SYDNEY, Australia — Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Monday condemned a day and night of race riots in Sydney’s beachside suburbs, but said he did not believe Australian society had an undercurrent of racism. Howard was speaking as police formed a strike force to track down the instigators of the running battles that involved drunken mobs of white men yelling racial slurs, young men of Lebanese descent and hundreds of police.
The fighting left 31 people injured, including police and paramedics. One was hospitalized after being stabbed in the back by a man police said was Middle eastern in appearance. There were 16 arrests. "What we have seen yesterday is something I thought I would never see in Australia, and perhaps we have not seen in Australia in any of our lifetimes, and that is a mass call to violence based on race," Community Relations Commission chairman Stepan Kerkyasharian told Sky News.Police chief Ken Moroney called the rioting among "the worst violence that I have ever seen in my policing service of 40 years."
Beirut – The Lebanese cabinet decided late Monday to call on the United Nations to investigate a wave of killings of anti-Syrian individuals and to form an international court to investigate the murder of former premier Rafik Hariri. Pro-Syrian Hezbollah and Amal deputies suspended their participation in the Lebanese government to protest a vote calling for an international tribunal and to ‘widen the mission of the U.N. investigative team to cover all the assassinations that took place since October 2004’. 
December 12: Prominent anti-Syrian MP and journalist Gibran Tueni and three others are killed in a car bomb attack as they travel through the Mekallis area of eastern Beirut. 
AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice condemned Monday’s slaying of a Lebanese journalist who was critical of Syrian involvement in his country as a “vicious act of terror.” She conferred with France’s foreign minister on how to bring new pressure on Damascus. 
BEIRUT, Lebanon 
BEIRUT, Lebanon – A prominent anti-Syrian journalist and lawmaker was killed by a car bomb Monday, a day after returning from France, where he had been staying periodically for fear of assassination.A previously unknown group claimed responsibility, saying Gibran Tueni was "spreading poisons and lies despite our repeated warnings to him."
BEIRUT: Beirut MP Gebran Tueni demanded that the Cabinet investigate the the death of 13 unidentified soldiers whose bodies were excavated from the grounds of the Defense Ministry at Yarze in November. The bodies belonged to men who participated in the October 13, 1990, battle between MP Michel Aoun, then Army Commander and head of the acting militarygovernment, and Syrian troops. 
Nick Blanford, correspondent for The Times in Beirut, said today’s killing of Gibran Tueni has revived fears of Syria’s lingering control over Lebanon."Everyone is jumping to the conclusion that the Syrians must be responsible, bearing in mind that Tueni was probably the leading critic of Syria. He was elected to parliament in May and was a very vocal member of what was then the opposition and is now part of the government.
