News Roundup (Updated)

The following bloggers have posted on Gebran Tueni's Assassination.

Kais: here, here
Lebanese Bloggers: here, here, here, here
Lebanon Blogger Forum: here, here, here
OpenLebanon
Fouad: here
Delirious: here
Mustapha: here

More will be added later.

News:

10:41 am

DailyStar : God have mercy on Gebran and An-Nahar will remain the beacon for freedom," Jumblatt told LBC television, referring to An-Nahar newspaper of which Tueni was the general manager.

BBC : Mr Siniora said he would ask the Security Council to look the death of Gibran Tueni "and the others that have been committed... in order to take the necessary measures". "I will also ask for the formation of a court with an international character in the assassination of martyr Rafik Hariri because it has gone beyond personal assassinations," he said.

They also provide a timeline of the explosions, and as set of pictures.

CNN: Video can be accessed here.

10:55

Alertnet - Reuters: here, here

AFP: The bombing also followed the handover of a report by UN chief investigator Detlev Mehlis to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on his probe into the murder of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, an attack blamed on Syria. International condemnation was swift, with the US embassy in Beirut branding it a "barbaric" killing of one of Lebanon's "greatest champions for liberty and freedom" and Annan describing it as a "cold-blooded" murder.

IHT: Walid Jumblatt, the leader of the Lebanese Druse community and an anti-Syrian member of Parliament, swiftly accused Syria of being behind the killing of Tueni. Jumblatt said in an interview with Al Jazeera television: "This is my reading of the situation. We've had enough killings, enough assassinations. He was targeted because he was the voice of freedom - him and others like him."

Haaretz: The Lebanese government now has no choice but to respond to Tueni's murder, which has brought Lebanese-Syrian relations to a nearly intolerable situation. The question now is how tightly Lebanon can draw connections between the UN report on the Hariri murder and Monday's Tueni killing. It is also unclear how determined the Americans are to place sanctions on Syria for what appears to be Damascus' failure to cooperate with international investigators probing the Hariri assassination.

11:40

Al-Jazeera: The 25-page report from German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis' team again accused Syria of trying to obstruct his inquiry when it demanded that he revise his findings after a crucial witness recanted his testimony. The report was delivered on the same day that a car bomb killed a prominent Lebanese journalist and lawmaker, Gibran Tueni.

"We have so far reconstituted half the puzzle," Mehlis told the newspaper, which is owned by al-Hariri's family. "There are still dark corners that we are shedding light on, but the inquiry is progressing."

More can be read here (in Arabic).

2:30

New York Times: In Lebanon, the attack on Mr. Tueni exposed a population that is increasingly frightened and fatigued. While protesters poured into the square outside An Nahar, the square that filled with orange flags and tens of thousands of people after Mr. Hariri died, the crowd was small and the tension was high. At one point protesters booed anyone perceived as pro-Syrian, while a student speaker encouraged Lebanese of all factions to stay united. "If Bashar Assad was watching you guys booing," a student leader said to the crowd, his voice amplified through speakers set up in front of the building, "he'd be laughing because he'd know he won. All the people have to stay together."

Washington Post: The White House condemned the assassination of a "Lebanese patriot." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said "Syrian interference in Lebanon continues, and it must end completely." British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, speaking for the European Union, said the perpetrators "who seek to destabilize Lebanon and the region through such cowardly attacks will not succeed." France indicated it would push ahead with efforts against Syria at the Security Council. In a letter to Tueni's widow, French President Jacques Chirac said the journalist's death "is the opportunity to redouble the efforts so that the Security Council resolutions are fully put to work."

10:30pm

Independent (Robert Fisk): "Ah yes, how many times must we be told that these Lebanese assassinations are not to Syria's benefit? The "moamara", the "plot", means that the Israelis killed Tueni to embarrass the Syrians, that the Americans wanted to get rid of so free-thinking a Lebanese (Greek Orthodox, as every Lebanese - who knows his sectarian dictionary - knows) now that the Syrian army has left. No, perhaps it was not President Bashar Assad of Syria, but what about the Baath party intelligence which most Lebanese suspect murdered Hariri on 14 February this year?"

Guardian: "He was a politician, he was a symbol of a courageous fighter for freedom," said Jihad Zein, the opinion page editor at An Nahar, the newspaper founded by Mr Tueni's grandfather. "This was a declaration of war but still the courageous people will insist on fighting peacefully alongside the international community."

This should be the end of updating the post.

posted by Lazarus, 10:37 AM