Salam meets French and Chinese ambassadors, discusses development in Akkar and infrastructure projects
He also held a farewell meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Lebanon Qian Minjian, expressing appreciation for the ambassador's efforts to strengthen Lebanon–China ties and wishing him success in his future endeavors.
Later, PM Salam met with MP Ahmad Rustum to discuss development issues concerning the Akkar region.
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Nahar Net
4 hours ago
- Nahar Net
Syrian, Israeli ministers to attend US-brokered meeting in Paris
Damascus's top diplomat Asaad al-Shaibani is set to meet an Israeli minister on Thursday in Paris to discuss recent sectarian violence in Syria's south that had drawn in Israel's military, a senior diplomat told AFP. The U.S.-brokered talks would be the first ministerial meeting between the new Syrian authorities and Israel. The two countries have technically been at war since 1948, and Israel has occupied the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967. "There will be a Syrian-Israeli security meeting in Paris today, and Tom Barrack will facilitate it," the diplomat said, referring to the US special envoy for Syria. The diplomat said that Shaibani and Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer are expected to discuss "the topic of southern Syria", where deadly sectarian violence earlier this month prompted Israeli intervention. Dermer was already in Paris, according to an airport official. The senior diplomat, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said that Shaibani was due to arrive in the city later on Thursday. Barrack, Washington's ambassador to Turkey, was also due to meet Paris's top diplomat Jean-Noel Barrot, according to a French foreign ministry source. Israel launched several air strikes on Syrian government positions in Sweida, a Druze-majority province in the country's south, saying it wanted to protect the minority community after sectarian clashes had erupted. The Israeli strikes also reached Damascus, hitting the area of the presidential palace and the army headquarters, in a bid to force government troops to leave Sweida city -- which eventually happened under a ceasefire announced by the authorities. Before the violence in Sweida, Syrian and Israeli officials had met in Baku on July 12, according to a diplomatic source in Damascus, coinciding with a visit to Azerbaijan by Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa. After the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, Israel carried out hundreds of air strikes in Syria to prevent key military assets falling into the hands of the new Islamist-led administration. Israel also sent troops into the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone that used to separate the opposing forces in the strategic Golan Heights, from which it has conducted forays deeper into southern Syria, demanding the area's demilitarization.
Nahar Net
9 hours ago
- Nahar Net
Georges Abdallah says 'struggle' helped him endure French prison
by Naharnet Newsdesk 24 July 2025, 13:09 Sitting near a poster of Che Guevara inside his French prison cell before his release this week, pro-Palestinian Lebanese militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah said the "struggle" kept him going during his four decades behind bars. A court last week ordered the 74-year-old -- who was jailed over the 1982 killings of two foreign diplomats in Paris -- be released from the Lannemezan prison in southern France on Friday. Abdallah is one of the longest-serving prisoners in France, where most convicts with life sentences are freed after less than 30 years. Between his bed, desk and microwave corner, Abdallah had decorated the yellow walls of his 11-square-meter cell with the flag of the Argentine Marxist revolutionary, but also a map of the world and postcards. An office chair near his bed was piled high with newspapers. "If I'm alive in front of you today, it's because I've kept up the fight -- otherwise 40 years (in jail) would turn your brain to mush," said the prisoner, whose hair and beard have turned gray. AFP visited his cell on July 17, along with a hard-left member of parliament, Andree Taurinya, who used her right as a lawmaker to visit detention centers to see him on the day the court ordered his release. Dressed in a red sleeveless t-shirt and beige shorts, he greeted her warmly and they posed together for a selfie. Abdallah said that for more than 40 years he had continued to be a "militant with a struggle" -- even if it was in very "particular" conditions behind bars. He said he did not foresee a "radical change in (his) struggle outlook" after leaving France and flying home to Lebanon -- the condition for his release. - Birthday calendar - Next to his computer, he had pinned up images of flowers, including poppies and cherry blossom, as well as Palestinian flags and a picture of the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. "Forty years is a lot but you don't feel them go by when you keep up the struggle," he said. Many of his fellow militants have died over the years however, he said. "On my computer I have a calendar to keep track of every day: dead comrades, that's in brown, orange is for visits, and green is for birthdays," he explained. But these days, "the color brown is taking up more and more space." Abdallah was detained in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for his alleged involvement, which he denies, in the murders of U.S. military attache Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in Paris. After his arrest, French police discovered submachine guns and transceiver stations in one of his Paris apartments. - 'Pampered' - Lebanese of Maronite Christian heritage, Abdallah has always insisted he is a "fighter" who battled for the rights of Palestinians, and not a "criminal." Before the decision to release him, he had been eligible for release for 25 years. But the United States -- a civil party to the case -- had consistently opposed him leaving prison. The Israeli embassy in Paris objected to the decision to release Abdallah, saying "such terrorists, enemies of the free world, should spend their life in prison." Abdallah, who considers himself to be a "political prisoner", said he had been "pampered" compared to "what is going on in Gaza and the West Bank, especially for comrades in prison." His release comes as Israel wages war against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip for a 22nd month, with aid and rights groups warning of mass starvation for civilians trapped in the besieged Palestinian territory. Deadly Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have also become commonplace. Abdallah, who founded a now dissolved Marxist anti-Israel militant group in his youth, endorsed recent protests in the West calling for a Gaza ceasefire. "Palestine remains the historical lever of the revolution throughout the Arab world," he said.
L'Orient-Le Jour
a day ago
- L'Orient-Le Jour
Paris welcomes Lebanon's progress on financial reforms and pledges new international aid conference
BEIRUT — Ibrahim Kanaan, head of Lebanon's parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee, met with Jacques de Lajugie, special envoy of French President Emmanuel Macron, on Wednesday at the Parliament headquarters to discuss ongoing financial reforms. According to a statement posted by Kanaan on X, the talks focused on legislative measures underway to implement these reforms. De Lajugie conveyed "the appreciation and positive view of the French government and the international community concerning the progress made," particularly highlighting the adoption on July 21 by a parliamentary subcommittee of the banking sector resolution bill. The bill still requires approval by the full Finance Committee before being presented to a plenary session. Alongside the recently approved revision of the banking secrecy law and the "financial hole" bill currently in development, these legislative texts form "the required foundation to begin the recovery process," de Lajugie said. He also noted that Paris is preparing a new international conference to support Lebanon, planned between the fall and the end of 2025, following the event held last autumn during Israel's war in Lebanon against Hezbollah. Both sides agreed to maintain coordination to "restore confidence in the Lebanese financial and banking system." They stressed that the immediate priority is for Beirut to submit the "financial regulation and deposits restitution bill, so that it can be debated and adopted by Parliament, and so it lays the groundwork for a return of confidence, both nationally and internationally," the statement said.
