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Fadi El Khatib (15) of Lebanon scores while China's Zhang Jinsong (in red) tries to block at the final match against China of 21st Asian Basketball Championship for Men in Shanghai, 28 July 2001. China won the gold with scores 97-63. |
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Rony Fahed (10) of Lebanon tries to drive through a defence fo Chinese player at the final match against China of 21st Asian Basketball Championship for Men in Shanghai, 28 July 2001. China won then gold with 97-63. |
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Joseph Vogel (11) of Lebanon tries to drive through a defence fo Yao Ming of China at the final match against China of 21st Asian Basketball Championship for Men in Shanghai, 28 July 2001. China won the game with 97-63. |
DAMASCUS, July 28 (AFP) - Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmud Hammud is believed to have urged Syrian leaders Saturday to support the UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanese-Israeli border. "We want with our (Syrian) brothers to reaffirm our position as concerns maintaining the strength and mission of this force," Hammud said before a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. He added in a statement that his visit, which was unannounced, was aimed at "dialogue and cooperation in the face of the surge in Israeli aggression and its rejection of UN resolutions."
After the meeting, the official SANA news agency said Assad and Hammud discussed "the development of brotherly relations between Syria and Lebanon, and the tasks which are their responsibility in the present circumstances." Hammud also gave a letter from Lebanese President Emile Lahoud to Assad, who gave an written reply in return, the news agency said, without elaborating.
The minister was welcomed at the border by his Syrian counterpart Faruq al-Shara, the official SANA news agency said. In a letter to the UN Security Council, the Lebanese government Saturday said it would be "unacceptable" to transform the UN Interim Forces in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL) into an observer mission.
It demanded that it be consulted and give its "approval" to any modification in the force's mandate, since it was deployed in its territory. The Security Council Wednesday extended by six months the UN mission along Lebanon's "blue line," the highly-contested border with Israel, but will reduce the number of peacekeepers from 5,800 to 3,600 by the end of the year, despite objections from Beirut.
The force could then be lowered again to 2,000 peacekeepers next year. The reductions are part of a UN plan to reorganize UNFIL after Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in May 2000, after 22 years of occupation. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan recommended in January that UNIFIL no longer act as peacekeepers, but monitor the border ceasefire.
Annan has also asked Beirut to deploy its own army troops to patrol the "blue line," in the face of heightened attacks by the militant Islamist Hezbollah, while also strongly criticizing Israeli-initiated violence in the disputed Shebaa Farms region.
SIDON, Lebanon, July 28 (AFP) - A Lebanese Shiite cleric Saturday put a million dollar bounty on the heads of two Israeli rabbis, one for having approved "the assassination of Palestinian terrorists" and the other for having called for their "annihilation".
"A one million dollar reward is offered to the one who will punish rabbis Israel Meir Lau and Ovadia Yossef", Sheikh Afif al-Nabulsi, ulema (doctors of faith) leader for Jabal Aamel in southern Lebanon, told the press. Sheikh Nabulsi said a wealthy individual had offered the bounty but did not disclose his name. "These two rabbis are two snakes, and Muslims in general, and Palestinians in particular, are called upon to exterminate these microbes which tarnish the surface of the earth", he said. "As a response to Rabbi Israel meir Lau who legitimised the assassinations carried out by his government, we issue a fatwa (Islamic decree) legitimising the elimination of all Zionists, starting with rabbis", he added.
On Friday, Lau, Israel's chief rabbi gave his seal of approval to the government's controversial practice of carrying out targeted killings of Palestinian "terrorists." The same day, Yossef, a hardline rabbi renowned for his racist
denunciations of Arabs, said they were reproducing like insects and were destined to end up in hell. "In the old city of Jerusalem they're swarming like ants. They should go to hell -- and the Messiah will speed them on their way," the founder of the Shas party said in a sermon.
SHATILA, Lebanon, July 28 (AFP) - Over 1,000 Palestinians gathered at a cemetery for the victims of the 1982 massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps Saturday and shouted slogans including "Sharon is a murderer." Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was Israeli defence minister at the time of the atrocities which were carried out by Israeli-allied Christian militias and which the Palestinians blame on Israel.
The demonstrators came from three refugee camps in Beirut and walked through the streets of Shatila before gathering for a meeting at the cemetery where the 1,000 Palestinian victims of the massacres are buried. Waving Palestinian and Lebanese flags, young men and women turned out in response to an appeal by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) to show their support for the Palestinian intifada, now in its 11th month. "Sharon killed our people at Sabra and Shatila, he wants to massacre our brothers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip," read a banner carried by two young girls.
Kheiri Abu Jaj, a Beirut official of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, spoke out to condemn "the policy of extermination of the Palestinians conducted by Ariel Sharon that he started 19 years ago in Sabra and Shatila." "The intifada must continue and will continue in a climate of Palestinian national unity and Arab solidarity to conquer the butcher Sharon and for our people to build their independent state on their land," the Fatah official continued.
Leaders of Lebanese movements also took part in the demonstration. Lebanon is home to some 375,000 Palestinians, nearly half of whom live in around a dozen camps spread around the country.
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