Nasrallah calls for massive turnout Friday to support opposition’s demands for national unity cabinet.

By Sylvie Groult – BEIRUT

The Lebanese opposition called for mass demonstrations Friday in support of its demands for government of national unity but the pro-Western cabinet swiftly rejected the move.

“The opposition forces, on the basis of their constitutional rights, call on all Lebanese, whatever their religious confession, to demonstrate peacefully in an open-ended sit-in from 3 pm (1300 GMT) Friday for a national unity government,” said an opposition statement.

“The opposition forces appeal to demonstrators to brandish only the Lebanese flag and authorised slogans,” the statement added. (more…)

Four deminers wounded by Israeli anti-personnel mines planted durning its summer war against Lebanon.

BEIRUT(AP) — A U.N. agency said Saturday that Israel laid mines in Lebanon during this summer’s war between the Jewish state and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group _ the first time Israel has been accused of planting mines during the latest fighting. (more…)

Ghassan Makerem, an intellectual and activist in Beirut, provides context and an overview of initial reaction to the assassination of Lebanese Cabinet Minister Pierre Gemayel:

An interview with Ghassan Makarem on Gemayel Assassination: A view from Lebanon

For information on the Lebanese situation, you can go to:

• The Daily Star
• Al Jazeera

By Anthony Shadid-Washington Post Foreign Service

BEIRUT, Nov. 22 — The neighborhood of Ain Rummaneh was quiet Wednesday, its shops shuttered and streets empty a day after the assassination of an anti-Syrian politician from one of Lebanon’s most prominent Christian families. Nayef Mazraani took a break from washing his car and pointed down a shaded street.

There, he said, was where Lebanon’s civil war began in 1975, when Christian militiamen massacred 27 Palestinians on a bus after an attack on a church. He gestured in another direction. There, he said, was that war’s front line, which remains a barrier of sorts between two Beiruts and two Lebanons, pulling ever further apart.

“The war has never stopped,” he said. “It started here, in 1975, in Ain Rummaneh, and until now, it hasn’t finished.” (more…)

The latest assassination in Lebanon has bolstered the US-backed government and weakened Hizbullah and the opposition

Charles Harb
Thursday November 23, 2006
The Guardian

The assassination of Pierre Gemayel, a Lebanese cabinet minister and scion of a ruling Christian Maronite family, in Beirut on Tuesday has sent shockwaves through the country’s establishment and is shaping the political feud raging throughout the country. Given the timing, location and method of the killing – a sophisticated shooting in the heart of Christian east Beirut at the height of a political crisis – there is already rampant speculation as to the identity and sponsors of the assassins. That will doubtless remain the case even after the criminal investigation is complete. The consequences of this for Lebanon and the wider Middle East are already starting to become clear.

(more…)

Beirut, 20 November – Even as the country prepared for mass street protests aimed at changing the composition of the government, activists in Beirut held a spirited protest in solidarity with the besieged people of Gaza and against the presence of UNIFIL troops in southern Lebanon.

Around 30 people staged the sit-in outside the headquarters of the European Union (EU), many of whose countries have contributed troops to the enlarged UNIFIL presence in southern Lebanon.

(more…)

Helem keeps up counseling and publishing efforts, but legal and media advocacy take back seat for now

By Paige Austin
Special to The Daily Star
Wednesday, November 22, 2006

BEIRUT: Helem has undergone a subtle transformation in recent months. Lebanon’s pioneering gay and lesbian rights organization has scaled back its advocacy efforts in quiet acknowledgment of politicians’ preoccupation with other issues – and its own potential for igniting backlash. Helem’s full-time coordinator, Georges Azzi, says the shift is in part a reflection of the political turmoil in Lebanon in the aftermath of this past summer’s war with Israel. (more…)

A Presentation from HABBOUBA AOUN of the Landmine Resource Center in Beirut on Israeli Cluster Bombs & their impact on the Lebanese people.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24th, 8pm
Center Communautaire Musulman de Montreal [CCMM]
3300 Cremazie East, corner of St. Michel
[Saint-Michel Metro]
Donations Appreciated.

Join the Al Hidaya Association of Montreal & Tadamon! for an interactive slide-show & presentation from HABBOUBA AOUN of the Landmine Resource Center in Beirut.

(more…)

US prosecutor charges 2 for helping air Al-Manar

NEW YORK: Two men have been charged with terrorist offences in New York for allegedly providing access to a television station banned in the United States and linked to Hizbullah, prosecutors said Monday. Pakistani-born Javed Iqbal, 42, and US citizen Saleh Elahwal, 53, are accused of conspiring to provide viewers with satellite broadcasts by Al-Manar, considered the mouthpiece for the Lebanese resistance party.

They face a sentence of up to 110 years in jail if convicted on the charges of providing material support or resources to a foreign “terrorist” organization. (more…)

Jeremy Harding – London Review of Books

Shatila is a short car journey out of Beirut and a few minutes on foot down a street full of market stalls. You pass a refuse heap where goats browse and small children smash up polystyrene packaging, duck into any of the narrow alleys to your right and enter one of the oldest refugee camps in the world. It was established by the Red Cross in 1949 on behalf of Palestinians herded from their villages the previous year. About 700,000 people were evicted in 1948 and of these perhaps 100,000, many of them peasants and smallholders from the hinterland of Haifa, fetched up in Lebanon.

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