Premier-designate Najib Miqati has reportedly described Hizbullah as "cancerous" calling for ending the statelet that the party has built to allegedly safeguard Lebanon.
In a WikiLeaks cable published by al-Joumhouria daily on Tuesday, Miqati told former U.S. ambassador Michele Sison that Hizbullah is a "cancerous tumor" and called for removing its statelet whether it was "malignant or benign."
Full StoryThe indictment in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination case could be issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon this month, political sources told An Nahar daily.
The sources said in remarks published Tuesday that the issue could further complicate the government formation process.
Full StoryPremier-designate Najib Miqati was on Tuesday mulling to form a de facto government after President Michel Suleiman and Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun continued to hold onto their demands for the interior ministry portfolio as part of their shares in the new cabinet.
Aoun’s accusations against Suleiman and Miqati on Monday for being responsible behind the delay in the formation of the cabinet further complicated the process.
Full StorySpeaker Nabih Berri said Tuesday he was “disgusted” by the delay in the formation of the government adding that he made everything possible to solve the deadlock.
In remarks to As Safir daily, Berri lamented that the government formation efforts reached a standstill over bickering between the parties involved in the process.
Full StoryFree Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Monday blamed President Michel Suleiman and premier-designate Najib Miqati for the delay in forming the new cabinet.
In an interview with Hizbullah’s mouthpiece Al-Manar television, Aoun said parliamentary blocs have no “unreasonable” demands, noting that “the PM-designate’s demands are complicating the cabinet formation process, not the blocs’ demands.”
Full StoryProgressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat has noted that the demands of some parties concerning shares in the new cabinet “have become absurd and are apt to protract the vicious state of procrastination the country is going through, amid the growing political, financial, economic and social challenges.”
In his weekly column in his party’s mouthpiece Al-Anbaa newspaper to be published Tuesday, Jumblat described the illegal construction of houses on public property as “an infringement of the State, its image and its role,” stressing that “it cannot be tolerated under any circumstances.”
Full StoryCaretaker premier Saad Hariri on Monday said Osama bin Laden was "a black mark" on Islam's history, putting the religion "in hostile situations" with other faiths and cultures.
"The damage he has done to Islam's image and Arab causes is not less than the damage done by enemies of Muslims and Arabs worldwide," he said in a statement.
Full StoryRadical Islamist cleric Omar Bakri said on Monday that with the death of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, the Arab world had "lost a leader," adding that he expected "revenge" attacks in Europe.
"The news of the death of Sheikh Osama has saddened and delighted us at the same time. It saddened us because we lost a leader in the Arab region and it is welcomed because he fell a martyr as he wanted," Bakri told Agence France Presse in Lebanon.
Full StoryThe Israeli army set off warning sirens in the Shebaa Farms and along the Lebanese border at around 10:00 am on Monday.
The sirens were heard for several minutes, reported the National News Agency.
Full StorySources monitoring the contacts to form a new government stated that the efforts to ease the demands over the cabinet are still delaying its formation, adding however that caretaker Interior Minister Ziad Baroud’s announcement that he does not seek to be reappointed as minister will help restore dialogue among the disputed sides.
They told the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat in remarks published on Monday that Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun should be receptive of President Michel Suleiman’s refusal to enter in a dispute with him regarding the former’s insistence on acquiring the Interior Ministry portfolio.
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