BEIRUT (AFP) – Arab League chief Amr Mussa is due to return to Lebanon next month in a new bid to help resolve the country’s acute political crisis, a government minister has said. "We’re expecting him on February 8," Telecommunication Minister Marwan Hamadeh told AFP Wednesday."Regardless of progress (on resolving the crisis), his presence has become indispensable," he said.
Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and other participants in the Paris III conference "have insisted on Mussa’s return", Hamadeh added, referring to a January 25 donors’ meeting in the French capital that gathered 7.6 billion dollars in aid to help revive Lebanon’s ailing economy.Fears that Lebanon’s political crisis could slide into armed conflict grew after clashes last week between opposition and government supporters left seven people dead and about 300 injured.
JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spent hours Thursday testifying before the commission investigating Israel’s conduct during its much-criticized war in Lebanon over the summer. The Winograd commission was appointed in the fall to try to reconstruct the government’s decisions during the war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas and to determine if anyone should be censured.
BEIRUT (Reuters) JAN 25 – The death toll in clashes between government loyalists and opposition followers at a Beirut University on Thursday rose to four, an opposition-run television station reported. NBN said two of the dead were students loyal to the opposition, which includes the Shi’ite Muslim Hezbollah and Amal.
Saudi Arabia, the United States, France, EU and other international donors pledged more than 7.6 billion dollars in aid to Lebanon to support the government. The pledges were made Thursday during a one-day international donors’ conference held in Paris. In his opening speech, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora thanked the participants from some 40 countries for their support, and appealed to foreign donors for further financial support, which he said was vital for Lebanon
BEIRUT (AFP) JAN 24 – Calm returned to Lebanon as roads were cleared and Beirut airport reopened after the opposition called off a general strike that sparked deadly street fights ahead of a donor conference in Paris. Traffic moved freely Wednesday after tractors and cleaners worked all night to clear tyres, sand and rubble from streets blocked in an opposition show of force on Tuesday aimed at ousting the Western-backed government.
Jan 24, Life was returning to normal in the Lebanese capital and around the country Wednesday, a day after violent confrontation between government supporters and opponents killed three people and wounded dozens. The violence was the worst escalation of the opposition’s campaign to topple Prime Minister Fuad Saniora’s Cabinet. 
