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Recent Appearances...

Sri Lanka

10 Lebanese hurt in clashes between supporters of Aoun, Kateb

2019-11-27

[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Clashes erupted on Tuesday between supporters of the Free Patriotic Movement
Despite its name a Christian party allied with Hizbullah, neither free nor particularly patriotic...
(FPM) and supporters of the Kataeb Party in the town of Bikfaya, near the residence of former President Amine Gemayel, in Mount Leb.

The festivities started when a convoy of President Michel Aoun
...president of Leb, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah...
’s Free Patriotic Movement supporters attempted to drive through the area which is historically known as a stronghold of the Gemayel family.

According to local Lebanese media the Army intervened to push back local residents as the convoy of the FPM supporters was trying to drive through and supporters of the Kataeb started criticizing President Aoun.

The Lebanese Red Thingy reported that 10 people were maimed in the festivities, five were transferred to a hospital for treatment.

Leb’s Defense Minister Elias Bou Saab told a local Lebanese TV that the scuffle was unfortunate, and that Lebanese people should rely on the army.

Earlier in the day, supporters of Shia groups Hezbollah and Amal attacked anti-government protesters in a public square in Baalbek city, east of Leb, destroying tents used as a gathering place by the protesters and chanting religious slogans.

Gun shots were also had gun sex from a convoy of cars carrying Hezbollah flag, resulting in injuries to 15 people.

Late on Monday night, festivities erupted between supporters of Leb’s caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri

...Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's assassination. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too....
, and Shia groups Hezbollah and Amal in Beirut, state news agency NNA reported.

The festivities marked the second consecutive night of violence linked to Leb’s political crisis, threatening to tip largely peaceful demonstrations directed at the country’s ruling elite in a more bloody direction.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Lebanon parliament fails again to elect new president

2014-08-13

The Lebanese parliament failed Tuesday for the tenth consecutive time to elect a new president to replace incumbent president Michel Suleiman because of lack of the required quorum.

Speaker Nabih Berri called for a new session to be held on September 2, after no one won two thirds of the parliament as required by the constitution.

The western-backed March 14 alliance is backing head of the Lebanese Forces Samir Geagea as candidate for the post, while the Syrian-Iranian backed March 8 camp has not declared the candidacy of any of its components as MP Michel Aoun, one of its prominent leaders, insist on running to the post as a consensual candidate.

Centrist Democratic Gathering leader MP Walid Jumblatt announced the candidacy of the Gathering member MP Henri Helou.

Because of the sharp division among the political forces in the parliament, the presidential elections have failed so far on none occasions to conclude as the constitution requires the presence of two thirds of the 128-member parliament which is far from being achieved.

Since May 25, the government of Prime Minister Tammam Salam is running the country according to a constitutional article that stipulates that in the absence of a president, the cabinet will take charge of the post until the election of a new president.

Might not be the worst thing to happen...

Lebanon has witnessed a vacuum in the presidency post in the past following the end of the term of former President Emile Lahoud in 2007 and following the end of the term of former President Amine Gemayel in 1988.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Lebanon calls for a strike to protest Ghanem's assassination

2007-09-22

Lebanon's Phalange Party called for a two-day strike Thursday, a day after a powerful bomb blast in Beirut killed an anti-Syrian lawmaker and four other people. The bombing was the latest in a series of attacks targeting prominent anti-Syrian figures. The explosion, widely blamed on Damascus, killed Phalange member Antoine Ghanem, 64, an anti-Syrian Lebanese parliamentarian and Christian Maronite. Along with the Phalange Party, known for its anti-Syrian stance, the bankers' union and the Ministry of Education backed the strike.

Wednesday's bomb exploded in a huge fireball that ripped through an upscale Christian neighborhood during evening rush hour. The attack wounded at least 70 people in addition to the five slain, Lebanese security sources said. The bombing threatens to deepen the country's political turmoil days before a key presidential vote.

Walid Jumblatt, head of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party and a parliamentarian, called the killing "a bloody message" as it comes ahead of elections, reducing government supporters' parliamentary majority bloc from 69 to 68 and increasing the difficulty of electing "a free president for Lebanon." Prime Minister Fouad Siniora vowed that the attack would not derail Lebanon's attempts to choose a president, according to The Associated Press. "The hand of terror will not win and will not succeed in subduing us and silencing us," he said in a statement late Wednesday reported by the AP. "The Lebanese will not retreat and will have a new president elected by lawmakers, no matter how big the conspiracy was."

Former Lebanese President Amine Gemayel called Ghanem a "very close friend of mine," adding that his assassination is "very, very dangerous for the future of democracy in Lebanon." Gemayel's son Pierre, a Lebanese anti-Syrian parliamentarian, was assassinated last November.

Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh accused the Syrian regime of "using its terrorist skills to assassinate, one after the other, the MPs belonging to the Lebanese independence movement majority ... in order to deplete the majority of its numbers and to impose a comeback of Syria over Lebanon."

But an unidentified source with the state-run SANA news agency, which speaks for the Syrian government, condemned the killing. "This criminal act targets the efforts and endeavors exerted by Syria and others to achieve the Lebanese national accord," the source told SANA.

President Bush called the incident a "horrific assassination." "Since October 2004, there has been a tragic pattern of political assassinations and attempted assassinations designed to silence those Lebanese who courageously defend their vision of an independent and democratic Lebanon," Bush said in a statement Wednesday.

Three months ago, anti-Syrian parliament member Walid Eido was killed along with nine others, including his son and two bodyguards, in an explosion in western Beirut. Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in Beirut in February 2005, sparking widespread protests that led to the ouster of Syrian forces from Lebanon.
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U.N. investigators concluded last year that Hariri's death may be linked to high-ranking Syrian officials. Syria has denied any involvement in the killings and said the U.N. tribunal investigating Hariri's death is a violation of its sovereignty. Siniora asked the United Nations to include Ghanem's killing in its investigation into the Hariri slaying, the AP reported.

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