Word: hariri
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...protesters backed off; Siniora had saved the gains of the Cedar Revolution, when, after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005, a million Lebanese in Martyrs' Square demanded the withdrawal of Syrian military forces that had dominated the country for three decades. Lebanon remains deeply divided, however, a fact made plain in January on what some are calling Black Thursday, when a cafeteria shoving match between Sunni and Shi'ite students at a Beirut university set off a day of clashes that tore across the capital...
...persuading 41 countries at a donor conference in Paris to pledge $7.6 billion for Lebanon's reconstruction. He is also pushing for an international tribunal that will put on trial anyone accused by an ongoing U.N. investigation of political assassinations in Lebanon. The killings of Siniora's boyhood chum Hariri, and of journalists Gebran Tueni, Samir Kassir and a dozen others since October 2004, have been widely blamed on the Syrian regime. The point of the investigation, he explains, "is not only to get to know who committed these crimes, but to protect democracy. It is not a vendetta...
...Prime Minister as a Sunni Muslim, as the country's constitution requires. But he is not a sectarian warlord or family patriarch of the sort that usually ascends to the dangerous business of being a top Lebanese politician. He grew up in Sidon, an enthusiastic Arab nationalist like Hariri, who tapped him to be Finance Minister during Hariri's remarkable reconstruction of war-battered Beirut in the 1990s. As Hariri's son and political heir Saad was inexperienced in politics, Siniora agreed to accept the appointment as Prime Minister after Hariri's Future Movement triumphed in elections two years...
Although the mild-mannered Siniora seemed destined for finance, Hariri's assassination, the Cedar Revolution it triggered and the exit of Syrian troops inevitably drew him into the regional struggles that have long made Lebanon a political battleground. Hizballah resigned from Siniora's government in November, accusing it of becoming a U.S. pawn that had reneged on promises to rule with Hizballah's agreement. The tipping point was the government's vote to proceed with the international tribunal over Hizballah's objections. "Our fear is that politicians will take advantage of the tribunal to get at us and others...
...suicide bombings killed 21 during the Ashura rituals in January. In Lebanon, sectarian tensions have risen after years of relative calm. Hizballah, the Shi'ite militia, won praise from Sunnis when Israeli forces left Lebanon in 2000. But after the assassination in February 2005 of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, a Sunni, intra-Muslim antagonism began to harden. Sunnis blamed Hizballah's patron, the Syrian government, for the killing. While faulting Hizballah for provoking last summer's war, many Lebanese Sunnis stood with Hizballah in the face of Israel's onslaught against the country. But any residual Sunni admiration...