during protests in Beirut that raised fears of civil unrest in a country already gripped by political crisis. "In light of the events that took place on January 27 in the region of Mar Michael and Shiyah and that led to the deaths of seven civilians and left a number of people injured, including soldiers, the military police ordered these arrests," a statement said. 
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