It's only the first day of business, but by 2 p.m. Friday, the restaurant is packed full of diners who compete for elbow room as they eagerly ladle out helpings of some of Lebanon's finest dishes.While many an office worker across Beirut chows down on a pizza or hamburger, those who are eating with such gusto at Tawlet Souk el-Tayeb savor dishes created closer to hom.

The Internal Security Forces (ISF) detained a suspected car hijacker in a high-drama sting in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday. Hussein Mahmoud Arbid informed the ISF on Thursday that his parked car had been stolen in Mreijeh and that he had received a call from the perpetrators demanding a ransom of $7,000.

The Internal Security Forces (ISF) is calling on people to retrieve stolen goods found in the possession of a suspect arrested in Jdeideh. The suspect was arrested earlier in the week for buying goods with forged checks. The suspect admitted to stealing 12 portable computers by impersonating military officers, a statement said.

A former Internal Security Forces (ISF) adjutant was questioned on Thursday by the Permanent Military Court about his alleged collaboration with Israel and involvement in an attempted bomb attack. Mahmoud Rafeh was questioned about his role in placing a bomb under the Naameh Bridge, south of Beirut, in a bid to assassinate an official from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The road safety awareness group KunHadi celebrated its third anniversary with a dinner and address from Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud, who told the group that road accidents in Lebanon last year had claimed 10 times as many fatalities as criminal acts.Baroud told his audience in Achrafieh on Thursday night that the 2008 statistics revealed around 800 fatalities from accidents, compared to 83 people who had been killed by crime.

Anne Frank's diary has been censored out of a school textbook in Lebanon following a campaign by Hizbullah claiming the classic work promotes Zionism.The row erupted after Hizbullah learned excerpts of "The Diary of Anne Frank" were included in the textbook used by a private English-language school in western Beirut. Hizbullah's Al-Manar television channel ran a report slamming the book for focusing on the persecution of Jews.

Corruption has embedded itself in every level of Lebanese society, according to Lebanese Transparency Association (LTA), which takes the government to task for not enacting a national anti-corruption strategy in their report released this week.The 130-page "National Integrity System" study highlights Lebanon's many institutional weaknesses and key areas.

UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams on Friday held separate meetings with Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri to express his unease over the delay in the formation of a new government.Lebanon hasn't had a government since the country's June 7 parliamentary elections, in which the Hizbullah-led March 8 opposition was defeated by the March 14 coalition.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said Friday that Israeli claims about an alleged arms ship sent from Iran to Hizbullah were fabricated by Israel to target the resistance, which he stressed had the right to obtain weapons from "anywhere in the world."The speaker added that Israel's capture of a ship near Cyprus was also a bid to deflect attention away from the Goldstone report, on Israeli war crimes during the Gaza war.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) charged with prosecuting those responsible for the February 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has further refined its Rules of Procedure and Evidence, officials said Friday.The amendments, adopted in October, were aimed at further enhancing the efficiency, effectiveness and integrity of the proceedings, a statement from the STL said.

Leading members of the terrorist group Fatah al-Islam were sentenced to hard labor by the Beirut Criminal Court on Friday for robbing a branch of BLOM Bank in the neighborhood of Corniche al-Mazraa. Taha Haji Ahmad Suleiman and Shaker al-Abssi were sentenced, along with two other members of the group, for having robbed the bank using unlicensed weapons in April 2006.

Al-Qaeda official in Lebanon Nabil Rhayem was sentenced to hard labor on Thursday along with three other suspects for committing terrorist acts. The Permanent Military Tribunal sentenced Rhayem, a Lebanese suspect and two Palestinians to hard labor and denied them their civil rights for forming an armed gang, carrying out terrorist acts and smuggling weapons.

Lebanon may have overtaken Israel in terms of Middle East press liberty, but a culture of censorship still weighs heavily on freedom of speech, said a new report.The Samir Kassir Eyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom (SKeyes), in its November bulletin, said that in spite of relative domestic calm and good working conditions for journalists following the June 2009 elections, "censorship on culture has returned to Lebanon."

Shiite party Hizbullah slammed Friday two Arab satellite providers for dropping a television channel from predominantly Shiite Iran as a "violation of freedom of speech and opinion." "Hizbullah condemns Arabsat and Nilesat's decision to stop broadcasting the channel Al-Alam: a decision made on political grounds," the party said, calling it "a violation of freedom of speech and opinion."

The inadequate use of chemical pesticides in spraying fruits and vegetables is affecting the agricultural exports and the consumption of these products in Lebanon said Zouhair Berro, head of consumers' protection association on Friday."Many countries have recently returned imported Lebanese agricultural products as a result.

Chief economist at Bank Audi said that the Middle East economy was not immune from the negative effects of the global financial crisis."The regional economy was definitely not insulated from the global financial crisis. Most particularly, crisis spillovers manifested through fluctuations in oil prices and cuts in oil production, and through other transmission channels.

Yemen's Shiite rebels said they had captured some Saudi soldiers on Friday, after Riyadh said it would press on with its offensive until it had cleared them from its territory.A Saudi official said on Thursday that Riyadh had launched air strikes on rebels in northern Yemen after the Shiite insurgents made a cross-border raid earlier in the week.

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, wanted by a UN court for war crimes, is to travel to Turkey over the weekend, but will not be arrested, a Turkish government official said Friday.Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of war crimes and ones against humanity in Darfur.The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has invited Bashir to an economic summit in Istanbul.

Southern Sudan is facing a "serious outbreak" of the deadly kala azar tropical disease, the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned on Friday.Outbreaks have been recorded in several locations across the remote states of Jonglei and Upper Nile, with more than 380 patients being treated since October.

France voiced concern Friday over the fate of a Tunisian journalist and vocal critic of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who was arrested last week for allegedly assaulting a woman and faces trial.Taoufik Ben Brik was detained on October 29 after reporting to a police station in response to a summons in connection with an alleged attack on a woman in the street the week before.

Saudi Arabia, deeply worried by instability in Yemen, has hit back hard at Yemeni insurgents who breached the kingdom's border, but will try to avoid getting sucked deeper into the conflict in its chaotic neighbor.The world's biggest oil exporter has rarely, if ever, taken unilateral military action beyond its borders in recent decades, preferring to wield regional influence via wealth and diplomacy.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, winner of a fraud-tainted election, risks losing British and international support unless he acts decisively to fight corruption, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Friday. Brown, seeking to bolster dwindling public backing at home for keeping British troops in Afghanistan, said Karzai must pass five key tests.

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said Friday that a US-brokered pact failed to end a four-month political crisis after a deadline for forming a unity government passed."The accord is dead," Zelaya told Radio Globo from from the Brazilian Embassy where he has been hold up under threat of arrest.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde criticized as "over the top" Friday a fellow minister's comments that Britain's main opposition party's EU policies were pathetic and autistic.French Europe Minister Pierre Lellouche sparked a storm here Thursday when he was quoted as attacking the Conservatives' pledge to take back some powers from the European Union if they win power next year.

Iraq's electoral authorities called on Friday for polls due next January to be delayed after Parliament failed once more to agree on how to hold the vote.If Parliament insisted on sticking to the scheduled January 16 date, the electoral commission could not guarantee the ballot would meet international standards due a lack of time for preparation, said the Commission's head Faraj al-Haidari.

The UN nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting the Islamic Republic's scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, while Iran said it is preparing to give more details on its response to international proposals for supplying nuclear fuel.Citing what it describes as "previously unpublished documentation" from an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) compiled dossier.

Hamas said Friday it is allowing Muslims to leave the Gaza Strip on the annual pilgrimage to Mecca after blocking them last year because of a Palestinian political dispute."The first wave of around 1,000 hajj pilgrims from the Gaza Strip is now traveling to Egypt through the Rafah border crossing," Hamas religious affairs minister Taleb Abu Shaar toldAFP.

Norwegian prosecutors announced on Friday they would not pursue war crimes charges against Israeli officials, including former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, over the Gaza Strip offensive.Six Norwegian lawyers brought a case against Olmert and nine others in April for alleged offenses during the conflict in December-January.

Younger Palestinian leaders were in no rush on Friday to step into the shoes of President Mahmoud Abbas after he said he did not want to run for re-election in January.Making clear Abbas' Fatah movement is, so far, unwilling to take the 74-year-old president at his word, none of the men seen as potential successors threw their hats into the ring after Ab bas' announcement Thursday.

Israel on Friday rejected a UN General Assembly resolution urging an investigation into a report saying that war crimes were committed in Gaza, and condemned the world body vote as "completely detached from realities."In a statement, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in response to Thursday's vote that Israel "maintains the right to self-defense," and would "continue to act.

Turkey is ready to oversee a new stage of secret peace talks between Israel and Syria, resuming a role it had played until last year, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said here Friday.Historically Israel's only friend in the Middle East, Ankara has in recent years served as a conduit for diplomatic exchanges between Israel and its arch foe Damascus about improving relations.

Investigators on Friday searched for the motive behind a mass shooting at a sprawling US Army base in Texas, in which an army psychiatrist trained to treat war wounded is suspected of killing 13 people.A spokesman at the base said the suspected gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a lifelong Muslim born in the United States of immigrant parents.

Despite signs of an economic revival gathering pace around the globe, the millions of people laid off during the worst recession in 70 years are unlikely to see relief any time soon as joblessness is still climbing in many of the world's largest economies.Unemployment data typically lags other indicators of economic health as companies hold off adding staff in the early stages of a rebound.

China denounced as protectionist new US anti-dumping duties on steel pipes and launched its own investigation into imports of US-made automobiles on Friday, a week before a visit by President Barack Obama.It also called for Washington's swift recognition that China is a market economy, which would make it harder for the United States to declare that Chinese products are dumped.

British Airways Plc. fell to a worse-than-expected first-half loss and forecast annual revenues 1 billion pounds lower than last year, but said traffic volumes and yields had stabilized.The airline, whose alliance with American Airlines and Spain's Iberia is being scrutinized by European and US competition watchdogs, on Friday reported a pretax loss of $482.4 million for the six months to end September.

The US unemployment rate has surpassed 10 percent for the first time since 1983, and is likely to go higher.Nearly 16 million people can't find jobs even though the worst recession since the Great Depression has apparently ended. The Labor Department said Friday that the economy shed a net total of 190,000 jobs in October, less than the downwardly revised figure of 219,000 lost in September.

G20 finance ministers met Friday to shore up the recovery from the global financial crisis and discuss funding for a still uncertain agreement on climate change.The ministers from the world's 20 most powerful and fastest emerging economies held the third in a series of meetings this year which led to a $1 trillion fiscal stimulus package to tackle the recession.

Bailed out insurance giant AIG announced Friday a profit of $455 million in the third quarter, a massive turnaround from a $24.4 billion loss in the same period last year.The earnings from group, the largest recipient of US government aid during the financial crisis, exceeded expectations.Excluding special items, the profit was $2.85 per share, compared with a forecasted $1.98.

About once a year, I go through an intense week of meetings, workshops, seminars and conferences that invigorate my sense of optimism and confidence in the capacity of the Arab world to transform itself from a militarized and polarized showcase of turbulence, abuse of power and vulnerability, to a condition of productive, creative decency, dignity and stability.

For weeks, the scene has been re-played on TV screens around the world, as if the events were breaking news: joyous Berliners dancing atop the infamous Wall, toppled 20 years ago on November 9, 1989. "Die Mauer ist Weck," the people cried out, punching their fists in the air before the cameras at the Brandenburg Gate. "The Wall is gone!"

It was described as an expression of frustration or a tactical ploy; magnanimity or maneuvering, depending on the commentator. However, one thing is still certain; the decision taken by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday not to run in elections planned for January has changed the game dramatically.Abbas' decision, he later explained.