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/ 16 January 2007
Lebanon is like a time bomb that could explode at any time if a political standoff between the government and the Hezbollah-led opposition is not resolved quickly, Lebanese Parliament speaker Nabih Berri said. Berri said that an opposition protest campaign to topple Prime Minister Fouad Siniora could get out of hand if there was no solution before the end of the month.
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/ 12 January 2007
Former Lebanese President Amin Gemayel on Friday denied telling an Israeli newspaper that two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah guerrillas in July are still alive, saying he had no information about their condition. Gemayel’s office, who said he was participating in a conference in Madrid, issued a statement saying Gemayel ”denies completely” speaking to any Israeli media.
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/ 5 December 2006
A sea of angry mourners converged on southern Beirut on Tuesday for the funeral of a young Shi’ite man killed during mass opposition rallies amid fears of an outbreak of sectarian violence. ”The blood of the Shi’ites is boiling,” shouted mourners as weeping women tossed rose petals on the coffin.
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/ 4 December 2006
Lebanon’s army deployed more soldiers in Beirut on Monday after the killing of a pro-Syrian Shi’ite Muslim demonstrator raised fears anti-government protests could turn into sectarian violence. Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa warned the crisis could worsen and indicated he had discussed ideas for a solution with Lebanese officials during a 24-hour visit to Beirut.
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/ 1 December 2006
Beirut was on high alert on Friday as hundreds of thousands of opposition demonstrators, led by the pro-Syrian militant group Hezbollah, staged a massive show of force aimed at pressing the Western-backed government to resign. Lebanese troops and armoured vehicles were heavily deployed in the capital as hordes of protesters packed streets.
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/ 24 November 2006
Lebanon’s Cabinet is to meet on Saturday for the next step towards approving a United Nations plan for an international court to try those accused of murdering ex-premier Rafiq al-Hariri, in a move set to trigger a showdown with the pro-Syrian opposition.
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/ 22 November 2006
Lebanon began three days of mourning on Wednesday for an anti-Syrian Cabinet minister whose assassination, blamed by his allies on Damascus, has reignited his country’s deep factional rivalries. Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, a Christian, was gunned down as he drove through a Christian suburb of Beirut on Tuesday.
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/ 22 November 2006
Lebanon was on a knife-edge on Wednesday, with the assassination of another leading anti-Syrian politician adding to fears the country may be again torn apart by civil strife. Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, scion of one of the country’s most prominent Christian families, was gunned down on Tuesday in an attack that drew condemnation from world leaders.
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/ 21 November 2006
Lebanese Christian Cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel, an outspoken critic of Syria, was assassinated near Beirut on Tuesday, plunging Lebanon deeper into a crisis that threatens to destabilise the country. At least three gunmen rammed their car into Gemayel’s vehicle, then leapt out and riddled it with bullets, witnesses said.
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/ 13 November 2006
Lebanon’s political crisis deepened on Monday as the last pro-Syrian minister quit the Cabinet shortly before it met to discuss the framework of a special court to try killers of a former prime minister. The anti-Syrian majority coalition has accused Hezbollah of carrying out a Syrian-Iranian plan to overthrow the Western-backed government.
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/ 1 November 2006
Saddam Hussein does not fear execution and will either face the death penalty for crimes against humanity or return as president of Iraq, one of his lawyers said in Beirut on Wednesday. ”President Saddam Hussein does not fear execution,” Lebanese lawyer Bushra Khalil said, four days before an Iraqi court is due to issue a verdict on whether Saddam is guilty or innocent.
Lebanese army units deployed on Monday in border villages vacated by Israeli forces to take control along with United Nations peacekeepers of virtually all of south Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold for a decade. Lebanon demanded Israel pull out from the Lebanese part of the village of Ghajar, warning of ”trouble” if it failed to do so.
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/ 30 September 2006
Lebanon said on Saturday that it had been informed by United Nations peacekeepers that Israel was finally poised to complete its promised pull-out from the south. A government spokesperson said the commander of the UN force in Lebanon had told Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora that Israel would pull out the last of its troops on Sunday.
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/ 29 September 2006
From a hospital bed, 14-year-old Hassan tells how half his foot was blasted away by one of the million bomblets that Israel rained on south Lebanon during its war with Hezbollah. "I ran across a small object hidden in the vegetation," the teenager says from his bed in the southern town of Nabatiyah, as he struggles to come to terms with how dramatically his life has been changed.
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/ 25 September 2006
Israeli troops are still occupying 10 areas of south Lebanon from which the last soldiers are due to withdraw by the end of this week — seven days later than first planned — a senior United Nations official said on Monday. They remain in place in 10 zones stretching from Yarin in the eastern sector to Kfarkila in the centre.
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/ 25 September 2006
Archaeologists excavating a necropolis uncovered by construction workers in Beirut only two weeks before war broke out between Hezbollah and Israel had to stop work this summer when Israeli bombs started falling on the country. The first bombs to strike the centre of the capital during the 34-day war hit only about 100m away.
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/ 20 September 2006
Standing in his grimy and smoke-stained welding shop, Ahmed Jumaa is eager to help rebuild Bint Jbeil, the south Lebanon town devastated by heavy fighting during Israel’s 34-day war on Hezbollah. Already he has made a start, and Jumaa says it is the very Shi’ite group that sparked the war by capturing two Israeli soldiers that is now helping get him back into business.
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/ 19 September 2006
Israel dropped at least 350Â 000 cluster bomblets on south Lebanon in its war with Hezbollah guerrillas, mostly when the conflict was all but over, leaving a deadly legacy for civilians. ”The outrageous fact is that nearly all of these munitions were fired in the last three to four days of the war,” said David Shearer, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon.
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/ 16 September 2006
In the dusty, broken village of Aita al-Shaab, where almost every house bears the scars of the battle between Israel and Hezbollah, the war still lingers a month after it officially ended. Israeli tanks and bulldozers roam back and forth across the border at night, locals say, while Hezbollah fighters patrol the thick green hills above the village.
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/ 8 September 2006
Israel lifted its eight-week sea blockade of Lebanon on Friday after an interim maritime task force, led by an Italian admiral, deployed off the Lebanese coast, the commander of the United Nations peacekeepers said.
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/ 7 September 2006
Israel began on Thursday to lift a blockade of Lebanon imposed when it went to war with Hezbollah guerrillas eight weeks ago, and a Lebanese airliner landed at Beirut’s patched-up airport to mark the moment. The Middle East Airlines flight from Paris circled over Beirut to celebrate the demise of the air embargo after intense diplomacy led by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.
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/ 6 September 2006
Israel said on Wednesday it would lift an eight-week-old air and sea blockade of Lebanon on Thursday, handing over control to international forces. It said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had been told by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan that ”international forces are ready to take over control posts”.
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/ 6 September 2006
Israel said on Wednesday it could gradually dismantle its blockade of Lebanon as Lebanese and United Nations forces control entry points to stop Hezbollah rearming, and the UN commander in the south said a breakthrough could be close.
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/ 5 September 2006
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday he hoped for word on the lifting of an Israeli blockade on Lebanon within two days as the shape of a carefully orchestrated deal involving France, Italy and Germany emerged. In Egypt Annan said he hoped the next 48 hours would bring ”positive” news on the lifting of the Israeli embargo.
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/ 5 September 2006
Lebanese troops moved on Tuesday into a town wrecked by Israel’s war with Hezbollah, as United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said he hoped for word on the lifting of an Israeli blockade on Lebanon within two days. Troops in armoured carriers, trucks and jeeps rolled into the shattered Shi’ite Muslim town of Bint Jbeil that was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting.
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/ 4 September 2006
The commander of United Nations peacekeepers said a joint meeting with Lebanese and Israeli officers on Monday had brought closer a full Israeli troop withdrawal from south Lebanon, in line with a UN resolution. Major General Alain Pelligrini met representatives of the Lebanese and Israeli armies at his headquarters in the southern Lebanese port of Naquora.
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/ 1 September 2006
Hope and despair coexist in the rubble of Bint Jbeil, the southern Lebanese town that saw some of the fiercest fighting of the war between Israel and the Hezbollah Shiite militia. ”Of course it will rebuild, sooner or later,” says Ali Hassan Bazzi (45) who stopped by the damaged shop of his friend Mohammed Bazzi (32).
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan will see the destruction in southern Lebanon at first hand on Tuesday when he visits the area during a Middle East tour designed to cement a truce between Israel and Hezbollah. On the first stop of his tour, Annan issued a warning in Beirut on Monday that all sides must fully implement UN Security Council resolution 1701 or face a possible new war.
In a tower high above his battle-scarred hilltop base, a United Nations peacekeeper from India keeps watch along the Lebanese border. An Israeli fortress bristling with antennas looms before him metres away across the frontier. The men of the 28-year-old United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) continue observing, patrolling and delivering humanitarian assistance in south Lebanon.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan told Lebanese ministers on Monday he wanted the two Israeli soldiers whose capture by Hezbollah sparked a 34-day war with Israel to be handed to the Red Cross, a government source said.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan will discuss the deployment and role of a planned 15Â 000-strong peacekeeping force for southern Lebanon when he visits Beirut on Monday. Other issues are likely to include the lifting of an Israeli air and sea blockade of Lebanon, policing of the Lebanese-Syrian border to stop arms smuggling and a possible prisoner swap.
Lebanon should cling to the United Nations Security Council to avoid being sucked into the orbit of any outside power as it emerges from Israel’s devastating war with Hezbollah guerrillas, former President Amin Gemayel said. ”Lebanon is a battlefield for others,” said the 63-year-old Maronite Christian leader — who should know.