Spotlight
Prime Minister Najib Miqati pledged on Sunday to renew commitment to all the international resolution during his upcoming visit to New York City to attend a U.N. Security Council session on the Middle East, stressing that the cabinet cannot be selective in implementing the resolutions.
“The Special Tribunal for Lebanon exists… We can’t implement only the resolutions that we favor and rule out the others,” Miqati told An Nahar newspaper.
Full StoryThe corpse of missing Imam Moussa al-Sadr was found among a number of corpses in the Libyan town of Tarhuna, reported al-Hurra television.
The Kuwaiti al-Qabas newspaper had reported that 3,715 corpses were found in a freezer in Libya, one of them was that of Sadr.
Full StoryThe Lebanese army thwarted on Saturday an attempt to smuggle tasers and individual communication devices to Syria through an illegal border crossing at Deir al-Ashaer in the Rashayya region.
The National News Agency reported that the army halted a pickup truck loaded with equipment as it was attempting to enter Syria.
Full StoryPrime Minister Najib Miqati’s government is seeking to launch a “productive workshop” to address the people’s concerns, as well as address a new batch of administrative appointments.
The premier’s sources told the daily al-Liwaa Saturday that cabinet has the right to take any decision regarding an appointment of an official or his dismissal from his post.
Full StoryThe Mustaqbal movement is seeking to present a draft law on funding the Special Tribunal for Lebanon to parliament in order to tackle the $32 million Lebanon is obligated to pay for the international court.
Informed sources told As Safir newspaper in remarks published on Saturday that former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his allies in the March 14 camp are aiming to counter Hizbullah and its allies’ attempts to thwart the funding of the court.
Full StoryA prominent opposition source voiced on Saturday a concern that the 2013 parliamentary elections may be threatened by Hizbullah’s arms that “are still obstructing any discussion over adopting proportional or majority rule representation in the parliamentary polls electoral law.”
MP Butros Harb told the daily An Nahar in remarks published on Saturday that he received complaints from Lebanese expatriates that the Lebanese government was stalling in taking the necessary measures to grant them the right to vote in the 2013 polls.
Full StoryTensions between the Mustaqbal movement, Speaker Nabih Berri, and their respective allies have persisted in the wake of the Mustaqbal daily’s publication of a WikiLeaks cable in which the speaker encouraged attacks against Hizbullah during the July 2006 war.
On this note, former minister Mohammed Abdul Hamid Beydoun called on Berri to resign seeing as the leaked U.S. Embassy cable revealed that he “says one thing and does the opposite on the exact same day.”
Full StoryProgressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat reiterated his support for the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, stressing that Hizbullah can prove its innocence in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
He told As Safir newspaper in remarks published on Saturday: “I support its funding especially since a significant number of Lebanese believe that the international court can uncover the truth in the assassination.”
Full StoryMaronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi’s recent position on Syria has created further divisions between the March 14 camp and Jamaa Islamiya on the one hand, and the March 8 camp on the other.
The daily Al-Liwaa reported on Saturday that academic, political, and cultural Christian figures have agreed to hold a conference, under the preliminary title of “Christians and the Arab Spring,” to produce a number of principles on Christians’ positions on the upcoming phase in the Arab world.
Full StoryFrench President Nicolas Sarkozy informed Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi during his visit to France earlier this week that the “regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad is over,” reported An Nahar daily on Saturday.
The patriarch received assurances from various French officials that “Lebanon and Christians minorities will not be sacrificed” for regional interests.
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