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.
As-Safir said an investigation of Lebanese suspect Mohammed Merhi uncovered that the al-Qaeda-inspired group Fatah al-Islam had a hand in the murder of Gemayel, a scion of Lebanon’s most prominent Christian family and a leading opponent of Syria, who was gunned down near Beirut. The leading daily An-Nahar on Saturday said that based on an interrogation with Fatah al-Islam detainees, the perpetrator of the Gemayel crime was the terrorist group led by Shaker Abssi. The as-Safir report comes a few days after other media reports that Ahmed Jebril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine- General Command also played a role in the crime.
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 —
BEIRUT Daily star: A hotel owner called on all tourist establishments in Beirut to abide by a two day strike on Monday to protest the government’s negligence of the tourism sector. Amin Khayat, also president of the Tourist Institutions in Beirut, warned the strike is just the beginning. "We may resort to other means in the next 15 days if the government and the concerned parties refrained from assisting the tourism sector," Khayat told a press conference. "The government promised us to secure a special fund to help the tourism sector. But none of their promises were fulfilled." He said that hotels will stop receiving visitors for two days.
BEIRUT – Former ministers who figure on a list of Syrian and Lebanese personalities banned from entering the United States said on Saturday they felt 


