BEIRUT: Hopes rose for an end to the power struggle in Lebanon on Thursday after two days of talks in Paris between parliamentary majority leader MP Saad Hariri and the head of the opposition Reform and Change bloc, MP Michel Aoun. "Meetings are going very well and will continue," Hariri said before leaving the French capital after a third meeting with Aoun.Speaker Nabih Berri called Hariri while he was in Paris to inquire about the latest developments, as well as to mark the occasion of the birthday of the MP’s father, slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Hariri told reporters before leaving Paris that consensus on who will take over the presidency when incumbent Emile Lahoud’s term ends on November 24 would continue to be a subject for "upcoming meetings." Thursday’s talks, he added, focused on the international court that will try suspects in the assassinations of of his father and others.Hariri said he had asked for a "united national stance" from the opposition against the series of assassinations that have plagued the country for much of the past two years.
A joint statement released by Aoun and Hariri prior to Thursday’s talks said they were focusing on finding solutions to the political deadlock that has paralyzed Lebanon for almost a year. The statement said the talks were characterized by "a high spirit of responsibility regarding the serious circumstances encountered by Lebanon at the political, security and economic levels."
by Lamia Radi, BEIRUT (AFP) – Wanted: Angelina Jolie’s luscious lips or Lebanese sex bomb Haifa Wehbe’s nose or breasts. Clutching pictures of their idols, Arab women are flocking to Lebanon which has become a hub for plastic surgery in the Middle East. The boom in plastic surgery started in 2000 in Lebanon, which then became THE destination for ‘plastic surgery tourism’ in the Middle East," plastic surgeon Tony Nassar, who owns the Brazilian Esthetic Clinics in Beirut, told AFP.
By Hiedeh Farmani 
BEIRUT (AFP) – Come Monday, Beirut city officials hope to help ease the Lebanese capital’s nightmarish traffic congestion with the first parking meters installed since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. Twenty of the coin- and card-operated machines will be inaugurated in a trendy shopping area of the city centre, which has for the most part been declared off-limits to parking for security concerns.
by Rouba Kabbara, BEIRUT (AFP) – Fires raged on Wednesday for the second time this month across hectares (acres) of forest in Lebanon, threatening the natural wealth of a country once known as the Switzerland of the Middle East. Emergency crews backed by army helicopters struggled to extinguish blazes which broke out on Tuesday in the mountainous northern regions of Qobayat, Ayto and Karm Saddeh, a civil defence official told AFP.
