BEIRUT, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Lebanese riot police fired smoke grenades and sprayed water on Saturday to disperse dozens of students protesting against the visit of senior U.S. diplomats to Beirut. The protest turned nasty when security forces tried to clear protesters who gathered outside the government headquarters ahead of a visit by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch. Some of the protesters, waving Lebanese flags and carrying placards protesting against U.S. influence in Lebanon and the Middle East, pelted police with stones. "Welch is not welcome in Lebanon," one placard read. Welch, who met with several Lebanese officials on Saturday, is due to hold talks with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora at the government headquarters.

Elias Chamoun, A delegation of Maronite nuns are getting ready to send the Patriarch of the Maronite Church, Cardinal Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, a petition signed by over one thousand Maronite nuns, in which they ask him to stop receiving any foreign representative that does not visit or consult with the Lebanese president on Lebanese affairs […]

Jihad el Khazen, Al-Hayat, I will continue to write about Beirut today, about what has changed and what has remained the same. If I didn’t recognize the southern suburbs that I knew as a child and young man, the Ramlet al-Baida Corniche is the same as I knew it until I left Lebanon in 1975.I visited my old friend Dr. Abdel-Aziz Khoja, the ambassador of Saudi Arabia, in his apartment looking over the Corniche one morning, to have coffee. It was an opportunity to give my Eid al-Adha holiday greetings a week before the Eid. In journalism, this is called a "scoop."
We stood on the balcony of his apartment; in front of us was the road that heads down parallel to the sea. I told him about when Israeli terrorists, including the "moderate" Ehud Barak, dressed as a woman, killed three Palestinian leaders in Ras Beirut on 10 April 1973. I rushed to the apartment of Kamal Adwan, which was on the other side of the field where my old apartment was. After I checked to make sure that his wife, Maha Adwan al-Jayyusi, a dear friend, was okay, I headed out with a colleague to pick up the trail of the Israeli killers. We reached the Ramlet al-Baida road, where we saw two parked cars. I put my hand on the hood of one of them, like they do in crime dramas, and found it hot, i.e. it had been running recently.

By Jessy Chahine , Daily Star staff, Friday, January 13, 2006 , BEIRUT: A new "hit list" of prominent Lebanese personalities whose lives are said to be in danger was delivered to senior officers of the Internal Security Forces, The Daily Star learned Thursday. Several well-known television hosts are included in the list and at least two of them have left the country. Marcel Ghanem, host of "Kalam al-Nass," a popular political talk show on Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC), will for the foreseeable future be broadcasting his show from Paris. The Daily Star has learned that Ghanem, along with seven other names, was included on a list that was supplied to the ISF by the American Embassy in Lebanon.

The other names included Ali Hamade, a senior writer at An-Nahar and also Future TV host of the political show "Al-Istihqaq." He is the brother of Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamade, who is also on the list. Some of the other names are Fares Khashan, host of Future TV political show "Al-Tahkik," Walid Jumblatt, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, Tripoli MP Elias Atallah, Social Affairs Minister Nayla Mouawad, and Beirut MP Saad Hariri. The warning letter from the U.S. Embassy included strong recommendations to enhance the personal safety of those named, while simultaneously advising them to reduce their mobility as much as possible.

Lebanese authorities have arrested 13 people suspected of belonging to the al-Qaida terror network.Beirut

BEIRUT, 12 Jan 2006 (IRIN) – The trial of a prominent human rights lawyer due to appear in a Beirut court earlier this week has been adjourned to 20 March due to procedural errors.Muhammad Moghraby was accused of "slandering the army establishment and its officers" after delivering a speech to a European Parliament delegation in Belgium on 4 November 2003. In the speech, Moghraby criticised Lebanon