Lahoud urges Russia to work harder for Middle East peace
President Emile Lahoud on Tuesday urged Russia to work harder at extracting the Middle East peace process from its present deadlock, which he said the Israelis were exploiting.
Lahoud, who conferred at his summer home in Baabda with Russian peace envoy Andre Vdovin, called for a return to the negotiation table to discuss the proper mechanism for achieving a fair and
comprehensive peace
accord based on international resolutions.
Lahoud added that Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon “takes advantage of the absence of any real step (toward peace) to keep launching aggressive acts.”
For his part, Vdovin said his country was committed to “international efforts based on international resolutions, the 1991 Madrid peace conference, UN Security Council Resolution 1397 (calling for a cease-fire and the establishment of a Palestinian state) and the Arab Peace Initiative, which was endorsed by the Arab League summit.”
On Monday, Vdovin met Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud and Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Hariri heads effort to enhance summer tourist season
Prime Minister Rafik Hariri will chair a meeting Wednesday to discuss preparations to welcome summer tourists and launch infrastructure projects in tourist areas.
Participants will include the president of the Council for Development and Reconstruction, Jamal Itani, Fund for the Displaced chairman Fadi Aramouni, and several directors-general from the Ministries of Telecommunications, Public Works and Transportation, and Interior and Municipalities, as well as the Mount Lebanon governor and several concerned MPs.
Hariri indicated Thursday during the inauguration of the west wing of the Beirut International Airport that Lebanon was ready to receive tourists, hundreds of thousands of whom are expected to arrive this season.
According to official statistics, the number of tourists increased during the winter by more than 34 percent; half came from Arab countries.
More than 837,000 tourists visited Lebanon in 2001, boosting tourism by 13 percent compared with the previous year, according to Tourism Minister Karam Karam.

House panel questions point of international peace conference
Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday questioned the benefit of convening an international gathering in the Middle East, saying the current crisis in fact required implementation of resolutions adopted by the 1991 Madrid conference.
This came at a meeting held by the committee headed by its chairman, Tyre MP Ali Khalil, and attended by Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud to discuss contacts under way by the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union to hold such an international gathering in the summer.
Discussing the outcome of the deliberations, Khalil said the committee believed that the post-Sept. 11 political landscape and America’s “full backing” for Israel “may produce a new equation in the region serving Israeli interests and harming Arab interests.”
The committee called for “effective Arab measures” ensuring a commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative endorsed at the Beirut summit held in March and to the Madrid formula.

Siniora insists government will pay dues to employees
Finance Minister Fouad Siniora said Tuesday that the government would pay its dues, and denied that end-of-service indemnities for state employees would be replaced by T-bills.
“We repeatedly assert that the Treasury will pay all its dues. The more we promote confidence in the country, the more we can respect our engagements,” he said in an interview with Voice of Lebanon radio.
Siniora, who insisted the government did not intend to impose new taxes, said the promotion of tax collection increased revenue, was good for the economy and promoted stability.
He said that improving the ministry’s performance and increasing bill collection would have positive effects on the Treasury and would help reduce the budget deficit.
He said his ministry had always asserted that the reduction of expenditures should be accompanied by an increase in revenue and productivity.

Chamber of Commerce frets impact of political wrangling
A delegation from the Beirut Chamber of Commerce met with Speaker Nabih Berri on Tuesday to discuss the country’s economic situation and the negative effect of domestic political wrangling on potential foreign direct investment in Lebanon.
Addressing reporters later from Nijmeh Square, the chamber’s president, Adnan Qassar, spoke of the adverse impact of the political situation “both on the economy directly and on Lebanon’s reputation and credibility indirectly.”
“It is time for officials and nonofficials to think a little of the country and the repercussions of wrangling and its effect on Arab and foreign investors who actually wish to come to Lebanon,” he added.
Referring to political differences over the results of last week’s Metn by-election, Qassar asked: “Is it logical that a by-election for one (parliamentary) seat pose a threat to national unity? … What will the case be then in the 2005 general elections?”

French executive encourages economic reform
The visiting head of France’s largest publicly traded real estate firm expressed hope Tuesday that measures planned by the government to improve the Lebanese economy would be implemented speedily.
Antoine Jeancourt-Galignani, the president of the Paris-based GECINA Group, told reporters after calling on Prime Minister Rafik Hariri that the immediate implementation of reforms here would brighten Lebanon’s image in the banking community abroad.
Galignani said his talks with the premier at the Grand Serail covered the banking situation in the country, in addition to economic developments.
“The prime minister informed me of the government’s measures to improve the banking situation in Lebanon and economic steps it is undertaking, such as privatization of the cellular phone network,” he added.

Man kills girl, wounds mother in frenzied knife attack
A man killed a 7-year old girl and severely wounded her mother on Tuesday morning in the Jbeil area of Amsheet.
According to a statement by the Internal Security Forces, Alfred Fouad Mitri, a 50-year old mechanic, climbed to the second floor of the Raymond Harb building and entered Raymond Abdo’s apartment, where he stabbed Gladys Farjallah Barakat, 34, five times. Mitri then stabbed her daughter Jessica in the back, killing her instantly.
Before being stabbed, Barakat called the 112 emergency number but hung up when she saw her daughter being attacked.
Mitri fled the scene by jumping from the balcony, but broke his leg during the fall and was caught by the building’s owner, who then notified the police.
Barakat was taken to the Maounat Hospital, where medical sources said her condition was stable. Jessica’s body was taken to the hospital’s morgue.
Police sources said that Barakat had spurned her alleged assailant Mitri and was attacked by him in a fit of anger.

Cypriots seize Lebanese man with cocaine in his belly
A Lebanese national suspected of carrying more than half a kilo of cocaine in his stomach was in custody in Cyprus Tuesday, according to authorities.
The 45-year-old man, travelling to Beirut from Curacao in the Dutch Antilles, was arrested during a stopover in Cyprus’s Larnaca airport Monday night.
Sixty pellets believed to contain 600 grams of cocaine were detected in his stomach during an X-ray examination at a local hospital, a court heard Tuesday.
The suspect, who was detained without charges pending the completion of a police investigation, excreted 12 of the packages which tested positive for cocaine, police said.
Officers told a district court that the suspect said he was promised some $5,000 to take the narcotics from Latin America to Lebanon. ­ Reuters

Engineer escapes after botched kidnapping
Construction engineer Beshara Elie Saade, was beaten and kidnapped for ransom Tuesday, according to security sources.
The sources said that while driving from Mar Taqla to his office in Wadi Shahrur, Saade picked up a man headed to Aley. But on reaching Jamhour, the man pointed a gun at Saade and forced him to drive to Bsous.
There he directed Saade to a dirt road, at the side of which the assailant tied him to a tree and started kicking him in the ribs.
The hitchhiker threatened Saade by firing a shot over his head, asking for a $50,000 check in return for not killing him.
But before the gunman brought a checkbook to Saade, he broke free and escaped into the forest to Bsous, where he contacted his brother.
Saade’s brother took him to Sacred Heart Hospital in Hazmieh where he was examined.
The Internal Security Forces has opened an inquiry into the incident.

Military investigator opens hearings into Hobeika murder
Senior military investigator Riad Talih on Tuesday started a series of hearings into the murder of former Minister Elie Hobeika, who died in a car bombing last winter along with three of his bodyguards.
The investigator heard the testimonies of three of Hobeika’s former aides. The hearings are due to resume at a later date.
Hobeika died in January in the Hazmieh area while he was on his way to a scuba diving session.
Investigations into the murders have yet to identify the assailants.

Woman sentenced to death for child’s slaying
A Beirut criminal court issued a death sentence Tuesday against a
woman convicted of instigating the murder of a 5-year-old girl.
Fawz Hajj Hussein was sentenced to death and stripped of her civil rights by the court, presided over by Magistrate George Ghantous and advisers Zehrab Ozayan and Nahida Khadaj. Hussein’s real estate and movable property are to be put under the supervision of a court-designated custodian.
Hussein was convicted of persuading Abbas Saleh Allaou and Allaou Deeb Allaou to kidnap and kill  Zeinab Fouad Nasreddine.
The young girl drowned in 1998 when she was put into a bag and thrown into the Orontes River in the northern Bekaa.
The murder was intended to serve as a punishment for the 5-year-old’s family, who were allegedly behind the arrest of Hussein’s son, Nawras Allaou, who was convicted of several crimes.
The court stripped both accomplices of their civil rights and sentenced them to life imprisonment with hard labor for kidnapping and killing the child and concealing evidence.

Road-maintenance sector to be privatized
The Public Works Ministry’s director-general of roads and buildings said Tuesday that the road-maintenance sector could be privatized through the creation of an “independent fund for roads” and the implementation of a plan to maintain and rehabilitate the roads network.
Speaking at the Phoenicia Inter-Continental Hotel at the first annual meeting of Operation and Maintenance in Arab Countries, Fadi Nammar said the fund would finance road maintenance and rehabilitation through revenues generated by taxes and fees imposed for the use of main roads and through loans.
According to Nammar,
a National Council for Roads will be created
to manage the fund and supervise the spending
of expenses financed by the fund.
Nammar said his department was also in the process of rehabilitating government buildings.

Byblos festival committee re-elected
A new committee for Byblos Festivities has been elected unopposed.
The committee’s former chairman, Raphael Sfeir, held a general assembly Monday at Le Gabriel Hotel in Achrafieh in the presence of Charbel Khoury, a delegate from the Interior and Municipalities Ministry.
After reading the committee’s annual report, elections for a new committee were held and the committee’s new members won unopposed for a three-year term.
The new committee is expected to hold a news conference next Thursday at the Tourism Ministry to announce its program and activities for the year.

Water authority launches bank payment scheme
The Beirut Water Authority announced Tuesday that subscription bills could be paid at banks.
In a statement, the authority said that citizens could pay a year’s worth of subscription bills in one installment at banks, which in turn would enter the money into the authority’s fund.
No fine for a payment delay caused by a bank will be imposed on subscribers, the statement said.
But the authority said bill payment at banks did not exempt subscribers from making overdue payments, for which the amount owed could be affirmed at the authority’s fee collection department.
The authority’s billing departments will continue to accept payments as well, the statement added.

Building promoters urge state to reduce their taxes
In an emergency meeting held to discuss economic problems in the building promotion sector, the Building Promoters’ Federation of Lebanon called for reducing their taxes which are due by June 24.
In a statement issued Tuesday, the federation urged the government to give the sector the same reduction rates as doctors, engineers and other professionals.
The federation also demanded a three-month delay for the settlement of its taxes, adding that the sector was exceptionally burdened with the payment of taxes and fees, such as land registration procedures, construction permits, value added taxes, income taxes and municipality fees.
The federation argued that if it’s taxes are lowered it will be able to supply the Treasury with the money other taxpayers cannot currently pay.

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