Tuesday, December 08, 2009 MARSEILLE: A French court on Tuesday banned France's anti-immigrant National Front party from giving out leaflets attacking plans to build a giant mosque because they used pictures of it without permission.The ruling was to protect the architects' intellectual property, but also came at a sensitive time after a ban on minarets in neighbouring Switzerland stoked debate about Islam in France, home to Europe's biggest Muslim minority.The Marseille court ordered the far-right party to destroy all leaflets on which it had reproduced designs for the planned Grand Mosque in the southern city, alongside the slogan "No to the mosque."It also ordered the National Front to pay 1,500 euros (2,210 dollars) in costs, according to a copy of the judgement.The architects' lawyer Armelle Bouty told the court that they had also been attacked on the party's website and the use of their intellectual property on the leaflets was "the last straw.""In the extremely political and polemical context, that was intolerable," she said.
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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