Lebanon yesterday hosted a rare summit of regional leaders aimed at defusing tensions over reports of an impending indictment against Hezbollah members for the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri.
The meeting between Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, Saudi King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was hastily organized amid fears of Sunni-Shiite violence erupting in Lebanon should the UN court probing Hariri’s 2005 murder implicate the powerful Hezbollah.
Abdullah and Assad are to arrive together from Damascus and meet Sleiman before attending a luncheon to which members of Lebanon’s unity government — which includes two Hezbollah ministers — have been invited.
Saudi and Syrian flags were on display throughout the capital along with huge portraits of the king and a welcome message.
Security was also tight ahead of the visit, with additional army and police deployed and some streets cordoned off.
“The whole visit is about containing the situation for the immediate future,” said Sahar Atrache, a Beirut-based analyst with the International Crisis Group think-tank. “They are here to exert influence on their internal allies ... to prevent a real escalation.”
Assad will be visiting Lebanon for the first time since Hariri — father of current Prime Minister Saad Hariri — was assassinated in 2005, leading to a sharp downturn in relations between Damascus and Beirut.
Syria, as the main power broker in Lebanon at the time, was widely blamed for the murder of the Sunni former premier, but it has consistently denied any involvement.
Relations have been on the mend since 2008, when diplomatic ties were established for the first time between Beirut and Damascus. Saad Hariri has made four trips to Syria in the past eight months.
Saudi Arabia, a staunch supporter of the slain Hariri and his son, has played a key role in the rapprochement between the two countries.
The Saudi monarch is expected to press Assad to use his influence over Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, to avoid a political stalemate or a sectarian conflict similar to the one that brought Lebanon close to civil war in 2008.
Fears of renewed conflict rose last week after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said he knew that the UN tribunal probing Hariri’s murder was set to indict members of his Shiite party.
He made it clear that he would not accept such a scenario, accusing the tribunal of being politicized and part of an Israeli plot.
“The Arab leaders’ visit to Lebanon is an opportunity to show Arab unity in the face of this plot which aims to destabilize Lebanon and sow sedition,” Hezbollah deputy Hassan Fadlallah said. “This would not be in the interest of the Lebanese or their Arab brothers.”
Analysts say that in addition to threatening civil peace, an indictment of Hezbollah members would deal a blow to the party’s reputation and destabilize Hariri’s unity government.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga