Joseph S. Mayton – All Headline News Middle East Correspondent, Beirut, Lebanon (AHN) – Lebanon’s ancient port is finally emerging from an environmental and economic disaster inflicted by Israel’s bombardment of the country during the month-long war this past summer. While oil still remains a sight on the country’s coastline, Byblos is returning to normalcy […]

Published by Khazen.org New Video of Cheikh Wadih el Khazen in an interview with tele-lumiere , February 2006. Please click View Video part I  to view the video (part I). Please Click View Video PART II to view video part II. And please click View Video Part III to view video part III. And I would like […]

BEIRUT, Lebanon– A small grenade exploded after it was fired at a building near U.N. offices in a downtown Beirut square early Sunday, injuring four people, police said.Police and army troops surrounded Riad Solh Square after the grenade was fired from a rifle and hit the building, which houses dance clubs. It could not immediately […]

By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent BEIRUT, Oct 15 (Reuters) – Syria is bent on destabilising Lebanon, whose security forces are not yet strong enough to prevent more possible assassination attempts, Lebanese acting Interior Minister Ahmad Fatfat said.

Fatfat told Reuters in an interview on Saturday that he had recently received a message from someone close to the Syrians, telling him and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to "take care". The message had said the Syrians were "more angry than before February 14, 2005", the date of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri’s assassination, Fatfat said.

He did not spell out what had riled Damascus, but tensions have risen in recent weeks amid Syrian criticism of Siniora’s government as unrepresentative and as serving Israel’s interest. Syria denies any involvement in Hariri’s killing or in a subsequent series of assassinations and attacks on Lebanese politicians and journalists hostile to Syria’s role in Lebanon. Fatafat, a Sunni Muslim member of the anti-Syrian Future Movement led by Hariri’s son Saad, said he was sure Syria still had informants in Lebanon, despite its troop pullout last year.

BEIRUT (AFP) – Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi has pledged to help enforce stability in Lebanon, including efforts to secure a prisoners’ swap with Israel. Prodi, whose country will soon be the leading contributor of troops to the UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, said Rome was eager to help boost Lebanon’s political stability and reconstruction.

"Not only Italy, but all of the European Union, is willing to make an effort to stabilise the country and stabilise the area," he said during a media conference with his Lebanese counterpart, Fuad Siniora.Asked about potential Italian help to secure a prisoner exchange, Prodi said: "We discussed this issue… and I said that helping to resolve this issue will help restore peace.

"But I cannot say more," he added Wednesday.The Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on July 12 in a bid to secure a prisoner swap. Israel responded with a massive month-long offensive on Lebanon.The war ended on August 14 under the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which called for Israel’s pullout from south Lebanon and the dispatch of Lebanese army troops in tandem with a deployment of a boosted UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Clancy Chassay in Beirut, The Guardian, The Lebanese government is facing heavy pressure to resign over its handling of the war with Israel and the ensuing reconstruction effort, with almost seven out of 10 voters calling for early elections, according to a poll published today. The results come just over a week after Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah called for the dissolution of the government and the formation of a national unity government, to the cheers of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese at a rally in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The poll, published by the Beirut Centre for Research and Information, indicates that more than 70% of the country supports the formation of a new national unity government with 68% calling for early elections. The director of the centre, Abdo Saad, says the calls for a national unity government reflect a popular desire to bridge the polarisation that has existed in the country since the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in March this year. "The results suggest people feel a national unity government would be the best way of bridging the divisions in the country and stabilising the situation here," he said. According to Paul Salem, director of the newly established Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, the credibility of prime minister Fouad Siniora’s government was dealt a heavy blow by what was commonly perceived as an American sanctioned war.

AMMAN (JT)