Lebanon

Secretary of State James A. Baker III met Lebanese leaders in eastern Lebanon today, the first visit by a U.S. Secretary of State to Lebanon since 1983, Voice of Lebanon radio said. The radio said President Elias Hrawi, Prime Minister Rashid al-Solh and Foreign Minister Faris Bouez were meeting Baker in the town of Zahle, 33 miles east of Beirut. Zahleh, a predominantly Christian town, sits on a hill nine miles west of the Syrian border. Baker has been in the Syrian capital of Damascus, and was also scheduled to go to Saudia Arabia today.

For the ancients, dreams were revelatory. So, too, are they for Ari Folman. His Waltz With Bashir, a wake-up call in the guise of an animated feature,decodes a recurring dream that rouses the Israeli filmmaker's long-dormant consciousness of his role as a soldier in Lebanon in 1982. Folman's memory-prodding and conscience-pricked animation charts the course by which we repress and recover traumatic events. This psycho-thriller, a Golden Globe winner and presumptive favorite for the foreign-film Oscar, itself is revelatory.

In the midst of Lebanon's renewed civil war it is difficult to focus on individual tragedies. But of all the tragic Lebanese hostage victims of terrorists few cases are more pathetic than the two Beirut Jews murdered by militant Muslims in December. Neither Haim Cohen, a department store accountant, nor Isaac Tarrab, an elderly professor, had any involvement in partisan Lebanese politics nor in the Arab-Israeli conflict. On the contrary, they were two of a tiny handful of Jews remaining in Lebanon out of a community that remained vibrant and active until the last decade.

Thirteen years ago, Syrian President Hafez el-Assad sent his army into Lebanon to prevent an alliance of left-wing Muslim militias and Palestinian guerrillas from toppling the Christian-led government. Since then, Assad has brought his frail, faction-ridden neighbor firmly under Syrian control, cleverly playing the sectarian warlords off against one another to maintain a semblance of order and a rough balance of power. Last month, Maj. Gen. Michel Aoun, the Christian commander of the Lebanese army, upset this fragile equilibrium by imposing a blockade on Muslim- controlled ports.

Pressured by allies to back off from a confrontation in Lebanon, the United States has reduced the size of a naval force assembled in the eastern Mediterranean, Pentagon officials said yesterday. But the officials also said that 15 ships of the Sixth Fleet would remain on patrol off Lebanon, where U.S. hostages held by extremists have been threatened with death if the United States attacks. The Pentagon officials, who asked not to be identified, said yesterday that the shift was designed to cool tensions raised by reports that the United States was planning a military move to free the hostages.

THE LEBANESE and the Israelis are similar tribes. Both have been in the crosshairs of terrorists, Lebanon from within, Israel from without. While the Muslim world has actively called for the destruction of Israel, it has worked in a more subversive way to undermine the sovereignty of Lebanon. This country, divided between Christians, Druse and Muslims, has been brought to heel by Islamic radicals in league with Syria to transform what was once a symbol of democracy into a puppet of terror-loving Damascus.

Revolutions do not stand still. They either move forward or they die. We are at the dawn of a glorious, delicate, revolutionary moment in the Middle East. It was triggered by the invasion of Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and televised images of 8 million Iraqis voting in a free multiparty election. Which led to the obvious question throughout the Middle East: Why Iraqis and not us? To be sure, the rolling revolution began outside the Middle East with the Afghan elections, scandalously underplayed in the American media.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon - Firing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, Lebanese gunmen clashed in street battles Monday as sectarian tensions linked to the 14-month-old uprising in Syria bled across the border for a third day. At least five people have been killed and 100 wounded in Lebanon's second-largest city since the gun battles erupted late Saturday, security officials said. Residents say differences over Syria are at the root of the fighting, which pits neighbor against neighbor and raises fears of broader unrest that could draw in neighboring countries.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hundreds of Syrians fled to neighboring Lebanon on Saturday to escape the violent crackdown against an antigovernment uprising that has claimed the lives of more than 800 civilians, Lebanese security officials and a leading human-rights group said. President Bashar al-Assad, meanwhile, reportedly has set up a committee to lead a dialogue with the opposition, the latest offer by the regime as it struggles to end the unrest threatening his family's 40-year-old dynasty.

When Will's estranged father dies, the Philly adman goes to the rural Pennsylvania town of Lebanon to clean up after the man he hardly knew. While there, Will ("Cougar Town's" Josh Hopkins) meets up with his 17-year-old cousin, CJ (Temple student Rachel Kitson), who takes a shine to her city-folk relative and reveals to him that she's pregnant. To complicate matters, Will falls for a high-school teacher (Samantha Mathis) stuck in an unhappy marriage. In "Lebanon, Pa.," Will beats himself up for consistently avoiding the two-hour drive to Lebanon, but writer-director Ben Hickernell's film serves to illustrate the divide between big city and small town.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon - Firing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, Lebanese gunmen clashed in street battles Monday as sectarian tensions linked to the 14-month-old uprising in Syria bled across the border for a third day. At least five people have been killed and 100 wounded in Lebanon's second-largest city since the gun battles erupted late Saturday, security officials said. Residents say differences over Syria are at the root of the fighting, which pits neighbor against neighbor and raises fears of broader unrest that could draw in neighboring countries.

TORONTO - A government official said Saturday that a Canadian farmer has been released from a Lebanese jail after being held for a year on allegations he exported rotten potatoes to Algeria. Diane Ablonczy, minister of state for foreign affairs, confirmed Saturday that the farmer, Henk Tepper, was released from a Beirut jail. "Our government has been quietly and persistently working through diplomatic channels to resolve his situation," she said. "Canada's ambassador to Lebanon and consular officials displayed an unwavering commitment to assist Mr. Tepper.

QAA, Lebanon - Syria accepted a cease-fire drawn up by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan on Tuesday, but the diplomatic breakthrough was swiftly overshadowed by intense clashes between government soldiers and rebels that sent bullets flying into Lebanon. Opposition members accuse President Bashar al-Assad of agreeing to the plan to stall for time as his troops make a renewed push to kill off bastions of dissent. And the conflict just keeps getting deadlier: The United Nations said the death toll has grown to more than 9,000.

QAA, Lebanon - Syrian refugees fleeing to neighboring Lebanon said Monday they feared they would be slaughtered in their homes as government forces hunted down opponents in a brutal offensive against the opposition stronghold of Homs. With world pressure at a peak in the boiling crisis, U.S. Sen. John McCain called for air strikes against Syria. He said the United States had a moral and strategic obligation to force out Assad and his loyalists. "The only realistic way to do so is with foreign airpower," McCain (R., Ariz.)

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Syrian rebels smuggled a wounded British journalist out of the besieged central city of Homs and whisked him to safety in neighboring Lebanon on Tuesday, activist groups said. Thirteen Syrians who were trying to help rescue Paul Conroy and other trapped Western reporters were killed in the operation, according to one of the groups. The whereabouts of three other foreign journalists who were also stuck in the rebel-controlled neighborhood of Baba Amr neighborhood were unclear.

SERHANIYEH, Lebanon - Syria has planted land mines along parts of its border with Lebanon, further sealing itself off from the world and showing just how deeply shaken Bashar al-Assad's regime has become since an uprising began nearly eight months ago. Although Assad's hold on power is firm, he is taking increasingly desperate measures to safeguard his grip on the country of 22 million people at the heart of the Arab world. A Syrian official confirmed that troops were laying the mines, saying they were aimed at stopping weapons smuggling into the country during the uprising.

Antonio Cassese, an international-law expert who served as first president of the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal and later as president of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, died Friday at his home in Florence, Italy, after a long battle with cancer. Dr. Cassese was born in 1937 in Italy. The Lebanon tribunal did not release his exact age. "For members of the tribunal he was the maestro, whose towering ability as a jurist and a statesman was equaled by the immense personal warmth and humanity which made him our dear friend," said David Baragwanath, who succeeded Dr. Cassese less than two weeks ago as president of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon after Dr. Cassese stepped down for health reasons.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - A long-awaited international indictment unsealed Wednesday offers no direct evidence linking four Hezbollah suspects to the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, despite years of painstaking investigations. The indictment, which relies heavily on circumstantial evidence such as phone records to link the men to the crime, played into efforts by the powerful Iranian-backed Hezbollah to discredit a case that has consumed and divided Lebanon for more than six years.

A colonial-era structure in Lebanon County is among four new National Historic Landmarks announced Wednesday by U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The Alexander Schaeffer House in Schaefferstown, Heidelberg Township, is a rare intact example of a colonial-era building in the Pennsylvania German architectural tradition, according to the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service. Preservation officials said it might be the nation's only surviving Weinbauernhaus, a building that served as both a residence and a distillery.

Israeli boundary for oil reserves JERUSALEM - The Israeli cabinet on Sunday approved a proposed maritime boundary line with Lebanon, setting up a new conflict over huge natural gas and oil reserves. The two enemy countries are staking claims for a demarcation line in the Mediterranean Sea, where significant energy reserves have been found in recent years. Israel recently discovered two gas fields off its coast, and energy companies believe other reserves could be found there.