BEIRUT, 21 August (IRIN) – As Lebanese trucks started to cross the border into Syria last week, following several months of being stranded at checkpoints, fears remain that the crisis is far from over. Stricter Syrian customs inspections starting last June resulted in a massive backup of trucks carrying Lebanese products out of the country in July. According to Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, however, the problem is now resolved. “It has been confirmed that the situation is fine,” said Mahmoud Fawaz, the prime minister’s press officer. “There are routine checks but that is normal.” Privately, though, officials say the flow of traffic has yet to return to normal and there are still often delays. “Sometimes it is fine and the trucks and cars are passing through, but other times, it is just like before with the restrictions and hours of waiting,” said a Lebanese security source. “The situation is definitely not like it used to be between the two countries.”  Many Lebanese claimed Syria implemented the stricter inspection regime for political reasons. Lebanon’s only land outlet to export products to the rest of the Arab markets is through Syria since the border with Israel remains closed. According to officials, land exports make up some 60 percent of Lebanon’s entire exports and by slowing the trucks, Syria severely damaged the economy. Lebanese officials, truckers, unions and associations remain angry at the losses already amassed and Damascus’ failure to produce a valid excuse for what they say are violations of the trade agreements between the two countries. The president of the Federation of Agricultural Producers in Lebanon Antoine Howayek said that direct losses had been “between $300,000 and $500,000 per day, but it is the indirect losses that are worse. The prices have dropped and that is a long-term disadvantage.”

 (UPI) The Palestinian Hamas movement in Lebanon said Saturday the factions were working on forming a special Palestinian authority in Lebanon.The Hamas representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, said in the Rashidiya refugee camp in southern Lebanon — during a rally celebrating the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza — that a meeting was held among all the Palestinian factions to form such an authority in the country.He said that relations with Lebanon have never been properly organized, adding he hoped that the relationship between Beirut and Palestinian refugees would be organized in the next few days in order for our people to live with dignity until we return to Palestine.Almost 400,000 Palestinian refugees live in camps in Lebanon, where they have been prevented from working in the country since 1982. The government cites the threat of settlement and losing their right to return to their original homes they were forced to flee during the 1948 Middle East war when the Jewish state was established.

KABUL (AFP) – Taliban rebels freed a Lebanese hostage and two US soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, exactly one month before the country’s landmark parliamentary polls. Both incidents involved reconstruction projects, highlighting the threat that the former Islamic regime still poses to Afghanistan’s fragile road to democracy and its recovery from decades of war.The new US ambassador to Kabul pledged that the militants, who were ousted by American-led forces in late 2001, would not be allowed to disrupt the historic elections despite a rise in violence.The Taliban had threatened to kill hostage Safieddine Mohammad Rida, who was abducted on Sunday while working for a Lebanese company that sells diesel engines, if his employers did not pull out of Afghanistan. He was freed early Thursday and handed over to authorities in the southeastern province of Zabul, officials and the rebels themselves told AFP.It was unclear if the firm had yielded to the Taliban’s demands, although Lebanon‘s foreign ministry said Wednesday the firm’s owner had agreed with the hostage’s family that he was willing to withdraw from Afghanistan.Rida told the BBC his kidnappers had talked about a deal but he was unable to confirm it. “I am not sure what deal the company has made with the Taliban. I haven’t spoken to the company yet”, the BBC quoted him as saying.Afghanistan’s Interior Minister Ali Ahmed Jalali denied reports of a deal. “Nothing was paid. No deal was done,” he told reporters in Kabul.

KESROUAN: The Lebanese Heritage Museum celebrated its second anniversary on Tuesday. The museum, the first in Lebanon to cover so many different eras and facets of Lebanese heritage, was inaugurated on September 5, 2003, and has since become a compulsory feature of the national history curriculum, as well as an essential site for school visits.

It has also been listed as a “first class museum” by the Culture, Education, and Tourism ministries.

The anniversary celebration consisted of a guided tour of the country’s eight historical eras, including Phoenician, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic, Ottoman and today’s 20th century era, displayed across the five halls of the museum.

“The Lebanese Heritage Museum gathers historic, heritage and artistic symbols from Lebanese history,” said Michel Meiki, vice president of the museum’s founding committee.

“We had things that should have been exposed earlier,” said John Raidi, the president of the founding committee, explaining there had been rare documents not on display for the students to see, but that these were now out.

“We want to give Lebanese students an overall view of all the different eras,” he said.

Culture Minister Tareq Mitri began his celebratory speech by saluting the efforts that went into establishing the museum.

“What caught my attention was that the exhibition did not bias any period of Lebanese history over another. On the contrary, the museum tried to help visitors get introduced to different stages of our country’s history,” he said.

Emphasizing the importance of the role memory plays in uniting or dividing a people, Mitiri said: “Invented memories ignited conflicts between groups,” insisting that “nations cannot be built unless their citizens agree on what should be remembered together and what should be forgotten together.”

Commenting on the importance of the museum, he said “its contents are a renovated reading of our diverse history and its successive stages.”

Secretary general of the museum Sheikh Simon Khazen said there are plans to start a Lebanese contemporary art museum, once the museum is included in the Culture Ministry’s budget.

17 August 2005 DAMASCUS