France Telecom Lebanon affiliate's contract to expire om August: company

BEIRUT, June 20 (AFP) - Cellis, in which France Telecom has a 67 percent stake, was officially informed Thursday that its mobile network contract will expire August 31, a source close to the French communications giant said.

Cellis received a letter from the Lebanese ministry of telecommunications on Thursday, the source told AFP. France Telecom, in which the French state has a 55 percent stake, "will make an appeal on Friday before a special commission of the United Nations in Geneva against such expropriations, which goes against the 1999 French-Lebanese convention for the mutual protection of investments," it said.

LibanCell, the country's other mobile phone operator with a 14-percent Finnish stake in the company, could not be reached to confirm whether it had received a similar notification letter.

Both companies had been awarded contracts to run Lebanon's mobile phone network since the cellular system was set up in 1994 for a period of 10 years, with an option of two additional years, on a Build-Operate-Tranfer (BOT) deal.

But on May 30, Lebanon's parliament passed a law stipulating the expropriation on August 31 of the two operators - currently in a dispute with the government - and approved a government plan to launch international offers to operate the two mobile phones networks for 20 years.

Lebanon is asking Cellis and LibanCell to pay 600 million dollars in alleged unpaid taxes and fines, a figure contested by the two companies which have already filed a lawsuit against the Lebanese government for its "abusive breach of the contract."

Lebanon calls for halt to repeated Israeli "threats"

BEIRUT, June 20 (AFP) - Lebanon called Thursday on the United Nations Security Council to demand Israel halt its repeated "threats and intimidations," Foreign Minister Mahmud Hammud said. "We are pursuing our contacts and we call on the international community and the five permanent members of the Security Council to demand Israel to cease its threats and intimidations," he told reporters.

Hammud was speaking after a meeting with the ambassadors of the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China. "I summoned them to ask them to transmit to their governments Lebanon's denial of the Israeli allegations concerning the arrival of arms and missiles or the presence of al-Qaeda members" in Lebanon, he said. "I have also asked them to inform their governments of this atmosphere of  tension that comes at the start of a seemingly promising tourism season in Lebanon," he said. "This campaign of allegations and intimidation will not fool anybody," he said.

On Wednesday, a Lebanese official source said the authorities intended to launch "preventive action" with the big powers and the United Nations to counter Israeli threats and "untruthful media campaigns" against Lebanon. Israeli public radio reported Wednesday that Iran had sent fighters and arms to Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, airlifting the forces through Damascus.

It said Hezbollah was planning a major attack on Israel such as a strike on a border stronghold or an operation to kidnap soldiers, in a bid to provoke a major Israeli retaliation. Earlier this year, Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin ben Eliezer also accused Lebanon of harboring Al-Qaeda terrorist units, a claim strongly denied by Beirut.

Bombs found in Lebanon near Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms

SHEBAA, Lebanon, June 20 (AFP) - Three explosive charges were found Thursday near a post of the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) close to the disputed Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms border area, police said.

The bombs, wrapped in fabric, were discovered by shepherds near the village of Shebaa a few hundred meters from the barbed wire marking the borders with the occupied farms and an Indian post of UNIFIL troops, they said. Lebanese police officers dismantled the bombs.

Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes pursued Thursday their near daily overflights of Lebanon, triggering Hezbollah anti-aircraft fire that did not hit the jets, police said. The fighter bombers broke the sound barrier over Beirut, the southern coastal city of Tyre and the northern port of Tripoli, they said.

The overflights took place as Iranian Health Minister Massud Pezeshkan was visiting the region, together with officials from the Lebanese Shiite Muslim fundamentalist group Hezbollah, an AFP correspondent said. Hezbollah said the group's guerrillas opened anti-aircraft fire twice within an interval of 30 minutes early Thursday against Israeli warplanes "violating Lebanese airspace."

Israeli overflights are considered as violations of the "blue line" the United Nations drew between the two countries after Israel ended its 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in May 2000. Since the end of the occupation, Hezbollah guerrillas, backed by Damascus and Tehran, are still fighting Israeli troops holding the Shebaa Farms seized from Syria in 1967 and claimed by Beirut with Damascus' consent.

Lebanese minibus owners protest order to switch to gasoline

BEIRUT, June 19 (AFP) - Minibus owners became Wednesday the latest Lebanese drivers to join a protest against forcing people to convert diesel-powered engines to use gasoline. Protesters blocked one of the southern entrances to the Lebanese capital with burning tires before being dispersed by police, and some 200 people marched on the official residence of parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, who is also chief of the Shiite movement Amal.

With some of them carrying portraits of Hassan Nasrallah, chief of the rival Shiite group, Hezbollah, demonstrators sat down in the street and shouted against the government, "You are all thieves, only Hezbollah defends the deprived."

Minibus owners have joined taxi drivers in protesting a new anti-pollution law that bans the use of heating oil to power automotive engines. The ban on taxis went into effect last week, while minibus owners will be hit from July 15.

Trucks, buses and army vehicles are exempted from the ban, as are factories and power plants, much to the anger of environmentalists who cite the emissions as a main reason for the high levels of pollution in Beirut.

Since 1995, the government has turned a blind eye to diesel engines in a bid to reduce transportation costs, but failed to import diesel fuel. As a result, drivers used highly polluting heating oil, which also brought them larger income because it is much cheaper than gasoline.

Abdullah Hamadeh, head of the minibus drivers union, charged that it was the Lebanese "state, which allowed the introduction of diesel motors, which is responsible for the damages caused us by the withdrawal of this authorization. "Drivers have gone into debt to spend 36,000 dollars on diesel vehicles, and the authorities now ask us to stop working before we have finished paying them off."

Five wounded in accidental explosion of Israeli bombs in south Lebanon

RASHAYA, Lebanon, June 18 (AFP) - Five civilians were wounded Tuesday in the accidental explosion of Israeli cluster bombs as local residents tried to put out a fire in south Lebanon, police said. The wounded from Kfeir village in the western sector of the Lebanon-Israel border zone were evacuated to hospital in nearby Rashaya where their condition was termed serious. The fire broke out in Kfeir olive groves.

Around 30 civilians have been killed by blasts of mines left behind by Israeli troops who withdrew from south Lebanon in May 2000. Twenty Lebanese and Syrian soldiers as well as dozens of civilians have also been hurt in mine-clearing operations, apart from a number of UN peacekeepers.

The second phase of an Emirati-financed operation to clear south Lebanon of hundreds of thousands of mines left behind by Israel and local militia allies started on May 28. UN peacekeepers estimate it will take four years to clear the mines.

Israeli jets cause sonic booms over Lebanon, draw Hezbollah fire

BEIRUT, June 18 (AFP) - Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier over eastern and northern Lebanon on Tuesday, drawing retaliatory fire from Hezbollah guerrillas, Lebanese police said. Fighter bombers overflew the south of the country before heading over the eastern city of Baalbek and the northern coastal city of Tripoli, they said.

The jets then zoomed over the northernmost district of Akkar, adjacent to Lebanon's borders with Syria, they said. A statement by the Islamic Resistance, the military arm of the Lebanese Shiite fundamentalist Hezbollah, said its guerrillas opened anti-aircraft fire "against enemy Israeli warplanes which violated Lebanese sovereignty."

It said the fire came as the warplanes were overflying the central and eastern sectors of southern Lebanon.

Israeli overflights of Lebanon are frequent, ignoring UN rulings that they are violations of the "blue line" the United Nations drew between the two countries after Israel ended its 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in May 2000.

Association agreement signed between EU and Lebanon

LUXEMBOURG, June 17 (AFP) - Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud and his Spanish counterpart Josep Pique on Monday signed an association agreement here between the 15-nation European Union (EU) and Lebanon.

The document was also signed by European Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten who underlined the political significance of a clause it contains on cooperation in the struggle against terrorism. Speaking at the ceremony, Mahmoud appealed for an increased EU role in the Middle East peace process.

"The EU is the nearest third party which understands best the problems which have worsened over the years because of the decision by Israeli leaders to give precedence to the logic of war to the detriment of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people..." he said. The bilateral association accord was concluded last year after six years of negotiations.

It was originally scheduled for signature in April at the Euro-Mediterranean Conference at Valencia, Spain, but postponed because Lebanon boycotted that gathering due to Israel's presence.