Daily Star. Thursday, June 19, 2008

Photo: Lebanese children flee Israel’s bombing of south Lebanon in 2006.

The Lebanese government on Wednesday rejected Israel’s call for direct peace negotiations.

“Lebanon’s position is clear to all and there is no place for bilateral negotiations between Lebanon and Israel,” Premier Fouad Siniora’s media office said in a statement late Wednesday. The statement stressed that Lebanese territories occupied by the Jewish state are subject to “UN resolutions that do not require any negotiations.

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Lucy Fielder Reports for Al-Ahram.

Photo: In Beirut a worker sweeps the street in front of the parliament

Lebanon ended the year much as it had begun, in political limbo. In November 2006, six ministers’ resignations paralysed the government and crystallised the two-year-old split between government loyalists and the opposition. A year later, president Emile Lahoud’s term ended without a successor, leaving a dangerous vacuum at the top. As the year drew to a close, it looked as though Lebanon would drift rudderless until either fractious politicians resolved their power struggle, or frustrations spread to the streets.

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By Rym Ghazal. Daily Star .

Photo: Hassan Nasrallah Graffiti, Lebanon.

BEIRUT: Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah cast a broad net on Sunday, vowing that no one could disarm his Hizbullah resistance fighters, recommending early parliamentary elections as a remedy to the standoff over Lebanon’s presidency, and warning that recent Israeli military exercises were preparation for a new conflict.

Nasrallah also reached out to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, many of whom live in camps near neighborhoods known as hotbeds of Hizbullah support, and voiced opposition to the government’s plans to privatize the country’s two mobile-phone networks.

In a televised address to a crowded Hizbullah rally in commemoration of Martyrs Day, Nasrallah promised that no power could force his group to give up its arms.

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Rapport sur la soirée du 17 Octobre 2007

Photo: Tatiana Gomez, Montréal, Octobre 2007.

Dans le contexte de la campagne visant à contester la présence du Hezbollah sur la liste des “organisations terroristes” au Canada, Tadamon! Montréal a organisé le Mercredi 17 Octobre une importante conférence à l’Université McGill, dans le cadre de la série de conférences Culture Shock 2007.

Plus de 200 personnes se sont réunies pour entendre les présentations de Bilal Elamine, l’ancien rédacteur en chef du magazine Left Turn, qui habite à Beyrouth, et de Brian Aboud, sociologue et historien actif dans Tadamon! De plus, le documentaire de la cinéaste libanaise Carol Mansour “Un été à ne pas oublier”, sur l’attaque israélienne contre le Liban en 2006, a été projeté pour la première fois au Canada.

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By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent

The United Nations has transmitted messages to Israel in recent weeks that the organization’s mapping experts have determined that the controversial Shaba Farms on Mount Dov near the Lebanese border, now controlled by Israel, is Lebanese territory. The UN, which has communicated to Israel that the disposition of the Shaba Farms should be dealt with as soon as possible, has proposed to senior government officials that Israel withdraw from the area and that it be considered international territory to be controlled by UNIFIL.

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Haaretz.

Golan Heights: Photo from John Barnabas.

Some 100 Syrians and Golan Heights residents marched Saturday to the office of the International Red Cross to mark Arab Detainees Day.

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