المركزية – أمل عضو كتلة "الاصلاح والتغيير" النائب الدكتور فريد الخازن ان "يكون خيار الحكومة، لاسيما خيار حكومة الوحدة الوطنية لا يزال قائماً، وقال في حديث اذاعي: "قد نكون الان نمر في نوع من الوقت الضائع، ووصلنا الى وضع لا نقول انه يستحيل ايجاد المبادرات لإنهاء الازمة، لكن المسألة تزداد تعقيدا". اضاف: "لا ارى اي جديد على […]
اكد عضو تكتل التغيير والاصلاح النائب فريد الخازن انه في حال سعت الاكثرية الى انتخاب رئيس للجمهورية بالنصف 
زائد واحد ستفتح الباب امام المجهول مما يضع البلد على شفير الهاوية.
وقال الخازن في حديث لـ "وكالة اخبار لبنان" ان الموضوع ليس مقتصراً فقط على انتخاب الرئيس المقبل بل على المرحلة التي ستلي انتخاب الرئيس، وفي حال انتخب الرئيس بالنصف زائد واحد فلن تكون المرحلة المقبلة مرحلة تساهم في حل الازمات التي يعانيها لبنان اليوم، ولن يتمكن الرئيس المقبل من تنفيذ برنامج واضح المعالم ويكون جزءاً منه وتكون الحكومة الجديدة جزءاً منها ايضاً، منبهاً من خطورة انتخاب الرئيس بالنصف زائد واحد لا سيما بعد كلام مرجعيات متعددة عن هذا الامر وعلى رأسها البطريرك صفير، وأضاف: ان الفريق الحاكم يعلم ان الخروج عن الدستور والتحدي للاطراف المقابلة لا يساعد على حل الازمة، لافتاً الى توافق وتسليم للواقع الذي ينادي بعدم الخروج عن الدستور، لأن اية مخالفة ستؤدي الى مزيد من التعقيدات وتدخل الوضع اللبناني في مسار خطير جداً لانها تنسف الثوابت والمسلمات القائمة في الحالة اللبنانية، مؤكداً ان عدم الالتزام بنصاب الثلثين لا يخدم مصلحة المسيحيين حتى ولو كانت بعض هذه المواقف صادرة عن تجمعات تضم مسيحيين كلقاء معراب
وحول المواقف الاميركية من مواصفات رئيس الجمهورية المقبل دعا الخازن الى فصل الداخل اللبناني عن الخارج، وقال: حزب الله يمثل شريحة كبيرة من اللبنانيين، ومنطق الاتيان برئيس يعادي حزب الله لا يساعد على تحقيق الاهداف التي تصب في استقرار البلد وعودة الديمقراطية الى الحياة السياسية في لبنان.
By Nicholas Blanford, Bibnine, Lebanon – Mustafa Borghol stares solemnly out from one of dozens of "martyr" portraits stuck to walls in this village in northern Lebanon. The 24-year-old Lebanese Special Forces soldier is the 10th resident of Bibnine to die in three months of bitter fighting between the Lebanese Army and the Al Qaeda-inspired militants of Fatah al-Islam in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, just three miles from here. "This village used to be famous for fishing and carpentry," says Mohammed Borghol, Mustafa’s father, while sitting in his butcher shop. "Now it is famous for its martyrs, and we are very proud of them.""The fighting has definitely increased the credibility of the Lebanese Army in the eyes of the public," says Timur Goksel, who lectures in Beirut on conflict resolution and is a former long-serving United Nations official in southern Lebanon.
New moves to promote the Army
That public sentiment is being backed by a carefully choreographed promotional campaign of television ads and billboards boosting the profile of the Army. In one television spot, a Lebanese soldier walks down a main street in Beirut as passersby stop and salute him. Banks are offering credit cards with a military camouflage design. Billboards show heroic pictures of soldiers in action and praise the sacrifices of the Army.Last week, more than 60 women and children were evacuated from Nahr al-Bared, mostly families of the Fatah al-Islam militants, the last noncombatants to leave the war-ravaged camp, previously home to a mainly Palestinian population of 40,000. Their departure heralds a final offensive against the surviving militants who are thought to number under 100.Weeks of intense artillery shelling has reduced most of the camp to rubble. Bullet and shell holes pockmark the skeletal remains of buildings. The floors of other houses lie pancaked on top of one another. Lebanese flags flutter from the ruins, planted by soldiers as they inched through the warren-like passageways of the camp, battling the militants.
NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon (AFP) – Lebanese troops prepared on Sunday to launch a final assault on Islamists holed up for months in Nahr al-Bared camp from where the last women and children have now been evacuated. As Palestinian Ulemas, or clerics, sought a way out for wounded fighters in last-minute negotiations, an army spokesman forecast: "The strikes against the militants will become more intense."
The wives and children of the remaining Fatah al-Islam militants were evacuated on Friday and there had since been some "close quarter combat," the army spokesman said, forecasting an unhindered all-out attack."Before we were more cautious because of the presence of women and children. That will no longer be the case," he said.Sunday also saw heightened sniper fire directed at the soldiers, an AFP correspondent on the scene reported.One of the clerics, requesting anonymity, said the Rally of Palestinian Ulemas had been contacted by the militants’ spokesman, Abu Salim Taha, to negotiate the evacuation of the wounded "who number eight or nine."
"We are on the point of reaching an agreement," the cleric said. "It’s a matter of finalising the last details on time and method of evacuation."It was Taha who, after several unsuccessful efforts at mediation between the Islamists and the army, contacted the clerics over securing safe passage out of the camp for the Islamists’ wives and children — a total of 63 people.
Lebanese government was mulling over severing private Hezbollah phone network connections that started in southern Lebanon and ended up in Beirut and its suburbs, local Naharnet news website reported on Tuesday."We agreed to draw a plan of action for a peaceful resolution of this issue, but we are serious about resolving it because it is a dangerous matter," Lebanese Information Minister Ghazi Aridi was quoted as saying.
Aridi said after a lengthy cabinet session on Monday that the government has formed a committee to draft a report on recent information that Hezbollah had installed its own communication infrastructure in southern Lebanon.He said initial reports have shown that the Hezbollah communication networks "went beyond (the southern village of) Zawtar Sharqiyeh … to reach Beirut and the suburbs of Beirut which are outside the security areas of the leadership of the resistance (Hezbollah)."
Sylvie Groult, AFP, August 17, 2007, NAHR AL BARED, Lebanon — Three months into the deadly standoff between the Lebanese army and Islamist guerrillas holed up in a refugee camp, troops are still battling to crush an unexpectedly well-armed and well-organized enemy. Located along the Mediterranean coast near the northern city of Tripoli, the Nahr Al Bared camp, today, is but an apocalyptic scene of twisted steel and ruins. The red-and-white Lebanese flag flutters here and there as a sign of the army’s advance.
Black-and-white smoke hangs over the skeletal buildings that heave at the impact of each mortar round, or from the explosion of mines spread by the Fatah Al Islam fighters all over the sprawling camp. The army, in the last week, has resorted to air attacks in a bid to flush out the estimated 70 militants thought to be still hiding in subterranean shelters, along with some 100 women and children.
"We are using airstrikes, as shelling them with tank fire is no longer effective or sufficient," said an army spokesman. "We are trying to clear the small area around where the Islamists are holed up, so that our tanks and military equipment can get through." The drawn-out battle, which has claimed the lives of more than 200 people, including 136 soldiers, has taken even the war-hardened Lebanese by surprise.
Defense minister Elias Murr mistakenly announced an end to the fighting at the end of June, but has, since, kept a low profile, refusing to make a prognosis as to when the standoff may end. On the battle front, troops continue to slowly clear the camp’s sinuous streets of booby-traps and mines, as they try to seize the last, tiny area still controlled by the Islamists. The camp’s 31,000 Palestinian refugees fled at the start of the fighting May 20, leaving behind the Al Qaeda-inspired militants who infiltrated into Lebanon and took up positions inside Nahr Al Bared last year.
By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer 9 PM ET BIKFAYA, Lebanon – Despite fears of violence, tens of thousands of Lebanese voted peacefully Sunday to replace two assassinated lawmakers
BEIRUT — Rival Lebanese factions face off this weekend in disputed elections to replace two slain MPs, in a showdown seen as a test for the country’s divided Christian factions ahead of presidential polls. Sunday’s by-elections are being held to replace two MPs killed earlier this year in attacks blamed by the Western-backed ruling majority on former powerbroker Damascus, which backs the Lebanese opposition.
The campaign leading up to the polls has exacerbated tensions within the Christian camp, which has been divided since the November resignation of six pro-Syrian cabinet ministers. The polls also come amid an 11-week standoff at a Palestinian refugee camp between the army and Islamists.
The two MPs being replaced are industry minister Pierre Gemayel, a Christian member of parliament who was gunned down in a Beirut suburb November 21, and Sunni Muslim MP Walid Eido, killed in a car bombing in the capital June 13. Although the elections to replace Eido in Beirut are virtually guaranteed to be won by the candidate of the ruling majority, the vote in the Metn region, a Christian stronghold northeast of the capital, has the country in suspense. Former president Amine Gemayel is vying to replace his son, Pierre, while the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) of Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun has presented Camille Khoury, a doctor, as its candidate.
Observers say that the election outcome will be an indicator as to which way the Christian camp is leaning ahead of presidential elections to replace pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud by a November 25 deadline.
Parliament elects the president, traditionally a Maronite Christian, while the prime minister is a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament a Shiite Muslim. "Aoun wants to prove that he is the only representative of the Christians and therefore the candidate for the presidential elections," Joseph Abu Khalil, an aid to Gemayel, said.
But Antoine Nasrallah, spokesman for the FPM, said that the vote will set the record straight as to which leader is more popular and where the presidential elections are headed. "If Gemayel fails, he will lose any chance for the presidential elections … and if Gemayel wins, he will kill any ambition for Aoun to become president," Nasrallah said. He added that he was confident that his camp will win Sunday "by a good margin."
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States on Thursday moved to freeze US assets of anyone considered a threat to the Lebanese government, saying the country’s sovereignty and democratic institutions "are increasingly under attack." President George W Bush included in the freeze order announced Thursday anyone pushing to reassert Syrian control in Lebanon. and anyone judged contributing to the breakdown of the rule of law in the country.
"The president signed this executive order because Lebanon’s sovereignty and democratic institutions are increasingly under attack," said US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.Johndroe cited recent assaults by "extremist" armed groups on the Lebanese army, the June 13 assassination of Judge Walid Eido, and reports that Syria’s allies and proxies in Lebanon may be preparing an alternate government, as signs of the threat.
The executive order to freeze the assets, dated August 1, said that threats against Lebanese stability and moves to restore Syria’s former dominant influence in Lebanon would "contribute to political and economic instability in (Lebanon) and the region and constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."