The prime minister-designate began putting together a government he said will have the chief goal of organizing crucial parliament elections before a May 31 deadline in an effort to end Lebanon's long political crisis.
Najib Mikati, a telecommunications tycoon who has close links with Syrian President Bashar Assad, said he was to meet with President Emile Lahoud yesterday and that he intends to announce a government as soon as possible.
That formula would satisfy the anti-Syrian opposition, which has for weeks sought a neutral Cabinet focused solely on calling the election. The opposition wants the polls to be held on time because it is confident of winning a majority in the 128-member parliament, ending the domination by pro-Syrian factions.
Lebanon has had no government since Feb. 28, raising fears of a delay in elections that are supposed to take place before the current parliament's mandate expires May 31.
Meanwhile, lawmaker Bassem Fleihan, who was badly wounded in the Feb. 14 blast that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, died Monday at a Paris military hospital where he was being treated, making him the 21st victim of the bombing. He was 41.
Mikati, who was invited by Lahoud on Friday to form a government, consulted with legislators on the formation of a new Cabinet, meeting first with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, then with other lawmakers, including opposition members.
Speaking to reporters after consultations ended, Mikati said he was leaning toward a small Cabinet with ministers who were not running for election.
The main goal of the Cabinet "will be passing the election law and holding general elections within the constitutional time-frame," he said. It was the first time Mikati, who had earlier said he wanted elections "as soon as possible," specifically mentioned the May 31 deadline.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS