Syria refugees flood Lebanon

More than 4 500 Syrians fleeing a brutal crackdown on a revolt against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have found shelter in neighbouring Lebanon, with hundreds crossing the border in the last two weeks, the UN said on Friday. (more…)

Tensions high in Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon

Security officials say tensions are running high in Lebanon’s largest refugee camp after a shooting that killed a bodyguard of a prominent Palestinian. (more…)

Jumblatt, Arslan agreed to disagree

During a gathering at the Municipality of the town of Shouaifat a suburb of Beirut which was called for by the head of the Lebanese Democratic Party, Talal Arslan, Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt said: “I might have a (different) viewpoint in political affairs and this is perfectly legal.” (more…)

Future Movement , PSP stress cooperation

The leaderships of the Progressive Socialist Party and the Future movement in Iqlim al-Kharroub stressed in a statement after holding talks at the PSP’s offices in Daraya on Sunday their continued cooperation and the need to preserve calm rhetoric.
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Army Defectors Kill 6 Syrian Troops; activists

Syrian army defectors killed six government troops in heavy fighting Sunday in the country’s rebellious central region, activists said, in the latest sign that the nation’s uprising may be shifting toward civil war.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an officer was among those killed (more…)

Vaclav Havel, Czech dissident, playwright, politician dead at 75

Former Czech President Vaclav Havel, one of the leading anti-Communist dissidents of the 1970s and 1980s, has died at the age of 75, Czech Television announced Sunday.

Havel, a puckish, absurdist playwright turned political activist, spent four and a half years in prison for opposing Czechslovakia’s Communist government before emerging as a leader of the Velvet Revolution that swept it aside in 1989. (more…)

Syrian forces take families hostage

Virtually cut off from outsiders, the area which sustained the first government tank assault of the uprising nine months ago this week is now facing a military sweep intended to quell dissent. (more…)

Flash Floods Kill at Least 450 in Philippines

Flash floods devastated a southern Philippines region unaccustomed to serious storms, killing at least 450 people while they slept, rousting hundreds of others to their rooftops and turning two coastal cities into muddy, debris-filled waterways that were strewn with overturned vehicles and toppled trees. (more…)

The Bane of Lebanon: Sectarianism that is All Encompassing.

by Ghassan Karam
There is a time for everything. A time to live and a time to die but there is never a time to be sectarian “

Jumblatt: The Bkirki deal will isolate the Lebanese people

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt criticized on Saturday the agreement reached at Bkirki by the Maronite leaders concerning the parliamentary the electoral law.

“This law will lead to the isolation of people of different religious sects from each other,” Jumblatt told al-Manar TV on Saturday. (more…)