Ghassan Tueni, Top Lebanese Journalist, Dies at 86

Israeli warplanes flew over southern Lebanon Friday, two days after the Jewish state launched an airstrike near Damascus, as Syria’s army chief of staff warned against testing his country’s capabilities.

Lebanon's ambassador to Egypt will attend the Arab summit in Libya after President Michel Sleiman decided not to go amid a spat over the suspected disappearance there of a prominent Lebanese cleric, the government said on Wednesday.The cabinet "unanimously agreed that Khaled Ziyadeh, Lebanon's ambassador to Cairo and representative to the Arab League, will represent Lebanon at the Arab summit" on Saturday and Sunday, Information Minister Tarek Mitri told reporters.

A delegation of 35 Israeli-Arab Druze was accorded special permission to travel to Lebanon to attend an international congress for the highly secretive community, Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said on Wednesday."I worked with the Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese authorities so that the delegation would be allowed to travel by land and enter Lebanon for the first such congress being held for the Druze," Jumblatt told AFP.

US Mideast envoy George Mitchell met with Lebanese President Michel Sleiman on Wednesday and reiterated Washington's commitment to the stalled Middle East peace process and Lebanon's independence."Senator Mitchell conveyed the commitment of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to comprehensive peace in the Middle East, which includes peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel and Syria, and Israel and Lebanon and the full normalisation of relations between Israel and the Arab states," the US embassy in Lebanon said in a statement.

Security must be stepped up for all foreigners entering Lebanon as they could be secret agents like those who murdered a top Hamas militant in Dubai, a Hezbollah lawmaker said on Tuesday."We must tighten foreign passport control at the airport and elsewhere in the country," Hezbollah MP Nawaf Moussawi told AFP."Every Lebanese and Arab must deal with holders of foreign passports as potential spies."Mahmud al-Mabhuh, a founder of the military wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, was found dead in his luxurious Dubai hotel room on January 20.

Lebanese President Michel Sleiman held talks with Saudi King Abdullah on his second visit since May last year to the oil-rich kingdom which is a major powerbroker in Lebanon, the official Saudi Press Agency reported on Sunday.The news agency gave few details of Saturday evening's talks. The two leaders discussed "the latest regional and international developments" and ways of strengthening ties, it said.They also discussed improving policy coordination during Lebanon's tenure of the Arab seat on the UN Security Council until next year, it added.

Lebanon on Friday hosts a rare summit of regional leaders aimed at defusing tensions over reports of an impending indictment against Hezbollah members for the murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.The meeting between Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, Saudi King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was hastily organised amid fears of Sunni-Shiite violence erupting in Lebanon should the UN court probing Hariri's 2005 murder implicate the powerful Hezbollah.

Lebanon on Friday hosts a rare summit of regional leaders aimed at defusing tensions over reports of an impending indictment against Hezbollah members for the murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.The meeting between Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, Saudi King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was hastily organised amid fears of Sunni-Shiite violence erupting in Lebanon should the UN court probing Hariri's 2005 murder implicate the powerful Hezbollah.