BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanon’s main summer festivals have been called off for a second straight year — with a Shakira concert cancelled — because of security fears and political tensions, organisers said on Thursday. Wafa Saab, a spokeswoman for the Beiteddine Festival near the capital, said international performers, like most tourists, had refused to travel to Lebanon, Security would have been a major headache, she acknowledged.
The Baalbek Festival in the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon has also been called off, Maya al-Halabi said, although no decision has been taken yet on a third festival in Byblos, to the north of Beirut. Shakira, the Colombian superstar with Lebanese roots, was to have performed in the capital as part of the Beiteddine events.He was to have conducted his orchestra at the Roman temples in Baalbek
Last summer, instead of droves of culture vultures descending on the country, tens of thousands of foreigners fled in a massive evacuation from a war that killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians.Tourism Minister Joseph Sarkis had announced only two months ago that the festivals would go ahead despite a political crisis that has gripped the country since November. But the army has since been locked in a deadly battle with Islamist militants in northern Lebanon and a string of bomb blasts have struck Beirut and tourist areas."We want to change the image of Lebanon with an international media campaign in order to attract tourists again," Sarkis said in May, recalling that Lebanon had been banking in 2006 on a record year in tourism revenues.
Beirut – Syria on Monday July 9 – 2007- reportedly handed over to Lebanon the stolen car used in the November 22, 2006 assassination of Lebanese industry minister Pierre Gemayel. According to a Lebanese security official the broken down Honda was found abandoned on the international highway linking Syria with Turkey. Reporting on the same story, the daily As-Safir said an insurance company that took delivery of the car handed it over to the Internal Security Forces’ intelligence bureau and that after thorough examination, it was confirmed that the vehicle was used in Gemayel’s murder.
BKIRKI: The Council of Maronite Bishops extended support on Wednesday to the Lebanese Army in its fight against Fatah al-Islam militants at the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, near Tripoli. "The national cohesion and courage displayed by the Lebanese Army during indispensable fights deserves acknowledgment from all the Lebanese, especially since the army has shown a strong sense of patriotism," Monsignor Youssef Tawk, secretary to the Maronite Patriarchate, said. Tawk was reading the minutes of the bishops’ monthly meeting held in Bkirki and headed by Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir.
NAHR AL BARED, Lebanon July 4th 2007 — 


