Lebanon’s Parliament is set to elect army chief General Michel Suleiman as the country’s president on Sunday, filling a post left vacant for six months by a political crisis that threatened a new civil war. A Qatari-brokered deal last week between rival Lebanese leaders defused 18 months of political stalemate that erupted into fighting this month.
Rival Lebanese leaders signed a deal on Wednesday to end 18 months of political conflict that had pushed their country to the brink of a new civil war. The deal, concluded after six days of Arab-mediated talks in Qatar, paved the way for parliament to elect army chief General Michel Suleiman as president, filling a post vacant since November because of the political deadlock.
Lebanon’s Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri pledged on Tuesday there would be no political surrender to what he called a bid by Hezbollah and its Syrian and Iranian backers to impose their will on the nation by force. The Shi’ite Hezbollah group and its opposition allies have routed supporters of the Sunni-led government in Beirut.
Clashes resumed in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli on Monday and security sources said at least 36 people had been killed on Sunday in fighting between Hezbollah and its pro-government Druze opponents east of Beirut. A precarious calm prevailed in Beirut, where politicians prepared to meet Arab League mediators.
Telkom said it has rejected an approach from Oger Telecoms and will not consider the sale of the group or any of its units or joint ventures without a strategic rationale. Telkom said in a statement on Monday it had turned down the approach from United Arab Emirates-based Oger as it was not in the interest of shareholders.
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/ 14 February 2008
Three years after Rafik al-Hariri’s assassination, the crisis unleashed by his death opens ever deeper rifts in Lebanon and threatens the state and society the leader tried to rebuild after the civil war. The February 14 anniversary of al-Hariri’s death has become a symbol for divisions between the heirs to his legacy and their opponents.
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/ 24 November 2007
Lebanon edged closer to chaos on Friday when President Emile Lahoud ordered the army to take charge of security after political rivalries blocked the election of his successor hours before his term expired. The pro-Syrian head of state said the country risked descending into a state of emergency.
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/ 20 September 2007
Lebanon mourned on Thursday an anti-Syrian member of Parliament whose assassination plunged the country deeper into crisis and threatened to derail efforts to elect a new president. Banks, schools and government offices closed a day after a car bomb killed Christian Phalange Party parliamentarian Antoine Ghanem.
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/ 19 September 2007
A car bomb killed an anti-Syrian Lebanese lawmaker and at least six other people in Beirut on Wednesday, just six days before Parliament was due to elect a new president, security sources said. The lawmaker, Antoine Ghanem of the Christian Phalange party, was killed by the blast in a Christian district of the Lebanese capital.
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/ 9 September 2007
Pakistani authorities tightened security at Islamabad’s airport after detaining more than 2 000 supporters of exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his party said on Sunday, the eve of his planned return. Sharif, ousted by army chief General Pervez Musharraf in 1999, says he is determined to fly home from London on Monday.