Beirut - A Palestine Liberation Organisation official and four of his bodyguards were killed Monday when a roadside bomb targeted their convoy near a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, Lebanese army and Palestinian sources said.

Kamal Medhat, assistant to PLO representative in Lebanon Abbas Zaki, was killed in the blast near the Miyeh Miyeh camp on the outskirts of the port city of Sidon.

Beirut - Lebanon's President Michel Suleiman will head a government delegation on a three-day visit to France next week, a Lebanese government source said Saturday.

Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh, Interior Minister Ziad Baroud and Economy and Trade Minister Mohammad Safadi will be among those accompanying Suleiman, who will meet with President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Suleiman is due to address a dinner hosted by Sarkozy and also address the French Senate and the Lebanese community in Paris.

Beirut - A 20-year-old man was wounded in southern Lebanon Friday by the explosion of a cluster bomb left over from the July 2006 war between Israel and the Hezbollah organization, Lebanese police said.

Hussein Hamiyeh was seriously wounded as he was working in a field near his home in Qana, east of the southern port city of Tyre, said police.

Between July 12 and August 14, 2006, Israel's armed forces dropped about one million cluster bomblets on southern Lebanon, the majority during the final days of the conflict.

So far local and international deminers in southern Lebanon have cleared about 155,000 cluster bomblets, while more than 320 people have been killed or injured by cluster bomb explosions since the end of the 2006 conflict.

Beirut  - Wednesday's summit in Riyadh paved the way for reconciliation and unification of the Arab position, Lebanon's Grand Sunni Mufti Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani said Thursday.

The results of the four-way meeting "will positively reflect on the regional situation, especially on Lebanon," he said in a statement. "If regional stability is to be achieved, Saudi Arabia's supportive role of Arab issues is vital."

Beirut - The Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah welcomed Friday the British government's decision to establish contacts with the movement's parliamentarians.

"This is a good step and our group welcomes talks with anyone who is not hostile to us," Ibrahim al Mussawi, Hezbollah's press officer, was quoted as saying on Lebanese radio stations.

Hezbollah politburo member Mahmoud Komati, stressed that the talks with Britain should not be done "secretly."

"If Britain wants talks with our movement, they should be done publicly," Komati said.

Beirut - US Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern
Affairs Jeffrey Feltman and top Middle East officer at the US National
Security Council Daniel Shapiro, held Friday talks with Lebanese
officials stressing on their country's backing for Lebanon's
sovereignty.

"We are carrying a message to the Lebanese leaders from (US)
President Barack Obama and the (US) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
that the US backs Lebanon's sovereignty and democracy," Feltman said
after meeting Lebanese president Michel Suleiman.

The US delegation, which arrived in Beirut late Thursday, is