Press Digest for Saturday May 5, 2012

The following are summaries of today's major stories published in the Arabic press. LBCI does not edit press digest articles for content, giving English-language readers insight into the various views expressed in newspapers across the Arab world.  

• As-Safir: We didn’t mean any harm

As-Safir newspaper issued an article today to respond to all comments regarding the picture of MP Butros Harb bowing for former ambassador Jeffery Feltman.

As-Safir said that the picture was issued on the first cover of the newspaper from a professional background as the picture was really catchy, denying any harmful goals.

The newspaper added that MP Butros Hard was one of 500 lawyers that supported As-Safir in 1993 when big powers took a decision to hit the freedom of press in the country.  

• Aoun address his supporters in Platea today

Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun is expected on Saturday to snap back at President Michel Suleiman, Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt and al-Mustaqbal movement at a rally that would set the stage for future campaigns by his party ahead of the 2013 parliamentary polls.

The FPM is organizing the rally at the Platea Theater in Sahel Alma in Kesrouan district on the seventh anniversary of Aoun’s return from exile to Paris.

An-Nahar daily quoted an FPM source as saying that the rally is aimed at snapping back at accusations that the movement has lost its popular support. Saturday’s event is also the start of an escalatory campaign that would set the choices of the movement and mainly its reform efforts, the source said.    

• Tensions at the border as IDF building separation wall

According to An-Nahar newspaper the Israeli Defense Forces crossed the blue line and the Lebanese border while building the concrete wall in Kfar Kela. The Lebanese government considered these actions as breaches of the 1701 UNSC resolution.

The Lebanese Armed Forces protested at the UNIFL regarding the IDF actions and withdrew most of its personnel from the breach site, threating to escalate the situation if the IDF doesn’t back up. The newspaper added the UNIFIL interfered and forces the IDF to stop building the wall.    

• Lebanon to halt Nakoura tripartite meetings

Lebanese security sources told Al-Akhbar newspaper that Lebanon in considering halting all tripartite meeting at Nakoura check point with the UNIFIL and the IDF after that the Israeli refused to withdraw the drawn separation line for 65cm while digging to build the concrete wall.