Eiffel Tower bomb threat was a hoax: Police

Police evacuated about 1,400 tourists and staffers at the Eiffel Tower for two hours after an anonymous individual called in a bomb threat Saturday, but people were later allowed to return.

French media reported police had lifted the security alert around 10 p.m. local time, saying the threat appeared to be a hoax. (more…)

Germany wants Hezbollah on EU terrorist group list

The German Interior and Foreign ministries want Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement to be placed on the EU’s list of terrorist groups if suspicions are confirmed that the organization was behind the bus bombing in Bulgaria last year in which five Israeli tourists were killed, according to a report by the Der Spiegel Magazine. (more…)

France Confirms the Death of a Qaeda Leader in Mali

France on Saturday officially confirmed the death of the regional Al Qaeda leader Abdelhamid Abu Zeid, weeks after he was reported to have been killed in fighting in northern Mali at the end of February. (more…)

EU rejects Franco-British push to arm Syrian rebels

BRUSSELS, March 15 (Reuters) – European Union governments on Friday rejected Franco-British efforts to lift an EU arms embargo to allow weapons supplies to Syrian rebels, saying this could spark an arms race and worsen regional instability. (more…)

France urges end to arms embargo on Syria

France, joining Britain, is urging its European Union partners to meet this month and end an arms embargo on Syria, to allow weapons to be sent to the opposition there.

“We want Europeans to lift the arms embargo,” President François Hollande of France told reporters (more…)

Syrian Druze shifting support to the opposition

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Members of Syria’s Druze community, a small but significant religious minority, are joining the opposition in bigger numbers, ramping up pressure on the beleaguered government of President Bashar al-Assad, according to opposition activists and rebel military commanders. (more…)

Europeans Warned to Evacuate Libya’s Benghazi

Several European governments urged their citizens to evacuate the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi in response to what the U.K. described as “a specific and imminent threat to Westerners,” highlighting jitters in the region after last week’s deadly hostage siege at a natural-gas facility in Algeria. (more…)

Protests against the detention of George Abdallah

The Beirut Bar Association held a protest on Friday to demand the release of Lebanese detainee in French prisons, George Ibrahim Abdallah.

The lawyers criticized the French government and its judiciary, stating that the way they are dealing with Abdallah’s case is not in conformity with either the (more…)

French journalist killed in Syria

French President Francois Hollande offered condolences Friday for a French journalist slain in the Syrian city of Aleppo while reporting on the civil war there.

The journalist, Yves Debay, was covering clashes between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar (more…)

France Seeks Arab Backing for war against Islamists in Mali

French warplanes were reported 0n Tuesday to have carried out airstrikes overnight against Islamist fighters who overran a strategic village and military post in central Mali on Monday, offering an indication that the war against extremists who have carved out a jihadist state in the nation’s north could be a long and difficult one. (more…)