For Lebanon

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All articles in this section are taken from FutureTV news.

• Sep. 5, 2005 - Cabinet holds meeting in Serail, Thursday in Baabda

• Sep. 5, 2005 - Aridi says no decision to block Baabda sessions

• Sep. 5, 2005 - Jumblatt meets Nesrallah says resistance protects Lebanon

• Sep. 5, 2005 -

• Sep. 4, 2005 - Lawyers of four pro-Syrians to call for bail

• Sep. 4, 2005 - Jumblatt tells Moustaqbal police regime is beaten

• Sep. 4, 2005 - Future Youth Movement plant 200 trees in memory of Hariri

• Sep. 4, 2005 -

• Sep. 2, 2005 - Mehlis hails legal proceedings against suspects, says Lahoud not a suspect

• Sep. 2, 2005 - Under-fire Lebanon president resists calls to go

Sep. 5, 2005
• Cabinet holds meeting in Serail, Thursday in Baabda
Cabinet is to meet this afternoon at five pm at the Serail. The ministers are to discuss the latest developments in the international inquiry in the February 14th bomb blast, which killed Former premier Rafik Hariri. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora will preside over today's meeting, which will not be attended by President Emile Lahoud. The head of state would head another cabinet meeting on Thursday this time at the Baabda presidential palace.

Sep. 5, 2005
• Aridi says no decision to block Baabda sessions
Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said there was no decision to boycott any cabinet session including the Thursday meeting in Baabda. Last week Communication Minister Marawan Hamadeh had called to boycott sessions taking place at the Baabda's palace. Aridi said Hamadeh's stance was personal. Speaking of the latest developments on Rafik Hariri's murder investigation, Aridi said it was just the beginning of searching for the truth. He said the majority could not only decide the fate of crucial issues in Lebanon beacuase he said there were other important political and spiritual leaders.

Sep. 5, 2005
• Jumblatt meets Nesrallah says resistance protects Lebanon
MP Walid Jumblatt met yesterday with Hizbollah chief Sayyid Hassan Nesrallah. Following the meeting Jumblatt expressed a change in stance regarding President Lahoud saying he was not a suspect in Rafik Hariri's murder. He was citing a statement made by head of the international inquiry Detlev Mehlis. Regarding Hizbollah's arm Jumblatt said they were no longer here to defend the Shebaa farms but protect Lebanon.

Sep. 5, 2005
•
Maouwad calls for Lahoud's resignation
Social Affairs Minister Nayla Maouwad called for the resignation of President Emile Lahoud. She said it was impossible to coexist with security apparatus and symbols. Maouwad accused Lahoud of blocking the work of the Lebanese justice in an allusion to the arrest last week of four of Lahoud's allies, and become their defender.

Sep. 4, 2005
• Lawyers of four pro-Syrians to call for bail
A Lebanese magistrate issued formal arrest warrants yesterday against four pro-Syrian generals charged with murder over the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, allowing them to be kept in custody. Judicial sources said Judge Elias Eid issued the warrants after interrogating all four men detained on Tuesday on the recommendation of a U.N. investigator leading an international probe into the killing of Hariri and 20 others in February. Judicial sources said the defense lawyers are now expected to ask that the four men be released on bail while investigations continue.
Report: The four men are charged with murder, attempted murder and carrying out a terrorist act. The sources said Defense lawyers are now expected to ask that the men who headed the main security agencies when Hariri was killed be released on bail while investigations continue. Judge Elias Eid questioned for three hours Presidential Guard chief Brigadier General Mustafa Hamdan, a close aide of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud. Calls for Lahoud to resign have grown since the detention of Hamdan, the only Lebanese security chief to keep his job after parliamentary elections in June ushered in an anti-Syrian majority for the first time since the end of the civil war. Eid also questioned the former head of General Security Major General Jamil al-Sayyed, once the most powerful of the pro-Syrian security chiefs. Lebanese police detained Hamdan and Sayyed, along with former police chief Major General Ali Hajj and former military intelligence chief Brigadier General Raymond Azar on Tuesday. The U.N. team questioned them before handing them over to the Lebanese authorities, but judicial sources said the Lebanese magistrate had not been given access to all the evidence, witnesses or witness statements. Their arrests marked the first major step towards a trial over the bomb blast which sparked a wave of public protests that led to the departure of Syrian troops in April and transformed Lebanese politics. The assassination has been widely blamed on Syria and its political allies in Lebanon at the time, charges vehemently rejected by Damascus. U.N. investigators also searched the Beirut offices of the Baath Party, the Lebanese branch of Syria's ruling party and questioned its leader Assem Qanso as a witness in the case.

Sep. 4, 2005
• Jumblatt tells Moustaqbal police regime is beaten
MP Walid Jumblatt said President Emile Lahoud's mandate was over and the police regime was beaten. In an interview with the daily Al Moustaqbal the head of the progressive Socialist party said he only asked for one thing; for the truth to be revealed because he said this would allow the re-establishment of democracy. One year ago Jumblatt and his party voted against Syria's will to extend Lahoud mandate for another there years.

Sep. 4, 2005
• Future Youth Movement plant 200 trees in memory of Hariri
On the occasion of the 200th day of the February 14th explosion, the Future Youth Movement planted 200 trees across Lebanon, including at Former Premier Rafik Hariri's resting place in Down Town Beirut. The movement said the trees were in memory of Hariri and symbolized the call for the truth and peace.

Sep. 4, 2005
•
Syria kills five militants
Syrian security forces killed five members of an Islamist militant group during a gunbattle in the northwest of the country and discovered a cache of weapons. Syria's official SANA news agency said yesterday "The anti-terror squad raided on Friday evening a hideout of a terrorist group belonging to Jund al-Sham in the Hama governorate." It said Syrian forces also found an arsenal of weapons, bombs and explosives stashed in the group's hideout in Jibrin, a village near the city of Hama. It did not elaborate but Syrian security sources told Reuters all of the men killed in the gun battle were Syrian. Two Syrian security officers were wounded in the clash. Some terrorism analysts have linked Jund al-Sham to al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The United States has piled pressure on Syria to seal its long eastern desert border with Iraq to stop militants from crossing to fight U.S. forces there. Syria says it is doing its best to control the frontier but calls on the U.S. and Iraq to do more on their side too.

Sep. 2, 2005
• Mehlis hails legal proceedings against suspects, says Lahoud not a suspect
The decision to begin legal proceeding against the four suspects came hours after Detlev Mehlis, leading an inquiry ordered by the U.N. Security Council, said he believed more people were involved in the bombing. Speaking at a news conference yesterday he described the arrest of the four men as "a very important step" but also cautioned that they were only "part of the picture" and the case was far from over.
Report: Detlev Mehlis, who was appointed by the United Nations after shortcomings in Lebanon's own probe into the murder to assist the authorities with a new enquiry, hailed the latest move by Lebanese authorities. The German prosecutor, speaking at a news conference yesterday, described the arrest of the four men as "a very important step" but also cautioned that they were only "part of the picture" and the case was far from over. Former MP Nassir Qandil was freed on Wednesday a day after the arrests but Mehlis said he was still a suspect.
Mehlis said the commission had "extensively interviewed" the five suspects and was now going over their statements but he cautioned that they remained innocent until proven guilty.
(DETLIV MEHLIS, HEAD OF INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATORS, SAYING: "Up until now as you know the commission has identified five suspects, they have been extensively interviewed. Both the commission and the Lebanese judiciary are presently reviewing and assessing their statements. In the meantime the presumption of innocence stands and the rights of the suspects are fully preserved. Therefore it is fair to say that the case is not closed and we still invite anyone inside and outside of Lebanon who may have information on this assassination to report it to us, to report it to the commission. We will provide security to witnesses and suspects who will need it.")
Mehlis said he believed more people could be involved in the killing than the five suspects already identified and arrested. He stressed President Emile Lahoud was not a suspect and said the commission team was "not recommending people to be arrested on rumor." Mehlis also said the investigation ordered by the U.N. Security Council has not uncovered any Syrian suspects linked to the February 14 bombing, which killed Hariri and 20 others, including MP Basil Flaihan. But Mehlis said he was willing to go to Damascus to meet Syrian officials. Asked about cooperation from Damascus so far, Mehlis told a press conference that its lack of help had caused a delay in the probe. DETLIV MEHLIS, HEAD OF INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATORS, SAYING: "I am optimistic that these problems can be solved because they will have to be solved, because without this (Syrian) cooperation we will not have the full picture so I am optimistic on this because I also read the interview of President Assad and I am really willing to go to Syria but I did not go so far.")
He said the UN commission of inquiry wanted to meet any Syrian officials who had a security role in Lebanon at the time but said that at the moment there was no specific Syrian suspect. Mehlis said investigators were now moving ahead with a detailed examination of the blast scene on the Beirut seafront with the help of Dutch, British and Japanese experts. Answering question about the September 15th deadline for the U.N. investigation Mehlis said the team had not asked an extension yet, but did not believe it would to finish its probe by the September 15 deadline due to ongoing events.

Sep. 2, 2005
• Under-fire Lebanon president resists calls to go
Lebanon's pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud vowed to stay on in office, dismissing vocal calls for his resignation after the arrest of four top aides over the murder of former premier Rafiq Hariri. Lahoud's pledge came after the head of the UN probe into the murder said the president was "not a suspect" in the case and made clear that the investigation into the February assassination was far from over. Those arrested earlier this week were close to Lahoud's most notably Mustafa Hamdan the head of presidential guard. The arrests have ratcheted up the pressure on Lahoud, who has long denied allegations of complicity in the assassination and resisted calls to stand down. Druze leader and prominent Lahoud critic Walid Jumblatt had predicted on Tuesday that the president would have to step down, saying it was finally quote "payback time" over the murder and further arrests would be on the way. In a statement read out by presidential spokesman Rafik Chlala before the charges were announced yesterday, Lahoud urged the Lebanese judiciary to complete a study of the Mehlis's recommendations and evidence before deciding the suspects' fate.