by James Zogby, (Tuesday January 03 2006)
"Despite regional and domestic concerns specific to their countries, Saudis and Lebanese are more optimistic about their futures, more satisfied with their present circumstances, more focused on specific problems that must be solved, and more strongly identified with their countries…"
Significant changes are taking place in public opinion in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. Despite regional and domestic concerns specific to their countries, Saudis and Lebanese are more optimistic about their futures, more satisfied with their present circumstances, more focused on specific problems that must be solved, and more strongly identified with their countries than when we last polled in 2002. These are some of the findings of a Zogby International poll, conducted during the last half of October 2005. It was sponsored, in part, by the Young Arab Leaders organization, and the Arab American Institute. In an earlier column, I reported the poll
Beirut – Syrian Brigadier General Rustom Ghazaleh, who has been implicated in the murder of a former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri, said Tuesday he was ready to resign if asked by Syrian President Bashar al Assad. ‘If the leadership asks me to die a martyr, I am ready,’ Ghazaleh, the former head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, told the television news channel al Jazeera in a broadcast monitored in Beirut. 
By Anthony Shadid, Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, January 2, 2006; BEIRUT — On this morning, as on every morning since Oct. 17, 1985, Audette Salem cleaned the rooms of her son and daughter. She left his razor, toothbrush and comb as they were on the day her children were abducted from the streets of Beirut during Lebanon’s civil war. She fiddled with her daughter’s makeup and straightened her bed. She dusted the three guitars, the papers still on their desks and the pack that holds a 20-year-old cigarette, the artifacts of two lives interrupted.
The media in Lebanon and the Middle East has been quick to react to accusations by the exiled former Syrian vice-president Abdul Halim Khaddam implicating President Bashar al-Assad in the murder of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.In Lebanon, some commentators class him as a traitor to his country while a leading anti-Syrian politician says the allegations prove Damascus was lying about its role in Mr Hariri’s death.A pan-Arab paper believes his allegations confirm a UN report by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis which implicates Syrian intelligence in the killing. 
(AFP), 31 december 2005, DAMASCUS – Syrian lawmakers called on Saturday for former vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam to face treason charges after his dramatic revelations that President Bashar Al Assad threatened former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri just months before his murder. 
DUBAI (Reuters) – A former Syrian vice president launched an unprecedented attack on President Bashar al-Assad, saying he had threatened Rafik al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister who was assassinated in February. "Assad told me he had delivered some very, very harsh words to Hariri … something like ‘I will crush anyone who tries to disobey us’," Abdel-halim Khaddam said from his home in Paris.
By Marvine Howe, AUB, as the school is generally known, is still mourning its martyrs from Lebanon
The Lebanese cabinet crisis persists even though Hizb Allah and Amal, the two principal Shia political groups, have affirmed in a joint statement their commitment to a deal recently reached with Saad al-Hariri, the leader of the anti-Syian Future bloc, Aljazeera reports.
By Ayat Basma BEIRUT, Dec 30 (Reuters) – A year after he predicted a rash of political killings and upheaval, Lebanon’s most famous clairvoyant will not tell a jittery public what 2006 holds when he makes his usual end-year television appearance. Thousands of Lebanese tune in every New Year’s Eve to hear what Michel Hayek foresees, but the 38-year-old said he no longer wanted to be seen as the bearer of bad news. 
Associated Press, 
