Lebanon

BEIRUT, Lebanon -The Obama administration began the delicate task of laying the groundwork for possible talks with long-shunned Syrian leaders, dispatching two senior U.S. diplomats to meet top officials in Damascus, the Syrian capital, yesterday. The step, the highest-level visit by U.S. officials to the Syrian capital in more than four years, was among the first clear manifestations of President Barack Obama's new approach to the Middle East. Unlike his predecessor, Obama has vowed to engage in talks with rivals Syria and Iran in an effort to advance U.S. goals in the Middle East, which include redirecting Iran's nuclear program from potential military uses and providing security for Israel.

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is planning a trip to Saudi Arabia, an official said, for talks expected to focus on regional stability and the sectarian fighting in Iraq and Lebanon. "The two heads of state will discuss issues of the Islamic world, bilateral ties and the situation in the Middle East," Mohammad Hosseini, Iran's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told the Iranian news agency IRNA. He did not say when the trip would be made, but other news agencies reported that it would take place this weekend.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- A car bomb shook a Christian neighborhood outside Beirut yesterday, killing a Lebanese lawmaker and six other people days before the parliament of this divided country is to hold a presidential election. The killing of Antoine Ghanem, 64, a member of the Western-backed parliamentary majority, was the sixth assassination in two years to target prominent detractors of neighboring Syria. Some analysts said the killing was an attempt by groups loyal to Syria to reduce the size of a parliamentary bloc supported by the United States and Europe.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims churned in the Lebanese capital yesterday as armed clashes at a university killed at least two people and overflowed into surrounding neighborhoods. Hours after dark, the army imposed an overnight curfew in an effort to restore order. Community leaders took to the airwaves to soothe enflamed emotions. Rampaging youths had smashed cars, started fires and attacked the party headquarters of their political rivals for hours after the gunfire and rioting earlier in the day at Beirut Arab University.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Hezbollah and its allies paralyzed Lebanon yesterday, sending thousands of demonstrators to seize control of major roads, brawl with government supporters and choke the seaside capital in the acrid smoke of burning tires. The swift seizure of the country's roads took many here by surprise and marked a major escalation in Hezbollah's campaign to overthrow Lebanon's U.S.-backed government. At least three people died and more than 100 were wounded as clashes flared around the country.

BEIRUT -- A new front erupted in Lebanon's simmering political conflict yesterday in the northern city of Tripoli, where running battles between the Lebanese army and a radical new Palestinian organization said to have ties to al-Qaida killed at least 39 people. In the worst internal fighting since the end of Lebanon's civil war 17 years ago, the army battled militants throughout the day in the streets of the port city and on the edges of the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr el-Bared, which late last year fell under the control of a radical group calling itself Fateh al-Islam.

Beirut -- A Lebanese lawmaker who had long been critical of the Syrian regime was killed yesterday along with his son and eight people when a bomb exploded near a popular waterfront promenade in Beirut. The assassination threatened to further destabilize this small country already paralyzed politically, stretched militarily and suffering economically. Walid Eido, 65, a lawmaker with the anti-Syria coalition, was driving with his son Khaled and two bodyguards in a predominantly Sunni part of town when the bomb tore through nearby cafes and ice cream parlors just before 6 p.m. The explosion was so powerful it blew out windows on the 10th floor of a hotel across the street, sending a shower of glass onto the busy street below.

Don't complain about American politics. The U.S. system may seem complex and unwieldy, with multiple candidates vying to win multiple caucuses and primaries - and endless debates, speeches and television advertisements. But American politics look simple compared with the chaotic situation half a world away, in the Middle East, where elections are a matter of life and death. Take Lebanon - a small country in a rough neighborhood. A political tug-of-war has left four members of parliament dead and a presidency that may or may not be filled before the end of the year.

JERUSALEM -- In a trial run for Israel's eventual withdrawal from Lebanon, an Israeli-backed militia announced yesterday that it is vacating a strategic enclave in southern Lebanon it has held for 14 years.The pullback by the South Lebanon Army, Israel's proxy in the region, will leave the mostly Christian Jezzine pocket open for takeover by Lebanese government forces -- or by Islamic Hezbollah guerrillas who are waging a war of attrition against Israel. Israeli officials are watching closely to see which scenario unfolds.

U.N. tribunal moves to speed up trials in '94 Rwanda genocideARUSHA, Tanzania -- Hoping to speed up its work, the U.N. tribunal trying suspects in the 1994 Rwandan genocide opened a third courtroom yesterday and swore in three new judges.The addition brings to nine the number serving the tribunal, established in November 1994 to bring to justice those responsible for the slaughter in which at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.Rwandan authorities and human rights groups have accused the court -- which has completed work on four cases -- of incompetence.

On October 11, 2009, BISHOP JOHNIE ROBERT RAWLINGS, SR., loving husband of Mrs. Hattie G. Rawlings. On Thursday, friends may call Vaughn C. Greene Funeral Services (EAST), 4905 York Road, where the family will receive friends from 4 to 8 PM. On Friday, services will be held at New Lebanon Calvary Baptist Church, 501 N. Milton Avenue, where the family will receive friends from 10 to 10:30 AM with services to follow. Inquiries to 410-433-7500.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Iran's supreme leader warned government opponents Monday to end a campaign of civil disobedience while defiant reformists proposed a nationwide referendum to resolve the ongoing dispute over the country's recent presidential election. Meanwhile, the elite Revolutionary Guard sought to consolidate its power by moving to take control of the oil industry and by meddling in the higher education curriculum. The moves show that neither supporters of opposition figure Mir Hossein Mousavi nor the camp backing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are backing down five weeks after an election marred by allegations of vote fraud.

Five years from now, if Iran and the United States have cordial relations, Lebanon's armed factions are dormant and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has abated to the point where a Palestinian state exists or is being formed, the world may look back to this week as something of a turning point in Middle East affairs. First, a pro-Western alliance defied predictions over the weekend and bested the extremist group Hezbollah in Lebanon's parliamentary voting. Now, days later, Iran's hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is in danger of losing his job in Friday's election.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -The Obama administration began the delicate task of laying the groundwork for possible talks with long-shunned Syrian leaders, dispatching two senior U.S. diplomats to meet top officials in Damascus, the Syrian capital, yesterday. The step, the highest-level visit by U.S. officials to the Syrian capital in more than four years, was among the first clear manifestations of President Barack Obama's new approach to the Middle East. Unlike his predecessor, Obama has vowed to engage in talks with rivals Syria and Iran in an effort to advance U.S. goals in the Middle East, which include redirecting Iran's nuclear program from potential military uses and providing security for Israel.

Waltz With Bashir views war from the inside out and the outside in. It carries the shock of full disclosure. Ari Folman, the writer-director, was a member of the Israeli Defense Forces in 1982, during the Israeli army's occupation of southern Lebanon and the massacre conducted under its eyes by Lebanese Christian Phalangists at the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. The bloodletting came after the assassination of Lebanon's Christian president, Bashir Gemayel. But from the outset, grotesque cruelty marked the Christian militia's treatment of Palestinian terrorists and civilians.

China may send ships to help fend off pirates BEIJING: China said yesterday that it was considering sending warships to help fight pirates off the Somali coast, a sign of its increasing willingness to flex its military muscle. Although China has participated in U.N. peacekeeping operations in Africa, its navy has seldom left the Pacific region. China is the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council that has not joined the United States in a growing international fleet fighting a brazen wave of piracy launched from Somalian shores.

Syrian president orders an embassy in Lebanon Beirut, Lebanon : The president of Syria ordered his government yesterday to establish formal diplomatic relations with Lebanon, a move that could pave the way for normalizing decades of tangled ties between the two countries. President Bashar Assad issued a decree calling for the establishment of Syria's first-ever diplomatic mission in Lebanon, a small mountainous country carved out of the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire and long dominated by its larger neighbor.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon - A bomb hidden in a briefcase tore through a bus packed with Lebanese soldiers on their way to work yesterday morning, killing 15 people, including nine soldiers, and wounding more than 40 people. The bombing overshadowed news from Damascus that Syria and Lebanon would establish diplomatic relations for the first time since each country achieved independence from France in the 1940s. The announcement, at the start of a fence-mending mission by President Michel Suleiman of Lebanon, did not say when the countries would exchange ambassadors.

Lebanon, Ohio - Barbara Weisenfelder didn't believe the FBI agents for one minute. They had told the director of this village's historical museum that they had come all the way from Washington to interview residents as part of an insurance fraud investigation. The agents said Bruce Ivins, 62, the youngest son of the town's long-deceased druggist, had faked his death. And they wanted to know everything about him and his family. They even inquired about the name of the architect and contractor who built the family's cream-colored, single-story home on Orchard Street in the 1930s.

MENIEH, Lebanon -- After almost a week of street battles that left scores dead and threatened to push the country into open war, long-simmering Sunni-Shiite tensions here have sharply worsened, in an ominous echo of the civil conflict in Iraq. Hezbollah's brief takeover of Beirut led to brutal counterattacks in northern Lebanon, where Sunni Muslims deeply resented the Shiite militant group's display of power. The violence energized radical Sunni factions, including some affiliated with al-Qaida, and extremist Sunni Web sites across the Arab world have been buzzing with calls for a jihad to avenge the wounded pride of Lebanese Sunnis.