New Lebanon president begins task of uniting nation
Suleiman, who was elected on Sunday, was greeted by staffers on a red carpet at the palace in hilly Baabda near Beirut, rather than by an outgoing president as is normally the custom. Lebanon has been without a head of state since November, when Emile Lahoud left office without a successor.
Suleiman’s election is the first step in the deal to end the crisis which erupted this month into the worst violence since Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.