Beirut - The year 2008 saw Lebanon battling threats on two fronts: On one side the threat of civil war; on the other the rise of Sunni militancy destabilizing an already unsteady country.

Since the assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri in early 2005 the Lebanese have been plunged into a new era of partisanship, marked by deep political divisions among the pro and anti-Syrian camps.

A long-running political stand-off, which first erupted in November 2006 when six pro-Syrian ministers quit the cabinet, left the country without a president for months, after pro-Syrian Emile Lahoud stepped down in November 2007.

Tyre, Lebanon - Southern Lebanon suffered great losses during the Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006, but a "blessing" has landed in the area this Christmas season to save the economy with a boom in sales in the form of UN peacekeeping troops.

"The UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Forces in southern Lebanon) is a blessing: most of our business this holiday season depends on them," said Ali Zeidan, a souvenir store owner in the southern port city of Tyre.

Beirut, Dec 16 : Najaam Sethi, Editor-in-Chief of Friday Times and Daily Times in Pakistan, has been awarded the 2009 Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize of the World Association of Newspapers.

Sethi, whose newspapers advocate liberal and secular ideas in Pakistan, too-often torn by religious extremism, was honoured for his outstanding defence and promotion of press freedom under difficult circumstances and constant personal danger, the Daily Times reported.

Beirut  - A bomb exploded late Monday inside the Palestinian refugee camp Ain el Hilweh in southern Lebanon, but did not inflict any casualties, Palestinian sources said.

The bomb exploded in Hay al Manshiyeh, an area inside Ain el Hilweh, which is the home of some 70,000 Palestinian refugees, and caused only material damage, the sources said.

Ain el Hilweh, one of the 12 camps that host some 367,000 Palestinian refugees across Lebanon, has in recent months seen clashes between the mainstream Fatah movement and fundamentalist groups Jund al-Sham and Fatah al-Islam.

Beirut  - French president Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to visit Lebanon but will not visit neighboring Syria, Lebanese governmental sources said Monday.

Sarkozy's visit would include a single meeting with President Michel Suleiman and a trip to meet with the French contingent in UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, on New Year's day.

Beirut, 15th Dec. 2008 -- The Emirates Initiative for Support and Construction of Lebanon has commenced installation of equipment at the Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed hospital in Lebanon.

The hospital is being built under instructions of UAE President H. H. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

''Construction and fitting of the hospital, located at Arqoub area, are progressed as schedule .......... specialised medical and technical teams have already started commissioning of equipment and fittings,'' said Abdullah Al Gafli, Deputy Director of the Initiative.