US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson cautioned countries in the Middle East against using Lebanon as "a venue for proxy conflicts".

Saudi Arabia has ordered its citizens to leave Lebanon amid rising tensions between their two governments.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has announced he is resigning in a surprise move following a trip to Saudi Arabia.

International donors have pledged $6bn to help conflict-torn Syria this year, a senior European Union official has confirmed.

A bombing in central Beirut has killed five people, including a senior aide to former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri.

A UN-backed court investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has issued four arrest warrants.

While the pro-democracy uprisings in the Arab world suggest there is little support for al-Qaida’s ideology but the threat has not entirely gone away, writes Brian Murphy

Iranian-supporting Hezbollah’s choice for Lebanon’s next prime minister won parliamentary support today, capping the group’s steady rise in power and sparking street riots by opponents.

A billionaire businessman with close ties to Syria emerged today as the candidate favoured by Hezbollah to head Lebanon’s next government.

Hezbollah supporters gathered in the streets of Beirut early today after a UN tribunal filed indictments over the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, prompting several schools to close as nervous parents withdrew their children from class.

Talks to form a new Lebanese government have been postponed for a week.

The leader of Hezbollah defended the decision to bring down Lebanon’s Western-backed government, saying the Shiite militant group did so without resorting to violence and will not be intimidated by world reaction.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister is seeking international support after Hezbollah brought down his government.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was welcomed by thousands of Lebanese supporters today in a visit that underscores the deep divisions between the Hezbollah militant group and Lebanon’s pro-western factions.

An Ethiopian Airlines plane carrying 90 people crashed into the Mediterranean Sea in flames early today, just minutes after take-off from Beirut, authorities said.

Western-backed billionaire Saad Hariri pledged to work for a national unity government in Lebanon that includes his Hezbollah rivals shortly after being appointed his country’s next prime minister today.

Lebanon’s pro-Western coalition declared victory early today, as local television stations reported the faction had successfully fended off a serious challenge by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah and its allies to grab the majority in parliament.

Israel and Syria yesterday said they were holding indirect peace talks through Turkish mediators — the first official confirmation of contacts.

Lebanon’s feuding factions reached a breakthrough deal today that ends the country’s long political stalemate, but also gives the militant Hezbollah group and allies the key power they sought.

The Lebanese army moved troops to several tense areas around the country today warning would it use force if needed to impose order after clashes between the Western-backed government and Hezbollah-led opposition.

Heavy fighting broke out between government supporters and opponents in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli today.

Gunmen opened fire on a funeral procession today in a Sunni neighbourhood of Beirut killing two and wounding six, a day after Shiite gunmen swept through the Lebanese capital’s Muslim sector, police said.

Running gunbattles raged in parts of Beirut after the leader of Hezbollah accused Lebanon's Western-backed government of declaring war on his Shiite militant group. At least four people were killed and eight wounded in the capital.

HEZBOLLAH chief Hassan Nasrallah warned yesterday that a Lebanese government crackdown on his group was tantamount to a “declaration of war” as clashes escalated between supporters of rival political factions in the deeply-divided country.

Lebanese leaders today pledged to press ahead with a divisive election for president, to be held in Parliament in the coming days, despite the car bombing assassination of an anti-Syrian MP.

Police manned roadblocks and rounded up supporters of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today as he prepared to end seven years in exile and return to Pakistan to lead a campaign to topple the country’s US-allied military ruler.

ARMY and police patrols stood guard yesterday as thousands of Lebanese went to vote in a key election to replace two assassinated lawmakers in the politically torn country.

An explosion, apparently from a bomb-rigged car, rocked Beirut’s seafront today, killing an anti-Syrian MP and nine others, security officials said.

France’s new foreign minister today condemned a deadly bomb attack near a busy Beirut shopping centre, and reaffirmed the importance to France of Lebanon’s sovereignty and stability.

Fresh off a whirlwind yachting break, French president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy returned to work with a meeting due today with Tony Blair.

World leaders rushed to congratulate France’s president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy tonight, hoping he would help boost international efforts to address issues from climate change and Middle East peace to salvaging the EU’s beleaguered constitution.

Government and opposition supporters clashed at a Beirut university campus today, battering each other with sticks, stones and even pieces of furniture in new violence spilling over from Lebanon’s political crisis.

Sixteen armoured carriers, several hundred combat troops and armed police today ringed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora’s office in unprecedented security measures ahead of a massive protest by Hezbollah and its pro-Syrian allies aimed at ousting the Western-backed leader.

The coffin of Pierre Gemayel was passed overhead through the crowd into the church, handed from mourner to mourner, while in the square nearby hundreds of thousands of supporters unleashed their anger, burning pictures of Syria’s president and his allies in Lebanon.

Lebanon began to bid farewell to an assassinated young Christian politician today, and his anti-Syrian allies sought to turn an expected huge turnout at his funeral into a massive show of force against opponents led by the militant Shiite Muslim Hezbollah and their Syrian backers.

Lebanon’s parliamentary majority leader today appealed to Russia to push Israel for an immediate ceasefire in its military offensive against Hezbollah, news reports said.

A senior EU official said today sending an international peacekeeping force to Lebanon would be a difficult, but crucial part of an overall solution to end the country’s political instability.

Three mortar shells, not primed for firing, were found near the Beirut family home of assassinated former prime minister Rafik Hariri, Lebanon security officials said today.

HUNDREDS of thousands of flag-waving Lebanese packed a square in central Beirut yesterday to mark the anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a momentous event that ended Syria's long domination of its smaller neighbour.

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese paid tribute to Rafik Hariri on the first anniversary of the former premier’s assassination today, waving flags and shouting anti-Syrian slogans in a show of strength aimed at reviving the “people power” spirit that helped break Damascus’ domination.

Muslim rage over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed spilled out of Syria today into neighbouring Lebanon where thousands of protesters – undaunted by police tear gas and water cannons – torched the Danish mission and ransacked a Christian neighbourhood.

Syria is trying to obstruct the UN investigation into the assassination of Lebanon’s Rafik Hariri, but will not succeed, the head of the commission into the killing of the former prime minister said today.

A man has claimed on Syrian state TV that he was bribed to accuse top Syrian officials of the murder of Rafik Hariri in his testimony to the UN commission into the former Lebanese premier’s assassination.

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud appointed the anti-Syrian coalition’s candidate Fuad Saniora as prime minister today to head the first Cabinet in 30 years to be free of Syrian interference.